Such are the actors in the scene of this wondrous Book--angels, Satan, the tried saint, and his brethren, the minister of God in the energy of the Spirit, and the Lord Himself. They hold the place, and do the deeds, which, as we have now seen, all Scripture assigns them respectively.This Book, as I observed before, is an independent Book. The most so, I may add, of any in the inspired volume. In the progress of revelation it intimates nothing before it, nor does any other part of that revelation find it necessary to it. Job's history is not linked with that of the people of God, nor does it advance, in any way, the manifestation of the purposes of God. But stranger and foreigner as it is, it speaks exactly the same language. The same Spirit breathes here, the same light shines here. And this is so, not only in the case of those who are introduced as actors in the scenes, but also in the truths and doctrines assumed or asserted. The corruption of nature as found in the seed of Adam--the value of a sacrifice as a propitiation with God--a coming day of judgment--resurrection and life--these are among the common thoughts here. But more beautiful and striking than all is the knowledge it takes ofthe person and duty of the Kinsman, a mystery well known in Scripture, and, throughout Scripture, largely though silently referred to, when too commonly not perceived--a mystery which shadows all the great truths that are characteristic of the work of our redemption.This subject is too great to be fully considered here, even had I the grace and light to do so. But it is so happy a one, and suggested by our Patriarch's well-known confession of his faith, that I cannot altogether pass it by.Our apostle says, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it." A necessary way of nature is here assumed, and assumed with approval, by the Spirit of God. That regard to one's self which each one of us is ready enough to render, is divinely sanctioned. And then, on this very principle of nature, the apostle goes on to put the Lord's nurture of the Church. "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." Christ is declared to act towards us on this instinctive verdict of nature, that a man is to love his own body. The Holy Ghost, through the apostle, would let our hearts embrace this joy, that the force of this first law of nature is felt by Christ towards us, and the duty it imposes is owned by Him. So that if I can understand my love for myself, I may understand Christ's love to me. The duty I owe myself is acknowledged by my Lord as due by Him to me. He can but nourish and cherish me, as I would nourish and cherish myself.Can any thought, I ask, respecting the place into which the love of the Son of God has brought Him surpass this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection? Impossible. If it could, Christ would embody it, and His Spirit would reveal it, for His love "passeth knowledge." But it cannot.But though this may be the most marvellous expression of this love, yet there is another of the same character. There is another duty owed on the like claims of nature, which in like manner has been adopted and acknowledged by the Lord--the duty of kindred or natural relations.The Lord, the Son of God, became our Kinsman. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." And He became this Kinsman that He might do for the children the duties and services of a Kinsman. And what these duties are, and how the Lord has answered and discharged them, we are told in Scripture.One principal duty was, to ransom a brother or his inheritance, if such or either had been sold.Now such a sold or forfeited condition is ours by nature, under the ruins of Adam. Forfeiture of every thing is the simple idea that holds our natural condition in the just light. We have forfeited life, and with it all things, by the breach of those terms on which we held life, and with it all things. We have incurred the debt of death. "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Adam did eat, and this law demanded death. We sold ourselves under that sentence, and to that penalty, and were debtors to die the death. But our Kinsman has paid the price. Jesus died. He has counted out the money to the uttermost farthing. In the language of the law, eye has gone for eye, life for life, blood for blood. We have not been redeemed by corruptible things as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ. The value of that blood was well tried. The blood of bulls and of goats was not rich enough. It would not do, it could not do. But "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," tells us that He was satisfied who exacted, and could not but exact, the full ransom or redemption-price. And nowwe and our inheritance stand repurchased by our Kinsman.This is the very principal in the great services of Christ for us. It is largely noticed and foreshadowed by the law (Lev. xxv.), but it was understood from the beginning. For sacrifice or vicarious offering proceeded on this principle. And that was made known upon the entrance of sin, or act of forfeiture. The coat of skin which covered Adam bore witness that he stood in the value of a ransom, that the virtue of One who had met the demand of God against him was now upon him.But this is full of blessing--that the great mystery of the Kinsman or Redeemer was known (published by the Lord, and believed by the sinner) ere the law had shadowed it, or prophets proclaimed it.29Another of these duties was this--to rescue or deliver a brother taken captive.In the previous case of ransom or repurchase, the Kinsman had to deal with a rightful claimant, and to answer his demands. His brother or his brother's inheritance had been sold, and had to be repurchased at a price well and justly ascertained, according to the law of estimations. But this duty of rescuing or delivering a brother is different. Here the Kinsman has to do with a stranger or a foe; and by counterforce, or the strength of a stronger arm, to perform this service.But this, also, is our natural condition, our state under the ruins of the fall. And this character of Kinsman-service, the Son of God, partaker of our flesh and blood, renders us.In this, however, His dealing is with our enemy. In the previous case of repurchase He dealt with God, answering His righteous demands for us: here, He answers the enemy for us. For while it is true that we had, through disobedience, incurred the debt of death, the forfeiture of life and all things, so as to need a ransom, it is also true that we had suffered wrong at the hand of the Serpent, out of the results of which, in bondage or captivity to the powers of darkness and corruption, our Redeemer or Kinsman delivers us.It was in this action that the Lord, in the days of His flesh, went through the cities and villages of Israel. As the stronger man He had then entered the strong man's house, spoiling his goods, and unloosing his prisoners. And He will finish such work, and perfect His way as the Kinsman-deliverer, when He, as the plague of death and hell's destruction, rescues His sleeping saints. Then will take place theredemptionof thepurchasedpossession. See Eph. i. 14.And again I may say, Happy is it to know that this way of Christ, this work of our great Kinsman, was also known in patriarchal days. When Abraham heard thathis brotherwas taken captive, he armed his trained servants, and brought again his brother Lot and his goods. Genesis xiv. Five kings may fight with four in the vale of Siddim, the potsherds of the earth may strive with their fellows; all this, in one sense, is no concern of the heavenly stranger, though his tent may be pitched in the neighbourhood. But the way of Christ, which becomes the principle of conduct to His people, is everything to him--and that way must have been then known, the service of the Kinsman-deliverer must have been then quite understood among the elect household, for as soon as Abraham hears of Lot, he is all action in a moment, and goes forth for the rescue of his captured brother.A kindred duty with this was, to avenge the blood of a murdered brother, or relative.This duty was recognized by the law, and kept in memory all through the times of the nation. The ordinance touching the cities of refuge was a relief against the abuse of it; and the famous parable of the woman of Tekoah assumed the fact, that the whole system in Israel took knowledge of it.But, like the others, it was older than the law and the prophets. Notices of Christ and His ways and His doings for us were the earliest manifestations of the mind of God. Happy for our hearts to know this! And, accordingly, this Kinsman-duty had been prescribed in very early days. When the sword was committed to Noah, it was published. "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But it was understood as a divine principle even before then. Cain trembled before this law, which, as his words intimate, must have then been known everywhere. Genesis iv. 14. It was, indeed, a part of the very first promise. "It shall bruise thy head" announced it. For that sentence told the Serpent, that man's Kinsman, the Woman's Seed, would avenge on him the wrongs done by him upon the family. And this duty Christ will perform when He casts the old Serpent, "which is the Devil and Satan," with death and hell, into the lake of fire.30Such are among the duties which a Kinsman, according to the mind and reckoning of the Lord, owed, and such is the glorious performance of them by our great Kinsman. And wondrous is it to be entitled thus to write of Him! wondrous that the necessary and instinctive dictates of nature are suggested by the Holy Ghost as the ground, warrant, and character of the love of Christ to the Saints! that, as I said before, whatever nature tells me I owe myself, that Christ tells me He owes me; and now, I may add, whatever nature tells me my kindred owe me, that also Christ tells me He owes me. And again I ask, Can any thought respecting the place into which the love of the Son of God has brought Him, surpass this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection?The Son of God became our Kinsman for the very end of performing all these Kinsman-services for us. Hebrews ii., I believe, tells us that. And these duties and services embody all the great materials in the mystery of redemption. And, as we have now seen, they have been made known from the beginning. Jesus did not wait till the Law presented Him, in its shadows or swaddling-clothes, to the faith and joy of poor sinners. The Law afterwards gave the things concerning Him a tabernacle, but those things had been made known from the beginning. The fourth day, in the course of creation, brought forth the Sun, which then became the tabernacle of the light, but the light had been abroad through the scene, the light had been shining, from the earliest moment of the first day. Jesus was known in the garden of Eden, and borne on the breath of the very first promise. And cheering this is to our spirits--happy to track these notices of the common faith, these thoughts and truths of God and His covenant, all along the line of the ages, linking the most distant hearts of the elect in the fellowship of one joy, and giving them one song for ever and ever.Among the saints of the earlier days, our Job knew Him in this great character of Kinsman or Redeemer. As rescuing him from the power of death, or from captivity to the grave and corruption, Job celebrates Him. It is a scripture well known, and much delighted in by the saints. And well may it be so. All that ushers it forth to our hearing, and all that sustains and accompanies it while we listen to it, give it an uncommon character."Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."What an apprehension of Christ in both His person and His work is here! It is the faith and hope of our Gospel. Job knew he had a Redeemer, a Redeemer then living, and thereafter to stand upon the earth manifested in flesh, and that this Redeemer would achieve for him a glorious victory over the power of death, and strength of corruption. And all this fine apprehension of Christ is accompanied with the simplest appropriating faith. "Whom I shall see for myself," says Job, "and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." This is the confidence of Paul. This is the liberty that is befitting the full revelation of the grace of God. Paul and Job, in like spirit, knew the glorious redemption, and knew it for themselves. "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me."And what fervency is this with which the Holy Ghost enables the patriarch to set his seal to all this precious confession of his faith! Job would have all men know, and every generation of them, he would publish it far and wide, he would tell it out without a fear that he should ever have to cancel a letter of it, he would engrave it for eternity and have it leaded in the rock, that he knew his Redeemer!What "light of the Lord" was this in which the Patriarch walked! "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." Job walked there long before the house of Jacob, or the prophets of Israel, knew of it. The light was abroad, and the Spirit led the elect into it, from the beginning. And this occasion, recorded in the 19th chapter, was a moment when that light beamed brightly in Job's soul. His face did not then, like Stephen's, shine as an angel's in the presence of his accusers. He had not, in that way, put on the garments of a child of resurrection, but his spirit within was in the regions and liberty and triumph of such a one.This visitation, in the energy of the Holy Ghost, drawing forth this blessed utterance from the heart of the patriarch, was the bow in the cloud for a moment. It shared the path of Job's spirit with the grief and heaviness that it knew so well--as Jeremiah's vision by night, and the Mount of Transfiguration, broke the dreary way of the weeping prophet, and of the adorable "Man of sorrows." Jer. xxxi. 26; Matt. xvii. 2. It was the Spirit's power. The poor sufferer was made to look away from God's dealingswithhim to His doingsforhim. For there is a difference. The one calls the soul into exercise, and often are too unwieldy, beyond the management of our hearts. Very generally they need an interpreter. The other takes the soul into entire liberty. They are so plain that a child may read them. They bear their own meaning on their forehead. They need no interpreter. God's providences, or His dealingswithus, are ofttimes perplexing, as well as tenderly afflicting. God's grace in the Gospel, or His doings for us, are such as cannot either puzzle the thoughts or grieve the heart. They bear their own witness, and tell a tale of devoted, everlasting love, such as it is impossible to mistake.And these are the things we have to do with, every day. If we be oppressed or fatigued by the current course of circumstances, finding them weighty, dark, and intricate, it is our privilege, and our duty too, to pass over, in spirit and in thought, to that calm and sunny atmosphere in which the Gospel, or God's doings for us, ever invest the soul.All this may be seen in Job. That loved and honoured saint is generally seen grappling with God's dealings with him. The hand of God had gone out upon all his interests and enjoyments. Loss of fortune, children, and health, had come, by sore surprise, upon him, and he persists, in the heat and resentment of nature, to keep all this before his mind. But in a moment of the Spirit's power he is made to look away from all this, to turn from God's dealingswithhim to God's doingsforhim; and then he triumphs. Then he can contemplate more than the boils on his body, even the worms destroying it; but all is light and triumph. Then, in the face of all enemies, he can sit and sing in spirit, If God be for me, who can be against me? Romans viii.Truly blessed is this. The tempter would lead us to judge of God by the dark shadings of many a passage of our history here. But the Spirit would have us acquaint ourselves with Him in the beauteous light of the Gospel, the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ; and there is light there and no darkness at all--no shadows which have to be chased away, no dimness that needs to be interpreted.But this rather by the way--I have already traced certain combinations between this earliest and most independent portion of the book of God and all other parts of it, whether near or distant. And very establishing to the heart this is. But such combinations or harmonies may be traced still further--in thescenes of action, as well as in theactors in the scenes.There are "heaven" and "earth" here, as in all Scripture; each, too, having its "day" or special occasion. See i. 4, 6, 13; ii. 1. There are also "this present evil world," and "the world to come." At the opening of the action the scene is laid in this present evil world. It is but domestic, but all the features of the great world are seen in it. For each family circle, like every heart, is a little world. Indulgence and the love of enjoyment appear in the children, and something of the common "enmity against God" in the wife of our patriarch. Then, again, there arenaturalcalamities, as from wind and fire and disease; and there arerelativecalamities, as from the hand of our neighbour or fellow-men, as Sabeans and Chaldeans. And all this is the various casualty of life and human circumstance to this hour. There is stroke upon stroke, messenger after messenger, turning over every page of the history. It is but human lifetheninstead ofnow, but the same life in its losses, crosses, and sore contradictions. There is a little reality, a little of the "friend in need" who "is a friend indeed," but there is a great deal of scorn and desertion in the hour of calamity, still so well known in the world. Job has three friends who sit with him among his ashes and potsherds, but all beside see him afar off.Is not all this "the present evil world" drawn to the life?But at the close of the action, the scene is laid in "the world to come," God's world and not man's, the world which His energies are to form, and His principles are to fill. It is the time of refreshing and restitution. In the 42nd chapter of our Book, we are, in spirit, in the Millennium. The Holy Ghost gives us this account of it. "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord," are the words which introduce His allusion to "the patience of Job," and to "the end of the Lord." The husbandman toils in hope, and gets his fruit in harvest, or in resurrection. And so did Job endure, till, at last, he that sowed reaped. The 42nd chapter is the harvest of the husbandman. James v. 7-11.And happy, I may say, is this further witness to the value which a spirit of confession and repentance has with our God, beloved. As it is written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" and again, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." For I doubt not, that it was to Job's few words of confession and repentance that the Lord referred when He turned to the friends and told them, that they had not spoken of Him the thing that was right, like His servant Job. They had not made confession at the end, as he had done. And let us cherish this assurance. There are comfort and strength in it. The language of repentance prevails. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself," says Jehovah--and then came the divine compassion: "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." Or, as we may learn from Hosea, words of confession and repentance from Israel, in the latter day, mightily prevail with God. "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely," is the divine answer, with a rich and beautiful chapter of promises.The consolation of this! the tale it tells us of grace, unwearied, long-suffering grace! And accordingly Job flourishes again. The Lord is as the dew to him. He grows as the lily, his branches spread, his beauty is as the olive tree, his scent as Lebanon. In "the end of the Lord" he is seen as "in the regeneration," or day of the kingdom, and even others dwell under his shadow, reviving as the corn, and growing as the vine. See Hosea xiv.31Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."Such an one was our Patriarch. And such an one he had learnt himself to be. In the school of God he had now learnt his calling, as in the experience of his own soul. But a great lesson it is. A great difference, I am full sure, between having God in the midst of our circumstances, and God as Himself the first and great circumstance. The first was Job's way at the beginning. He would not have been without God. He owned Him, and gave Him an altar in the family scene. But he had not said to Him, Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us. He had not, as Abram did afterward,come out from circumstances with God, trusting Him to surround him with His own circumstances. The power to do this cries, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." For such was the utterance of a saint when his soul had come forth from the tempest and temptation of seeing himself second to the wicked in the conditions and circumstances of life here. Ps. lxxiii.What a voice this truth has for us! Some may listen to it forcomfort, others of us of feebler faith forwarning. The world and pride and selfishness form the circumstances out of which the call of God summons us; and religion, in a sense, may have brought God into them; but faith, in its simplicity, forms the other, and God has not to be brought into them, for He is there from the beginning, the great Framer or Artificer of them all.One repeats this truth, for it is, as I judge, the great secret of this Book. Our Job at the end learnt the power of the call of God. And this, I may say, imparts a just and spiritual bearing to all he now does, as well as invests his whole estate with the beauty and stability of millennial days.He was, at the beginning, as aprophet,priest, andking, and so is he again, at the end. But he is so after a new order, exercising his different functions more according to the mind of God. As aprophet, he had, at the beginning, too confidently assumed to be the interpreter of God and His ways; but now he says, "I will demand of Thee, and declare Thou unto me." He will be a disciple of the Lord, ere he teach others; he will have his ear opened, ere his tongue be loosed. Isa. 50. 