The Patriarchs Part 10

G.o.d loveth the stranger. Deut. x. 18. He loves the _poor_, _unfriended_ stranger, with the love of pity and of grace, and provides for him. But with the _separated_ stranger, who has turned his back on this polluted scene, G.o.d links His name and His honour, and morally owns such without shame. Heb. xi. 13-16.

How finely he started on his journey at the beginning! The Lord and His promises were all he had. He left, as we have seen, his _natural_ home behind him, but he did not expect to find _another_ home in the place he was going to. He knew that he was to be a stranger and sojourner with G.o.d in the earth. Mesopotamia was left, but Canaan was not taken up in the stead of it. Accordingly, from all the people there, he was a separated man all his days, or during his sojourn among them of about one hundred years. Canaan was the _world_ to that heavenly man, and he had as little to do with it or to say to it as he might, though all the while in it. When circ.u.mstances demanded it, or as far as business involved him, he dealt with it. He would traffic with the people of the land, if need were (to be sure he would), but his sympathies were not with them. He needed a burying-place, and he purchased it of the children of Heth. He would not think of hesitating to treat with them about a necessary matter of bargain and sale; but he would rather _buy_ than _receive_. He was loth to be debtor to them, or to be enriched by them--nor were they his _companions_. This we observe throughout. If Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre--it may be morally attracted by what they saw in him--seek confederacy with him, he will not refuse their alliance on a given occasion of the common interest, when such interest the G.o.d who had called him would sanction or commend. But still the Canaanites were not his company. His wife was his company, his household, his flocks and his herds, and his fellow-saint, Lot, his brother's son, who had come out of Mesopotamia with him--as long, at least, as such an one walked as a separated man in Canaan. But even _he_, when undistinguished from the people of the land, is a stranger to him as well and as fully as they.

All this has surely a voice in our ears. Angels were Abraham's company at times, and so the Lord of angels--and at all times, his altar and his tent were with him, and the mysteries or truths of G.o.d, as they were made known to him. But the people of the land, the men of the world, did not acquire his tastes or sympathies, or share his confidence. He was _among_ them but not _of_ them--and rather would he have had his house unbuilt, and Isaac be without a wife, than that such wife should be a daughter of Canaan.

To some of us, beloved, this breaking up of natural things is terrible.

But if Jesus were loved more, all this would be the easier reckoned on.

If His value for us _within the veil_ were more pondered in our hearts and treasured up there, we should go to Him _without the camp_ with firmer, surer step. "I have learnt," said one of the martyrs, "that there is no freedom like that of the heart that has given up all for Christ--no wisdom like that learnt at His feet--no poetry like the calm foreseeing of the glory that shall be."

Of our Abraham and his companions in this life of faith, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, it is written, "They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country--and truly if they had been mindful of that from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned, but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly, wherefore G.o.d is not ashamed to be called their G.o.d, for He hath prepared for them a city."

Beloved, we are called to be these strangers--strangers such as G.o.d can thus morally own. If the world were not Abraham's object, we ought to feel, even on higher sanctions, that it cannot be ours. The call of the G.o.d of glory made Abraham a stranger here--the cross of Christ, in addition to that, may still more make us strangers. As we sometimes sing--

"Before His cross we now are left, As strangers in the land."

"Ye are dead," says the apostle, "and your life is hid with Christ in G.o.d." That is strangership of the highest order--the strangership of the Son of G.o.d Himself. "The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."

In the strength of this strangership in the world, may we have grace to "abstain from fleshly l.u.s.ts which war against the soul"! and in the strength of our conscious citizenship in heaven may "we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself."

ISAAC.

GENESIS XXV.-XXVII.

In the former papers, ent.i.tled _Enoch_, _Noah_, and _Abraham_, I have followed the course of the Book of Genesis, down to the end of chapter xxiv. I now propose to take it up from thence, and follow it on through chapters xxv.-xxvii.; Isaac, after Abraham, being the princ.i.p.al person there.

