Message 54
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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26; Jer. 31:3, 32; 2:2; John 3:29; Matt. 9:15; Eph. 5:25-27; 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7; John 21:15-17; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; John 14:21, 23; S.S. 1:2-4
In this message we shall continue our consideration of God’s giving His law to the people in Exodus 20. As all students of the Bible realize, the law is a very important subject both in the Old Testament and in the New.
If we would have a proper understanding of God’s giving of the law in the Scriptures, we need to know how this matter is related to the main subject of the Bible as a whole. To understand any book, or even part of a book, we must first learn what is the main subject of the book. Suppose the subject of a certain book is love. But in that book suppose there also are a number of references to the subject of law. If a reader of the book takes these references out of context and gives them an improper emphasis, he will change the subject of the book from love to law. In seeking to understand the place of God’s law in the Scriptures many Christians have done this very thing. Failing to understand the law in the light of the main subject of the Bible as a whole, they do not have a proper, balanced view of the law.
We have pointed out a number of times that virtually everything in the universe has two sides, or two aspects. For example, during a regular twenty-four hour period, we have both day and night. Would it not be absurd for someone to insist that there is only day or only night? As sure as night falls, a new day dawns. We can neither prolong the day nor extend the night. This illustration of day and night may be applied to God’s giving of the law. Concerning the law, there are two aspects, two sides: the aspect of “night,” the dark side, and the aspect of “day,” the bright side. In these messages we are covering the “day” aspect, not the “night” aspect, which we shall cover later. We need to give the proper emphasis to both aspects. Now that we are covering the “day” aspect of the law, we are pointing out what is clear and bright. But when we turn to the “night” aspect, we shall point out what is dark. I do not intend to cheat the Lord’s people by failing to point out both aspects. In considering the two aspects of God’s giving of the law, I am not contradictory. To the contrary, I am simply presenting both sides of the truth.
Concerning God’s giving the law to His people, the main aspect is not the “night” aspect. God did not create the universe so that there could be night. Night is necessary, but it is not God’s goal. God’s goal is to have an eternal day. A verse which speaks of New Jerusalem in eternity, Revelation 21:25, says, “Night shall not be there.” Furthermore, Revelation 22:5 declares, “Night shall be no more.” When God’s purpose has reached its ultimate fulfillment in the New Jerusalem, there will be no night in that eternal city. By this we see that God’s goal is to have day, not night.
As Paul says, we are “of the day,” even “sons of the day” (5, 1 Thes. 5:8). However, in discussing the giving of God’s law, many Christian teachers place too great an emphasis on the aspect of “night.” I am by no means asserting that they pay no attention at all to the “day” side. I am simply pointing out the fact that their emphasis is on the aspect of “night.” Thus, there certainly is the need for us to cover the “day” side of the law as well as the “night” side.
If we would have the proper realization of what God’s law is, we need to know what God’s eternal purpose is. God’s eternal purpose is to have a people to express Him. In order for this purpose to be fulfilled, God must impart Himself into His chosen people and work Himself into them. This is the reason that, according to Genesis 1:26, God created man in a very particular way — in His own image and according to His likeness. God created man in His own image and according to His likeness so that man could take God in and contain Him. God wants man to be His container. This is the reason the Bible speaks of man as a vessel, a vessel of honor and of glory (Rom. 9:23). Man is a vessel to contain God.
The New Testament clearly and emphatically reveals that in Christ and through Christ God has come to us to dispense Himself into us. God does not simply come to visit us. He desires to make His abode with us. The Lord Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (John 14:23). In Colossians 1:27 Paul speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Other verses also indicate definitely that Christ is in us (Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; 4:19). We know from Ephesians 4:6 that the Father is in us and from John 14:17 and Romans 8:11 that the Spirit dwells in us. First John 4:12 says, “God abides in us.” Verse 15 of the same chapter declares, “Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” This matter of dwelling in God and God dwelling in us is repeated several times in 1 John. Again and again, the New Testament points out that God dwells in us. We are even called God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19) and His dwelling place, His house (Eph. 2:22; 1 Tim. 3:15). God houses Himself in us. Ephesians 3:17 indicates that Christ is making His home in our hearts. Only when God works Himself into our being are we able to express Him.
Many Christians today neglect this crucial matter of God dispensing Himself into us and working Himself into us. When we expound this point and emphasize its importance, we are accused by some of teaching pantheism or even “evolution into God.” What blindness! Yes, we teach that God desires to work Himself into man, but we certainly do not teach that man is evolving into the Godhead or that man will ever attain to the status of deity. Those who accuse us of holding such a doctrine are in darkness. Time and time again we must emphasize the basic matter that, according to the divine revelation in the Scriptures, God desires to be one with His people and to make them one with Him. We do not have the full understanding of how intensely God longs to be one with us and to make us one with Him. Those who think this is “evolution into God” are grossly ignorant of God’s economy revealed in the New Testament. In the light of God’s Word, we see that He wants to come into us and dwell in us and cause us to dwell in Him. In this way, He and we, we and He, become one.