4. Such is the purifying of his prophetic ministry. He will know nothing, save as he learns it from God. His doctrine is nothisnow. As apriest, at the beginning, he had stepped in between God and his children, to heal probable or dreaded breaches. But he does not seem to wash his own clothes, while sprinkling the purifying water on others. Num. xix. 21. He wanted to remember that he himself was also in the body, temptable like the weakest. Gal. vi. 1. But now he isacceptedhimself. Job xlii. 9; Ezek. xiv. 14, 20. As aking, his honours now come after his afflictions, his glories after his sufferings; and also after he prayed for his friends, is his captivity turned. He exercises grace, ere he is again entrusted with power--all this being according to the great originals. "Ye are they which have continued with Me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto Me."In these ways, he is prophet, priest, and king,after anew order, and all is refined in the furnace, like gold tried in the fire.And he is the father of a family again, a family also, as I may again say, of a new order--nothing has to be corrected among them, but all is in happy, holy fellowship, the heart of the father turned to the children, and the heart of the children to their father. At the beginning he had to watch their ways, and provide for the evil they might have committed. But at the end there is nothing of this; their father has only to see them with admiration and delight. They awakenedfearat first, but nowcontentment.And further, in this beautiful millennial or resurrection scene, which thus closes this story, the stormy wind is hushed, and the lightning of the thunder strikes no more. In this day of a second Noah, such as Job was (the lord of a new world), the waters which once "prevailed" are now "assuaged." And the Chaldeans and Sabeans no longer spoil the spoil, and prey the prey. There is "no adversary nor evil occurrent," no "Canaanite in the house of the Lord" now. Nothing hurts or destroys in all the holy mountain. The Lord delivers His people from those who served themselves of them.All this is pledged and pictured for us here. And what may be said to be of still deeper value to us, the great enemy himself, the ready and wishful agent of all the mischief and sorrow that had come in, is gone likewise. At the beginning he is in the action, exercising himself as an accuser in heaven, and as a tormentor on earth. And it is for the comfort of the tried saint, that the hand of both God and the enemy are engaged in his trial; the enemy (as here with our patriarch) seeking to cast his crown to the ground, and to cast his fair memorial with God in the dust, the Lord purposing (and performing it) to brighten that crown, and still further to bless the heir of those dignities and joys. It is a comfort to the saint, in the day of trial, to remember this. But, at the end, the enemy is gone. The purpose, in the wisdom of God, for which he had been used, is answered, and he is gone. The discipline of Job had ceased as in his destruction.Satan had understood Job. He knew the workings of that corrupt nature, which his own lie had formed in the garden of Eden. He had said, "Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not Thou made an hedge about him?... Touch all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.... Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." And serious and terrible is the thought, beloved, that he knows us so thoroughly, and understands the springs of thought and will within us. But though he thus understandsJob, he did not understandGod. The counsels of grace are above him. And by reason of this, he has been always, in the history of this world, defeating himself, while thinking that he was getting advantage of us; for he has to meet God in the very thing he does, and the purposes he plans, against us. When he interfered with Adam in the garden, he encountered God to his confusion, and the promise to Adam announced his own doom. When he provoked David to number the people, Ornan's threshing-floor was disclosed, and the spot where mercy rejoiced against judgment becomes the place of the temple. When he sifted the Apostles as wheat, he was answered by the prayer of Jesus, and, instead of faith failing, brethren were strengthened. And, above all, when he touched Jesus on the cross, the very death he inflicted was his own perfect and accomplished ruin. So, in every trouble which he brings on any of us, he finds, or is to find, sooner or later, that he has met the mighty God, and not the feeble saint. He entered Job's nest that he might spoil it, and leave it driven and wasted. He came into another garden then. But God was there as well as his servant Job, and in the end Satan is confounded.Thus is it with the saints and their enemy. They shall take the kingdom, and in the kingdom Satan shall have no place. Out of the trials which he had raised around them and against them, they come forth to wear their crowns, and sing their songs. And, instead of his appearing again "among the sons of God," the mighty angel shall lay hold on him, and cast him into the bottomless pit.32This is full of blessing--and this is millennial blessing, shadowed here in this beautiful story. But there is more. There will be no question in the millennial heavens about the saints, as there was about Adam in the garden, and about Job in the beginning of this Book. The tree of knowledge tested the creature whom God had just made. But in the age of the resurrection, in the heavens where Job and all the children of the resurrection will be, there will be no such test. There will be no question about man. There will be silence in heaven as to man, for the great Kinsman has answered all questions, and man is glorified there.Such are the changes which have arisen, ere we leave this divine, inspired story. Has not thetrialof faith beenprecious, as St. Peter speaks, when we can talk of such changes? The enemy is gone. His ministers, or messengers, the wind and the fire, the Chaldeans and Sabeans, take their commission no more. Job, too, has changed his mind, and made his confession to God--his friends have changed their mind, and humbled themselves to him. But there is One who abides the same. He has no step to retrace, no word to recall, no deed of His hand, or counsel of His heart, to alter or repent of. Other scriptures tell of Him, that He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," and that with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And this precious tale about Him and His doings so illustrates and exhibits Him.There is never entire calmness, or the absence of all haste and distraction, where we are not conscious that ourstrength is equal to our business, whatever it may be. Nor is there, when we are not equally conscious ofintegrity or righteousness in that business. The consciousness of both righteousness and strength is needed in order to fit the hand to do a deed, or the foot to take a step, with entire ease.Now we know that this ease marks all the ways and operations of God. He is ever at work (to speak after the manner of men) in the full possession of this undistractedness of which we are speaking. We might judge this from the necessary glory of His godhead. But the ways of Jesus on earth always exhibited this, and He, as we know, was God manifest in the flesh. And this ease and calmness, in which all the operations of God proceed, tell us, that though they may to us appear strange and even wilful, as Job thought them, yet is He able to interpret them every one, so as to be justified in His sayings, and clear when He is judged. And this is happy. "The bud may have a bitter taste," and "blind unbelief is sure to err." These things are so. But "God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." We know how our Job was tried--deeply, variously, and, as might be thought, wantonly, needlessly; for he walked in the fear of God, and in the service of his generation. But "the end of the Lord" is more than vindication. It is display. The trial is found to be unto praise and honour and glory. The light of the coming day, rebuke what it may, will have only to set off and reflect the excellency of Him with whom we have to do.Thus have we lingered, for a little, over these bright notices of millennial days, "the days of heaven upon earth," which shine at the close of this lovely as well as serious and instructive tale of patriarchal times. But there is more.At the beginning, Job held all his blessings with reserve and suspicion. He was not in safety, nor at rest, nor in quiet; yet trouble came. "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me," says he, "and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." It must needs be so. The instability with which departure from God has affected every possession and every profit here makes this necessary. But, at the end, there are no "fears within," any more than Chaldeans or "fightings without." No shadow crosses the settled sunshine that rests on all around him, or the calm light which fills all within.And further--his kinsfolk and acquaintance, at the end, seek him again. They ought, indeed, never to have deserted him. For we deceive ourselves if we think that we must be right if wegrievethose whom God isdisciplining. This is often very far indeed from being the case. The Lord said in Zechariah, "I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction." So also is Isaiah xlvii. 