There is, however, but little in his history, and little in his character. In some respects this is no matter; for, whether much or little, his name is in the recollection of us all who have learnt the ways of the G.o.d of grace, "the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," which is His name for ever, His memorial unto all generations. Exod. iii.

Isaac was a stranger in the earth, a heavenly stranger, as his father had been, and we see him with his tent and his altar, as we saw Abraham; and we hear the Lord giving him the promises, as He had given them to Abraham.

"By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise."

This tent-life of the patriarchs had a great character in it. Hebrews xi. 9, 10 teaches us this. It tells us that the fathers were content to live upon the surface of this world. A tent has no foundations. It is pitched or struck at a moment's warning. And such a slight and pa.s.sing connection with this earth, and life upon it, these patriarchs were satisfied to have and seek only. They did not look for a city or for foundations, till G.o.d became a Builder. Till His building was manifested they were sojourners here, just crossing the plain, or surface of the earth, without striking their roots into it.

This is the voice that is heard from the tents of these pilgrim-fathers.

And as their tents bespoke this heavenly strangership, their altars bespoke their worship, their _true_ worship; for they raised their altar to Him who had _appeared_ to them. They did not affect to find out G.o.d by their wisdom, and then worship Him in the light and dictate of their own thoughts. They did not, thus, in the common folly, profess themselves to be wise; but they knew G.o.d and worshipped G.o.d only according to His revelation of Himself. Therefore it was not an altar "to the unknown G.o.d" at which they served; but they served or worshipped in truth. And in its generation the patriarchal _altar_ was, in this way, as beautiful as the patriarchal _tent_. The latter put them into due relationship to the world around them, the former to the Lord G.o.d of heaven and earth who was above them.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alike in all this. There was, therefore, no new dispensational secret, no fresh purpose of the divine counsels, revealed in Isaac, as there had been in Abraham.6 This is so. But still, though there was no new dispensational scene unfolded, there was a further unfolding of the glories that attach to the dispensation or calling which had been already made known in Abraham. And a very important one too--such as, if we had divine affections, we should deeply prize. I mean this: The heavenly calling or strangership on earth was the _common_ thing; but characteristically, _election_ was ill.u.s.trated in Abraham, and _sonship_ or adoption in Isaac.

6 See the paper on "Enoch," pp. 32-37, where certain dispensational purposes of G.o.d, in their differences, are considered.

G.o.d called Abraham from the world, from kindred, country, and father's house, separating him to Himself and to His promises. But Isaac was already as one chosen and called and sanctified, while in the house of his father. He was at home from his birth, and he was there with G.o.d, having been born according to promise, and through an energy that quickened the dead; and in all these things he represented _sonship_, as Abraham had represented _election_. In Isaac we see that family that is "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of G.o.d," and who stand in liberty; as the apostle says, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." We are Abraham's seed, so many Isaacs, children of the freewoman, or in the adoption, if we be Christ's.

Now this mystery of sonship or adoption represented in Isaac, as the mystery of election had been made known in Abraham, is in divine order.

For _the election of G.o.d is unto adoption_, as we read, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself;" and this being so, this high, personal prerogative being represented in Isaac, in the course of his history we get the mystery of the son of the freewoman very blessedly, largely exhibited.

For we get both the _birth_ and the _weaning_. And each of these events was the occasion of joy in the house of the father. The child born was called "laughter," the child weaned was celebrated by a feast.

Wondrous and gracious secrets these are. It is the father's joy to _have children_, it is his further joy that his children should _know themselves to be children_. This was the birth and the weaning of Isaac in the Book of Genesis. And all this, after so long a time, is revived in the Epistle to the Galatians. For what was represented in Isaac is realized in us through the Spirit. In that epistle we learn that we are children by faith in Christ Jesus. And there we learn also that, being children, we receive the spirit of children. We are _weaned_ as well as _born_. Paul travailed in birth for them again, as he says: "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." The Christ of this pa.s.sage is Christ _the Son_; and Paul longed and laboured that they might be brought into the Isaac-state, the liberty of conscious adoption. They were under temptation to feed again upon the ordinances which gendered bondage, and which the tutors and governors of an earlier dispensation had enjoined. But opposed to this, the apostle would draw them again into liberty, as he himself had proved the virtue of it in his own soul. It had pleased G.o.d, as he says, to reveal the Son in him. The life he lived in the flesh he lived by the faith of _the Son_, who loved him. He could, therefore, go down to Arabia, where he had no flesh and blood to confer with, no Jerusalem or city of solemnities, no apostles or ordinances, no priesthood after a carnal order, no worldly sanctuary, to countenance, to seal, or to perfect him. He did not want what any or all could give him, for he had _the Son revealed in him_. He was a weaned Isaac; and he would fain have the Galatians to be such likewise; and to hear the word which of old had been heard in the house of Abraham over Isaac, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman."

