The Patriarchs Part 13

In this life of faith and hope, the fathers of the Book of Genesis are seen to be one. Happy to know this. They ill.u.s.trate different mysteries, and read us different moral lessons; but in this life of faith and hope they are _one_; and each in his day, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is alike gathered to his people (chaps. xxv., x.x.xv., xlix.)--each is "a handful of sacred dust" in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hitt.i.te, laid up there in sure and certain hope of a resurrection unto life and to the inheritance.

There is a common saying, "It is better to wear out than to rust out."

But this better thing was not Isaac's. He rusts out. And _such_ was the natural close of _such_ a life.

Was Isaac, I ask, a vessel marred on the wheel? Was he a vessel laid aside as not fit for the Master's use? or at least not fit for it any longer? His history seems to tell us this. Abraham had not been such an one. All the distinguishing features of "the stranger here," all the proper fruits of that energy that quickened him at the outset, were borne in him and by him to the very end. We have looked at this already in the walk of Abraham. (See pp. 134-137.) Abraham's leaf did not wither. He brought forth fruit in old age. So was it with Moses, with David, and with Paul. They die with their harness on, at the plough or in the battle. Mistakes and more than mistakes they made by the way, or in their cause, or at their work; but they are never laid aside. Moses is counselling the camp near the banks of the Jordan; David is ordering the conditions of the kingdom, and putting it (in its beauty and strength) into the hand of Solomon; Paul has his armour on, his loins girded. When, as I may say, the time of their departure was at hand, the Master, as we read in Luke xii., found them "so doing," as servants should be found. But thus was it not with Isaac. Isaac is laid aside.

For forty long years we know nothing of him; he had been, as it were, decaying away and wasting. The vessel was rusting till it rusted out.

There surely is meaning in all this, meaning for our admonition.

And yet--such is the fruitfulness and instruction of the testimonies of G.o.d--there are others, in Scripture, of other generations, who have still more solemn lessons and warnings for us. It is humbling to be _laid aside_ as no longer fit for use; but it is sad to be left merely to _recover ourselves_, and it is terrible to remain to _defile ourselves_. And ill.u.s.trations of all this moral variety we get in the testimonies of G.o.d. _Jacob_, in his closing days in Egypt, is not as a vessel laid aside, but he is there recovering himself. I know there are some truly precious things connected with him during those seventeen years that he spent in that land, and we could not spare the lesson which the Spirit reads to us out of the life of Jacob in Egypt. But still, the moral of it is this--a saint, who had been under holy discipline, recovering himself, and yielding fruit meet for recovery.

And when we think of it a little, that is but a poor thing. But _Solomon_ is a still worse case. He lives to defile himself; sad and terrible to tell it. This was neither Isaac nor Jacob--it was not a saint simply laid aside, nor a saint left to recover himself. Isaac was, in the great moral sense, blameless to the end, and Jacob's last days were his best days; but of Solomon we read, "It came to pa.s.s, _when Solomon was old_, that his wives turned away his heart after other G.o.ds," and this has made the writing over his name, the tablet to his memory, equivocal, and hard to be deciphered to this day.

Such lessons do Isaac and Jacob and Solomon, in these ways, read for us, beloved--such are the minute and various instructions left for our souls in the fruitful and living pages of the oracles of G.o.d. They give us to see, in the house of G.o.d, vessels fit for use and kept in use even to the end--vessels laid aside, to rust out rather than to wear out--vessels whose best service it is to get themselves clean again--and vessels whose dishonour it is, at the end of their service, to contract some fresh defilement.

Wondrous and various the lessons and the ways of grace, abounding grace!

Quickly indeed does the soul entertain thoughts of G.o.d according to the suggestions of _nature_, instead of knowing Him according to _faith_.