6--and so Obadiah 10-14, to the same effect. We are more commonly, perhaps, in God's mind, and act as the living vessels of the Spirit, whensoothingsuch. And sure I am it was so in Job's case. Had his former friends known God's way, they would have dealt very differently with him. They would not have left him. The very fact that "the hand of God" had touched him, as he so deeply expresses it, would have been the occasion of "pity," as he further says, from his friends.However, as part of the bright sunshine that gladdens his estate at the end, his kinsfolk and acquaintance again seek him. And they do so tocongratulateas well as tocompassionatehim. And if they talk to him of past griefs, it is but to heighten his present joy--as Israel afterwards, in their triumphant feast of Tabernacles, might make booths and sit under them, in grateful remembrance of wilderness-days.All these are happy reverses, and the latter end of our patriarch is twice as good as his beginning. But among all the gladdening anticipations which shine in the latter page of this history there is none which more captivates the heart thanthe reconciliation. The patriarch and his brethren, as the narrative largely tells us, and as we well know, had sadly fallen out by the way, as they walked along the high road of "this present evil world;" but as soon as they enter "the age to come," the strife of tongues and stir of war are heard and seen no more.This is truly welcome to the heart. For what joy will it be to be delivered of selfishness and pride, and many other workings of an ungenerous and perverted nature. How are the pleasures of the heart spoiled by such robbers continually! What a thing a page of history is! What a record of the agitations of envy and ambition and revenge! Is it not misery thus to see men "hateful, and hating one another," and then to remember that we are still alive and active in the midst of the same elements? But another thing is in our prospect; and it is the way of the wisdom and grace of God again and again, in the progress of His Word, as here in the 42nd chapter of Job, to give us a mystic picture of it. Then man, asdeceived by Satan, shall give place; and man, asanointed by God, shall prevail. Then shall be known the joy of getting out of such darkness into such light, of beholding the Sun again, after centuries of midnight gloom.We know from Scripture that great physical virtue will attend this coming kingdom. As prophets sing, the wilderness "shall rejoice and blossom as the rose"--the lame shall leap as the hart, the tongue of the dumb shall sing, the cow and the bear shall feed together, and the wolf shall lie down with the kid. Nature in all its order shall own the presence of the Lord. The floods shall clap their hands, the trees of the wood shall rejoice, before Him. As creation has already felt the bondage of corruption, it shall then feel the liberty of glory.It will be as though dormant sensibilities had all been suddenly awakened. It will be as the sweeping of an exquisite instrument with a master hand. It will be thesamecreation, but under new authority, new influences. Let but the sons of God be manifested, and the whole system shall spring into new conditions and consciousness.And soman, when the powers of that coming age take him up as their subject. Let but the passage be made from this present evil world into the world to come, and new principles will at once gild and furnish the scene, and givemoralenjoyments (which are the richest of all) to all personal and social life.This will be the touching of an instrument of still finer workmanship. The system around the vegetable and animal world is susceptible of such forms of beauty and of order as may make it all the vivid, happy reflection of divine goodness and wisdom; but in the renewed mind of man there lie latent powers and affections of nothing less than the divinest texture. In its present condition it has to struggle with nature, and to suffer sore let and hindrance from the flesh. It is oppressed and encumbered by a gross atmosphere. But it has capabilities of acting, judging, and feeling of the highest order. And let but the due influences reach it in power, those sensibilities and faculties will be all awakened, and forms of moral beauty throughout all personal and social life will show themselves. What a hope for the spirit tried in conflict with the flesh! It will be the same "new creature" that now is: only in other conditions. Not oppressed and clouded, but, as it were, breathing its native air.Scripture gives us many a witness of such moral virtue and enjoyment in the millennial age. It is one of the most delightful occupations of the mind of Christ in us, to hear these witnesses, in their mystic language, deliver their testimony.The Father of Israel and the Gentiles are seen together, for a moment, in Genesis xxi. And their communion was a sample of the holy, happy intercourse of Israel and the nations, in the coming days of the kingdom. Questions which before had divided and disturbed them are now all settled. The well of water, which had been the occasion of strife, is now a witness of the oath or covenant. All pure social affections adorn this communion of Abraham and Abimelech; and they part under pledged and plighted friendship. Abraham's grove, in principle, makes the desert to bloom, and his altar makes the earth a sanctuary; but his way with Abimelech, and Abimelech's with him, give that bright moment its dearest and highest character. For there are no enjoyments likemoralenjoyments, no pleasures like those of theheart.So in Exodus xviii. The heavenly and the earthly families are seen together, under the type of Jethro and the ransomed tribes, at the mount of God. And all is full of moral beauty. And yet the materials which make up the scene had been, in other and earlier days, very differently minded towards each other. Moses and Zipporah had parted in anger, the last time they had met, and the congregation had been murmuring again and again. But now the mount of God has influences for them, and from the highest to the least, from Jethro down to the most distant parts of the camp, all is in the power of godly order, subjection, and fellowship.Then again, that generation that lived in the closing days of David and in the early days of Solomon exhibit the same. They had been numbering each other to the sword, in the wood of Ephraim, but the sword is turned into a ploughshare now. The days of Solomon were, typically or in spirit, millennial days, and sweet and surprising virtue attends them. Instead of going forth again to the field of battle, they sit, every man with his neighbour, under the vine and under the fig-tree. "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry."Are not thesemoraltransfigurations? And how blessed they are! Pass but the border. Leave man's day for the Lord's day. Breathe the air of the Mount of God--and all this moral renovation, with its countless springs and streams of social felicity, shall be tasted, ever fresh and ever pure. 'Tis but a little while and all this shall be. Thesamebrethren, who may now be a trial to one another, like our Job and his friends, shall then heighten and enlarge each other's joy. And in the earthly places, "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim." Pride and selfishness shall have ceased to depreciate, as they do now, with all their companion lusts and wickednesses, the pleasures of the heart.This patriarchal story, on which we have now been meditating, more ancient than, and as illustrious as, any of these inspired records, gives us a like sample of millennial days. Job and his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, are the same Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the samepersons. And they are no longer contending, but united brethren. They have ascended the mount at the end; and there lies all the difference. And barren indeed our hearts must be of every gracious affection, and dead to all godly emotions, if we hail not such a prospect.He who by His blood did long ago break down all partition walls, and who is now, by His Spirit, giving believers common access to the Father, will by-and-by, with His own hand, join the stick of Ephraim and the stick of Judah, and make them one there. Ezekiel xxxvii. 16. His Israel on the earth shall see "eye to eye," for the light and the joy of Zion's salvation shall be passed, with holy speed, from the messengers on the mountains to the watchmen of the city, and from them to the people, and from the people to the nations (Isaiah lii. 7-9)--and, among the heavenly people, the children of the resurrection, like Job and his friends, "that which is in part shall be done away, and that which is perfect shall come."THE CANTICLES."Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee."This was the devout breathing of the king of Israel (the penman, too, of this little book to which we are now proposing, in the Lord's grace, to introduce ourselves), when the glory had come to fill the house which he had builded.But so it was. The Son of God, Jehovah's Fellow, He that was with God and was God, was manifest in flesh, and conversed with us here. He dwelt with men on the earth. He tabernacled among us. He was Jesus. We knew Him as such. He was aMan, and a Friend, and a Master, and a Companion. He invited confidence. He sought sympathy and imparted it. And, as aMan, we know Him still--as truly a Man amid the brightest glories of heaven now, as once He was a Man amid the ruins and sorrows of earth--as able, through sympathy, to understand the sufferings of His saints still, as when He walked the streets and highways here, bearing our griefs and carrying our sicknesses.And what will He be even for ever? StillJesus Christ. Dominion of all things will be His as aMan. The scene may change the second time, from the present temple in heaven to the kingdom of glory, as at first it changed from the cities and villages here to the temple on high, but it is "theManChrist Jesus" who passes from scene to scene. Precious mystery! Manhood having been once taken up, will never be given up. A temple has been found for the glory, a vessel for the blessing, a person for the manifestation, an instrument for the exercise of power and government, suited to the counsels of divine wisdom and to the purposes of divine goodness.
