Israel's Apostasy Does Not Change God's Purpose — His Kingdom Not a Theocracy to Enforce Religion — The People Saved Then as Now, Through the Gospel
THIS is the second of four articles by Mr. Porter showing the relations of the old covenant and the new covenant kingdom of God. Last week he spoke of the kingdom of glory as it was manifested in Eden before the fall of man. He showed that the continuance of that kingdom was dependent upon perfect obedience. He also showed that God had made full and complete arrangements for His kingdom of grace to step in and offer salvation to any of His creatures should they choose to sin. They have ever been left free to choose their own course of action.
Mr. Porter spoke last week of the opportunity afforded Israel at Sinai to reestablish the kingdom of God's glory, and how they agreed to obey, and how they failed, and how the kingdom of God's grace again provided pardon for those who choose to accept it. He spoke of the three thousand who refused the offered pardon and were executed then and there. The same thing would have happened to Adam and Eve in Eden had they not chosen the pardon so kindly offered in the kingdom of God's grace.
The article this week, taken with the one last week, covers the ground of what might be denominated the old covenant kingdom and its manifestations. In the next two papers will be articles dealing more specifically with the new covenant kingdom.
JEHOVAH did not abandon His attempt to develop the kingdom of God, peopled with free subjects, because Satan had invaded the dominion at the beginning in Eden. Neither did He abandon His attempt to develop Israel into a "holy nation," with freedom of choice, because Satan had led the nation into apostasy. For forty years Israel knew what appeared to be God's "breach of promise" to make them a holy nation, until the unbelieving murmurers were sifted out in the wilderness. Then the promise was fulfilled. Num. 14: 34.
FOR AT LEAST ONE GENERATION
The purpose of God in reestablishing with Israel the kingdom of glory and grace at Sinai, was accomplished in the days of Joshua; and a "holy nation," serving God, represented His kingdom before the world for at least one generation. "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that He had done for Israel." Joshua 24: 31. During this time, He established His kingdom with Israel in the promised inheritance.
They were then standing with the kingdom in possession, as was Adam after the introduction of the law of pardon through Christ when the new covenant kingdom of grace was first revealed to Adam. Every soul that went into the promised inheritance was a child of faith. They went in under the leadership of Caleb and Joshua, who were men of triumphant faith. Numbers 14. The Sabbath, which was given to man in the beginning as a sign that the Creator of heaven and earth was the true God, was made known to Israel with the additional significance that Christ, the Creator, was now the Saviour and sanctifier of Israel. Eze. 20: 12.
THEY WERE SATAN'S ATTACKS
The wars against Israel were not ordinary national wars. They were Satan's attacks against the kingdom of God in Israel. God's methods of warfare were such as demanded the exercise of faith. Invisible angels, hornets, rams' horns, lamps and pitchers, were, upon various occasions, His warriors and implements of destruction. The sun stood still about a whole day as an evidence that the Lord was the King who was directing the battles.
In the days of Samuel the nation of Israel had so apostatized that they demanded a king like the nations', instead of God. 1 Sam. 8: 5. God enthroned Saul as king at their request. Samuel protested, but was informed that the people, in choosing Saul, had rejected God from being king of Israel. Verses 6, 7.
At the installation of Saul, Samuel said: "Ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your king. Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired! and, behold, the Lord hath set a king over you." 1 Sam. 12: 12, 13.
God here again makes ridiculous the claim that the object of the old covenant was to enforce His worship and kingship. He gave the people the privilege of rejecting Him as king at any time they chose, while the old covenant kingdom of Israel continued. This also demonstrated that Satan had driven Adam from the throne of earthly dominion, and was attempting to unseat God from the throne of universal dominion. God was now able to demonstrate in part His justice in removing Satan and his angels from heaven. Their rebellion was incurable.
So God must, in the end, remove sin from the universe, or abdicate His throne. Sinners who refuse pardon and cleansing are of necessity removed in the removal of sin.
GOD'S THRONE NOT SURRENDERED
God did not surrender the throne of this earth to Satan when Adam was unseated. Neither did He abandon the throne of Israel when Satan succeeded, through the apostasy of Israel, in unseating Him from the throne of the old covenant kingdom. God still claimed the throne, although it was usurped by Satan for a time.
Saul being the choice of the people, God accepted him as king. After Saul, He chose David, a man after His own heart, and still successfully demonstrated that with a man of His own choosing at the head of the kingdom, as at the beginning, it was possible to administer the affairs of the nation of Israel for a time as a "holy nation."
MINISTRATION OF CONDEMNATION AND DEATH
The old covenant administration, like the original kingdom of God, began with a promise of obedience and an agreement that condemnation and death should be promptly visited upon transgressors. The death penalty was immediately inflicted upon those who did not accept the provisions of pardon, as a demonstration of the destiny of all impenitents after the Judgment. It also revealed how Adam would have been executed the day he sinned if he had not availed himself of the pardon offered through Christ. The administration was therefore a ministration of death.
