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CHAPTER
8
REPRESENTATIVE THINGS
THE
acquisition of knowledge by mere verbal signs is tedious'
and generally difficult. All kinds of teachers, from
the teachers of babes to the dignified professors of
the highest branches of philosophy and science, are so
convinced of this, that where the case admits of it they
endeavour to exemplify by representations addressed to
the senses of their disciples. Thus the teacher of a
child is not content with telling his pupil that H O
U S E stands for house, but he demonstrates
it by presenting him with the representation or picture
of a house. This impresses the idea on the child's mind
indelibly, so that whenever he sees the word house this
representative word is immediately succeeded in his mind
by the idea or image of the thing itself. The professor
of mathematics points to his representative diagrams;
the chemist to his experiments; and so forth, all of
them for the common purpose of making more intelligible
the precepts they inculcate.
Knowledge of all things gains access to the human mind by
all the senses -- by seeing, by hearing, by tasting, smelling
and feeling. If only one sense be engaged in the acquisition
of it, it is not likely to be so quickly and comprehensively
acquired as when two or more senses are employed. The prophets
of Israel were sometimes made to see, hear, taste, smell,
and feel in relation to one and the same subject before they
were permitted to make known, or deliver their message to
the rulers and people of the nation. This gave them a full
assurance of knowledge which could not be made more certain,
seeing that there remained no other avenue to their minds,
no sixth sense to receive additional impressions.
It is manifest from the divine oracles that God teaches men
as they teach one another, not by precept only, but by example,
type, or representation also. This is apparent from the many
visions seen by the prophets, who in describing what they
saw delineate and paint it, as it were, on the minds of those
that read their descriptions ; so that in this way the visions
are transferred from their minds to them. Vision, however,
is not the only representative mode of instruction exhibited
in the sacred scriptures. The events of Israel's history,
the leading men who figured in their several generations,
the temple furniture, national festivals, and other institutions
of their law are all representative things, that is, things'
something God has declared shall be. The proof of this is
contained in the following passages : thus it is written in
1 Cor. 10:6: "These things were our examples (typoi,
types) to the intent we should not lust after evil things,
as they also lusted". The things here referred, to were
the overthrowings of the Israelites in the wilderness: because
of the displeasure of God at the faithlessness and obduracy
of their hearts, although He brought them safely through the
tempestuous sea, fed them with "angels' food", (Ps.
78:25) and slaked their raging thirst with water from the
flinty rock. The food, the drink, and the rock were styled "spiritual
meat"; "spiritual drink", and the "spiritual
rock", (1 Cor. 10:3,4) the spirituality of which they
did not perceive. The word spiritual in this place is pneumatikon in
the original text, and evidently means figuratively, typically,
or representatively; for, says the apostle, "that Rock
was", or represented, "the Christ" from whom
rivers of living waters were to flow. The Rock in Horeb was
indeed a beautiful and expressive emblem of the Lord Christ;
for when Moses smote it Jehovah's [Yahweh's] representative
stood upon the top of it, thereby connecting the Lord and
the Rock as the sign and the thing signified. From the seventh
to the tenth verses of this chapter the apostle cites various
instances of the perverseness of Israel in the wilderness
notwithstanding the goodness of God to them, and finishes
his citations by declaring that "all these things happened
unto them for ensamples", or types; "and they are
written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world",
or ages of the Law, "are come".(1 Cor. 10:11) The
deduction from which is that the gospel was preached to the
generation of Israel that came out of Egypt, as well as to
the generation contemporary with the apostles; but that it
did not profit them because, although baptized unto Moses,
they did not continue in the faith but turned back in their
hearts to Egypt; so also the belief of the same gospel would
be unprofitable to those who are baptized unto Christ, if
they continue not in the faith, but commit sin even as they.
But these representative things, or "ensamples",
do not find their full and complete significancy in the spiritualities
pertaining to the believers of "the truth as it is in
Jesus". (Eph. 4:21) They have a meaning which will appear
only at the engrafting of Israel again into their own olive
tree. The passage of the Red Sea and baptism of the Twelve
Tribes into Moses is an historical event which has an individual
and a national Signification. Thus as the national baptism
into Moses released Israel after the flesh from their bondage
to the Egyptian adversary, so an individual baptism into Christ
releases the believers of the same gospel, or Israel after
the spirit, from their moral bondage to the adversary, or
sin incarnate in the flesh. But the national baptism into
Moses also represents the future national baptism of the twelve
Tribes into Jesus as the Christ and prophet like unto Moses,
whom the Lord their God was to raise up unto them from among
their tribes. They have sung the song of Moses, but they have
yet to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb on the shores of
the Egyptian, sea in celebration of their Second Exodus from
the house of bondage. The man whose name is the Branch, even
Jesus and not Moses, will be the king in Jeshurun who will
divide its waters, and lead them in triumph to the eastern
shore. Then will the nations rejoice with Israel; for the
Lord will have avenged the blood of His servants, and have
rendered vengeance to His adversaries, and have been merciful
to His land, and to His people (Deut. 32:43).
