As we look back on the history of man in this world as given to us in the holy Scriptures, it is a sad tale of breakdown, failure and ruin. In every position in which man has been placed by God he has failed, and brought dishonour on the Name of the Lord, but there have been announcements and prophecies from God to cheer the hearts of His people, and these have clearly indicated that God had in reserve One who would recover all for Himself, and secure His glory in relation to every position in which the first man has dishonoured Him. In recovering all for God the Son of God has done much more, bringing added glory to God and giving Him infinite pleasure in Man, and securing in Him all His eternal counsels in which the first man had no part or place.
The First Man, Adam
How much was involved in the fall of Adam! The creature that God had set up in innocency was guilty of disobedience against the commandment of God, sin had entered into his nature, he had gone into the distance from God and was alienated against Him, and as the head of the lower creation all that was under him was brought down with him. The acceptance of the word of Satan in preference to the word of God was an offence against God’s majesty, for it involved accepting the devil as the god of this world. Moreover there was the entry of spiritual and moral death into the world to be followed with death that removed the sinner from the world into which God had brought him. Driven from the earthly paradise, and from access to the tree of life, man’s only hope lay in what God announced to the tempter regarding the coming Seed of the woman.
When we turn to Jesus, the Son of God, the Seed of the woman, the Second Man, we see the One who recovers all for the glory of God and the blessing of His creature. If Adam was disobedient unto death, Jesus was obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8). If Adam fell when tempted in the most attractive circumstances, the Son of God triumphed over the tempter when he was hungry, and in the wilderness. If by Adam sin entered into the world, by Christ the Lamb of God the sin of the world will be taken away. If by Adam man is expelled from the earthly paradise, by Christ man can enter the heavenly paradise of God. If under Adam’s headship the lower creation is brought down and into ruin, under the Headship of Christ there will be a universe of bliss, where there is no curse and no groan, and where God will be glorified. Moreover, on the ground of the death of Christ, an entirely new creation will be brought into being, where sin cannot enter, and where all is for the eternal pleasure of God.
Noah and Government
After God had been compelled to deluge the world with a flood because of man having filled the earth with violence and corruption, He established Noah as the governor of the earth, putting the sword in his hand, and putting the fear and dread of man upon the creatures of the earth. Before long the man who was put in control of the earth fails to govern himself, and under the influence of drink was exposed in shame. It is little wonder that Noah had no control over the men who built the tower of Babel, and that idolatry came into the world in his days.
God’s remedy in the midst of the ruin and idolatry that developed in the days of Noah was to call Abraham out from it, though this would take place shortly after Noah had died, perhaps within eighty years. When God called Abraham He promised to bless him, but added, “and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). From Galatians 3:16 we learn that the promise referred to Christ, the One who shall govern the nations, bringing blessing to them in the millennial day.
Israel Under the Law
Israel were a highly favoured people, being delivered from the bondage of Egypt, and brought to God. According to the promises given to Abraham, God undertook to bring Israel into the land of Canaan, but proposed the law to them at the foot of Sinai, which Israel not knowing their inability to keep it, said they would fulfil all its demands. Alas! even before the two tables of the covenant were brought down from the mount by Moses, Israel had broken the law, and the righteous judgment of God fell upon the idolaters, the nation being spared by the intercession of Moses. Time and again Israel fell into sin in the wilderness only to be spared by Moses interceding for them.
Before they ever entered the land, Moses, in Deuteronomy 18: warned Israel of the abominations practised by the inhabitants lest they should be ensnared in their evil ways. Alas! as we follow the history of Israel we see that this is what transpired, and caused them to be driven out of the land. Yet God brought back a remnant in the days of Zerubbabel to prepare for the coming of Messiah, the One of whom Moses wrote in the same chapter as the one in which the warnings were given, saying, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto me; unto Him shall ye hearken” (Deut. 18:15). Here is the One that God had in reserve to bring blessing to His people Israel who failed so miserably under the law.
Failure of the Priesthood
It would seem that for the first seven days of Aaron’s priesthood that all went well, for it is written, “So Aaron and his sons did all things which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses” (Lev. 8:36), but on the eighty day failure came in, for “Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer…and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not, and there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1-2). Verse 9 of this chapter suggests that it was under the influence of wine or strong drink that the sons of Aaron dishonoured the Lord and brought His judgment upon themselves.