Nature holds Him before the soul as a judge, or as a lawgiver, or an exactor of righteousness, as One that carries balances in His hand to try every thought and work--One that is sensitive and resentful of the slightest touch of evil. But faith holds Him before a gazing, worshipping eye and heart, as the One who always loves us, do what He may, or speak as He will. For faith worketh by love (Gal. v. 6)--it worketh towards G.o.d as Love, and therefore it is a spirit of confidence and liberty. If we find our souls under pressure of the spirit of fear or bondage or uncertainty, we may be sure that they have let go the gentle hand of faith, and allowed themselves to be led by such tutors and governors as nature provides. This ought not so to be. We are to know that we have _ever_ to do with _love_! When we read, when we pray, when we converse, when we confess, when we serve, when we sing, when we look at His hand in providence, or think of His name in secret, may faith's communion with G.o.d be ours! He loves us. The relationship in which we stand, and of which our Isaac was the expression, makes this a _necessary_ truth.

It is "to Himself" that G.o.d has brought us and adopted us--having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ _to Himself_, according to the good pleasure of His will. Eph. i. 5. And these words "to Himself" bespeak G.o.d's own joy in the _adoption_ of the elect, in making them _children_; as was Abraham's joy at the weaning of our Isaac. Christ presents the Church to _Himself_ (Eph. v. 27), and the Father gathers the elect as children by adoption to _Himself_. Each has personal interest and personal delight in the mysteries of grace. And according to this, the Holy Ghost, in the Epistle to the Galatians, to which the story of Isaac so refers, pleads the cause of the Father as well as the cause of Christ with us. He teaches us that we are redeemed by Christ from the _curse_ of the law, and, through the Spirit given to us by the Father, from the _bondage_ of the law. All this is full of blessing to us; and all this, the mystery of Isaac, the son of the free-woman, suggests to us.

Faith is that principle in us which gives to the Lord Jesus the place or privilege (such a place indeed as G.o.d alone can fill) of sustaining the confidence of a sinner entirely by Himself, of being the immediate, the only object of the sinner's trust. But faith, in this dispensation, involves _relationship_. By faith we stand in the Person as well as _on_ the work of Christ--and Christ being the Son, we are children, as we are saved sinners. We are all the children of G.o.d by faith in Christ Jesus.

Gal. iii. 26. And Ishmael is not to share the house with Isaac. The spirit of bondage gendered by the law or by the religion of ordinances, is to be put out, and the spirit of liberty alone is to fill it. For the house is now set in a child and not in a servant, in Isaac and not in Eliezer--and _relationship_ is G.o.d's joy as it is ours. "The _Father seeketh_ such to worship Him." Wondrous words of abounding grace, beloved! and Sarah's joy in our Isaac pledged this in patriarchal days.

JACOB.

GENESIS XXVIII.-x.x.xVI.

I have already followed the course of the Book of Genesis to the close of chapter xxvii. From that chapter to chapter x.x.xvi., Jacob is princ.i.p.al; and it is that portion which I now purpose to consider.

There is a very important era in the life of Jacob afterwards--his sojourn in Egypt for seventeen years, and his death there. But this is found in that part of the book in which Joseph becomes princ.i.p.al, so that I shall refer to it only so far as Jacob is concerned.

The life of Jacob is one of very large and varied action, quite of another character from that of his father Isaac. The wisdom of G.o.d readily accounts for this; because there is divine intention in the construction of these histories, as there is divine truthfulness in the record of them. By them we are instructed in mysteries, as surely as we are made acquainted with circ.u.mstances. It has been my desire to notice these mysteries, as well as to gather the moral of these earliest ages of the human family, and these first fathers of the elect of G.o.d.

_Election_, and the call of G.o.d, in the sovereign exercise of His grace, were exhibited in Abraham.

_Sonship_, to which election brings us, (for we are predestinated unto the adoption of children,) was then shown in Isaac.

_Discipline_, as of a son, (for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?) is now, in its season, to be exhibited in Jacob.

And thus, after this manner, these successive histories not only continue the orderly narrative of facts, but present us with a view of that course or conduct which the grace and wisdom of G.o.d is taking with His people.

Jacob was a son as well as Isaac. But he was a son at school, or under correction; not a son, like Isaac, in the care and nurture of the home of his father; not as one given to know the rights and dignities of son and heir, but as one made to know the love, the practical love, that chastens and corrects. This was the child Jacob. But we are never to forget that we are never more distinctly children than when under such discipline. Discipline a.s.sumes adoption. The exhortation or correction speaks to us as _to children_. The discipline may occupy the foreground, but the fatherly love is the secret.