YOKE OF BONDAGE
Since the kingdom of grace was also reestablished at Sinai, how was the old covenant an unbearable yoke of bondage? Blindness in part had happened to Israel. The blind can not see. So after Israel's later apostasy, they could not see, in the innocent lamb slain for sinners, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Israel in blindness trusted in the ritual law to restore righteousness, and the moral law to preserve righteousness. That was a misconception of the purpose of the laws of both kingdoms. "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." Gal. 3: 24.378
The first duty of a schoolmaster is to teach. But the schoolmaster will not teach unless students will obey the rules of the school. So the added law of pardon, with its sacrificial system of offerings, was designed to teach that Christ alone could offer pardon, as He only had taken the place of the sinner under the death penalty; but Christ could not pardon and justify sinners except upon condition of obedience to the law of God's kingdom. Rom. 2: 13. The sinner was therefore taught from Sinai, as from Adam's fall, that there was no pardon available by works of law.
Paul instructed Israel that if works of law could save from sin, then Christ had died in vain. Gal. 2: 21.
THE LAW OF PARDON ADDED
The law of pardon was added because of transgression. It was added because works of law could not save. It was given to teach that there was salvation only in the voluntary substitution of Christ. It was therefore added because of transgression, until the Seed should come to whom the promise was made. That Seed was Christ. Gal. 3: 19, 16. Every sacrificial lamb offered, declared that the Seed would be seen on Calvary when the death penalty for transgression was voluntarily met in Christ. It was after blindness had perverted this teaching of the new covenant kingdom of grace, as it was associated in types and offerings with the old covenant kingdom through the worldly sanctuary, that it became fleshly, a yoke of bondage, and a persecuting religion. Gal. 4: 19-25.
When Israel had so far apostatized as to prostitute into an inquisition of religious persecution God's plans to save men, God said, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." Verse 30. "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." Verse 29.
THEY NEVER LEGISLATE ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
A spiritual Christianity never legislates upon religious questions. A fleshly religion, a religion with works, persecutes. Cain persecuted Abel. Ishmael persecuted Isaac. The old covenant system was a perfect demonstration that works of law could not save sinners. It further demonstrated that through the apostasy of Adam, the original Edenic kingdom of God would have failed to maintain the kingdom of God in the earth if the kingdom of grace had not been established.
The kingdom of grace, through the new covenant, provided the pardon which the blood of animals, with a human priesthood and mediator, taught but could not provide. They could teach pardon, but they could not bestow the gift of righteousness. When that teaching became perverted, by Israel's seeking righteousness through the works of the law instead of through the faith it taught, it left them in bondage. Human priests and blood of animals were of no avail in removing sin. They could teach of a Saviour, but they could not save. The system was good in that it taught the true standard of holiness in its law, and foreshadowed, through its worldly sanctuary services, redemption through Christ.
THE GOSPEL THEN AND NOW
People were saved then, as now, through the gospel. "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." 1 Cor. 10: 4. "For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Heb. 4: 2. "But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath." Ps. 78: 38. The gospel was then the same as now, and their forgiveness as real as ours.
The manna from heaven and the smitten rock foreshadowed Christ as the bread and water of life. In the time of David, the Lord declared that the throne of David, which was the throne of the Lord, should be the throne of the promised Seed, Christ (Gal. 3: 16), throughout eternal ages. Ps. 89: 35-37. The law of the kingdom of David, which was the law of Ten Commandments spoken from Sinai, unaltered, shall therefore be the law of the eternal kingdom of Christ. Verses 27-34.
ON THE LORD'S THRONE
Thereafter, "Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father." 1 Chron. 29: 23. God still chose the kings, and passed the throne from one to another, until it became so corrupt as basely to misrepresent its King, and failed to present to the world a nation of holy people.
In the days of Zedekiah, B.C. 590, the Lord permitted the Babylonians to deprive the kingdom of Israel of its king. Eze. 12: 8-13; Jer. 52: 8-14. God then declared that the throne should be overturned, overturned, overturned, after which Christ, whose the kingdom is by right, should take it as His own and reign eternally. "And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." Eze. 21: 25-27.
THRICE OVERTURNED
The three overturnings have taken place. And according to Daniel's prophecy, before the ten divisions of the Roman Empire shall pass, the everlasting kingdom of Christ shall come. Until then it will not again be established in this world.
For any nation to undertake to establish the kingdom of Christ in this world before that time, will be for that nation to break with Christ and become a persecuting power, as did Israel in their blindness and apostasy. Human hands will not establish the kingdom of Christ. God will do that without their aid when the set time has come. "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." Dan. 2: 44. R. C. P.
