News came to Nehemiah in Shushan, the Persian palace, that the remnant of the Israelites in the land of Israel, now fallen to be a province of the great Medo-Persian Empires was in great affliction and reproach. Moreover the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and its gates burned with fire, a truly lamentable spectacle. Nehemiah on receipt of this distressing report sat down and wept, fasted certain days, and made confession to God of the sins of his nation—sins that had brought with them this heavy visitation of God’s hand.
This then was the man God choose to rebuild the wall and set up its gates. Nehemiah showed his sadness in his face so markedly that King Artaxerxes, whose cupbearer he was, asked him the reason of his grief. Learning why it was he granted him leave of absence, and gave him a letter of instruction to the Keeper of the King’s forest to provide timber for the rebuilding of the wall, etc. Furnished thus, Nehemiah set off on his great task.
Nehemiah 3 gives us an account of the rebuilding of the wall and the setting up of the gates. We may ask what is the teaching to be gathered from the wall and its gates for Christians in this dispensation, for it is its present application that is before us. That a wall and gates have a true and right idea connected with them is evident from the fact that the Holy City of Revelation 21:12 “had a wall great and high and had twelve gates.”
What then is the idea of a wall? It is an erection designed to give protection to those encircled by it, and to keep out enemies and anything inimical to the interests of the city. We see it set forth in plain straightforward language in 1 Corinthians 5:12. The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian saints, says, “For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?” In the assembly of God there is a “within,” where they may experience the protecting hand of God, and exclude evil, so that it may be “without.” There should be no room in a Christian assembly for a fornicator, a covetous person, an idolater, a railer, a drunkard, an extortioner. Such are the instructions of Scripture.
Moreover if a person comes, bringing false doctrines, subversive of the foundations of the Christian faith, he should not be allowed an entrance. See the insistent injunctions in 2 John, given to a Christian lady and her children in such a case. Such an one must not be received even into their private house, nor bidden God speed, else they become “partakers of his evil deeds.”
But what of the gates? They afford entrance, and illustrate how there should be means by which a true soul may find a home in the assembly. Now Nehemiah’s gates afford some real teaching in an allegorical way as to what should find entrance to the assembly and what should characterize those who find a place there. Nay more, these gates by their names favour an orderly application that is profitable. Let us then look at them briefly.
The Sheep Gate
“Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded the sheep gate; they sanctified it and set up the doors of it” (Nehemiah 3:1).
What relation this gate had with sheep beyond its name, we are not informed. But we know that the word, sheep, is used in symbolic language of the believer in Christ. It is so used to show the loving care the Lord Jesus, “that great Shepherd of the sheep” (Heb. 13:20), has for His own. That He cares for His own is seen in the commission given to the once straying but restored Peter, “Feed My lambs … feed My sheep … feed My sheep” (John 21:15-17).
It is true that our Lord led His sheep out of the fold in John 10, never again to re-enter it, and that the protection and gathering power of Christianity lies in a Person, and not in rules and regulations as set forth in the fold, symbolic of Judaism. Whilst this is true and still blessedly true, and true as long as the Church is here on earth, It is likewise true there is an assembly of God’s people on earth with a “within” and a “without,” where God’s people should find a spiritual home and where the discipline and holiness of God’s house is to be maintained. For all this teaching we go principally to the Pauline epistles.
Now it is a basic feeling natural to the renewed mind of the believer to receive all believers and every believer to the privileges of the assembly. And within the limitations of Scripture this is right. Surely every believer, sound in the faith and godly in walk, should find a place in that hallowed circle of God’s assembly on earth. Alas! that it is not so. Churches, sects, denominations, parties, divisions are rampant. But it is well to have God’s idea before us that we may avoid that sectarianism which means subscribing to a peculiar doctrine, or the prominence of a special man, or of some particular form of church government, or of association with the world. We should like the sheep of Christ to carry through the sheep gate the WHOLE word of God without subtraction on the one hand, or on the other adding rules and regulations, whether written or unwritten, not found in the Word of God. Would that the sheep gate were freely used by the sheep!
