Leviticus 23:1-8.
1878 92 It is full of encouragement to the hearts of such as believe, that we have God in His word telling us of Christ, not only after He came, but so long before, and thus giving us to see the unity of His mind. What displays its unity is the constant reference, not to ourselves, nor anything that pertains to the church of God in itself, but to Christ. Undoubtedly God has purposes for the earth, as well as those heavenly counsels which necessarily have a nearer hold on our hearts, not so much because we have a part in them, but because it is where Christ Himself is most intimately known, where all that God feels, as well as all that He will do, comes out in unclouded light and glory; for the earth, after all, even in the day when the glory of Jehovah rises upon it, will still be a place not perfectly free from mist, if one may so say, though not of clouds; for it will be a morning without clouds; but even then there will not be that absolute perfection which God will have brought in for the heavenly saint before the day of eternity. On high will be our portion, but, above all, there will be Christ, as God will make Him known, as He knows Him Himself, and will bring us into His own delight in His Son. Even now it is our portion by faith.
Thus, then, it is not merely after Christ came, and redemption was accomplished, that God spake of Him, but here (Lev. 23), long before, in these early days of God's working with man on the earth, where His dealings were only provisional, where He was setting forth a great moral experiment, if I may so speak, in His ancient people; for the question was, whether anything good could be got out of man; even then God would let us know that Christ was ever before Him; for what would this chapter be without Christ? It would be to wrench the heart out of it, the centre of all its movements, the attractive power to every saint of God. Accordingly we shall see how, everywhere, Christ is before God; but one may note, too, in this particular chapter, a peculiarity in the way the Holy Ghost discovers to us the Christ. There is a beautiful order in it, which it is helpful for the soul to discern and enjoy. My hope is to contribute somewhat in this respect to the simplest of those who know our Lord Jesus Christ.
First of all notice, that God does here what is often seen elsewhere, though not always with the same completeness which we find in this chapter. He introduces the sabbath, in what may be called a prefatory way, as well as exceptionally. Verse 2 treats it as one of the feasts; and so verse 3 describes it in due course. But verse 4 follows as a fresh beginning of the feasts of Jehovah, which are limited to the holy convocations, which occurred but once a year. Nor was it quite a new thing to have the sabbath. Again, it is observable, in the book of Exodus particularly, that, no matter what God does, the sabbath, somehow or other, is enacted in connection with it. So here with the feasts. If grace is being revealed, the sabbath appears; if the law is enforced, the sabbath has a central place. It matters not what comes out, God is never wearied of bringing in the sabbath, and for the good and plain reason, that the sabbath, in its full meaning, is the ultimate result of all God's ways. The sabbath may be, and in fact is, the first thing God Himself lays down when He gathers His people round, but it is the aim He has in view: whatever He may work, He works to this end — the rest of God; I do not say rest for God, as if He needed it, but it is His own rest; and not merely a rest that God will effect, and that will meet His mind and affections, but a rest that He will share, in one way or another, with all that are His.
What a blessed result! above all the sorrows and difficulties, the trials and exercises, the suffering and tribulation, if we only look at that side; but what a blessed result for those who are now let into the enjoyment of God, and who know the obstacles that are found here below to that enjoyment. How many things flit across the heart, and how little, in the course of any day, one can speak of anything like uninterrupted enjoyment of His presence or His purpose!
Here it is among the feasts the first thoughts that God communicates what He is waiting for, and what He would have His people waiting for, and what He will assuredly accomplish in due time — the rest of God. "Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it." Here man, Moses or any other, one cannot doubt would put it last, not first, as being the end of all the work. But it is the first thing God presents to His people — the sabbath — putting it in this peculiar manner to call the more attention to it, in order that it should have a place which no other feast has. It is the only one which periodically recurred at the end of every week. Thus Israel was habitually taught to look beyond daily present toil to the rest of God.
But let us turn elsewhere, as it may be a wholesome thing for us to distinguish between the various forms of rest as presented in the word of God.