Although God is divine and we are human, it is still possible for us to be one with Him. But in order for God to be one with us and for us to be one with Him, there must be love between us and God. Unless there is mutual love, it is not possible for a man and woman to live together as husband and wife and remain truly one. The genuine oneness between a man and his wife is wholly a matter of love. Love is the motive and incentive for such a oneness. If I did not love my wife, I could not live with her in oneness. For two persons to be one, they must love each other. This is also true of the relationship between God and His people.
Without God, we are empty, and everything is vain. If we did not have God, we would have to say with the writer of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). But since we have God, we have reality.
Our need for God can be compared to the need a woman has for a husband. Moreover, God needs us as a man needs a wife. No love is sweeter than that between a man and his wife. This kind of love is necessary for keeping the law of God. We keep God’s law by loving Him and His Word and by becoming one with Him.
The love we should have for God is not the love parents have for their children, the honoring love children have for their parents, the love friends have for each other, nor the pitying love a rich person has toward the poor. The love we need to have for the Lord is affectionate love like that between a man and his wife. Our love for the Lord should be that which is expressed in Song of Songs, where we have a beautiful and touching description of the deep and tender affectionate love between the beloved (the Lord) and the one he loves (His love, His loving seeker). This love is so sweet and intimate that it is beyond our capacity to describe it adequately.
Christians often say that the Bible is a book of love. They may quote John 3:16, concerning God’s love for the world, 1 John 3:1 concerning God the Father’s love for His children, or Ephesians 5:25, concerning Christ’s love for the church. However, believers may not realize that the love in these verses is not only the love of God for the world, or the love of God the Father for His children, but also the love of Christ the Husband for His wife, the affectionate love revealed in Song of Songs. The love between God and His people unfolded in the Bible is mainly the affectionate love between man and woman.
According to the Old Testament, God loved Israel with such an affectionate love. In Jeremiah 31:3 the Lord said to His chosen people, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” What we have here is not the love between friends, nor the love of a rich person toward the poor; it is a courting love, a love which leads to engagement and marriage. Because the Lord had such a love for His people, He “took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (Jer. 31:32). This is also the love in Jeremiah 2:2, a verse which speaks of the love of Israel’s betrothals. Mainly, the love revealed in the Bible is this love in courtship, engagement, and marriage.
As we pointed out in the foregoing message, in bringing His people out of Egypt and giving His law to them, God was courting them, wooing them, and seeking to win their affection. As strange as it may sound at first, God actually courts His people. Because He has courted us, we are in the church life today. Not only is our God the processed God, the Triune God who has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension in order to come into us as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit; He is also the courting God, the God who comes to us and woos us, seeking to win our affection. This kind of love was displayed in Exodus 20 when God came to His people and gave His law to them.
When we come to the divine revelation in the Bible, we should not be occupied by anything that would blind us to the Lord’s light. Rather, we need to open our whole inner being to the Lord. Years ago, I did not see as clearly as I do today that in the Old Testament God came to His people in the way of a suitor courting a young lady. But recently in my reading of Exodus 20 I opened to the Lord in a fresh way. I did not care for what I knew about this chapter. I was open to what the Lord would say to me. I can testify that after this the light came. As early as 1932, I gave messages on this chapter. Those messages, however, emphasized the “night” aspect of the giving of the law. What the Lord has shown me recently concerns the “day” side, in particular the fact that the law given in Exodus 20 functions as an engagement paper, an engagement contract.
Because of the Lord’s enlightening through His word, I have the confidence to say that the entire Bible is a book of engagement. In the Scriptures we have a record of how God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them. For eternity, the Triune God as the Husband will enjoy a sweet married life with His wife, His chosen and redeemed people. New Jerusalem will even be called the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9). The conclusion of the Bible is the marriage of God and His people. Since the Bible ends in this way, it can truly be called a book of engagement. The main subject of the Scriptures is God’s engagement to His people. If this were not the main subject of the Bible, the Bible would not conclude with a word concerning the universal marriage of God and His redeemed ones.
