“When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
see his seed… He shall see of the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10,11).
“But
it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought.
For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they
all children” (Romans 9:6,7).
“Now to Abraham were the promises
spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as
of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is
Christ” (Galatians 3:16).
As we
come to this further stage in the matter of the divine
seed, this fruit of Christ’s travail, this new
spiritual Israel, I want to make one or two preliminary
remarks of a general nature.
God’s Dealings Have One Basis
In the
first place, it is necessary that we should be quite
clear that, in the Bible, there are not two distinct
things, as represented by the two Testaments, the Old and
the New, or even more, if the Old Testament is subdivided
into eras. There may be two, or more, methods of
expression, but throughout the Bible, from its beginning
to its close, there is only one thing expressed. Our
habit of handling the Bible by dispensations, and
emphasizing the different characteristics of different
times, may have had the effect of making us mechanically
minded, just as can a preoccupation with typology and
symbolism. I want, therefore, to underline this anew: that,
in these several and varied forms of expression, God is
actuated, from beginning to end, by one thought, and one
thought alone: THAT EVERYTHING THROUGHOUT, AT ALL
TIMES, SHALL EXPRESS AND BE SUBSERVIENT TO HIS SON.
HE governs
everything, in the realities of His Person and of His
redemptive and perfecting work. It is one Person and one
Work, from the first book of the Bible to the last. The
change from the Old Testament to the New is simply and
only the change from the indirect to the direct; from the
symbolic to that which is symbolized; from the temporal
representation to the spiritual reality. That is all. It
is not a change of purpose or object, not a change of
basis or foundation; it represents no change of principle
in any way.
Perhaps
you feel you know all that; but there is very much more
in it than any of us have yet realised. For example, all
God’s dealings with the patriarchs were, in
principle, as much upon the basis of His Son as are His
dealings with you and me. That was true also of Israel.
Israel in the Old Testament was dealt with as much upon
the basis of God’s Son as we are in this
dispensation. God has never, at any time, by any means,
worked on any other ground than that of His Son. His
creative activities were on the ground of His Son.
“In Him, through Him, by Him, unto Him, were all
things created” (Col. 1:16); and from then
everything has proceeded on that basis, and will be
consummated in Christ. By whatever means, in whatever way
God has worked, His ground has always been the same. And
on into the ages to come, that ground will be unchanging.
It is the ground of Christ. It is very important that we
should remember this and be quite clear about it.
A Transition
I want
now to return to the point where I broke off in an
earlier message in this series (see Chapter
2), when we had
begun to refer to the Gospel by John, especially chapter
3. I was saying that we think we know something about
John 3. Is it not the great chapter of: “Ye must be
born again…”, and of: “God so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son…”? Do
we not know it? Have we not heard it a hundred times, a
thousand times? And yet, and yet… what do we know
about it?
Now
this part of the narrative, marked by chapters 3 and 4,
embraces all that could be said about this matter of the
transition from the indirect to the direct; the
transition from God’s old method to His new method.
It brings right into view the nature and principles of
the heavenly seed, and much more. Let us look, then, at
John chapter 3.
The
chapter opens with these words: “There was a man of
the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews…
Jesus… said unto him, Art thou the teacher of
Israel…?” (John 3:1,10). “A man of the
Pharisees”, “of the Jews”, “the
teacher of Israel”. Here you have in a person, an
individual, the full embodiment, the full development, of
Israel after the flesh: a Pharisee. I must push back the
temptation to dwell upon details, for half an hour could
easily be spent on the history of the Pharisees, and that
to great profit. Let us simply note that the sect of the
Pharisees represented the very essence, the intrinsic
meaning, of “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor.
10:18). They gathered into themselves all that Israel
claimed to be or was supposed to be. If you met a
Pharisee, you would meet the last word in Israelism and
Judaism. This man Nicodemus was said to be “a ruler
of the Jews”, and then “the teacher of
Israel”. Note the form of the latter phrase, for the
definite article is literally there in the text. Jesus
did not say, “Art thou A teacher of
Israel?”; He said: “Art thou THE
teacher…?” This man evidently stood out; he was
perhaps recognised above all others as the foremost
teacher of that time in Israel.
I
indicate these things in order to point out that here we
have Israel present after the flesh in a very full way
— par excellence. He is of the natural seed
of Abraham, a full-grown son of Abraham after the flesh.