Our Lord when here spoke of "rest," but not "the rest of God." God had hallowed the sabbath from the beginning, the type and pledge of His rest at the end; but Jesus invited all that labour to rest meanwhile in Himself. Never was there a prophet that did so, least of all did John the Baptist, the greatest of all; for he called the people of God to own their sins; it was no question of calling them to himself, but of pointing them from everything done to Jesus, as he did when he proclaimed Him as the Lamb of God, and the two disciples that heard John speak followed Jesus. But our Lord could say to the most heavily laden one, "Come unto me," and this too when His work seemed to have been in vain, Himself rejected, despised, about to be slain and crucified, but His resurrection would prove that nothing was really fruitful for sinful man short of His death. His coming was even then showing what God is, and not merely what man ought to be. He the rejected Messiah but the Son, Emmanuel, Jehovah, He was the first and only One who could say on earth, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." Yes, a present soul rest, in the fulness of divine grace; a rest He was entitled to give to anyone, no matter how burdened or how labouring; no matter what, no matter who, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He was entitled to say so — He did say so — He loved to say so. No doubt there was more He had to say then, there was also the call to take His yoke on them and learn of Him and they should find rest to their souls. (Matt. 11:29-30.) But I speak now, as the Lord does first, of the gift of rest in His own grace. (Ver. 28.) Then follows the government which He exercises, which never allows His sovereign grace to be slighted, so that for a season at least, some restive under His yoke find not rest but restlessness, even though He may have given them rest.
This is clearly a different thing from the sabbath, but I have referred to it, for the purpose of distinguishing between the two, and this brings us to another thing very often confounded, the use the Holy Ghost makes of "rest" in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Take for instance the well-known chapter 4. It is not merely true that the Lord has prepared a place of rest in heaven, and that the Epistle to the Ephesians declares us seated together in Him there even now; but we are actually going through the wilderness. Hence the great point urged in Hebrews is that we should not look for present rest here below. It is not of course that any believers can be too full of the rest already found in Christ, or of that which He entitles us to know in union with Himself in heaven. There was a far different reason for the warning to the Hebrew Christians. They thought that because they had Christ now all difficulty must be over, and that there was no need for making up the mind to suffer as well as walk in dependence on God. Hence these are the consequences of the heavenly calling here insisted on; for it is no less true for the Christian than from Israel redeemed from Egypt, that this is the day of temptation in the wilderness. We are not in heaven yet, though Christ is. But we are marching through the desert-world, just like Abraham's seed of old. Consequently any attempt for the Christian to rest here below is perilous if not fatal. Now is the time for moving onward, at God's word, not settling down where Christ is not, but was refused. "Arise ye and depart; for this is not our rest." It is polluted. We are brought to God, but only on our way to rest: we have not yet entered His rest. "We which have believed do enter into rest," but we have not entered into what is here spoken of, for it is in glory. There is no such rest yet. God's rest is not. To seek it there is to court moral destruction. It is to dishonour Christ and to damage if not ruin our souls; again, this precisely is the apostle guarding them throughout; and hence he brings in the rest of God, not rest for the soul now, which last is not the point in Hebrews 4. He shows now the time for fear and not ease, for labour and not rest. These saints were disposed to take things easy; they seemed to say, "Now Christ is come and the whole work is done, it is simply a question of our enjoying it."
In this epistle Christ is shown very fully, not as the Head of a body, but as Apostle and High Priest — as Apostle speaking from God, and as Priest interceding for and bearing up the people of God. So we find the great object is to sustain them in their trials, to assure them of Christ's sympathy in all their suffering. Hence, too, we have believed only "enter" (not have entered) the rest of God. "There remaineth therefore a rest [or sabbath-keeping] for the people of God." It is not yet come, it remains, it is a future thing. In the whole of Hebrews 4. I do not know one word about present rest for the soul. It is exclusively the rest of God which the saints are to share in the day of glory.
We may now see why the sabbath is put first in the feasts, and why it also stands comparatively alone. It was essential that it should be continually before those who were so apt to forget it. The remainder of the chapter may be divided into two great parts, as setting forth the ways of God leading up into that rest: first, the accomplishment of that which alone could be the foundation of the rest of God; the second, what may be called the application of that mighty work. The first three feasts after the sabbath we may consider as answering to the accomplishment of the work in all its fulness, with a little earnest of the rest; whilst the latter feasts describe the application of Christ's work to His people.