Recently I have come to see that the old covenant was a covenant in which God espoused His people to Himself. Both Ezekiel 16:8 and Jeremiah 31:32 refer to this. In Ezekiel 16:8 God said to His people, “Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.” The covenant here is the old covenant based on the law of God. Ezekiel 16:8 indicates that the time God entered into this covenant with His people was “the time of love.” This means that God’s covenant with His people was an engagement covenant, a betrothal. By entering into such a covenant with His people, God betrothed them to Himself, and He betrothed Himself to them. Jeremiah 31:32 confirms this: “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah” (Heb.). Notice that here both the words covenant and husband are used. Once again, we see that in making the old covenant with the children of Israel, God betrothed Himself to the people and became their Husband. This proves that the old covenant was an engagement paper, an engagement contract.
With the new covenant the principle is the same. Jeremiah 31 refers to the old covenant, the covenant of betrothal, and also to the new covenant which the Lord would make with His people (v. 31). Since the old covenant was a covenant of betrothal, the new covenant must be the same in nature. Both the old covenant and the new covenant are covenants of engagement. Applying this fact to the account of the giving of the law in Exodus 20, we see that in giving His law to His people, God wanted them to become one with Him, to become His very spouse. In order for such an engagement to take place, an affectionate love like that between a man and his wife is absolutely necessary.
When we enter into such a love relationship with the Lord, we receive His life, just as Eve received the life of Adam. If Eve had not received Adam’s life, she could not have been one with him. After God created man, he brought to him “every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air...to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof” (Gen. 2:19). In Genesis 2:20 we are clearly told that “for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.” Among the cattle, the fowl, and the beasts of the field, Adam did not find a counterpart; he did not find anything to match him. God then caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, took one of his ribs, and built the rib into a woman (Gen. 2:21-22, Heb.). When the woman was presented to Adam, he declared, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man” (v. 23). At last, Adam had found his counterpart, his match. No doubt, Adam and Eve loved each other, for Eve had received her life from Adam and even was of Adam. She and Adam had one life and one nature. Eve’s every fiber, tissue, and cell had its source in Adam and was part of Adam. According to Ephesians 5, Adam and Eve depict Christ and the church. Just as Eve came out of Adam and possessed his life and nature, so the church comes out of Christ and possesses His life and nature.
Because such a relationship exists between Christ and the church, we receive the Lord’s life whenever we tell Him that we love Him. From our experience we know that when we say, “Lord Jesus, I love you,” we are infused with His life. Many Christians do not realize that if they love the Lord Jesus, He will come into them to be their life and their life supply. Little children often sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus!” and young people may call to the Lord, expressing their love for Him. But such expressions of love for the Lord should not be limited to children and young people. Even those who are older also need to say, “Lord Jesus, I love you.” Our need to express our love for the Lord in this way may even be greater than that of the young people. More and more, we need to tell the Lord how much we love Him.
During the past several months, I have been earnestly seeking the Lord for the proper way to live Him. Day by day, I have been praying, asking Him to show me the secret of living Him. No doubt, part of the secret is telling the Lord again and again that we love Him. Whenever we tell the Lord that we love Him, He supplies us with His life. It is this life which enables us to become one with God and makes Him one with us.
Because the truths in the Bible are so profound, we cannot understand them unless we use illustrations and parables. This is true of what the Bible says about how the life of God enters into us. God’s life does not come into us like water poured into a glass. We receive God’s life through a process of divine conception. The fact that we are born of God (John 1:12-13) indicates that God’s life comes into us through conception. Birth always involves the conceiving of life.
I have been condemned for teaching the mingling of God with man. Let me ask, how could we be conceived of God and born of God without being mingled with God? John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Our physical life is a portrait of spiritual life. In principle, spiritual birth is the same as physical birth. Both kinds of birth involve the conceiving of life. Through conception and birth, we have received the life of God.
In the Lord’s recovery we emphasize the subjective aspects of the truth in the Bible. Many religious ones are offended by this. Pointing to the fact that Christ is great, that He has been glorified and enthroned in the heavens, they ask how such an exalted Christ could be our food. Some even mock us, asking what is our basis for saying that Christ is edible. In their blindness, they ignore the subjective truth that Christ, the bread of life, is indeed edible. He Himself said, “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me” (John 6:57). Eating Christ and living because of Him certainly are very subjective matters.
We have seen that it is God’s life which makes us one with God. This oneness in life can be illustrated by the grafting of a branch from one tree into another tree. Grafting involves a metabolic process. Dead sticks can be nailed together, glued together, or tied together, but they cannot be grafted together. Only living things can be grafted.
