SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
REDEMPTION TRUTHS
CHAPTER 6
RECEIVING HIS PROVISION
"Ye are
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." John 15:3
IN the preceding chapters there are passages which may lead
someone to ask despairingly whether a sinners pardon depends on his
mastering the theology of the Gospel as there unfolded. And the question claims
an answer. "The Word was with God, and the Word was God,
and without Him
was not anything made that was made." We cannot think too highly of the
glorious Majesty of Him who was "the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace." And yet, during His ministry on earth, He was within reach of
the poorest and the worst of men, and "as many as touched Him were made
perfectly whole." So in the type, "two sparrows," to be had for a farthing,
were the lepers appointed offering. (Leviticus 14:4 (marg.) Our salvation
depends on the Lord Jesus Christ; not on the measure of our appreciation of
Him. The slenderest wire, may suffice to convey the current which floods our
room with light. Not that there is any light in the wire itself. There is no
merit in faith; yet the faith which, as it were, but touches the hem of His
garment "makes the connection" which brings Divine light into the
soul.
The farthing offering availed to introduce the outcast leper into
the citizenship of the camp of Israel; but much more than this was expected of
him as a citizen. He was then to bring all the great offerings of the law,
every one of which typified some special aspect of the work of Christ. While "a
farthing Gospel" will bring forgiveness, and make the sinner nigh, grace has
failed of its due effect on him, if, as forgiven and made nigh, he is content
with this. His new blessedness will create new desires and needs which Christ
in all His fullness alone can satisfy.
In the seventh verse of Leviticus
14 the leper is pronounced clean, and yet in the next and following verses he
is spoken of as "he that is to be cleansed." But there is no inconsistency in
this. It is analogous to the completion of the Passover redemption by the
burnt-offering of the covenant analogous to the double cleansing of 1 John 1:7
and 9.
Indeed there is a third cleansing here (verse 8); and it claims
prominent notice. The offering gave ceremonial cleansing, but practical
cleanness also was required. The leper was to wash himself. Washing by blood
was one of the rites of pagan cults which had such a sinister influence upon
the Church of the Fathers; but in Scripture - Old Testament and New, alike -
washing is only and always by water, and its significance is only and always
practical clearing ourselves from evil. Revelation 1:5, and 7:14 may seem to
clash with this; but in the one passage the right reading is "loosed us from
our sins." And in the other, right reading is popularly misread. It is "they
washed their robes, and they made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The
"righteous acts" of the saints are the fine linen of their robes. (Revelation
19:8, R. V.) But apart from Christ "all our righteousnesses (or righteous acts)
are filthy rags." It is the blood that sanctifies which alone can make them
"clean and white."
So in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the
Apostle Paul, after enumerating the sins and vices of their former life, adds
words which our English versions, misunderstanding their symbolic meaning, have
misread. "But," he writes, "you washed yourselves, but you were sanctified, but
you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of
our God."
And mark where the washing came in the ritual of the
lepers cleansing. It was before his admission to the camp, but after the
offering of the birds, after the sprinkling of the blood, and after the priest
had pronounced him clean. Here is a great truth which men will not have, though
God enforces it in ways unnumbered. There can be no recognition of good works
or of amendment of life, and no citizenship with the saints, until after the
sinner has, as a sinner, accepted Christ.
At this point the teaching of
the type is of the highest practical importance. The Gospel is sometimes
presented in such a way as to convey the impression that a cleansed life is of
no account, and that Christ will receive sinners on their own terms. Others,
again, in ignorance of grace, plainly assert that sinners must turn from the
practice of their sins before they come to Him. But indulgence in sinful
practices so degrades a man that after a time all power of recovery is gone.
The drunkard, for example, will turn to the bottle, and the impure to his
immoralities, no matter what the consequences. And is there no salvation for
such. Most assuredly there is. If a man says, "I will not give up my sins,"
then indeed we must act as Moses did in the case of the sinner who "blasphemed
the Name" - we must turn away and wait upon God. But to the poor wretch who
says, "I cannot," it is our high privilege and duty to tell of a Saviour who is
"mighty to save"
Just as there was cleansing for a leper as a leper, so
there is salvation for a drunkard as a drunkard, for the sensualist as a
sensualist. To make it a condition of pardon that men shall first extricate
themselves from the horrible pit and the miry clay, is to deny grace
altogether. It is utterly false. We cannot exaggerate the grace of God. But
while the true minister of Christ, will preach a Gospel that will reach the
lost sinner, no matter how far he is gone in sin, he will enjoin upon the
believing sinner to "wash himself," nor will he forget about the sin-offering,
and the burnt-offering, and the meat-offering.
