All Scripture has come to us as writing from God, the Old Testament writings being spoken of as “the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). Sometimes there was a divine command for the writing, as when the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in a book” (Ex. 17:14), but whether it was by direct command, or in some other way, the different books of the Old Testament and the New are the writings of the Spirit of God, a human pen being used to convey God’s message to men. Because of this the words of the Old Testament are spoken of as the word or witness of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 3:7; 10:15). There are however direct references to God Himself writing, and some of these we shall consider.
The Writing of the Law
After Israel had been brought out of Egypt through the delivering power of God, and brought to Himself at Sinai, God proposed to the people that the law, with its commandments, should be the ground of their relationship with Him. Until that time God had dealt with them in sovereign grace, showing them nothing but goodness in spite of all their waywardness and murmuring. To accept such a ground of relationship with God but proved that Israel had no true conception of their own sinfulness and weakness, for had they realised the true state of their hearts they would surely have shrunk in horror from considering that God’s blessing of them should depend on their unfailing obedience to His every command.
The giving of the law was a new departure in God’s ways with His people, and this is signified in the manner that the covenant was ratified. After the people had said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Ex. 19:8), on Mount Sinai there were “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud…and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud,” and it caused the people to tremble (verses 16). After the book of the covenant was read to all the people, again they said, “All that the Lord has said will we do,” and the blood of the covenant was sprinkled upon them (Ex. 24:3–8), so that they bound themselves in a covenant of blood to keep every word of the divine commandments.
Moses then went up the mount to God, and God “gave to Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). The importance of the occasion of the introduction of the law is surely emphasised by God condescending to write upon the tables of stone the commandments with His own finger. It was indeed a momentous occasion, for God, in His wisdom, was bringing home to men through the law their utterly sinful condition, and their inability to procure divine blessing on the basis of human righteousness.
It did not require a long period of time to prove what Israel was, for before Moses came down from the presence of God they were worshipping a golden calf, and in doing so broke the very first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” They had made a graven image for themselves in the likeness of a creature, provoking the creator the God of Israel to jealousy. Had not Moses interceded for them they must all have perished at the foot of the mount.
Moses, with divinely given instinct, broke the tables at the foot of Sinai before they came into the camp, else there would have been no hope for the people. The sin and folly of Israel brought the plague upon them, though God, in His mercy, limited the judgment. After another session on the mount with God, Moses brought again two tables of stone, which he had hewed, and upon which God wrote the words of the law (Ex. 34:28). There was no going back from the covenant of blood, but a merciful God brought in the sacrificial system that made provision for sins of ignorance, and for the Lord to continue with Israel on the ground of shed blood. Every sacrifice pointed forward to the time when Christ would come, and with His sacrifice of infinite worth secure the glory of God regarding sin, and lay the basis in redemption for a new covenant with Israel and for the blessing of all who have faith in God and His Son.
The Writing on the Wall
On account of their departure from God, Israel was led captive among the nations. Idolatry, corruption of all kinds, and violence, marked both the houses of Israel. First, the ten tribes were taken captive by the king of Assyria, then the two tribes were removed from the land by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. God’s glory had departed from Jerusalem, as depicted in the Book of Ezekiel, and the dominion of the kings of the earth had been given into the hand of the great Gentile monarch whom God had used for the chastisement of His people, and for punishing other wicked nations. It was during his reign of absolute monarchy that Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever He will” (Dan. 4:25).
God’s discipline on Nebuchadnezzar had been very severe, but he learned his lesson, saying, “I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honoured Him that lives for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom from generation to generation” (verse 34). Alas! this was not the attitude of Belshazzar who succeeded to the throne of Babylon, and who profanely drank from the vessels belonging to the house of God at Jerusalem while praising “the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone” (Dan. 5:1–4). It was a challenge to the living God which He answered in His own way.
While the unholy feast was in progress, the armies of the Medes and Persians, which God had been preparing for His service were marching on Babylon, and God brought the revelry to a close as the “fingers of a man’s hand…wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace” (verse 5). What a mighty change came over the profane monarch as God intervened to meet the dishonour done to His holy Name, for “the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”
Instead of crying to God for His mercy and pardon, the king “cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers,” offering them great rewards if they could interpret the writing of God upon the wall. Not one of the world’s wise men could read God’s writing, but God had His interpreter at hand, and Daniel in his accustomed faithfulness rejected the king’s gifts, rebuked his despising of the knowledge of God and his profanity, then read the words that spoke of God’s judgment, and interpreted their meaning to the king. Belshazzer’s sin was not in ignorance, but wilful profanity, a challenge to the living God, and he paid the penalty for inviting God’s anger.
The Writing on the Ground
How very different is the scene in John 8 from what we have considered in Exodus and Daniel. In Exodus God was dealing with Israel on the ground of His righteous government, but in John 8 the Son of God is on earth making known the wondrous grace of God. The proud king of Babylon challenged the living God by his profanity, but in John 8 the scribes and Pharisees challenge the Son of God in relation to the law of Moses. They had not learned as the disciples of the Lord had learned that “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
Having brought the woman taken in sin the scribes and Pharisees set her in the midst, and said to Jesus, “Master…Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” The answer of Jesus was to stoop down and “with His finger” write on the ground. The finger that once wrote on the tables of stone the words of the law was now writing something else, something of a very different character in this world, for with the finger of a Man the Son of God was writing before the eyes of men the wonders of the rich, heavenly grace of God.
