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Scripture Reading: Deut. 7:13; 8:7-10; 11:9-12, 14-15; 32:13-14; 33:28; Num. 14:7-8; Eph. 3:8; 1 Kings 8:10-11; Eph. 1:22-23; Psa. 84:4, 10; 132:14-16; 36:8-9; 52:8; 92:13-14
In the past two chapters we have seen the central view of the divine dispensation in the books of Genesis and Exodus. In this chapter we want to see God’s dispensing through the rest of the books of the Old Testament, from Leviticus to Malachi. If we have a bird’s-eye view of these books, we can realize that there are mainly three things: first, the enjoyment of the riches of the good land; second, the building up of the temple; and third, the enjoyment of and in the temple.
At the end of Exodus there was a glorious situation. There was a corporate people who were God’s dwelling place. They were overshadowed and filled up with God’s glory. There were a lot of riches in the tabernacle for them to enjoy. But this enjoyment was not in the fullest way, so after Exodus the children of Israel were brought into the good land. Although they wandered for thirty-eight years, eventually, from Mount Sinai, they arrived at Canaan. They entered into the good land.
The produce of the good land was a type of the unsearchable riches of Christ (Deut. 8:7-10; 11:11-12; Eph. 3:8). First, in the good land there was a lot of rain and dew (Deut. 11:11, 14; 33:28). There was the early rain in the fall and the latter rain in the spring. Every day there was the dew. The rain is something strong, but the dew is very soft. Sometimes we cannot stand the strong rain. In typology, rain signifies God’s strong and rich grace, and dew signifies God’s soft mercy. Jeremiah tells us that the mercy of the Lord is like the dew: every morning it is fresh (Lam. 3:22-23). We all realize that we need the rain; without rain we will die. But when the rain comes, we may not like it. Many times when the rain of grace comes, we are frightened by it. We like the soft dew. In the good land there was both the rain and the dew.
When the good land, due to the failure of the children of Israel, was cursed, the rain stopped, and the entire land of Canaan became a scorched and dry land. Today’s situation among Christians has also become a scorched and dry land, with very little rain and nearly no dew. But in the recovery the rain comes quite often, and every morning the dew comes. We enjoy the fresh and refreshing dew every morning.
In the good land there are a lot of hills and valleys (Deut. 8:7b; cf. 2 Cor. 6:8-10). Some of the older generation might prefer a plain rather than hills and valleys. The hills are hard to climb, and the valleys are dangerous to descend, but we need the hills and the valleys. All the time we have to go up, and we have to come down. We should not live on the plain. Every hill is the Lord Christ. Christ is our high hill, and Christ is also our deep valley. Sometimes we are on the high hill with Christ, and sometimes we are down in the deep valley with Christ. The church life should be full of hills and valleys. We do not like to go through the valleys, but if there are no valleys, there are no hills. The hills take away the earth from the valleys. If we do not have the hills, we do not have the valleys. If we do not have the valleys, there is no place to keep the water. In the valleys there is plenty of water.
After the hills and valleys we have waterbrooks, springs, and fountains, or deep waters (Deut. 8:7a; John 4:14; 7:37-39). These are symbols of the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is the spring. When it flows, it is a brook; when it stays in a certain place, it becomes the deep water. The spring is the source, the brook is the course, and the deep water is like a big lake. These are different aspects of the life-giving Spirit. All these items — rain and dew; hills and valleys; springs, waterbrooks, and deep waters — bring forth the riches of all kinds of produce.
There is the wheat and barley, the plenitude of food, without scarceness, not lacking anything (Deut. 8:8-9). There are also trees — the vine trees for producing wine, the olive trees for producing oil, the fig trees for feeding people, and the pomegranates signifying all the riches of life (v. 8b). Then there is grass forming the pastures where the cattle live and produce milk and meat (11:15). Even the bees live on blossoms that produce honey. The good land is a land flowing with milk and honey (v. 9; 32:13-14). Both milk and honey are the produce of two kinds of lives. Milk is produced by cattle, which are living on plants. Honey is produced by bees, which are living on blossoms. Both milk and honey are the produce of two kinds of lives — animal life and plant life. Without the animal life plus the plant life you cannot have milk, nor can you have honey. Christ’s life is both the animal life and the plant life. As the Lamb of God (John 1:29), Christ is the animal life. As the grain of wheat, Christ is the plant life (12:24). The animal life plus the plant life produces the milk and the honey.
From the olive tree there is the olive oil, and from the vine there is the wine (Deut. 7:13; 8:8b). The oil is for giving light and for anointing. In the church life we have a lot of oil, a lot of the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is enlightening us and also anointing us. In the church life there is also the wine from the vine to cheer us up and to make us happy every day. On the day of Pentecost the disciples were considered drunken by others because they were so happy (Acts 2:13).