The leper, as we have
seen, experienced a twofold cleansing by blood. The blood of the dead bird was
sprinkled upon him, and afterwards the blood of the trespass offering was
placed upon his head and hand and foot, sanctifying every part of his person.
And then, upon the blood, was put the anointing oil. (Leviticus 14:18.) This
foreshadows the theology of the New Testament. Christ is made to the sinner
both justification and sanctification - the sinner is justified by blood and
sanctified by blood - and this full redemption is inseparable from the
Spirits work. But Christ is first. The oil was put upon the blood, not
the blood upon the oil. It is idle for the sinner to claim the Spirits
presence or influence until, as a sinner, he comes to Christ. The witness of
the Spirit to sonship is only for the believer. His witness to the person and
work of Christ is for every sinner who, as a sinner, hears "the word of the
truth of the Gospel." What a costly and elaborate ritual it was! "Two he-lambs
without blemish, and one ewe-lamb of the first year without blemish, and three
tenths deals of flour, and one log of oil." (Leviticus 14:10.) I have already
sought to quiet the fears of some poor outsider coming to the Cross and here,
perchance, some earnest, true-hearted believer may shrink back dismayed,
exclaiming, "All this is above me! I cant rise to it, I am too poor." For
such I would emphasize the words that follow -"And if he be poor, and cannot
get so much," the chapter goes on to say, then let him bring one lamb and a
pair of pigeons. And even this is qualified by the added words "Such as he, can
get - even such as he is able to get." (Leviticus 14:21, 30, 31.) How infinite
the kindness and love-toward-man of our Savior God"! (Titus 3:4.)
I
heard a story long ago of a poor, half-witted creature, known to everybody in a
certain town as "Silly Billy," a harmless wight and devout, withal in his own
simple way. One day he was found in a conclave where "the wise and prudent"
were discussing the doctrine of the Trinity, and to the amusement of some, he
appeared to be taking notes. In a bantering way they asked to see his "notes";
and on the scrap of paper he produced, they found these words: -
"This can
Silly Billy see,
Three in One and One in Three,
And One of them has died
for me."
Here was the poor fellows creed - his "such as he was
able to get." And his "two mites that make a farthing" were possibly more
acceptable to God than the seeming abundance of some of the wise and prudent.
For with God the test is,
"According to that a man hath, and not according
to that he hath not." (2 Corinthians 8:12.)
But there must be "first the
willing mind." For "God is not mocked." His grace is infinite to the humble and
contrite, and to such as tremble at His Word. But ignorance begotten of
indolence and willful neglect of His Word, grace will not condone. And
ignorance due to sheer contempt of His Word, calls only for judgment. If these
Books of Moses, God-given as a picture alphabet of the language in which the
full revelation of Christianity is written, are despised as a farrago of
old-word legends and priestly frauds, what room can there be for grace "Fools
and blind" were epithets which the Lord reserved for men who, while boasting of
superior enlightenment, were leading others into the ditch. For the poor and
needy, the erring and the weak, he had infinite compassion.
In closing,
I would notice that while the ritual for the lepers cleansing was an
eight days business, the Gospel brings fullness of blessing to the sinner
on believing. This is one of the characteristic differences between law and
grace. And, further, that the value of these ordinances as key-pictures of
Christian truth, is greatly enhanced just because the several steps are so
definitely marked. We are thus taught to seek, in the great reality of the
redemption that is ours in Christ, for the fulfillment of every part. And
though there is no chronological sequence in the believers reception of
these benefits, for all that Christ is to the sinner becomes his when he
receives Him, there is none the less a moral order, as the teaching of the
types so plainly indicates. And the ignoring of this has led not only to error
but to strife. As we have already seen, the sin-offering does not precede, but
follows the redemption sacrifices; and so in the law of the lepers
cleansing, it comes after his restoration to the camp.
Go To Chapter Seven
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