Three things are main factors here: he was born after the
flesh as a son of Abraham; he was circumcised in the
flesh as the seal of the covenant made with Abraham; and
his all-absorbing and consuming interest, as a true
Israelite, was with the kingdom that was covenanted to
Abraham’s seed. All the natural seed of Abraham,
with all its marks and features, is gathered into this
chapter. It is not just Nicodemus — the nation of
Israel is present. With this man, there are present in
representation all the children of Abraham,
“according to the flesh”, from the time of the
patriarch himself right on to this very hour. He is
really a most significant figure. Much more could, of
course, be said about him. But that is where the matter
is introduced.
Now
the Lord Jesus, with a wave of the hand, repudiates the
whole thing. He is not listening to it, not opening the
door to it, not giving it a moment’s consideration
or attention. “Verily, verily, I say unto you: You
must be born again.” “Really to be the seed of
Abraham, you must be born from above” — for the
phrase can bear that meaning also. The true seed of
Abraham, to whom are the covenant and the promises and
the prospect and the kingdom, is that which is born from
above; not this at all.
Two Great Contrasts
a) Two births
The
Lord Jesus makes here, either by direct statement or by
clear implication, some fundamental contrasts. Firstly, a
contrast between two births: “that which is born of
the flesh”; “that which is born of the
Spirit”: that which is born of the earth and that
which is born out from heaven. These belong to two
kingdoms, two worlds, two regimes, and there is nothing
in common between them. The door of the Spirit is closed
to the “flesh”, and the Lord Jesus is not
discussing this matter at all. He is simply saying that
the Kingdom of God is so different, so other, it belongs
to such a different realm, that there is no getting into
it except by way of an utterly new beginning out from
heaven. And the rest of the New Testament is built upon
that fundamental truth. All Paul’s ministry is built
upon that. I said earlier that that was the cause of all
the trouble where Paul was concerned. It was a most
drastic, devastating thing to confront Israel with a
statement like that — “You are not Israel after
all! You have not begun to see the real meaning of the
Israel of God!” “Except a man be born anew, he
cannot see…”
“Except
a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God.” Here is not only the
natural birth contrasted with the spiritual birth: here
is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, the
Red Sea and the pillar of cloud and fire, as symbolic
representations, and the spiritual reality on the other.
“Born of water” — yes, symbolically in the
Red Sea. “Born of the Spirit” — yes,
symbolically in the cloud. They “were all baptized
into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor.
10:2). “But, Nicodemus, you know all about that, or
you think you do. I tell you, you have not begun to see
the meaning of it. There is a difference between the
symbolic and the spiritual, the typical and the real.
Being born of water and of the Spirit has a far, far,
deeper meaning than you have ever seen, or can see,
Nicodemus.”
b) Two kingdoms
The
second contrast related to the Kingdom. Of course
Nicodemus had not mentioned the word. But let me remind
you of the last words of the preceding chapter. “But
Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew
all men, and because he needed not that anyone should
bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was
in man” (John 2:24,25). “Now there was a
man…”, and Jesus knew him and what was in him,
“…a man of the Pharisees, named
Nicodemus.” Jesus knew that this man’s one
interest in life — no doubt an honest, sincere
interest, indeed a passionate interest — was the
Kingdom. That was, of course, the great hope of Israel.
And the Lord Jesus, knowing the man’s absorption in
that kingdom interest, made it perfectly clear that the
kingdom about which Nicodemus was thinking was one thing,
but that the Kingdom itself was quite another. The
Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is quite another
thing from the kingdom of Israel on the earth.
What
is the conclusion that we are to draw from all this? Just
this: that the historic was not the real — it did
not conform to what the Lord meant by the
“truth”. We find the same thing in His
conversation with the woman of Samaria, in chapter 4,
where the Lord Jesus brought in a clear contrast.
“The hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor
in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.” Here is
coming a change, a transition, a passing over. “The
hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John
4:21,23). With that statement, the Lord rules out a whole
order and system, and brings in something altogether
different. All that which was historic was not the real
thing: to use His word, it was not the “true”.
“This mountain… Jerusalem…” —
yes, but it is not the true. This birth after Abraham
— yes, but it is not the true. This hope of the
Kingdom — yes, but it is not the true! This is very
searching.
The Principle of Death and
Resurrection
The
fact is that everything had to be put on to the ground of
Christ, and that could only be, and can only be at any
time, through death and resurrection — in other
words, new birth. “In Isaac shall thy seed be
called” (Gen. 21:12). That is a symbolic statement.
Why? Because Isaac is the embodiment, in type, of the
principle of death and resurrection. Everything had to be
put on to the basis of Christ in death and resurrection,
and that was no less true in the Old Testament than in
the New.