Deuteronomy 8:9 says that the land is a land “whose stones are iron, and from whose mountains you can mine copper.” The stone and the iron are mixed up together. It is a piece of stone, but it is full of iron. Both the iron and the copper are for building and for fighting. David killed a giant with just a small piece of stone. In the ancient times nearly all the weapons were made of either iron or copper. In the church life we have not only the enjoyment of the wheat and the barley, of the olive tree, the vine tree, the fig tree, and the pomegranate tree, of the milk and honey, and of the oil and wine for our living, but also of stones, iron, and copper for building and fighting. In the church life we need the stones full of iron and the copper for building and fighting. While we are enjoying, we are building. While we are building, we are fighting. In the book of Nehemiah the children of Israel were building with one hand and holding a weapon for fighting against the enemy with the other (4:17). The good land is good for us to enjoy, for us to build, and for us to fight.
Christ is the good land. This is the all-inclusive Christ. After eating Him and being filled with Him we will bless our God (Deut. 8:10). From the enjoyment of such a rich land an issue comes out — the building of the temple (1 Kings 8:10-11), which is much bigger than the tabernacle. Furthermore, it has a solid foundation. It is a solid building, full of stones, full of iron, full of copper, and full of gold. Once the tabernacle had been erected, the glory of God descended upon it (Exo. 40:34-35), and at the completion of the building of the temple, the same thing happened. The glory of Jehovah came down and filled the temple.
This was God’s dispensing of Himself into His chosen people. This is the central point of God’s dispensation. The focus of God’s dispensation is to dispense Himself into His chosen people so that He Himself becomes His chosen people’s life and nature. This is to mingle His people’s being with His divine being. This is humanity saturated with divinity. This is the universal Bethel, a house of God, built up with humanity on this earth.
The book of Psalms is mainly a book of the enjoyment of the temple. When you read many of the psalms, you can realize that when the psalmists talked about the temple, they became very excited. To them the temple was so lovely. It was better to stay one day in the temple than a thousand days in other places (84:10). What is the temple? Today the temple is the church life (Eph. 2:21-22), a building of humanity with divinity. This is why the church life is so lovable, so sweet, so beautiful, so wonderful, so marvelous, so glorious! When we come into the church life, we have the sensation that it is better to be here for one day than to be some other place for a thousand days. Sometimes our relatives may condemn us, saying that we only care for the church life. We do not care for anything else. How marvelous! Eventually, though, some of the relatives also have come into the church life. The church life prevails. The church life convinces and subdues and wins. Nothing can stand against the church life.
First, the temple is a dwelling of blessing (Psa. 84:4, 10). Surely when we dwell in the church life, we get the blessing. There is no curse and no loss in the church life.
The temple is also God’s rest that satisfies Him forever (132:14-16). It is a place for God to rest. According to the Old Testament, without the temple God had no place to rest. Although God had the heavens, God had no rest (Isa. 66:1-2). Religion talks about going to heaven. This thought of going to heaven is a pagan, heathen thought. In the Western world this thought was invented by Gnosticism. In the Orient it came from Hinduism and Buddhism. All the Chinese who are Buddhist expect to go to the Western heaven. This kind of pagan thought was adopted by Catholicism. From Catholicism it spread into Protestantism. God does not love heaven so much. He loves the earth. The Lord Jesus prayed, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth” (Matt. 6:10). God expects to have something on this earth. His temple is not in the heavens. In the Old Testament His temple was on the earth; today the church is His temple. God loves the church, the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15). The church is God’s home. If you want to find God, come to the church. Although I may visit a foreign country, if the church is there, I am home, because the church is God’s home and my home. The church is the resting place of God.
The church is also a place of rich provision for God’s people (Psa. 132:14-16). In the church there is the rich supply of spiritual food and spiritual clothing. Nothing is short in the church. When you come to the church life and stay in the church life, you get the supply. You get the rich provision.
With the temple there is also the satisfying of God’s people abundantly with its fatness and with the river of God’s pleasures, the fountain of life, and the divine light (36:8-9). The church life has its fatness. It is so rich! Here in the temple, the church life, we drink of the river of God’s pleasures. Pleasures in Hebrew is the plural form of the word Eden. This implies that when we drink of the river of God’s pleasures in the temple, our drinking brings us into Eden. When we are in the church life, we are in Eden, the garden of pleasures.
Within the temple, the house of God, there is also the fountain of life and the divine light. All these are the enjoyment of the rich Christ in God’s house.
The psalmist goes on to tell us that we can be planted in the temple and that we can grow as a flourishing olive tree in God’s house, full of sap and green (52:8; 92:13-14). Psalm 92:12-14 says that the people who are planted in God’s house will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon and will still bring forth fruit in old age. All this portrays the enjoyment of Christ in the church life, and this is the result of God’s dispensing Himself in Christ into our being. By such a dispensing, even in our old age we can bring forth fruit, and we can be full of sap and green.