But this notice of Jacob as a son under discipline I give here only as a general characteristic. As to the materials of his history, various and striking as they are, we may distinguish them into four eras:

1. His birth and early life in his father's house in the land of Canaan.

2. His journey to Padan-aram, and his residence there, in the house of Laban the Syrian, for twenty years.

3. His journey back from Padan-aram, and his second residence in Canaan.

4. His journey from Canaan to Egypt, and his residence and death there.

This may be read as a simple, natural table of contents, so to call it, and I would follow it out in its order.

_Part I._--This earliest portion of Jacob's history, his birth, and his life in the house of his father in the land of Canaan till he was about seventy years of age,? I have generally antic.i.p.ated in the preceding paper, ent.i.tled "Isaac." And I may be allowed to say, necessarily so; because it is involved in those chapters of the Book of Genesis, where Isaac is princ.i.p.al. I must therefore refer to it.

? It is said in the Jewish writings that he was seventy-seven.

_Part II._--Jacob begins to be seen under discipline in chap. xxviii., and there it is where this second part of his history opens, and where also, in the Book of Genesis, he becomes the chief or leading character.

In his journey out towards Padan, but ere he left the borders of Canaan, at the place called Luz, the Lord meets him. This was not his father's bed-side, where he was sinning, but a lonely, dreary, distant spot where his sin had cast him, and where the discipline of his heavenly Father was dealing with him. In such a place G.o.d can meet us. He cannot appear to us in the scene of our iniquities, but He can in the place of His correction. And such was Luz to Jacob. It was a comfortless spot. The stones of the place were his pillow, and the sky over his head his covering; and he had no friend but his staff to accompany and cheer him.

But the G.o.d of his fathers comes there to him. He does not alter his present circ.u.mstances or reverse the chastening. He lets him still pursue his way unfriended, to find, at the end of it, twenty years' hard service at the hand of a stranger, with many a wrong and injury. But he gives him heavenly pledges, that hosts on high should watch and wait around him.

The Lord had made, as we know, great promises to Abraham: the same were repeated to Isaac, and are now, at Bethel, given to Jacob. But, to Jacob, something very distinct from these common promises is added: "And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." _v._ 15. This was a new promise, an added mercy; just because Jacob needed it, as Abraham and Isaac had not. Jacob was the only one of the three who needed that the Lord would be with him wherever he went, and bring him home again. Jacob, by his own naughtiness, had made this additional mercy necessary to himself, and, in abounding grace, he gets it; and the vision of the ladder pledges it. The promises to Abraham and to Isaac had not included this providential, angelic care. They had remained in the land; but Jacob had made himself an exile, that needed the care and watching of a special oversight from heaven, and he gets it. And it is to this, I believe, that Jacob alludes, when he says to Joseph, The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors. Chap. xlix. 26. This angelic care, that watched over him, under direct commission from heaven, in his days of exile and drudgery, which his own error had incurred, _distinguished_ him as an object of mercy, and gave him "blessings" above those of his "progenitors." And in this character he reached "the bounds of the everlasting hills." He was heir of the kingdom as a _debtor to special mercy_, through that abounding grace that had helped him and kept him amid the bitter fruits of his own naughtiness. As David, in his day, triumphed in "the everlasting covenant" made with him, though for the present his house was in ruins through his own sin. 2 Samuel xxiii.

This is G.o.d's way, excellent and perfect in the combination of grace and holiness. And upon this, let me observe, that in all circ.u.mstances there are two objects, and that nature eyes the one, and faith the other.

Thus, in divine discipline, such as Jacob was now experiencing, there is the _rod_, and also the _hand that is using it_. Nature regards the first, faith recognizes the second. Job, in his day, broke down under the rod, because he concerned himself with it alone. Had he eyed the counsel, the heart, or the hand that was appointing it (as we are exhorted to do, Micah vi. 9), he would have stood. But nature prevailed in him, and he kept his eye upon the rod, and it was too much for him.

So in _failures_, as well as in circ.u.mstances, there are two objects.

Conscience has its object, and faith again has its object. But conscience is not to be allowed to rob faith of its treasures, the treasures of restoring, pardoning grace, which the love of G.o.d in Christ has stored up for it.