Such are the actors in the scene of this wondrous Book--angels, Satan, the tried saint, and his brethren, the minister of God in the energy of the Spirit, and the Lord Himself. They hold the place, and do the deeds, which, as we have now seen, all Scripture assigns them respectively.
This Book, as I observed before, is an independent Book. The most so, I may add, of any in the inspired volume. In the progress of revelation it intimates nothing before it, nor does any other part of that revelation find it necessary to it. Job's history is not linked with that of the people of God, nor does it advance, in any way, the manifestation of the purposes of God. But stranger and foreigner as it is, it speaks exactly the same language. The same Spirit breathes here, the same light shines here. And this is so, not only in the case of those who are introduced as actors in the scenes, but also in the truths and doctrines assumed or asserted. The corruption of nature as found in the seed of Adam--the value of a sacrifice as a propitiation with God--a coming day of judgment--resurrection and life--these are among the common thoughts here. But more beautiful and striking than all is the knowledge it takes ofthe person and duty of the Kinsman, a mystery well known in Scripture, and, throughout Scripture, largely though silently referred to, when too commonly not perceived--a mystery which shadows all the great truths that are characteristic of the work of our redemption.
This subject is too great to be fully considered here, even had I the grace and light to do so. But it is so happy a one, and suggested by our Patriarch's well-known confession of his faith, that I cannot altogether pass it by.
Our apostle says, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it." A necessary way of nature is here assumed, and assumed with approval, by the Spirit of God. That regard to one's self which each one of us is ready enough to render, is divinely sanctioned. And then, on this very principle of nature, the apostle goes on to put the Lord's nurture of the Church. "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." Christ is declared to act towards us on this instinctive verdict of nature, that a man is to love his own body. The Holy Ghost, through the apostle, would let our hearts embrace this joy, that the force of this first law of nature is felt by Christ towards us, and the duty it imposes is owned by Him. So that if I can understand my love for myself, I may understand Christ's love to me. The duty I owe myself is acknowledged by my Lord as due by Him to me. He can but nourish and cherish me, as I would nourish and cherish myself.
Can any thought, I ask, respecting the place into which the love of the Son of God has brought Him surpass this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection? Impossible. If it could, Christ would embody it, and His Spirit would reveal it, for His love "passeth knowledge." But it cannot.
But though this may be the most marvellous expression of this love, yet there is another of the same character. There is another duty owed on the like claims of nature, which in like manner has been adopted and acknowledged by the Lord--the duty of kindred or natural relations.
The Lord, the Son of God, became our Kinsman. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." And He became this Kinsman that He might do for the children the duties and services of a Kinsman. And what these duties are, and how the Lord has answered and discharged them, we are told in Scripture.
One principal duty was, to ransom a brother or his inheritance, if such or either had been sold.
Now such a sold or forfeited condition is ours by nature, under the ruins of Adam. Forfeiture of every thing is the simple idea that holds our natural condition in the just light. We have forfeited life, and with it all things, by the breach of those terms on which we held life, and with it all things. We have incurred the debt of death. "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Adam did eat, and this law demanded death. We sold ourselves under that sentence, and to that penalty, and were debtors to die the death. But our Kinsman has paid the price. Jesus died. He has counted out the money to the uttermost farthing. In the language of the law, eye has gone for eye, life for life, blood for blood. We have not been redeemed by corruptible things as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ. The value of that blood was well tried. The blood of bulls and of goats was not rich enough. It would not do, it could not do. But "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," tells us that He was satisfied who exacted, and could not but exact, the full ransom or redemption-price. And nowwe and our inheritance stand repurchased by our Kinsman.
This is the very principal in the great services of Christ for us. It is largely noticed and foreshadowed by the law (Lev. xxv.), but it was understood from the beginning. For sacrifice or vicarious offering proceeded on this principle. And that was made known upon the entrance of sin, or act of forfeiture. The coat of skin which covered Adam bore witness that he stood in the value of a ransom, that the virtue of One who had met the demand of God against him was now upon him.
But this is full of blessing--that the great mystery of the Kinsman or Redeemer was known (published by the Lord, and believed by the sinner) ere the law had shadowed it, or prophets proclaimed it.29
Another of these duties was this--to rescue or deliver a brother taken captive.
In the previous case of ransom or repurchase, the Kinsman had to deal with a rightful claimant, and to answer his demands. His brother or his brother's inheritance had been sold, and had to be repurchased at a price well and justly ascertained, according to the law of estimations. But this duty of rescuing or delivering a brother is different. Here the Kinsman has to do with a stranger or a foe; and by counterforce, or the strength of a stronger arm, to perform this service.
But this, also, is our natural condition, our state under the ruins of the fall. And this character of Kinsman-service, the Son of God, partaker of our flesh and blood, renders us.
In this, however, His dealing is with our enemy. In the previous case of repurchase He dealt with God, answering His righteous demands for us: here, He answers the enemy for us. For while it is true that we had, through disobedience, incurred the debt of death, the forfeiture of life and all things, so as to need a ransom, it is also true that we had suffered wrong at the hand of the Serpent, out of the results of which, in bondage or captivity to the powers of darkness and corruption, our Redeemer or Kinsman delivers us.
It was in this action that the Lord, in the days of His flesh, went through the cities and villages of Israel. As the stronger man He had then entered the strong man's house, spoiling his goods, and unloosing his prisoners. And He will finish such work, and perfect His way as the Kinsman-deliverer, when He, as the plague of death and hell's destruction, rescues His sleeping saints. Then will take place theredemptionof thepurchasedpossession. See Eph. i. 14.
And again I may say, Happy is it to know that this way of Christ, this work of our great Kinsman, was also known in patriarchal days. When Abraham heard thathis brotherwas taken captive, he armed his trained servants, and brought again his brother Lot and his goods. Genesis xiv. Five kings may fight with four in the vale of Siddim, the potsherds of the earth may strive with their fellows; all this, in one sense, is no concern of the heavenly stranger, though his tent may be pitched in the neighbourhood. But the way of Christ, which becomes the principle of conduct to His people, is everything to him--and that way must have been then known, the service of the Kinsman-deliverer must have been then quite understood among the elect household, for as soon as Abraham hears of Lot, he is all action in a moment, and goes forth for the rescue of his captured brother.
A kindred duty with this was, to avenge the blood of a murdered brother, or relative.
This duty was recognized by the law, and kept in memory all through the times of the nation. The ordinance touching the cities of refuge was a relief against the abuse of it; and the famous parable of the woman of Tekoah assumed the fact, that the whole system in Israel took knowledge of it.
But, like the others, it was older than the law and the prophets. Notices of Christ and His ways and His doings for us were the earliest manifestations of the mind of God. Happy for our hearts to know this! And, accordingly, this Kinsman-duty had been prescribed in very early days. When the sword was committed to Noah, it was published. "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But it was understood as a divine principle even before then. Cain trembled before this law, which, as his words intimate, must have then been known everywhere. Genesis iv. 14. It was, indeed, a part of the very first promise. "It shall bruise thy head" announced it. For that sentence told the Serpent, that man's Kinsman, the Woman's Seed, would avenge on him the wrongs done by him upon the family. And this duty Christ will perform when He casts the old Serpent, "which is the Devil and Satan," with death and hell, into the lake of fire.30
Such are among the duties which a Kinsman, according to the mind and reckoning of the Lord, owed, and such is the glorious performance of them by our great Kinsman. And wondrous is it to be entitled thus to write of Him! wondrous that the necessary and instinctive dictates of nature are suggested by the Holy Ghost as the ground, warrant, and character of the love of Christ to the Saints! that, as I said before, whatever nature tells me I owe myself, that Christ tells me He owes me; and now, I may add, whatever nature tells me my kindred owe me, that also Christ tells me He owes me. And again I ask, Can any thought respecting the place into which the love of the Son of God has brought Him, surpass this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection?