In
connection with this, I was recently reading again the
fascinating story of Joseph: the famine in the land, the
coming of his brethren, and the subsequent removing of
the whole family — Jacob and all his sons —
seventy souls — from the land into Egypt. The whole
story of Joseph is, I think, one of those things that
holds you to the end once you start reading it. It is
just full of overmastering interest. But I found myself
brought up short with a question. The Lord had brought
Abraham into the land and given it to him and to his
seed, by covenant, as an everlasting possession. Then
what is this? The whole seed, every soul of them, is
vacating the land, leaving the land of covenant, and
moving into Egypt! Now, we know that the Lord had told
Abraham that his seed would be in a foreign land in
bondage for four hundred years, and would be ill-treated,
and so on (Gen. 15:13). The Lord said that it would be
so, and here it is. But leave aside for the moment the
fulfilment of the prophecy. Here is a strange thing: the
whole family, to the last soul, is uprooted and evacuated
from the very place of covenant and into EGYPT.
What is the meaning of this?
I
think I see the answer. Look at the seed of Abraham in
the land; just look at those sons of Jacob. What sort of
people are these? Yes, they are the seed of Abraham after
the flesh, the historic line — but look at them! The
incident with Joseph alone is enough to betray what sort
of people they are. And the whole story of those men,
throughout, is not a very nice story, is it? Their
behaviour, their disposition, is a poor showing up of the
seed of Abraham. Do you think that God is going to allow
that kind of person to follow through to His end? Not at
all! He will bring them into Egypt and put them first of
all upon the basis of the travail of Christ — the
cross — and then, when they are there, let the
principle of the cross deal with the self-life, the
flesh, until they groan. But then, out of that travail,
see the mighty energies of God bringing that seed out
from Egypt.
The
principle, you see, is this same great principle —
that of travail unto a new birth through death and
resurrection. God is putting them off the ground of
nature onto the ground of Christ, and that can only be in
death and resurrection. Unless they go through this
ordeal, this terrible ordeal, they cannot inherit, they
cannot come through to possess the land. God is true to
His principles: God is true to His Son. God is not
play-acting; He is not just making meaningless history.
God is writing, in very purposeful history, the eternal
laws of His Son in Person and redemption.
The Principle of Circumcision
Here I
must put in a rather long parenthesis on the matter of
circumcision, a matter fraught with the greatest
significance. Let me turn you to a few passages.
“And
he gave him” (that is, Abraham) “the
covenant of circumcision” (Acts 7:8).
“For
he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that
circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a
Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of
the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise
is not of men, but of God” (Romans 2:28, 29).
“Is
this blessing then pronounced upon the circumcision, or
upon the uncircumcision also? for we say, To Abraham his
faith was reckoned for righteousness. How then was it
reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in
uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in
uncircumcision: and he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had
while he was in uncircumcision: that he might be the
father of all them that believe, though they be in
uncircumcision” (Romans 4:9-11).
You
almost hold your breath as you read the next:
“Circumcision
is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing” (1
Corinthians 7:19).
Imagine
a Jew saying that! We shall come to that in a minute.
“For
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything,
nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love”
(Galatians 5:6).
“For
neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but
a new creation” (Galatians 6:15).
Finally,
that tremendous statement and exposition in the letter to
the Colossians:
“In
whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not
made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the
flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried
with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him
through faith in the working of God, who raised him from
the dead” (Colossians 2:11,12).
The
Importance of Circumcision to the Jews
Let us
remind ourselves of the immense importance attached to
circumcision by the Jews. It is something that could hold
us for quite a time, and it would be well if the full
force of it could come home to us. It was the very sign
of their national oneness, of their national existence,
of their belonging to the people of God. Anybody without
that sign was altogether outside the pale of promise and
covenant and hope. It was the door, for them, into
everything of value: everything for them rested upon
that. No one, for instance, would ever be allowed to
partake of the feast of the Passover who did not bear
that sign.
We can
realise a little of what they placed upon it when we come
into the New Testament and consider some of the events
after the day of Pentecost. On the one side, think for a
moment what it meant for the apostles themselves —
Peter, James, John, and the others — to have to deal
with this matter and weaken their position regarding it.
It was a real battle, for it meant uprooting something
from their very being, something that was a part of them;
and it was cropping up all the time. On the other side,
there were the Judaizers — those men who pursued
Paul over the face of the earth, tracking him down into
every town and city, on this one issue. They followed him
up and said to those to whom he had ministered:
“Unless you are circumcised, you cannot be
saved” (Acts 15:1). That is a positive statement,
and this was the cause of all the trouble.
