GOD'S PURPOSE AS REVEALED IN THE DESCENDANTS OF JACOB.
In the beginning God created man in His own image. Everything that He made was stamped with His own impression. His glory was seen in it all and manifested through it. Plant, tree, and forest, fountain, river, and lake, earth, air, and sea—all overflowed with the revelation of the character of Him who had spoken them into existence. And man, crowned with glory and honor, was placed over the works of His hands. Then “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” as they beheld this new revelation of the beneficence of God. Alas! sin entered and the scene changed. Death like a dark pall settled over the fair face of nature. The winds began to sigh, the forests to fade, and the leaves to wither. Discordant notes marred the harmony. Strife entered; death reigned. Angels ceased to sing, and sorrow filled all heaven.
Man, sold under sin, lost the perfect image of his Maker, and everywhere the manifestation of God’s image was disfigured and well-nigh obliterated. Only dim traces remained. But God would not permit it thus to continue. The plan of redemption was introduced, a plan devised by Omniscience, and adequate in itself to restore the image in both man and his inheritance. But since the desolation began in the mind of man by the exercise of his power of choice, so the restoration must begin in the same place by man’s choosing to permit God’s plan to become operative in his mind, thus renewing it after the image of Him who created him. Those who thus yielded to God became His representatives and took His name, calling themselves the sons of God. Gen. 6:2, 4. Among these we find the patriarchs Seth, Enos, Jared, Enoch, and others, each one of whom in his time and to his generation revealed the character of God to man. Enoch for three hundred years so completely revealed God, his life so fully harmonized with God’s life, that of him the record says, “Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.”
But men, multiplying and spreading over the earth, carried the blight of sin everywhere, until the world teemed with wickedness and the miasma of vice poured out of the sinks of sin, and spread a noxious and infectious cloud over the world, obscuring the light of heaven. Murder stalked high-handed through the land. Crime waded in its own pollution. Finally the flood of waters came and washed away the filth of the world.
Noah, a servant of God, not partaking of the wickedness of men, safely floated upon the surface of the storm-lashed world of sea in the ark which his confidence in God had builded. From Noah and his family the earth was again peopled, and wheat and tares grew side by side. Sin prevailed, and men forgot God. Then God called Abraham out of his own country and from his father’s house, and brought him into the land of Canaan, and established His covenant, saying, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” There is no blessing apart from the name or character of God; hence in the promised Seed of Abraham all the families of the earth must be brought into contact with His name, and thereby be blessed. In this promised Seed, God’s character must be so fully revealed that men may behold it, and by beholding become changed from glory to glory into the same image, until that image shall be completely restored.
This covenant made with Abraham was transferred to Isaac, and confirmed in Jacob, whose posterity we find in Egypt, groaning under galling bondage both physical and spiritual. But God remembered His covenant to Abraham and raised up Moses, to redeem His people. To this people Moses said, “Thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” Deut. 7:6–8. He had chosen them because He would keep the covenant made with their fathers. Hence His purpose in thus selecting them was that through them He might impart to all nations His promised blessing. Since this blessing is found in His name, which expresses His character, and since Israel is to be the agent in imparting this blessing, then must Israel bear His name and reveal His character.
Let us notice the steps taken and the provisions made by the Lord to bring this about. He gave them an invisible leader in the Angel of the Covenant of whom He says, “Behold I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way. . . . Beware of Him, and obey His voice; provoke Him not; . . . for My name is in Him.” Through this One, who was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, He spoke His law to Israel (see Acts 7:37, 38), thus giving them a transcript of His character. Through this One He gave them constant manifestations of His nature. His love, His power, His gentleness, His goodness, yea, all His attributes, He revealed over and over again in His dealings with them.
To Moses, their visible leader, God declared His name and revealed His character; for in response to His request to see the glory of God we read, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee.” “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord, . . . The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” Ex. 33:18, 19; 34:5, 6. But before this when Moses hesitated to undertake the work of representing God before Pharaoh and the people, God reproved him and gave his brother Aaron to be his associate. “He shall be thy spokesman unto the people; and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” Thus commissioned, he went before the people and announced that the I Am had sent him.
At the base of Mount Sinai God declared to Israel, “Keep My covenant,” and “ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” And the people answered, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” O what a glorious, what a wonderful privilege to be unto God a peculiar treasure, to be sons and daughters of the Most High, to bear His name, to receive His character, to be established in a goodly land, and to be blessed above all nations. What a grand and glorious opportunity to be a kingdom of priests, bringing the knowledge of God to the people of the earth, and offering acceptable sacrifices for their sins; to be co-laborers together with God in restoring His image in men; to be dispensers of the blessings promised through the Seed of Abraham. But they forgot God, their Saviour, who did wondrous things in the land of Ham and by the Red Sea. They lost sight of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and misrepresented Him. They sinned; they made a molten image, and bowed down to the gods of Egypt. They ate and drank to the gods of the heathen, and rose up to play. They limited God in the wilderness, so that He could not use the nation to be priests to the world.
But Israel continued to go deeper into sin, and to walk after the abominations of the heathen around them. They followed their desires to mingle with the transgressors, until God gave them over to the result of their own choosing, and they were carried away out of their goodly land, and dispersed among the Gentiles. But even then God did not forget His covenant with Abraham, but through His prophets He held out before them His promises.
Isaiah foretold their return, and in striking symbols and thrilling language described their prosperity under the reign of the coming Messiah, the promised Seed. Daniel and Jeremiah, confessing their sins and the sins of their people, longed to see, and prayed earnestly for, the promised Deliverer. Ezekiel described in detail a grand and magnificent temple which they might build at Jerusalem, and which would ultimately be the house of prayer for all nations. But when the decree for the return came, how few availed themselves of its privilege; and the faltering faith of those who did return laid a foundation for a temple so small that when viewed by the old men who had seen the first temple in her glory, they expressed their disappointment in tears and wailing. But the prophets Haggai and Zechariah sought to encourage the people by telling them that altho this temple was so insignificant in itself, still the Desire of All Nations would grace its courts with His presence, so that the glory of this latter house would exceed that of the former.
The Desire of All Nations did come to that temple, but He found its courts defiled. His glory did fill that house; but those who should have received Him fled from before it, even as transgressors would flee from the face of an avenging judge. “He came unto His own,” but “His own received Him not.” He went about among them slighted, despised, and rejected, until from the brow of Olivet, with hands outstretched in agony, and with every feature of His face expressing pain, sorrow, and anxious longing, He cried, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matt. 23:37, 38. Again weeping over it, He said: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy4children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, ‘My house shall be called an house of prayer for all nations; but ye have made it a den of thieves.’ Luke 19:41–46; Mark 11:17, margin; see also Isa. 56:7; Jer. 7:11.