As the scribes and Pharisees continued asking, Jesus stopped in His writing, and lifting Himself up He said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” God’s Son had not come to be the executor of the law of Moses, but would allow them to fill that office if they had the qualification to do so. Was there one of them without sin? If so, he would be fit to carry out the judgment of the law. The truth in Jesus not only revealed the goodness of God, but it exposed what man is, for “being convicted by their own conscience,” they “went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.” The proud accusers who had quoted from the law of Moses, not so much to condemn the woman, but to entangle the Son of God, were thoroughly exposed as sinners by the words of the Son of God.
Having exposed the evil in the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees, the Son of God again stooped down and wrote on the ground, surely indicating that He would not allow the evil of man to hinder His work of grace for the Father, and for the blessing of men. Rising again, the Son of God, in grace, said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” The Lord Jesus had not come to judge men, but to bless, yet does not condone the sins of men. Twice the God of Israel had written on the tables of stone the demands of the law, and twice the Son of God wrote on the ground the story of the love of God, the two stoops indicating too the stoop into Manhood from Godhead glory, and the stoop as Man to the death of the cross.
The Writing of the Holy Spirit
We have seen that in contrast with God writing on the tables of stone the law of Moses, the Son of God was on earth writing for all to learn the grace and love of God. Another contrast to the writing of the old covenant of the law is the writing of the Spirit of God in connection with the new covenant ministry of the Apostle Paul. This is brought before us in 2 Corinthians 3. The saints at Corinth were written upon the hearts of Paul and Timothy, for they had great love for them, and Paul’s first letter to the assembly there was because of His affection and care for them as belonging to Christ.
The saints at Corinth were also “the epistle of Christ,” known and read of all men. Paul and Timothy were the instruments of the Spirit of God as they made known God’s glad tidings, but what was done in the hearts of men was the work of the Holy Spirit. God in His grace uses men to make His word known, but if there is to be a lasting work in the hearts of men the Spirit of God must do that work. He takes the word ministered by men, and uses that word to write Christ on the fleshy tables of human hearts, and the work of the Holy Spirit is an abiding and eternal work which can never be removed. Many things can come into the human heart to cover up the divine work, but what the Spirit of God has done will remain, and come to light after all the debris of the things of the world, and the things of the earth, have been removed, and it may be even here in the discipline of God.
This divine writing comes from “the ministration of the Spirit,” and “the ministration of righteousness” (verses 8-9), so that there might be a testimony to Christ in the lives of the saints. Each saint is to represent Christ before men, the features of Christ, produced by the Spirit of God by His writing on the heart, coming out in the details of everyday life. The cumulative testimony of all the saints in any locality being the epistle of Christ there for the glory of God and the pleasure of the Son of God.
The Writing on the Pillar
The promises that are given to the overcomer in the church of Philadelphia show what the Lord will write in a coming day (Rev. 3:12). As a pillar, the overcomer will be a witness to the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord who has sustained him in the days of his witness for Him in this world. Down here, Christ is written upon the hearts of the faithful, in the coming day, when with the Lord above, the things written upon the saint of God are, “the Name of my God, the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new Name.” These are wondrous promises to encourage the hearts of the faithful amidst the difficulties of these last days, for the last four churches are viewed as continuing down to the end.
Having “the Name of my God” surely speaks of the portion of the saints in relation to God when we are with Him in heaven. We shall be brought before God as enjoying His favour in holy intimacy with Him as His children, and sharing all with Him who says “My God.” It reminds us too of the portion of the saints in the paradise of God where as His servants, the Name of God and the Lamb “shall be in their foreheads” (Rev. 22:3-4), and they shall serve in nearness, having light from God, and reigning for ever and ever (verse 5).
They also have “the name of the city of my God” written upon them, and this city is the “new Jerusalem.” This brings us to the eternal state, as brought out in Revelation 21:2, where connected with the new heavens and the new earth “John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Here, in the eternal scene, those who have been faithful to the Lord in the day of His rejection will have their part. When all the cities of men have passed away the city of God will be seen as that in which Christ has His abiding pleasure, and through which God has His dwelling place with men. A portion in that blest, eternal rest is held out for the encouragement of the saints as they take their way through a world of opposition and unrest.
Finally, the Lord promises to write upon the overcomer, His own “new Name.” His Name is upon us now as we testify for Him in the scene of His rejection, the Name of Christ that is reproached by the world that rejected Him. In the heavenly scene that has been brought before us in the new Jerusalem, the Son of God will have a new Name, a Name that describes what He is in God’s eternal rest. We shall have that new Name written upon us as sharing with Him His place for the eternal day. The Name of Jesus was His here below, it is His now upon the Father’s throne, and it will be His in the coming day, for at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow. That precious Name will be His for ever, but He will also have a new Name in God’s eternal rest, and we shall enjoy the “all things” that we are given there (Rom. 8:32).
R. 15.12.69