The Son of God became our Kinsman for the very end of performing all these Kinsman-services for us. Hebrews ii., I believe, tells us that. And these duties and services embody all the great materials in the mystery of redemption. And, as we have now seen, they have been made known from the beginning. Jesus did not wait till the Law presented Him, in its shadows or swaddling-clothes, to the faith and joy of poor sinners. The Law afterwards gave the things concerning Him a tabernacle, but those things had been made known from the beginning. The fourth day, in the course of creation, brought forth the Sun, which then became the tabernacle of the light, but the light had been abroad through the scene, the light had been shining, from the earliest moment of the first day. Jesus was known in the garden of Eden, and borne on the breath of the very first promise. And cheering this is to our spirits--happy to track these notices of the common faith, these thoughts and truths of God and His covenant, all along the line of the ages, linking the most distant hearts of the elect in the fellowship of one joy, and giving them one song for ever and ever.
Among the saints of the earlier days, our Job knew Him in this great character of Kinsman or Redeemer. As rescuing him from the power of death, or from captivity to the grave and corruption, Job celebrates Him. It is a scripture well known, and much delighted in by the saints. And well may it be so. All that ushers it forth to our hearing, and all that sustains and accompanies it while we listen to it, give it an uncommon character.
"Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."
What an apprehension of Christ in both His person and His work is here! It is the faith and hope of our Gospel. Job knew he had a Redeemer, a Redeemer then living, and thereafter to stand upon the earth manifested in flesh, and that this Redeemer would achieve for him a glorious victory over the power of death, and strength of corruption. And all this fine apprehension of Christ is accompanied with the simplest appropriating faith. "Whom I shall see for myself," says Job, "and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." This is the confidence of Paul. This is the liberty that is befitting the full revelation of the grace of God. Paul and Job, in like spirit, knew the glorious redemption, and knew it for themselves. "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
And what fervency is this with which the Holy Ghost enables the patriarch to set his seal to all this precious confession of his faith! Job would have all men know, and every generation of them, he would publish it far and wide, he would tell it out without a fear that he should ever have to cancel a letter of it, he would engrave it for eternity and have it leaded in the rock, that he knew his Redeemer!
What "light of the Lord" was this in which the Patriarch walked! "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." Job walked there long before the house of Jacob, or the prophets of Israel, knew of it. The light was abroad, and the Spirit led the elect into it, from the beginning. And this occasion, recorded in the 19th chapter, was a moment when that light beamed brightly in Job's soul. His face did not then, like Stephen's, shine as an angel's in the presence of his accusers. He had not, in that way, put on the garments of a child of resurrection, but his spirit within was in the regions and liberty and triumph of such a one.
This visitation, in the energy of the Holy Ghost, drawing forth this blessed utterance from the heart of the patriarch, was the bow in the cloud for a moment. It shared the path of Job's spirit with the grief and heaviness that it knew so well--as Jeremiah's vision by night, and the Mount of Transfiguration, broke the dreary way of the weeping prophet, and of the adorable "Man of sorrows." Jer. xxxi. 26; Matt. xvii. 2. It was the Spirit's power. The poor sufferer was made to look away from God's dealingswithhim to His doingsforhim. For there is a difference. The one calls the soul into exercise, and often are too unwieldy, beyond the management of our hearts. Very generally they need an interpreter. The other takes the soul into entire liberty. They are so plain that a child may read them. They bear their own meaning on their forehead. They need no interpreter. God's providences, or His dealingswithus, are ofttimes perplexing, as well as tenderly afflicting. God's grace in the Gospel, or His doings for us, are such as cannot either puzzle the thoughts or grieve the heart. They bear their own witness, and tell a tale of devoted, everlasting love, such as it is impossible to mistake.
And these are the things we have to do with, every day. If we be oppressed or fatigued by the current course of circumstances, finding them weighty, dark, and intricate, it is our privilege, and our duty too, to pass over, in spirit and in thought, to that calm and sunny atmosphere in which the Gospel, or God's doings for us, ever invest the soul.
All this may be seen in Job. That loved and honoured saint is generally seen grappling with God's dealings with him. The hand of God had gone out upon all his interests and enjoyments. Loss of fortune, children, and health, had come, by sore surprise, upon him, and he persists, in the heat and resentment of nature, to keep all this before his mind. But in a moment of the Spirit's power he is made to look away from all this, to turn from God's dealingswithhim to God's doingsforhim; and then he triumphs. Then he can contemplate more than the boils on his body, even the worms destroying it; but all is light and triumph. Then, in the face of all enemies, he can sit and sing in spirit, If God be for me, who can be against me? Romans viii.
Truly blessed is this. The tempter would lead us to judge of God by the dark shadings of many a passage of our history here. But the Spirit would have us acquaint ourselves with Him in the beauteous light of the Gospel, the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ; and there is light there and no darkness at all--no shadows which have to be chased away, no dimness that needs to be interpreted.
But this rather by the way--I have already traced certain combinations between this earliest and most independent portion of the book of God and all other parts of it, whether near or distant. And very establishing to the heart this is. But such combinations or harmonies may be traced still further--in thescenes of action, as well as in theactors in the scenes.
There are "heaven" and "earth" here, as in all Scripture; each, too, having its "day" or special occasion. See i. 4, 6, 13; ii. 1. There are also "this present evil world," and "the world to come." At the opening of the action the scene is laid in this present evil world. It is but domestic, but all the features of the great world are seen in it. For each family circle, like every heart, is a little world. Indulgence and the love of enjoyment appear in the children, and something of the common "enmity against God" in the wife of our patriarch. Then, again, there arenaturalcalamities, as from wind and fire and disease; and there arerelativecalamities, as from the hand of our neighbour or fellow-men, as Sabeans and Chaldeans. And all this is the various casualty of life and human circumstance to this hour. There is stroke upon stroke, messenger after messenger, turning over every page of the history. It is but human lifetheninstead ofnow, but the same life in its losses, crosses, and sore contradictions. There is a little reality, a little of the "friend in need" who "is a friend indeed," but there is a great deal of scorn and desertion in the hour of calamity, still so well known in the world. Job has three friends who sit with him among his ashes and potsherds, but all beside see him afar off.
Is not all this "the present evil world" drawn to the life?
But at the close of the action, the scene is laid in "the world to come," God's world and not man's, the world which His energies are to form, and His principles are to fill. It is the time of refreshing and restitution. In the 42nd chapter of our Book, we are, in spirit, in the Millennium. The Holy Ghost gives us this account of it. "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord," are the words which introduce His allusion to "the patience of Job," and to "the end of the Lord." The husbandman toils in hope, and gets his fruit in harvest, or in resurrection. And so did Job endure, till, at last, he that sowed reaped. The 42nd chapter is the harvest of the husbandman. James v. 7-11.
And happy, I may say, is this further witness to the value which a spirit of confession and repentance has with our God, beloved. As it is written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" and again, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." For I doubt not, that it was to Job's few words of confession and repentance that the Lord referred when He turned to the friends and told them, that they had not spoken of Him the thing that was right, like His servant Job. They had not made confession at the end, as he had done. And let us cherish this assurance. There are comfort and strength in it. The language of repentance prevails. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself," says Jehovah--and then came the divine compassion: "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." Or, as we may learn from Hosea, words of confession and repentance from Israel, in the latter day, mightily prevail with God. "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely," is the divine answer, with a rich and beautiful chapter of promises.
The consolation of this! the tale it tells us of grace, unwearied, long-suffering grace! And accordingly Job flourishes again. The Lord is as the dew to him. He grows as the lily, his branches spread, his beauty is as the olive tree, his scent as Lebanon. In "the end of the Lord" he is seen as "in the regeneration," or day of the kingdom, and even others dwell under his shadow, reviving as the corn, and growing as the vine. See Hosea xiv.31
Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."
Such an one was our Patriarch. And such an one he had learnt himself to be. In the school of God he had now learnt his calling, as in the experience of his own soul. But a great lesson it is. A great difference, I am full sure, between having God in the midst of our circumstances, and God as Himself the first and great circumstance. The first was Job's way at the beginning. He would not have been without God. He owned Him, and gave Him an altar in the family scene. But he had not said to Him, Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us. He had not, as Abram did afterward,come out from circumstances with God, trusting Him to surround him with His own circumstances. The power to do this cries, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." For such was the utterance of a saint when his soul had come forth from the tempest and temptation of seeing himself second to the wicked in the conditions and circumstances of life here. Ps. lxxiii.