All this is given us, mystically, in Isaac, the child of the freewoman, whose birth caused laughter, and whose weaning was celebrated with a feast. And this mystery is, we thus see, largely and expressly revived and opened, in its full character, in the Epistle to the Galatians.

It is not of _glories_ only that we must be thinking, when thinking of predestination. G.o.d's purposes concerning us are still richer. We are predestinated to a state of _gratified affections_, as well as to a place of _displayed glories_--to "the adoption of children," and to be "before Him in love," as well as to the inheritance of all things.

Ephesians i. And the Spirit already given is as surely in us the power to cry, "Abba, Father," as He is the seal of the t.i.tle of the coming redemption.

We are apt to forget this. We think of calling and of predestination, in connection with glory, rather than in connection with love, and relationship, and home, and a Father's house.

And yet it is relationship that will give even the inheritance or the glory its richest joy. The youngest child in the family has another kind of enjoyment of the palace of the king, than the highest estate and dignitary of his realm. The child is there _without state_, for its t.i.tle is in relationship--the lords of the land may be there, but they are there as at court, by t.i.tle of their dignity or office. And the child's enjoyment of the palace is not only, as I said, of _another_ kind, it is of a higher kind--it is personal and not official--the palace is _a home_ to it, and not merely _the court of royalty_.

Now it is the son, the child at home, the child in the privileges of relationship, that we get in Isaac. It is such an one that he represents--this is what Isaac, mystically, is. Isaac was kept at home, waited on by the household, nourished and endowed; and the wealth as well as the comfort of his father's house was his; as we read, "And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country."

Mystically looked at, Isaac is thus before us, a son, born of the free woman, born of promise, born of G.o.d, as it is said, "I will come and Sarah shall have a son." Isaac represents that adopted family who are made "accepted in the Beloved," who have put on Christ, who stand in His joy, and breathe His spirit.

We have, however, to consider him _morally_ as well as _mystically_; that is, in his _character_, as well as in his _person_. The elements, however, are but few. There is but little history connected with him.

There are but few incidents in his life, and but little disclosure of character. And this is to our comfort. At times we find among the elect of G.o.d very fine natural materials, a n.o.ble bearing of soul, or a delicate, attractive form of human virtue; and again, at other times, either poor, or even very bad, human materials. And this becomes a relief to our poor hearts. _Because_ we find it (from a better acquaintance with ourselves than with others) easy to own the poor and wretched materials that go to make up what we ourselves are; and then it is our comfort (comfort of a certain sort) to find like samples of nature in others of G.o.d's people.

Isaac was _wanting_ in character. He was neither of fine nor of bad natural materials. There was much in him that, as we say, was amiable, and which, after a human estimate, would have been attractive. But he was wanting in character. The style of his education may go far to account for this. He had been reared tenderly. He had never been away from the side of his mother, the child of whose old age he was--her only child; and these habits had relaxed him, and kept a naturally amiable temper in its common softness. Quietness and retirement, the temper that rather submits than resents, and this allied to the relaxing indulgence of domestic, if not animal, life, appear in him. He was blameless, we may quite a.s.sume, pious and strict in the observance of relative duties, as a child and as a husband, and would have engaged the good-will and good wishes of his neighbours; but he was wanting in that energy which would have made him a witness among them, at least, beyond the separation which attended his circ.u.mcision, his altar, and his tent. And such a life is always a poor one. To his tent and his altar he was true, to a common measure; but he pitched the one and raised the other with too feeble a hand.

Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebecca to wife. For twenty years they were childless; but under this trial they behaved themselves even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her bondmaid to her husband. Isaac and Rebecca had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy. This was a difference, and for a moment, the last are first, and the first are last; and such moral variety do we find among the people of G.o.d to this day. But the two sets of children suggest different divine mysteries, as the way of the parents of each thus afford different moral teaching.

There were the two sons of Abraham--Isaac and Ishmael; but they were by two wives: there are now the two sons of Isaac--Jacob and Esau; but they are by the same wife.

The enmity between the sons of Abraham began when Ishmael, a lad of fourteen years of age, mocked the weaned Isaac. But the struggle between the sons of Isaac was in the womb. Two nations were there, as the Lord had told Rebecca, "Two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels." And so it came to pa.s.s. The man of G.o.d was found in Jacob, the man of the world in Esau; the principle of _faith_ was in the one, the principle of _nature_ in the other. Two manner of people were indeed separated from her bowels, and had struggled in her womb. "The friendship of the world is enmity against G.o.d." And this was Esau.

Accordingly, Esau made the earth the scene of his energies, of his enjoyments, and of his expectations. He was "a man of the field," and "a cunning hunter." He prospered in his generation. He loved the field, and he knew how to use the field. He set his heart on the present life, and knew how to turn its capabilities to the account of his enjoyments. His sons quickly became dukes, nay kings, and had their cities; as Ishmael's children had become princes, and had their castles. Their dignity and their greatness proceeded from themselves; and the world witnessed them in their magnificence.

But Jacob was "a plain man," a man of the tent. He took after his fathers. Like Abraham and Isaac, he was a stranger here, sojourning as on the surface of the earth for a season, with his eye upon the promise.

His children--while Esau's were dukes, settled in their domains, in the sunshine of their dignities and wealth--had to wander from one nation to another people, to suffer the hardships and wrongs of injurious Egypt, or to traverse, as pilgrims, the trackless, wasted desert.

Esau was the "profane" one. His hope and his heart were linked with life in this world, and with that only; for he would say, "I am at the point to die, and what profit shall this birthright do to me?" Like the Gadarenes, and like Judas, Esau would sell his t.i.tle to Christ. But Jacob had faith, and was ready to buy what Esau was ready to sell.

Two manner of people were, after this manner, separated from Rebecca's bowels, as all this tells us. They are no sooner brought forth than this is seen; and their earliest habits, their first activities, are characteristic. It was not merely the bondwoman and the free, or the children of the two covenants, as Ishmael and Isaac had been; in Esau and Jacob we get a _fuller_ expression of the same natures; the one, that reprobate thing, had from Adam, profane or worldly, which takes a portion in the earth and not in G.o.d; the other, that divine thing, had from Christ, which is believing, hopeful, looking to G.o.d's provisions, and waiting for the kingdom.

All this survives to the present day, and flourishes abundantly in different samples in the midst of us, or around us. I might say the Cain, the Nimrod, the Ishmael, and the Esau are still abroad on the earth, and these tales and ill.u.s.trations have their lessons for our souls. They are wonderful in their simplicity; but they are too deep for the wisdom of the world, and too pure for the love of it.

These things I have gathered for the sake of the moral and the mystery which so abound in them. But my immediate business is with Isaac.

Isaac, as I have already noticed, was brought up in his mother's tent.

He was, as I may say, rather the child of his mother than of his father--the common case of all of us in our earliest days. But with Isaac, this was so till his mother died; and then he must have been much beyond thirty years of age.

He knew more of Sarah's tent, than of the busier haunts and occupations of men. Her tent had been his _teacher_, as well as his _nurse_, and this education left impressions on his character which were never effaced. We have a pa.s.sing or incidental, but still, a very sure, witness of the strength of maternal influence over him, in chap. xxiv.

67. "And Isaac brought her [Rebecca] into his mother's tent, _and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death_."