The failure of the priesthood was emphasised in the days of Eli, of whom the Lord said to Samuel, “his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not” (1 Sam. 3:13). Eli had rebuked his sons, but he had not restrained them, and God sent a messenger to him to reprove him and to tell him that He would judge his sons (1 Sam. 2:34). Then the man of God said, speaking the word of the Lord, “I will raise me up a faithful priest…and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever” (verse 35). This word was fulfilled in the days of Solomon, as recorded in 1 Kings 26, 27, when Abiathar was thrust out of the priesthood and Zadok put into his office. Yet surely there is in the prophecy God’s answer in Christ to the failure of the priesthood, Him who is now a priest after the order of Melchisedec, interceding for us in the presence of God, and who will soon come forth to sit as Priest upon His throne (Zech. 6:13).
Failure of the King
King Saul, who was chosen by Israel as their king, failed by disobedience just as Adam had failed, and Samuel said to him, “thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord has sought Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him captain over His people, because thou hast not yet kept that which the Lord commanded thee” (1 Sam. 13:14; 15:22-23). God’s resource for the throne of Israel was in David and the son of David, yea in David’s Son and David’s Lord, for Solomon was the type of the King in whose hand all would prosper for the glory of God and the blessing of His people Israel.
Even David, good king that he was, failed grievously, and had to be chastened of the Lord in His righteous government; and Solomon, because of his sacrificing to the strange gods of his wives, was the cause of the division of the kingdom (1 Kings 11:8–13). David, in speaking his last words, foresaw in Christ the true King, One who “ruling in the fear of God” would be just and as “the light of the morning” (2 Sam. 23:3-4). How beautifully is Christ portrayed as God’s King in such Psalms as 45 and 72. When Ahaz brought idolatry into Judah, after the division of the kingdom, God spoke of Immanuel, the son of the virgin, His resource for His people.
Universal dominion was brought in through the failure of Israel, and God raised up Nebuchadnezzar to chastise His people and other nations, and give him to be the head of a world empire. This great monarch, filled with pride, was brought low by God, living like a beast for seven years until he learned that God was supreme. In a dream, interpreted by Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar learned that God would destroy all the world empires, and set up “a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed,” This is God’s answer to the failure of every world empire, and God made known to Daniel in a vision that the Son of Man would rule over this kingdom, for “there was given to Him” universal and “everlasting dominion” (Dan. 7:13-14).
The Failure of the Returned Remnant
Jeremiah had foretold that the captivity of Judah under Nebuchadnezzar would last for seventy years (Jer. 25:11), and Isaiah had also written long before that the Lord would use Cyrus the king of Persia to command the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and of the temple (Isa. 44:28). The return of the remnant under Zerubbabel began this work, which was completed by Nehemiah. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, tell us of the exercises and trials of the remnant after they had come back to the land.
Very soon after the worship of God had been re-established in Jerusalem the condition of the remnant sadly declined, as is seen in the prophecy of Malachi. The Name of the Lord was despised by the priests who offered polluted bread on Jehovah’s altar, and the people called in question the love of Jehovah for them, and the Lord had to say to His people, “Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation” (Mal. 1:2, 7; 3:9). Even the words of the people were stout against their God, they called the proud happy, and said “they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered” (Mal. 3:13–15).
In the midst of all this failure and turning away from the Lord there was a remnant within the returned remnant that “feared the Lord” and “spake often one to another” (Mal. 3:16). The Lord took notice of the faithful, and they would be spared when the judgment of God was poured out upon the guilty. It was a dark day, but it would not always be dark for God’s people, for unto them that feared God’s Name would “the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings” (Mal. 4:2). God’s answer to the evil and to the righteous would be found in Christ in the day of His coming, a day for which His saints even now await even if first of all He will come, the bright and Morning Star, to rapture His church to be with Him, and like Him, for ever.
All Things Reconciled to God
From Colossians 1:20 we learn that Jesus, “having made peace through the blood of His cross” will yet reconcile all things, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, to the Godhead. So that there will not only be the recovery of all that has failed, and been estranged from God through the sin of man, but the spheres of heavenly rule and government that have been estranged will be brought back to God. The heavenly, fallen intelligences that have caused the estrangement will be removed by Christ’s power, and their spheres of authority will be filled by Christ. The full results of Christ’s death will be seen in the eternal state where all things exist for the unbroken pleasure of the Godhead.
Not only will all be recovered through Christ, and in Christ, but God will have gained far more than ever had been lost. Adam failed in his headship over Eve, but Christ has brought glory to God in His Headship of the body, the assembly. Adam failed in his headship over the lower creation, but God will be glorified as the Head over all things in relation to the assembly. Moreover, Christ as Man is the Head of every principality and authority, God having thus triumphed in placing Man over all the great intelligences in the vast universe. All the glory connected with every position that man in Adam has brought into ruin will be more than recovered in Christ, and the glory of redemption has been added to the glories of God, a glory in which God will be displayed in His great love, His compassions, the exceeding riches of His grace, and in the wonders of His wisdom and counsels.
R. 22.3.69