Two substances that are to be grafted together must be similar in life. We know that our natural human life is not the same as the divine life. It is a principle according to Genesis 1 that each life is according to its kind. But even though the human life is not the divine life, it was created according to the divine life, for man was made in God’s image and according to His likeness. Only the human life, not any other kind of life, was made according to God. Because the human life and the divine life are similar in certain respects, they can be grafted together. Once this grafting takes place, the life juice of the divine life flows into the human life and produces a marvelous oneness between God and man. How, then, can we be one with God and God one with us? This oneness comes by the grafting of the human life into the divine life and the divine life to the human life. John 15 says clearly that we are branches in Christ, who is the vine. According to the illustration used by Paul in Romans 11, we are branches grafted into Christ. Now as we abide in Christ and He abides in us, we and He, He and we, share one life and one living. This oneness in life and living makes us truly one.
Our oneness with the Lord is also illustrated in Scripture by the oneness between a man and his wife. A husband and his wife are one both in nature and in life. Eventually, after many years, a man and woman who have enjoyed a genuine married life will become one even in expression. During the honeymoon, a husband and wife are one in love. With more time, they become one in life. But ultimately those who develop a proper married life become one in expression. This is a picture of our relationship with the Lord. First we are one with Him in love; then we become one with Him in life and nature; and finally we shall be one with Him in expression. When we are one with Him in love, we experience His life and enjoy His nature. When we live His life and walk according to His nature, we become His expression.
We pointed out in a foregoing message that the law is a description of what God is. This means that the law is the expression of God. If we become one with God in love, life, nature, and expression, we shall automatically keep His law. There will be no need for us to make up our mind to keep it, for we shall spontaneously live according to God’s law.
It is important to see that in the New Testament the Ten Commandments are repeated, developed, and uplifted. In fact, the teaching in the New Testament goes beyond the Ten Commandments. Anyone who rejects God’s law must also reject the entire New Testament, which reiterates in an expanded way the law decreed in the Old Testament. In Matthew 5 the Lord Jesus complemented the law and uplifted it. More than once He said, “You have heard that it was said...but I say to you...” (Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 43-44). The Lord Jesus came with no intention of abolishing the law. He Himself said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). Concerning the law, the teaching of the New Testament is thus essentially the same as that of the Ten Commandments.
When some read this, they may wonder about the fourth commandment, concerning keeping the Sabbath. Even with respect to the Sabbath, the New Testament does not change in principle. In the Old Testament, the seventh day was a memorial, a mark of God’s creation. But because we, the saints in the church, have been regenerated in Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3), we are not merely of God’s creation, but also of His re-creation. Unlike Adam, we are not those living in God’s creation; we are the ones living in Christ’s resurrection. Hence, our memorial day is no longer the seventh day; it is the eighth day, the first day of the week, the day of resurrection. According to Acts 20:7, the disciples came together on this day, not on the seventh day, to have the Lord’s table. According to 1 Corinthians 16:2, also on this day material things were set apart for God’s use. Furthermore, in Revelation 1:10 John says that he was in spirit on the Lord’s day, which was the first day of the week. Since there is a memorial day both in the Old Testament and in the New, it is correct to say that concerning the fourth commandment there is no change in principle. Because the Old Testament saints lived in God’s creation, their memorial day was the seventh day. But because we, the New Testament saints, are in resurrection, our memorial day is the eighth day. The actual day has changed from the seventh day to the eighth day. However, God has not annulled the principle of setting apart a day unto the Lord. Again we see that, in principle, the whole Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New, is the same concerning the law.
God’s ultimate goal is to make us one with Him. The way for us to become one with Him is by love, life, nature, and expression. Our love for God should be like that of a woman for her husband, the very love portrayed in Song of Songs. Loving the Lord in this way, we receive His life supply. We have given a number of messages on life and building based on Song of Songs (see Life and Building in the Song of Songs).Through our affectionate love for the Lord Jesus, we are supplied with life. As this life grows, the building takes place. Actually, the growth of life is the building. Loving the Lord as our Husband and experiencing and enjoying His life and nature, we shall become His expression. Song of Songs depicts this sequence. Eventually, in a very real sense, the seeking one in Song of Songs becomes her beloved. The two, the man and the woman, become one absolutely, even in expression, living as if they were one person.
In the oneness between man and wife we see the proper way to keep the law. We do not keep the law through the exercise of our mind and will. We keep it by loving the Lord as our Husband. We all need such a sweet, intimate, affectionate love between us and the Lord. We should love Him as a woman loves her husband. We all, young and old alike, need this kind of love. The more we love the Lord in this way, the more we shall partake of His life and spontaneously live Him in accordance with His nature. Then our living will automatically become the keeping of His law. What we live out will be according to the law as His description, definition, and expression.
As we shall see in a later message, if we try to keep God’s law without having such an affectionate love for Him, we shall be in darkness, condemned, exposed, and even slain by the law of God. That is the dark aspect of the law, the “night” aspect. In this message our concern has been to consider the bright aspect, the “day” aspect. Considering this aspect, we see that we can keep the law of God only by loving Him and becoming one with Him.