It is significant that the high priest and his brethren, the priests, built this gate. Does not this remind us that our great High Priest as the Good Shepherd, gave His life for the sheep, and became the Great Foundation of His assembly (1 Cor. 3:11). Then this foundation having been laid in His death, believers are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20). We see this in their labours on the day of Pentecost and on, and formulated in their inspired writings for all time.
The Fish Gate
“The fish gate did the sons of Hassenaah build” (v. 3). And right substantially did they perform their task, for they laid the beams, and set up the doors and locks and bars thereof. Again we are not told what relation fish had to this gate beyond its name. But the connection between fish (the word being used in a symbolic way) and evangelism is very clear in Scripture. Our Lord walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea. He called them, saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). They straightway left their nets and followed Him. Such was the power of His word. And surely it is the echo of that call throughout the ages that has been heard in ten thousand hearts, and has proved the urge for world-wide evangelism. It called forth Andrew and Peter, Paul, Timothy, the early Fathers, Calvin, Farel, Luther, Zwingli, Wesley, Whitefield, Spurgeon, and a list too long to enumerate. It led Carey and Marshman to India; Moffatt and Livingstone and Arnott to Africa; Hudson Taylor to China; Judson to Burmah; Martyn to Persia; Brainerd to the Red Indians roaming over the prairies of America; Gardner to inclement Patagonia; Paton to the New Hebrides. It has called forth the indomitable labours of hundreds of missionaries in producing the Scriptures in whole or in part in over seven hundred languages and dialects, so that the Word of God is a veritable tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
This all sets forth that it is a vital part of the ministry of God’s servants that the Gospel should be preached. If the church ceases to be an evangelical body it ceases to grow or even maintain its footing. Extinguish that spirit and you have no birth rate. Extinguish that spirit and believers degenerate into mere doctrinaires, with no power to reach others, and fade and wither themselves in their own standing. If an assembly, as it were, has no fish gate, it is a fatal and irremediable loss. May it send us to our knees again and again if we find the fish gate has fallen into disuse.
The Old Gate
“Moreover the old gate repaired Jehoiada the son of Paseah, and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah” (v. 6). They, too, did their work well, laying the beams and setting up the doors and the locks. Does not this warn Christians against novelties? One has only to look at Christendom today, and one sees with sorrow truth given up and error being run after, even in circles where once it was maintained. One thing is certain. No truth is new. It may be new to me, but it cannot be new. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20).
It is striking how the apostle John emphasizes “the beginning.” It was said to the fathers—that portion of the family of God that had arrived at maturity in the things of God, men that were settled in their minds concerning Christianity, linking it up with Christ, as the full and final revelation of God—“I write to you fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (1 John 2:13). There can be no addition to that revelation. Nothing can be added to the Person of Christ.
And what was enough for the fathers in the family of God, was enough for the little children, the most immature in God’s family, the most open to the assaults of the enemy. So it is said to them, “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24).
We find the modernist and higher critic battering at the doors of the old gate, causing immense havoc in the church of God, as they seek to undermine the very foundations of the Christian faith. Yet the truth will prevail for “we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth” (2 Cor. 13:8). Yet it is a solemn thing to be wrong ourselves, and lead others into error. Let us see to it that we repair “the old gate;” and refuse novelties that would lead us astray.
The Valley Gate
“The valley gate repaired Hanun, and the inhabitants of Zanoah” (v. 13). Not only are we told about the doors and locks and bars, but that they built of the wall one thousand cubits in length. What do we learn by the term, valley gate? A valley in Scripture is evidently a symbol of lowliness and humility. The voice of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our, Lord, was lifted up, echoing the prophetic words of Isaiah, uttered over seven centuries before, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low … and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:5-6). And the intense mourning in Israel as the result of their awakening to their sin in rejecting their Messiah is likened to “the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon” (Zech. 12:11). Is this not a beautiful picture of the lowliness of mind that ought to characterize Christians in their intercourse one with the other?
If only Diotrophes had passed through that gate his name would not have been handed down for all time as one who loved the pre-eminence; and to secure his position he acted in the flesh, removing every rival out of his way by violence and force. And can a Christian have this spirit if he walks with his Master, who said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls”? (Matt. 11:29). Impossible! May we know how to enter by the valley gate, and that often.