There is great comfort in this. Nature is not to be over-busy with circ.u.mstances, nor conscience with failures. Nature is to feel that no affliction is for the present joyous, and conscience or heart may be broken; but in either case, faith is to be at its post and do its duty; and much of the gracious energy of the Spirit in the epistles is engaged in putting faith at its post, and encouraging it to do its duty. The Apostles, under the Holy Ghost, take knowledge of the danger and temptation we are under by nature; and while it is abundantly enforced, that conscience is to be quick and jealous, yet it is required that faith shall maintain itself in the very face of it.

To know G.o.d _in grace_ is His praise and our joy. We naturally, or according to the instincts of a tainted nature, think of Him as one that _exacts obedience and looks for service_. But faith knows Him as one that _communicates_, that speaks to us of privileges, of the liberty and the blessing of our relationship to Him.

But Jacob's soul was not quite up to this way of grace. He found the place where the ladder and the angels were seen, and where the G.o.d of his fathers spoke to him, to be "dreadful." In some sense it was too much for him. As it was long afterwards with Peter on the holy hill. G.o.d is true to the aboundings of His grace. Jacob may say, "How dreadful is this place!" Peter and his companions may have their fear; but the ladder, nevertheless, reaches to heaven, and angels are up and down upon it in the sight of the patriarch; and the glory on the Mount still shines. For the grace of G.o.d is richer than the apprehensions of the soul about it. G.o.d shines in Himself above our experiences. And it is in Himself He is to be known, and not in the reflections of our experience.

Still, like Peter on the hill, Jacob, in some sense, found it good to be at Luz, and he called the place Bethel. It was the house of G.o.d to him, for G.o.d had there been with him, and spoken to him; it was the gate of heaven in his eye, for there the angels had appeared, as descending from their own place on high. "This is none other but the house of G.o.d," says he, "and this is the gate of heaven."

G.o.d both _records_ His name and _glorifies_ it. He records it or reveals it at first, and faith accepts Him. In due time He verifies that record or testimony, making it all good, and thus glorifies His name. And wherever He records His name there is His house. Ornan's threshing-floor got the same dignity long afterwards, which Luz now gets, and on the same t.i.tle. "This is the house of the Lord G.o.d, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel," says David of that spot of the Jebusite. 1 Chron. xxii. 1. For it was the place, like this Bethel of our patriarch, where mercy had rejoiced against judgment, where G.o.d was revealing Himself in the aboundings of His grace, and there faith descries the house of G.o.d. Jacob and David, each in his day, were saints under discipline; but the Lord met them in the rich provisions of His love, thus revealing Himself or recording His name; and this was His house to them. But it is easier thus to consecrate the house, than to learn the lesson that is taught there. Jacob rightly uttered his heart under force of the impressions which the vision could not but awaken; but there is something of old Jacob in his spirit still. The faulty way of his heart is at work still, and he seems to calculate, and to make bargains, and to enter into conditions, though the Lord had spoken to him there in the language of the promise, in free, sovereign, abounding goodness. For nature still stirs itself after many a rebuke and defeat, and outlives what for a moment may have appeared a death-blow. Jacob no more now leaves it behind him at Bethel, than before he had left it behind him in his mother's tent.

But he goes on. Grace sets the chastened saint on his journey, and with some alacrity too, till "he came to the land of the people of the east,"

till he reached Padan-aram, where his mother's counsel had appointed him, and, doubtless, where the hand of G.o.d had now conducted him.

His introduction to Rachel was at the well, and in the midst of the flock, like that of Eliezer to Rebecca; and Eliezer was but Isaac's representative. But Jacob was the poor man, Isaac the wealthy. Isaac could enrich Rebecca with earrings and bracelets of gold, pledges of the goodly estate he had for her. Jacob has but his toil and sweat of face.

The one was as the son and heir, the other a man who had beggared himself, and must find his own way through the wear and tear of life as best he may, with G.o.d's help. Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. Hosea xii. 12. And a hard service he was about to find it. But he enters on it at once, and continues at it for twenty long years. Chap. xxix.-x.x.xi.

The scene is laid in the house of Laban his mother's brother, and a scene of various moral action it quickly becomes, and so continues. We have not only Jacob himself and Laban, but the two wives Leah and Rachel, and their two handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah.