The Numerical
Structure of Scripture
LECTURE II
THE SCRIPTURE NUMERALS
Revelation, beloved brethren, I am happy to think that you
will fully agree with me, is the key to every thing in nature. I do not mean,
of course, that nature is absolutely dumb without it. If I said so, I should be
contradicting revelation. "The invisible things of him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead."
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day showeth speech, and night unto
night telleth knowledge." True, surely, all that is. What I mean is, that while
parts of the lesson of creation are thus learned, they are but fragments of
comparatively external knowledge. To the whole as a whole, and to the deepest,
fullest, sweetest, of all its teachings we must remain strangers, except we
will take revelation to introduce us to them. And if we would do this, what
preachers would all things about us become? How would all things be
transfigured for us!
Take one of the chief mysteries of creation. Ask
the greatest of heathen sages, - ask the men whose glory it is to have
emancipated themselves (vain thought!) from the Christianity they had inherited
from their fathers, How is it that every where through creation death is the
food of life? They will turn the question back to you with a sarcasm or a
scoff. With the Mahometan, but without his reverence, they may say, perhaps,
"It has so pleased God." But revelation lights up the mystery. Yes, the wail of
death is every where, true! It has pleased God, wherever we look, to hang out
the warning before his eyes to whom death is a penalty and a dread. But it is
not a lesson of judgment merely: "out of death, life" is the law of sacrifice.
The Jewish altars do but repeat more solemnly the symbolism of nature. The
Christian finds the veil removed in Christ.
Take another instance:
"God," says the apostle, "is light." And the man of science preaches to us that
light is a trinity of color, bathing all nature with varied brilliance,
according as each object reflects partially what it receives. For it receives
it: the world's light is from heaven, not self-developed; and practically from
the sun. The sun, preaches the scientist, is the great reservoir of force to
the globes which roll in their orbits round it, bound by invisible cords, which
the faith permitted to men by science recognizes. But what is the sun? It is
essentially, the same teachers tell us, what the earth is; but this the light
clothes with its glory,- separable from it, but not separate. And God manifest
in the flesh, says the Christian, that is Christ, the "Sun of
Righteousness."
How much of the mystery of things would pass into glory
in which we should be worshippers, if only we realized that creation is a
perpetual object-lesson of things which the Word of God alone reveals to us.
But this is not an authority for men of science; they have given up
"bibliolatry," - the worship of a book. It is ruled out; and therein they have
ruled out their highest wisdom, and have fallen into folly.
When we
take up the numerals, to ascertain from Scripture their significance, we shall
find, on the other hand, what I have only recently begun in any proper way to
realize, that this significance of theirs has its roots in nature. Scripture
must control and guide our thoughts, or they will be what poor human thoughts
are apart from God. Nevertheless, the spiritual does not abhor what is natural,
except it be in the sense of what is fleshly, the product of the fall. The
first four numbers, at least, are distinctly dependent for the meaning which
Scripture gives them upon their natural significance; and from these, all
others are built up. It is no great wonder this: it is simply to say that
Scripture uses them as what they are. And this is just the beautiful harmony
and propriety of Scripture. Everything is in its place: used of God, and
illuminated by its use; not arbitrarily applied, and never perverted.
A
word or two upon this, because of its importance, before we go on. How wise and
appropriate are the Baptist's words when the priests and Levites from Jerusalem
asked him why he baptized. Pharisees they were: men who baptized their hands
always before eating, lest their souls should be defiled. Note, then, the
wisdom of the reply, "John answered them, saying, `I baptize with water.'" Did
they not know that? Of course they did. And did not they themselves baptize
with water, when they ceremonially washed their hands? Ah, that is just the
question. Does the ritualist baptize with water, when he changes a babe's
sinful nature by a few drops upon the face? Surely it is not in the power of
water to do this? Well, but this, he thinks, is one of the mysteries of
Christianity, and the water is sanctified to the washing away of sin! Well,
that is exactly what John's quiet words deny. This is not mystery, but magic.
Water is water, and God uses it as that, never puts it out of its place; never
treats sin as a material thing to be cleansed away after this fashion; never
exalts water into a spiritual power; never confounds the spiritual realm with
the material. John's baptism was with water, and not an intrusion on the
spiritual realm of Christ.
But to return to our numerals. It is only of
late that I have seen how few the numbers are which need interpreting. Seven
notes in music give us the capacity for the almost infinite variety and harmony
of song. The eighth note is but the octave - a first repeated in a higher key.
Just so there are seven numbers which have significance in Scripture. Seven is
the number of perfection, and we cannot go beyond perfection; although, of
course, there may be here, too, a lower and a higher scale. The number 8, at
which we have already glanced, is that which we have seen to speak of a new
beginning, which just shows the series to be finished. It is the spiritual
octave.
We have seven numbers, then, really to consider. Of course I am
aware that beyond this there are special numbers which have significance, as,
for instance, 10, and 12, and 40. These we shall speak of, if the Lord will.
But the meaning attached to them is really only the combined meaning of the
numbers which are their factors; 10, for instance, of 5 and 2; 12, of 4 and 3;
28 of 4 and 10. The meaning of these smaller numbers gives us, therefore, in
reality, the whole meaning of the numerals of Scripture. 1. To begin, then,
with the number 1. What does it stand for? When it is said, "Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is one Lord," or when it says, "And the Lord shall be King
over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one," we
have the simple, primary thought of unity, the exclusion of difference.
But
this may be in two ways; in the two quotations just made, the difference is
external: there is no other Lord, there shall be no other. It is an assertion
of independency, as admitting no other; and implies, of course, a sufficiency
which needs no other. To be in this way independent, sufficient to Himself,
belongs to God alone. And thus, under this number 1, we begin with God. His
title is, "The Beginning;" and Scripture, in fact, begins with Him. What can be
right where we do not so begin?
But then this is not the only
application. We shall find as we proceed with these numerals that they are, in
the case of every one perhaps, used in a bad sense as well as in a good. This
is true, not only of the numerals, but of many types beside. Christ is a lion,
and Satan is a lion; the birds of heaven are wicked spirits, and yet the bird
that dies in the earthen vessel is again Christ. In the case of the numbers we
shall have abundant proof; and this does not alter in the least their real
significance. Independence in God is His necessary perfection; independence in
man is sin and rebellion. Thus it is a question of application only. The first
section of the second psalm, as we have seen, speaks, not of God, but of man,
and then of man in independence of God, - the rebellion of the nations.
But
there is another way in which the number 1 may speak: it may exclude internal
difference, may speak of internal harmony of parts or attributes, of
self-agreement, perfection in that sense. That is not one which is internally
divided, it is clear. "The dream is one," says Joseph: there is complete
agreement of meaning in it.
And this is, again, in the fullest and highest
way, true of God alone. In His perfection there is no preponderance of any
attribute, and no defect. His wisdom must be equal to His power; His love equal
to His power and wisdom. Thus again this number speaks of Him; and in this way,
although it may have a lower application, an evil sense is quite
impossible.
Now if we turn from the cardinal number to the ordinal, the
"First" is again a divine title. It speaks plainly of priority, whether in time
or rank, of supremacy; as the Sovereign Beginning of all things, of the
Creator, the Source of life. His is the will from which all proceeded; His is
the plan according to which all is guided; His is the power by which all is
executed: election, counsel, sovereign sway, are all His own.
Thus the
number 1 has three meanings essentially, - of independency, unity, and
supremacy. These things are in the truest and highest way only true of God. We
may find them, however, either united under it or separate, and in this latter
way in lower applications, and even evil ones; although comparatively seldom in
the latter. God and good are one. Evil is contradiction, discord; and in the
end, weakness and defeat. Blessed be God it is so!
Now before we take
up other numbers, I desire to bring before you, in the briefest way, of course,
as illustrating it, the character of the first book of the Pentateuch -
Genesis.
It is plain that if there be any truth in that view of Scripture
which I am here presenting, the five books of the Pentateuch ought to
illustrate these numbers, and confirm our use of them. If they do not you will
be entitled - nay, necessitated to set down this use as visionary and human
merely. If they do, it will go far toward proving that they are divine. It will
be im- portant, therefore, to examine them.
Moreover, I am convinced, and
fully hope to convince you, that the Pentateuch - assailed as it is by so many
at the present day, - is in fact the very basis of the structure of the whole
Bible. It is thus additionally a necessity to bring out the character of it,
for with it we shall have to compare a large part of Scripture. At this time
also the examination will help to fix upon our minds the significance of the
numerals themselves, essential as this is to our whole examination.
Now
what is the first thing that would strike any of us as to the book of Genesis?
I suppose that it is, in it we find the story of creation. I need not say how
fully this agrees with the number we have been considering.
How much
this includes within it will be plain if we consider it: supremacy, election,
counsel, are all implied, and Genesis in all its parts brings out
these.
1. Supremacy. "The Almighty" is the name by which God revealed
Himself to the patriarchs, as He declared to Moses (Ex. vi. 3). It is found six
times in the book of Genesis, only three times in the Pentateuch beside. In the
book of Job it is used largely, but only eight times in the Old Testament
beside. It is clearly characteristic of the book, therefore.
2.
Election. Genesis is surely the very book of election. I do not mean that the
doctrine is found: we shall not find it in any of these early books; but the
fact is every where. Abraham (and Israel his seed), Isaac, Jacob, whose lives
fill a large part of the book, are all examples of it. They are the very ones
that the apostle brings forward in the ninth of Romans.
3. Counsel.
Genesis has been often called the seed-plot of the Bible. Every thing almost in
the revealed counsels of God finds its place in it in some way; and at the
outset, in the six days' work, we find prefigured, not only the work of God in
individual souls, but the dispensational steps of blessing, closing with that
which is beyond all dispensations - that rest of God into which we labour to
enter.
Again, the time of the Genesis-history is emphatically that of the
age of promise. The promise of the woman's Seed is what shines with starlike
radiance over the first part, followed in the second by the covenant with
Abraham, which, the apostle assures us, the law, coming four hundred and thirty
years afterward, could never hamper with conditions. Sovereignty in blessing
thus marks the period throughout.