There
is very much, both in the Scriptures and outside of the
Scriptures, that shows what a great thing this was. Even
today, the celebration of this in a Jewish home is
preceded by festivities and sacred rites. Yes, there is
for them something about this ordinance that is big,
tremendous. It was rooted deep in their very being as a
most sacred thing, upon which everything of ultimate
value hung. And here is this man who comes along and
says, “Circumcision is nothing!” A Jew of the
Jews, “of the stock of Israel”,
“circumcised the eighth day” (Phil. 3:5), and
he says it is nothing! What has Paul seen?
The Significance of Circumcision
Well,
of course, he has seen the spiritual significance; and
when you see that, the other is nothing. In his letter to
the Colossians (among other places), he lays down
precisely and concisely what that significance is. Let us
read the passage again.
“In
whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not
made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the
flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried
with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him
through faith in the working of God, who raised him from
the dead” (Col. 2:11,12).
Now
there are two things here. First of all, we have
God’s full thought about circumcision and about
baptism, and the relationship between the two. And then,
secondly, we see what is the real significance of baptism
in the life of the child of God.
Circumcision, Like
Baptism, Points to the Cross
The
relationship between circumcision and baptism is here
stated by Paul. In both these words — “ye
were… circumcised”, “having been
buried… in baptism” — we are brought right
to the cross of the Lord Jesus. In principle and meaning
they are combined as one, and they point to the cross.
“Buried with him… raised with him”. The
whole thing is put on the basis of Christ crucified and
risen. Of course, we who are Christians know that to be
the meaning of baptism. But what was the meaning of this
other sign? Perhaps we may put it like this: that the
cross is here brought in as — so to speak — the
instrument of circumcision. It does that which must be
done — it is the means of actually carrying it into
effect — and it is drastic.
If
Israel had only seen! If they had only seen, nothing
would have been given away. They would not have had to
lower their idea or lessen their estimate; they would not
have made less of circumcision, if they had seen. For,
after all, this IS a big thing, it is a great
thing. After all, national existence does rest upon it:
but it is not this nation, it is the heavenly one. Entry
into all the blessings of the covenant, the eternal
covenant in His blood, rests upon the principle that is
here. The whole Kingdom, as covenanted, is entered into
and inherited by this door. Yes, it is a big thing.
Nothing has been exaggerated as to its importance. If
only they had seen Christ crucified and risen! It was
only because they did not see the real meaning of this
pre-eminent rite in their own life and history that they
lost everything. They lost the Kingdom; they lost their
place as a nation, in the purposes and counsels of God,
for the time being at least; and all because they
separated between a thing and its meaning. Now, in John 3
we see the Lord Jesus taking up the meaning of things for
Nicodemus. By nature, of course, he is blind, like the
rest. But Nicodemus is of the circumcision — that is
the point. He is a Jew indeed; he is a representative, in
a very full way, of Israel after the flesh. And the Lord
Jesus makes it quite clear to him that — so far as
acceptance with God is concerned — he, as such, is
ruled out.
What
is the meaning of all this? In the life of the true seed
of Abraham — which is Christ’s seed — what
does it mean? It means simply this: that circumcision is,
as Paul says, not a matter of the flesh, but of the heart
(Rom. 2:28,29). It is a severance that has to take place
right down in the inner man, deep down in the innermost
being of the person; a radical, fundamental putting of
two things apart. You will be able to follow through the
implications of this more fully than it is possible for
me to do here. There is an encircling of the blood which
makes a separation, puts two things apart, and for ever
after witnesses to the severance that has taken place,
declaring that those two things are no longer together:
God has put them asunder. And how much of the New
Testament comes in when you say that! That is the
spiritual meaning of baptism. You cannot say all this to
everyone who is going to be baptized — they would be
frightened and run away! — but God means all this.
And God does not let us off. If we really mean business,
He does not let us off any of His meaning, even though at
the beginning we may not see it all — and thank God
we do not! But even so, it might be well if we knew a
little more than we often do.
The Flesh, or Self-Principle
What
is it that is severed in and by the cross of the Lord
Jesus? From what do you and I accept severance, when we
come to the cross of the Lord Jesus and, in the symbolic
act of baptism, take our position with Him there? There
are various terms for it in the New Testament. It is
sometimes called “the flesh”. Paul uses it
here: “the body of the flesh” (Col. 2:11). He
is not talking about our physical body, our body of
flesh. He is using that word “flesh”, as he
often does, in a symbolic way. A definition that he gives
to it in the Corinthian letter is “the natural
man”. Perhaps we think: Well, “flesh” is a
difficult word, but “natural man” is still more
difficult — it seems more technical. What do these
terms really mean?