The testimony which writes these things upon our hearts is
found in nearly all the prophets; a quotation or two must
therefore suffice in this place: let the reader consult the
eleventh and twelfth chapters of Isaiah. There he will find
that a branch is to grow out of Jesse's roots who is to judge
the poor with righteousness, and to strike terror into the
hearts of his adversaries, at a time when the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea. In that day of glory and intelligence, he is to stand
as an ensign for Israel and the nations, around which they
will all be gathered in one glorious dominion. The introduction
of that day of rest is to be characterized by the assembling
of the outcasts of Israel and the gathering together of the
dispersed Judah from the four wings of the earth a second
time. A return from Egypt is especially referred to in the
eleventh and fifteenth verses, in the latter of which it is
declared that "the Lord (that is, the Branch) shall utterly
destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea (that is of the Red
Sea); and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over
the river (Nile), and shall smite it in the seven streams
(or mouths), and make go over dry shod". This can only
refer to the future, for there has been no second gathering
of the Ten Tribes called Israel, or of the Two Tribes styled
Judah, since the first gathering of the latter from the Babylonish
Captivity. The Branch, whose name is the Lord our Righteousness
(Jer. 23:5,6), is the ensign and the gatherer; for Jehovah
[Yahweh] formed him from the womb to be His servant, to bring
Jacob's tribes again to Him, and to restore the desolations
of Israel (Isa. 49:5,6,8). He is Jehovah's [Yahweh's] servant,
then, to do all these things, which are the exact antitype
of what Moses effected, and therefore illustrated or represented
by the redemption from Egypt; as it is written, "there
shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall
be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day
that they came up out of the land of Egypt". (Isa. 11:16)
The result of this second national redemption front civil
and ecclesiastical bondage among the Gentiles will be the
restoration of political harmony and concord among the Twelve
Tribes, their national supremacy over the rest of the world,
and their drawing water out of their own country's wells in
safety, and therefore termed "the wells of salvation" (Isa.
12:3) in their song of joyful thanksgiving for the restoration
of their land and kingdom by "the Repairer of the breach,
the Restorer of the paths to dwell in" (Isa. 58:12).
Once more. The national probation in the wilderness of Egypt
for forty years under Moses is also representative of the
individual probation of believers subsequently to their baptism
into Christ and of the national probation of the Twelve Tribes
in the wilderness of the people previous to their being brought
into the bond of the covenant, and into the land of Israel.
That the Mosaic probation is representative of spiritual or
individual probation appears from the apostle's reasoning
in the third and fourth chapters of Hebrews. The exhortation
in the ninety-fifth Psalm, which he quotes, he applies to
the believers in Jesus, and to Israel at large, by connecting
the two classes of the commonwealth together in his reasoning.
The testimony in Ezekiel shows its applicability to the Twelve
Tribes hereafter as well as to "the children of the promise" (Rom.
9:8) in the days of Paul. Let the reader consult that prophet
[Ezekiel] in the twentieth chapter from the thirty-third to
the thirty-eighth verse inclusive. He will there find that
similar things are to be enacted over again as have already
transpired in the days of Moses. Israel is to be brought out
from the countries wherein they are scattered with a mighty
display of divine power; they are to be brought into a wilderness,
where, says the Lord, "I will plead with you face to
face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness
of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you". The
carcasses of the rebels are to fall there, so that although
brought into the wilderness from their present houses of bondage
they shall not enter, saith the Lord, into the land of Israel;
in other words, "they shall not enter' into his rest" (Heb.
3:11) under Christ when he sits upon the throne of David in
the land.
