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The court where sinful men draw near
In the court God meets the world (I do not speak of the world itself
through which we walk:* this was the desert); but it is where those
coming up out of the world draw near to God, where His people (not as
priests or as saints, but as sinful men) draw near to Him. But in
coming out of the world, it is an enclosure of God's, who is known
only to those who enter therein. There the altar of burnt-offerings
was first found; God manifested in justice as to sin, but in grace to
the sinner, in His relationship with men, in the midst of them, such
as they were. True, it was the judgment of sin, for without this God
could not be in relationship with men; but yet it was Christ in the
perfection of the Spirit of God who offered Himself a sacrifice,
according to that justice, for sin, to put sinners in relationship
with God. He has been lifted up from the earth. Upon earth the
question was as to the possibility of men's relationship with Him who
is holy and living: that could not be. On the cross He is lifted up
from the earth, rejected by the world; nevertheless He does not enter
into heaven. Upon the cross Christ has been raised from this
world — has left it; but He still remains presented to it, the
object of faith as a full satisfaction to the justice of God, as well
as the witness of His love, of the love withal of Him who has
glorified all that God is in this act. He is the object still, I say,
to the eyes of the world, though no longer on it, if, through grace,
one goes there and separates from this world, while God in justice
(for where has this been glorified as in the cross of Jesus?) can
receive according to His glory, and even be glorified there, by the
most wretched of sinners. As regards the approaching sinner, it was
for his guilt and positive sins. In itself the sacrifice went much
further, a sweet savour to God, glorifying Him. The altar of burnt-offerings
It is here then that the altar of burnt-offerings is found, the brazen
altar: God manifested in righteous judgment of sin (meeting however
the sinner in love by the sacrifice of Christ) not in His being
(spiritual and sovereign object of the adoration of saints), but in
His relation with sinners according to His righteousness, measured*
by what their sins were in His sight but where withal sinners present
themselves to Him by that work in which, by the mighty operation of
the Holy Ghost Christ has offered Himself without spot unto Him, has
satisfied all the demands of His righteousness, and more, has
glorified Him in all that He is, and has become that sweet-smelling
savour** (of sacrifice) in which, in coming out of the world, we
draw near to God, and to God in relation with those, sinners in
themselves and owning it, who draw near to Him, but find their sins
gone through the cross on their way; and, besides that, come in this
savour of His sacrifice who made Himself a whole burnt-offering. It
was not the sacrifice for sin burnt outside the camp: there no one
approached. Christ was made sin by God, and all passed between God and
Him; but here we draw near unto God. The priests' service essential, that the light should always shine
All the manifestations of God thus arranged, we come now to the
services that were rendered to Him in the courts, and in the places
where He manifested Himself (Ex. 27:20). The priests were to take
care that the light of the candlestick should be always shining
outside the veil which hid the testimony inside, and during the night;
it was the light of the grace and of the power of God by the Spirit
that manifested God spiritually. It was not Himself upon the throne,
where His sovereign being was keeping the treasure of His
righteousness: that treasure Christ alone, in His Person and in His
nature, could be Himself; nor was it righteousness in His relationship
with sinful man outside the holy place, of which man's duty was the
measure, and for which the law of God gave the rule; but it was a
light, through which He manifested Himself in the power of His grace,
but which applied itself to His relationship with man viewed as holy
or set apart for service to Him, all the while that it was the
manifestation of God. Essentially it was the Holy Ghost. This we see
in the Apocalypse; but it might rest upon Christ as man, and that
without measure; or it might act as from Him, and by His grace in
others, either as the Spirit of prophecy, exclusively so before He
came, or in some other way more abundant and complete, as was the case
after His resurrection and glorifying, when the Holy Ghost Himself
came down. But whatever these manifestations in men may have been in
action, the thing itself was there before God, to manifest Him in the
energy of the Spirit Himself; but the priesthood was essential here
for us,* in order to maintain this relation between the energy of
the Holy Ghost and the service of men in whom He manifested Himself,
in order that the light might shine (Ex. 27:20-21). We find,
therefore, immediately afterwards, the ordinance for the establishment
of the priesthood. |
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