They
mean, purely and simply: the SELF-principle in
man. That is at the root of everything. That is where all
the trouble began with Adam; that is where all the
trouble has gone on; and that is where the trouble is
with you and me. It is a protean monster that has awoken,
stretched itself, risen up and taken hold of the heart of
man. It will assert itself, make itself known and felt,
in every conceivable and inconceivable way. We shall
never be able to conceive of the unnumbered, unsuspected
ways in which this monster will show itself. It is no use
trying to track it down. Every hour, every minute, every
second, almost, of our life, in some form or other, this
many-headed, many-membered thing — the
self-principle — will assert itself.
a) In the mind
It is
found in the mind. It makes use of our intellect and our
reason in order to overpower opposition and bring things
our way, to argue and to substantiate our own position.
And therefore, before you and I can ever get into the
true realm of heavenly things, we have got to have a
“circumcised” intellect, reason, mind. Is that
not exactly what the Lord was saying to Nicodemus? Here
is this teacher of Israel, coming to argue, to discuss,
and the Lord says, “It is no use. You may have been
circumcised in the flesh as a good Jew, but what you need
is to have your intellect circumcised”. “Except
a man be born anew, he cannot SEE…”
“You have got it all in the mind, all as an
intellectual apprehension. If I have spoken of earthly
things, and you do not understand them, where will you be
if I begin to talk to you about heavenly things? Out of
your depth altogether! Devout son of Abraham though you
may be, you need to experience a radical severance
between your natural mind and the things of Heaven.”
That
is the trouble with many people. It is their head that is
in the way all the time — the one thing that is
obstructing their progress is their own head! Their
stubborn-mindedness, or their clever-mindedness; their
intellectual superiority, or their argumentative
disposition: you meet it all the time — there is no
way through. If you try to take them on that line you are
simply beating your own head against a wall. The Lord
Jesus never attempted such an approach in trying to win
souls. He simply said: “You must be born from
above”.
b) In the feelings
In
other cases the circumcision needs to take place in the
realm of the feelings, the emotions, the desires. That is
the part of the being that gets in the way of so many
people. They are controlled entirely by the feeling-life,
the affection-life — they are in bondage to that
part of their being; and they are very difficult people
to handle. But a true child of Heaven, the seed of His
travail, is one in whom there has taken place, in that
very realm of the feelings and desires, a deep work of
circumcision.
c) In the will
And
what is true of the intellect and the emotions is true in
the realm of the will. With many people it is their will
that is in the way. They have got a position, and they
tenaciously hold to it and support it; they have got a
grip, and they just cannot let go. They will support
their position with Scripture, or even with a
“revelation” superior to Scripture! Their will
is the cause of all the trouble. The cause of the setting
back of all God’s purposes in their lives is just
there: in their choices, their decisions, their position,
their way; in their natural self-strength, that has never
been broken. And so it is just there that circumcision
must take place.
It
applies in so many other ways. The cross, as the
instrument of spiritual circumcision, has to be applied
to this self-life deeper and ever more deeply, because
there seems to be no end to it. But that is the painful
side, the dark side. What is happening on the other side?
Is it not that room is being made for Christ? The real
seed, the seed of Christ, is growing, becoming more and
more manifest. The opposite of the characteristics which
we have been considering — strength of intellect or
emotion or will — is meekness. He said: “Take
my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). Pursue this right
through, and you cannot fail to recognise that there was
something radically different in the very depths of His
being.
I have
said that we cannot calculate the whole range of this
self-principle, in its myriad forms of self-expression
and self-occupation and self-attention and self-pity and
self-consciousness and self-satisfaction. Even in our
Christian life, in our devotion to the Lord, we are so
happy that other people see how devoted we are, and how
humble we are! And it is the self, the wretched —
may I use the word? — the stinking self, coming up
all the time. For a true child of God is oblivious of
himself, has lost consciousness of himself in every way.
If other people point out something good about them, they
had not realised it, they were not aware of it. They are
surprised that anyone could say anything good about them;
they are not conscious of that. And on the other side,
should people be critical and point out failings, well,
they only say, “Yes, I know: I had that out with the
Lord”, or “I have got that before the Lord
right now. I am not deceiving myself about that.”
This is the true child of Heaven.
So we
could go on. That is the meaning of circumcision. In the
light of that, the true meaning, the true principle,
think of a Pharisee — a child of Abraham —
saying: “I am better than anyone else”, or
making long prayers for everybody to see and to hear! A
child of ABRAHAM! You remember all that the
Lord said about them. Oh, they have missed the point! Ah,
but do not let us criticize and blame. It is a very
searching thing for ourselves, is it not? Paul says that
circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing,
but a new creation. True circumcision is not of the
flesh, but of the heart. The Lord give us circumcised
hearts, and give us grace to have this severance pursued
to finality.