The twofold representative character of the "ensamples" supplied
by the history, the typical history, of Israel in the flesh
arises from the nature or constitution of things pertaining
to the kingdom which is to be restored again to Israel, styled
the kingdom of God and of Christ. There are two classes belonging
to this kingdom the members of which must necessarily be proved
before they can be admitted to its organization. Neither class
can be dispensed with in this organization, yet both must
previously "pass under the rod" (Ezek. 20:37) that
the approved may be manifested. These two classes are "the
children of the kingdom" (Matt 8:12) after the flesh,
or the natural descendants of Abraham in the line of Isaac,
and Jacob; and "the children of the kingdom" (Matt.
13:38) after the spirit, or those of Israel and the Gentiles
who believe the promises, "the exceeding great and precious
promises of God", (2 Pet. 1:4) and are therefore styled
also "the children of the promise who are counted for
the seed"(Rom. 9:8). Israelites according to the flesh
are the natural born subjects of the kingdom, and therefore
God's people in a political sense. The generation that came
out of Egypt was proved and found to be unfit to occupy the
land as the subjects of the kingdom and commonwealth under
the first or Mosaic constitution. It was therefore destroyed
in the wilderness, and their children of the next generation
previously trained by Moses were planted in the land promised
to the fathers. The descendants of this generation of the
tribes of Jacob, now scattered among the Gentiles, are as
unfit to occupy the land of Israel as the subjects under its
new, or second, divine constitution or covenant, as their
fathers were whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Nevertheless,
unfit as they may be they will not be condemned unproved should
the kingdom be established contemporarily with the present
generation. They will be made of necessity to pass under the
rod that the turbulent and rebellious spirits among them may
be purged out; for if they were permitted to occupy the land
under Jesus as the "king of the Jews", they would
prove as ungovernable and disloyal as their fathers who exposed
him to ignominy upon the accursed tree.
But the generation of Israelites according to the flesh, which
shall be approved as fit to occupy the land when the kingdom
and throne of David are re- established, will not furnish
inheritors of the thrones of David's house. These are taken
out from Israel and the nations upon the principle of faith
in the gospel of the kingdom perfected by good works. A son
of David, such as Solomon or Hezekiah, cannot occupy the throne
of David under the future constitution simply because he is
David's son according to the flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing
(John 6:63) in relation to the honour and glory, might and
majesty, dignity and renown, of the kingdom. The throne must
be occupied by that son of David who has been made perfect
through sufferings, who though a son of God, yet learned obedience
by the things which he suffered. Probation must precede the
introduction of either class as elements of the kingdom, which
though essentially dissimilar, yet pertain to one and the
same institution, in the relation to one another of rulers
and the ruled.
The King having passed through a probation of great suffering
to the joy that yet awaits him, it is not to be supposed that
those who are to rule with him shall enter into that joy without
probation also. The co-rulers with Christ must be proved as
well as he; for none can reign with him who do not suffer
with him in some way or other. A tried and approved nation,
and tried and approved rulers, will constitute the Kingdom
of the Age to Come. The probation of these, that is, of the
nation and of the rulers at different periods is represented
by the things that happened to the nation and rulers under
the law; the one constitution of things being typical of the
other. Hence the twofold signification of the types.
The law of Moses constituted things which are remarkably representative
of the realities of the age to come. These realities are styled
the substance or body, of which the institutions of Moses
are "the shadow"; (Heb. 8:5; 10:1; Col. 2:17) and
because of this intimate relation between them he was strictly
enjoined by Jehovah (Yahweh) to see that he made all things
precisely according to the pattern he had showed him in the
mount. Hence they are styled "the pattern of things in
the heavens ", (Heb. 9:23) which things in the heavens
will be manifested when the kingdom and throne of David are
established by Jesus under the new constitution. The patterns
are the representative things of the law, which constitute "the
form of the knowledge and of the truth" (Rom. 2:20; Heb.
9:23).
Among the representative things pertaining to Israel under
the law are certain men who are styled in the English version "men,wondered
at", (Zec. 3:8) or as it reads in the margin, "men
of sign"; (Zec. 3:8) that is, typical, or representative
men -- men representing some other person than themselves.
Joshua the son of Josedech and his companions are expressly
set forth as typical men. So are Isaiah and his children.
He said to Ahaz, "Behold I and the children whom the
Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel
from the Lord of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Zion".
(Isa. 8:18) Paul quotes this in Hebrews and applies it to
Jesus and his brethren, the children of God. Hence the prophet
and his children, Shear-jashub and Maher-shalalhash-baz, were
signs or types of Jesus and the saints who are appointed to
perform wonders in Israel when the Lord returns to build up
Zion.
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