What a voice this truth has for us! Some may listen to it forcomfort, others of us of feebler faith forwarning. The world and pride and selfishness form the circumstances out of which the call of God summons us; and religion, in a sense, may have brought God into them; but faith, in its simplicity, forms the other, and God has not to be brought into them, for He is there from the beginning, the great Framer or Artificer of them all.
One repeats this truth, for it is, as I judge, the great secret of this Book. Our Job at the end learnt the power of the call of God. And this, I may say, imparts a just and spiritual bearing to all he now does, as well as invests his whole estate with the beauty and stability of millennial days.
He was, at the beginning, as aprophet,priest, andking, and so is he again, at the end. But he is so after a new order, exercising his different functions more according to the mind of God. As aprophet, he had, at the beginning, too confidently assumed to be the interpreter of God and His ways; but now he says, "I will demand of Thee, and declare Thou unto me." He will be a disciple of the Lord, ere he teach others; he will have his ear opened, ere his tongue be loosed. Isa. 50. 4. Such is the purifying of his prophetic ministry. He will know nothing, save as he learns it from God. His doctrine is nothisnow. As apriest, at the beginning, he had stepped in between God and his children, to heal probable or dreaded breaches. But he does not seem to wash his own clothes, while sprinkling the purifying water on others. Num. xix. 21. He wanted to remember that he himself was also in the body, temptable like the weakest. Gal. vi. 1. But now he isacceptedhimself. Job xlii. 9; Ezek. xiv. 14, 20. As aking, his honours now come after his afflictions, his glories after his sufferings; and also after he prayed for his friends, is his captivity turned. He exercises grace, ere he is again entrusted with power--all this being according to the great originals. "Ye are they which have continued with Me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto Me."
In these ways, he is prophet, priest, and king,after anew order, and all is refined in the furnace, like gold tried in the fire.
And he is the father of a family again, a family also, as I may again say, of a new order--nothing has to be corrected among them, but all is in happy, holy fellowship, the heart of the father turned to the children, and the heart of the children to their father. At the beginning he had to watch their ways, and provide for the evil they might have committed. But at the end there is nothing of this; their father has only to see them with admiration and delight. They awakenedfearat first, but nowcontentment.
And further, in this beautiful millennial or resurrection scene, which thus closes this story, the stormy wind is hushed, and the lightning of the thunder strikes no more. In this day of a second Noah, such as Job was (the lord of a new world), the waters which once "prevailed" are now "assuaged." And the Chaldeans and Sabeans no longer spoil the spoil, and prey the prey. There is "no adversary nor evil occurrent," no "Canaanite in the house of the Lord" now. Nothing hurts or destroys in all the holy mountain. The Lord delivers His people from those who served themselves of them.
All this is pledged and pictured for us here. And what may be said to be of still deeper value to us, the great enemy himself, the ready and wishful agent of all the mischief and sorrow that had come in, is gone likewise. At the beginning he is in the action, exercising himself as an accuser in heaven, and as a tormentor on earth. And it is for the comfort of the tried saint, that the hand of both God and the enemy are engaged in his trial; the enemy (as here with our patriarch) seeking to cast his crown to the ground, and to cast his fair memorial with God in the dust, the Lord purposing (and performing it) to brighten that crown, and still further to bless the heir of those dignities and joys. It is a comfort to the saint, in the day of trial, to remember this. But, at the end, the enemy is gone. The purpose, in the wisdom of God, for which he had been used, is answered, and he is gone. The discipline of Job had ceased as in his destruction.
Satan had understood Job. He knew the workings of that corrupt nature, which his own lie had formed in the garden of Eden. He had said, "Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not Thou made an hedge about him?... Touch all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.... Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." And serious and terrible is the thought, beloved, that he knows us so thoroughly, and understands the springs of thought and will within us. But though he thus understandsJob, he did not understandGod. The counsels of grace are above him. And by reason of this, he has been always, in the history of this world, defeating himself, while thinking that he was getting advantage of us; for he has to meet God in the very thing he does, and the purposes he plans, against us. When he interfered with Adam in the garden, he encountered God to his confusion, and the promise to Adam announced his own doom. When he provoked David to number the people, Ornan's threshing-floor was disclosed, and the spot where mercy rejoiced against judgment becomes the place of the temple. When he sifted the Apostles as wheat, he was answered by the prayer of Jesus, and, instead of faith failing, brethren were strengthened. And, above all, when he touched Jesus on the cross, the very death he inflicted was his own perfect and accomplished ruin. So, in every trouble which he brings on any of us, he finds, or is to find, sooner or later, that he has met the mighty God, and not the feeble saint. He entered Job's nest that he might spoil it, and leave it driven and wasted. He came into another garden then. But God was there as well as his servant Job, and in the end Satan is confounded.
Thus is it with the saints and their enemy. They shall take the kingdom, and in the kingdom Satan shall have no place. Out of the trials which he had raised around them and against them, they come forth to wear their crowns, and sing their songs. And, instead of his appearing again "among the sons of God," the mighty angel shall lay hold on him, and cast him into the bottomless pit.32
This is full of blessing--and this is millennial blessing, shadowed here in this beautiful story. But there is more. There will be no question in the millennial heavens about the saints, as there was about Adam in the garden, and about Job in the beginning of this Book. The tree of knowledge tested the creature whom God had just made. But in the age of the resurrection, in the heavens where Job and all the children of the resurrection will be, there will be no such test. There will be no question about man. There will be silence in heaven as to man, for the great Kinsman has answered all questions, and man is glorified there.
Such are the changes which have arisen, ere we leave this divine, inspired story. Has not thetrialof faith beenprecious, as St. Peter speaks, when we can talk of such changes? The enemy is gone. His ministers, or messengers, the wind and the fire, the Chaldeans and Sabeans, take their commission no more. Job, too, has changed his mind, and made his confession to God--his friends have changed their mind, and humbled themselves to him. But there is One who abides the same. He has no step to retrace, no word to recall, no deed of His hand, or counsel of His heart, to alter or repent of. Other scriptures tell of Him, that He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," and that with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And this precious tale about Him and His doings so illustrates and exhibits Him.
There is never entire calmness, or the absence of all haste and distraction, where we are not conscious that ourstrength is equal to our business, whatever it may be. Nor is there, when we are not equally conscious ofintegrity or righteousness in that business. The consciousness of both righteousness and strength is needed in order to fit the hand to do a deed, or the foot to take a step, with entire ease.
Now we know that this ease marks all the ways and operations of God. He is ever at work (to speak after the manner of men) in the full possession of this undistractedness of which we are speaking. We might judge this from the necessary glory of His godhead. But the ways of Jesus on earth always exhibited this, and He, as we know, was God manifest in the flesh. And this ease and calmness, in which all the operations of God proceed, tell us, that though they may to us appear strange and even wilful, as Job thought them, yet is He able to interpret them every one, so as to be justified in His sayings, and clear when He is judged. And this is happy. "The bud may have a bitter taste," and "blind unbelief is sure to err." These things are so. But "God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." We know how our Job was tried--deeply, variously, and, as might be thought, wantonly, needlessly; for he walked in the fear of God, and in the service of his generation. But "the end of the Lord" is more than vindication. It is display. The trial is found to be unto praise and honour and glory. The light of the coming day, rebuke what it may, will have only to set off and reflect the excellency of Him with whom we have to do.
Thus have we lingered, for a little, over these bright notices of millennial days, "the days of heaven upon earth," which shine at the close of this lovely as well as serious and instructive tale of patriarchal times. But there is more.
At the beginning, Job held all his blessings with reserve and suspicion. He was not in safety, nor at rest, nor in quiet; yet trouble came. "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me," says he, "and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." It must needs be so. The instability with which departure from God has affected every possession and every profit here makes this necessary. But, at the end, there are no "fears within," any more than Chaldeans or "fightings without." No shadow crosses the settled sunshine that rests on all around him, or the calm light which fills all within.