The Dung Gate
“The dung gate repaired Malchiah the son of Rechab, the ruler of part of Beth-haccerem” (v. 14). Dung is not a pleasant subject. It is only filth and corruption, to be got rid of as soon as possible. This is the one gate, we take it, in which it is a question, not of entrance into the city as with all the other gates, but of using it to get rid of something objectionable.
The Apostle Paul knew how to use that gate. He had everything to give confidence in the flesh, birth, parentage, circumcision, education, religiousness. But he met Christ on the highway to Damascus, and thence his values completely charged. Things that were gain to him he counted but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord, nay he counted them but dung that he might win Christ (see Phil. 3:4-9)
The apostle Peter advises the use of the dung gate when he exhorts his readers to lay aside “all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings” (1 Peter 2:1).
The apostle Paul also exhorts his readers, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph. 4:31). Nine-tenths of all trouble among saints can be traced to an unwise and sinful use of the tongue. Each one knows what wrong thoughts we cherish, what unwise words we speak, what ungracious actions we do. May we know how to use the dung gate, and be happier and cleaner by so doing
The Gate of the Fountain
“The gate of the fountain repaired Shallun the son of Coz-hozeh, the ruler of part of Mizpah” (v. 15). In Numbers 21 after the children of Israel had the experience of the brazen serpents typical of the judgment of the flesh, opening up the way for the energy of a new life, we read, “Spring up, O well; sing ye to it” (v. 17). So in John 4:14 our Lord said, “Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” So may this gate not set forth the happy portion of the believer, who has made way for the full enjoyment of heavenly things by honest self-judgment as set forth by the dung gate, and who finds the immense spiritual gain of so doing?
The Water Gate
“Moreover the Nethinims dwelt in Ophel, to the place over against the water gate” (v. 26). Here is it a case of dwelling. No lack of water. No lack of refreshment. And has not the Christian received that which answers to this? Is there not the refreshment of the whole of God’s Word by the Spirit as his portion?
The Horse Gate
“From above the horse gate repaired the priests, every one over against his house” (v. 28). The horse is a symbol of power. Read the graphic description of the horse by the Lord in Job 39:19-25. We quote part of it. “Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? … he paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; he goes on to meet the armed men.” Now the Holy Spirit is given that the believer may have power. The disciples were bidden by our Lord to wait for the promise of the Father—“Until ye be endued with power from on high.” Why are Christians so little marked by power? We are afraid the valley and dung gates are not enough in use, and the way not made plain for the gate of the fountain and the water gate—in other words, on the one side to judge the flesh on the other to walk in the Spirit. There then will be power.
The East Gate
“After him repaired also Shemaiah the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the east gate” (v. 29). We have already referred to Numbers 21. It is interesting that after the brazen serpent incident, type of the judgment of the flesh making way for an inflow of spiritual life, we read that the children of Israel “journeyed … toward the sun-rising” (v. 11). The sun rises in the east. Does it not set forth the Christian, whose heart is bent on heavenly things, with his face towards the glory, recognising that all his hopes are in heaven, waiting for the summoning shout that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, will land him there?
The Gate Miphkad
“After him repaired Malchaiah … over against the gate Miphkad” (v. 31). Miphkad means the place of meeting. How happy it is that God gives His people a place of meeting—an assembly on earth, where our Lord is in the midst of those gathered to His name. “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard; that went down to the skirts of his garment. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing; even life for evermore” (Ps. 133).
How happy to have a taste of this on earth by the earnest of the Spirit, how blessed to reach the meeting place in the glory, all God’s people in happy accord. Then there shall be:
“No stain within; no foes, or snares around;
No jarring notes shall there discordant sound;
All pure without, all pure within the breast;
No thorns to wound, no toil to mar our rest.”
The circuit of the wall accomplished, we reach, where we began, the sheep gate. How good it is to know that all shall be gathered home in our Lord’s presence, with Him and like Him and that for ever.