And further--his kinsfolk and acquaintance, at the end, seek him again. They ought, indeed, never to have deserted him. For we deceive ourselves if we think that we must be right if wegrievethose whom God isdisciplining. This is often very far indeed from being the case. The Lord said in Zechariah, "I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction." So also is Isaiah xlvii. 6--and so Obadiah 10-14, to the same effect. We are more commonly, perhaps, in God's mind, and act as the living vessels of the Spirit, whensoothingsuch. And sure I am it was so in Job's case. Had his former friends known God's way, they would have dealt very differently with him. They would not have left him. The very fact that "the hand of God" had touched him, as he so deeply expresses it, would have been the occasion of "pity," as he further says, from his friends.
However, as part of the bright sunshine that gladdens his estate at the end, his kinsfolk and acquaintance again seek him. And they do so tocongratulateas well as tocompassionatehim. And if they talk to him of past griefs, it is but to heighten his present joy--as Israel afterwards, in their triumphant feast of Tabernacles, might make booths and sit under them, in grateful remembrance of wilderness-days.
All these are happy reverses, and the latter end of our patriarch is twice as good as his beginning. But among all the gladdening anticipations which shine in the latter page of this history there is none which more captivates the heart thanthe reconciliation. The patriarch and his brethren, as the narrative largely tells us, and as we well know, had sadly fallen out by the way, as they walked along the high road of "this present evil world;" but as soon as they enter "the age to come," the strife of tongues and stir of war are heard and seen no more.
This is truly welcome to the heart. For what joy will it be to be delivered of selfishness and pride, and many other workings of an ungenerous and perverted nature. How are the pleasures of the heart spoiled by such robbers continually! What a thing a page of history is! What a record of the agitations of envy and ambition and revenge! Is it not misery thus to see men "hateful, and hating one another," and then to remember that we are still alive and active in the midst of the same elements? But another thing is in our prospect; and it is the way of the wisdom and grace of God again and again, in the progress of His Word, as here in the 42nd chapter of Job, to give us a mystic picture of it. Then man, asdeceived by Satan, shall give place; and man, asanointed by God, shall prevail. Then shall be known the joy of getting out of such darkness into such light, of beholding the Sun again, after centuries of midnight gloom.
We know from Scripture that great physical virtue will attend this coming kingdom. As prophets sing, the wilderness "shall rejoice and blossom as the rose"--the lame shall leap as the hart, the tongue of the dumb shall sing, the cow and the bear shall feed together, and the wolf shall lie down with the kid. Nature in all its order shall own the presence of the Lord. The floods shall clap their hands, the trees of the wood shall rejoice, before Him. As creation has already felt the bondage of corruption, it shall then feel the liberty of glory.
It will be as though dormant sensibilities had all been suddenly awakened. It will be as the sweeping of an exquisite instrument with a master hand. It will be thesamecreation, but under new authority, new influences. Let but the sons of God be manifested, and the whole system shall spring into new conditions and consciousness.
And soman, when the powers of that coming age take him up as their subject. Let but the passage be made from this present evil world into the world to come, and new principles will at once gild and furnish the scene, and givemoralenjoyments (which are the richest of all) to all personal and social life.
This will be the touching of an instrument of still finer workmanship. The system around the vegetable and animal world is susceptible of such forms of beauty and of order as may make it all the vivid, happy reflection of divine goodness and wisdom; but in the renewed mind of man there lie latent powers and affections of nothing less than the divinest texture. In its present condition it has to struggle with nature, and to suffer sore let and hindrance from the flesh. It is oppressed and encumbered by a gross atmosphere. But it has capabilities of acting, judging, and feeling of the highest order. And let but the due influences reach it in power, those sensibilities and faculties will be all awakened, and forms of moral beauty throughout all personal and social life will show themselves. What a hope for the spirit tried in conflict with the flesh! It will be the same "new creature" that now is: only in other conditions. Not oppressed and clouded, but, as it were, breathing its native air.
Scripture gives us many a witness of such moral virtue and enjoyment in the millennial age. It is one of the most delightful occupations of the mind of Christ in us, to hear these witnesses, in their mystic language, deliver their testimony.
The Father of Israel and the Gentiles are seen together, for a moment, in Genesis xxi. And their communion was a sample of the holy, happy intercourse of Israel and the nations, in the coming days of the kingdom. Questions which before had divided and disturbed them are now all settled. The well of water, which had been the occasion of strife, is now a witness of the oath or covenant. All pure social affections adorn this communion of Abraham and Abimelech; and they part under pledged and plighted friendship. Abraham's grove, in principle, makes the desert to bloom, and his altar makes the earth a sanctuary; but his way with Abimelech, and Abimelech's with him, give that bright moment its dearest and highest character. For there are no enjoyments likemoralenjoyments, no pleasures like those of theheart.
So in Exodus xviii. The heavenly and the earthly families are seen together, under the type of Jethro and the ransomed tribes, at the mount of God. And all is full of moral beauty. And yet the materials which make up the scene had been, in other and earlier days, very differently minded towards each other. Moses and Zipporah had parted in anger, the last time they had met, and the congregation had been murmuring again and again. But now the mount of God has influences for them, and from the highest to the least, from Jethro down to the most distant parts of the camp, all is in the power of godly order, subjection, and fellowship.
Then again, that generation that lived in the closing days of David and in the early days of Solomon exhibit the same. They had been numbering each other to the sword, in the wood of Ephraim, but the sword is turned into a ploughshare now. The days of Solomon were, typically or in spirit, millennial days, and sweet and surprising virtue attends them. Instead of going forth again to the field of battle, they sit, every man with his neighbour, under the vine and under the fig-tree. "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry."
Are not thesemoraltransfigurations? And how blessed they are! Pass but the border. Leave man's day for the Lord's day. Breathe the air of the Mount of God--and all this moral renovation, with its countless springs and streams of social felicity, shall be tasted, ever fresh and ever pure. 'Tis but a little while and all this shall be. Thesamebrethren, who may now be a trial to one another, like our Job and his friends, shall then heighten and enlarge each other's joy. And in the earthly places, "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim." Pride and selfishness shall have ceased to depreciate, as they do now, with all their companion lusts and wickednesses, the pleasures of the heart.
This patriarchal story, on which we have now been meditating, more ancient than, and as illustrious as, any of these inspired records, gives us a like sample of millennial days. Job and his three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, are the same Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the samepersons. And they are no longer contending, but united brethren. They have ascended the mount at the end; and there lies all the difference. And barren indeed our hearts must be of every gracious affection, and dead to all godly emotions, if we hail not such a prospect.
He who by His blood did long ago break down all partition walls, and who is now, by His Spirit, giving believers common access to the Father, will by-and-by, with His own hand, join the stick of Ephraim and the stick of Judah, and make them one there. Ezekiel xxxvii. 16. His Israel on the earth shall see "eye to eye," for the light and the joy of Zion's salvation shall be passed, with holy speed, from the messengers on the mountains to the watchmen of the city, and from them to the people, and from the people to the nations (Isaiah lii. 7-9)--and, among the heavenly people, the children of the resurrection, like Job and his friends, "that which is in part shall be done away, and that which is perfect shall come."
THE CANTICLES.
"Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee."
This was the devout breathing of the king of Israel (the penman, too, of this little book to which we are now proposing, in the Lord's grace, to introduce ourselves), when the glory had come to fill the house which he had builded.
But so it was. The Son of God, Jehovah's Fellow, He that was with God and was God, was manifest in flesh, and conversed with us here. He dwelt with men on the earth. He tabernacled among us. He was Jesus. We knew Him as such. He was aMan, and a Friend, and a Master, and a Companion. He invited confidence. He sought sympathy and imparted it. And, as aMan, we know Him still--as truly a Man amid the brightest glories of heaven now, as once He was a Man amid the ruins and sorrows of earth--as able, through sympathy, to understand the sufferings of His saints still, as when He walked the streets and highways here, bearing our griefs and carrying our sicknesses.
And what will He be even for ever? StillJesus Christ. Dominion of all things will be His as aMan. The scene may change the second time, from the present temple in heaven to the kingdom of glory, as at first it changed from the cities and villages here to the temple on high, but it is "theManChrist Jesus" who passes from scene to scene. Precious mystery! Manhood having been once taken up, will never be given up. A temple has been found for the glory, a vessel for the blessing, a person for the manifestation, an instrument for the exercise of power and government, suited to the counsels of divine wisdom and to the purposes of divine goodness.