It is evident that these are features
of the book, as it is also that they answer to the numerical place of the book.
The key fits the lock thoroughly. It is not that certain things in it can be
taken and made to apply: that, no doubt, would be easy enough to do any where;
but the point is, that the numerical structure brings out just what are its
characteristic features. And so it is always, and this is what shows its
design, and proves it to be of God. It could not be, unless it were designed to
be.
2. We now come to the number 2, and here we have plainly the
contrast and opposite of the first number. If 1 excludes difference, 2 affirms
it. If 1 says there is not another, 2 says, of course, there is another. And
this note of difference runs through all its meanings. "Difference" means, in
some sort, contrast, easily passing into opposition, contradiction. Two is the
first number that divides: hence it stands for enmity, conflict. When first
studying the Psalms in this way it was that I first noticed how, commonly when
I came to a second series, or the second psalm in a series, I found the subject
to be the enemy. This was before I saw that it was a meaning of the number
itself. Of course this is only one side of the number, the bad one.
The
other side is essentially the thought of help, confirmation, fellowship. The
fundamental text here is Eccles. iv. - "Two are better than one; because they
have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his
fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another
to help him up. Moreover, if two lie together, then they have heat; but how
shall one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand
him." That is a thought which again is clearly native in the number; for we
speak of "seconding" in the sense of "assisting." I may add that there is
involved in it the thought of taking an inferior place in doing so.
How
beautifully all this unites in Him who is the second Person of the Godhead, who
has taken, in order to befriend our souls, the place of deepest humiliation! In
Him, God has laid help upon One that is mighty, and the Son of God has become
Christ, the Saviour. Saviour, salvation, in some sense, is thus connected
commonly with this number 2. We shall find abundant proof as we go on.
Another meaning connected with it, intimately united with the thought of help,
confirmation, is that of competent testimony. "The testimony of two men is
true." I would like you to notice also how still the thought of difference
enters into this meaning. For what makes the competency of two witnesses more
than one? It is just this, that the witnesses are different. In proportion as
they are so - different in character, interests, prejudices and prepossessions
perhaps, so is their testimony, if nevertheless agreeing, satisfactory and
convincing. You may notice it even in God's testimony in His Word. Our Bibles
have two parts, - the Old Testament, or Covenant, and the New: these are God's
twofold, competent testimony to men; but how different! how contrasted, in many
ways! Judaism, ritualistic, restricted, the vail over God's glory in Moses'
face; Christianity, with its free grace going out to all, the vail rent, and
the glory of God in the unveiled face of Jesus! Yet this is what makes the
testimony so complete. How they fit one another! How that old revelation in the
hands of the Jew condemns him in rejecting this glorious lifting of the vail in
Christianity! And notice, the second Person of the Godhead is, again, the true
Witness, and Word of God.
If now we take the second book of the
Pentateuch, the great features of it are conspicuous enough, and conspicuously
illustrate the numerical law of Scripture. Exodus is the book of salvation,
which of course infers the enemy from whose power they are delivered. After the
blood has redeemed Israel, God comes down in the pillar of cloud and fire to be
with them, and the wondrous tale of deliverance gathers fresh features
continually. Then comes Sinai and the breach of the golden calf, and the
intercession of the mediator, Moses, type of the great Mediator. The tabernacle
of testimony and the priesthood complete the picture of God with them.
Before we go on to the next number, I have again an illustration from natural
things which has greatly interested me, and which I hope may have equal
interest for you. Comparatively recently, I picked up at a bookstore, second
hand, a book on the Geography and Classification of Animals, published in 1835.
My interest in it was that I knew it contained what professed to be a Natural
System of Classification, first brought forward by Mr. McLeay some sixteen
years previously, but revised by his disciple, William Swainson, in the volume
I speak of.
Now a truly natural system would give us the analogies and
affinities of animals as they really exist, and thus the divine plan of
creation to some extent; this was my interest in it. I knew it to be also a
numerical system, and in this way also was interested in it.
Of the
system itself I need say little. That there is truth in it, I believe, though
with many defects, on the ground of one of which Agassiz, in his well-known
Essay on Classification, sets it aside as unworthy of serious examination, - a
judgment, I believe, too severe and sweeping, he himself commending the ability
displayed in it (in matters essentially connected with its main subject) in
other parts of the same essay.
Swainson's view is, that there are
throughout the animal kingdom, in every natural group, three divisions actually
and five apparently. The three actual divisions are, the typical, the
subtypical, and the aberrant. These stand, with him, as 1, 2, and 3; and while
he sees nothing in the numbers as such, yet these are the characters he gives
to his first two groups: -
"The first distinction of typical groups is
implied by the name they bear. The animals they contain are the most perfectly
organized; that is to say, they are endowed with the greatest number of
perfections, and capable of performing to the greatest extent the functions
which peculiarly characterize their respective circles. This is universal in
all typical groups; but there is a marked difference between the types of a
typical circle and the types of an aberrant one. In the first, we find a
combination of properties concentrated, as it were, in certain individuals,
without any one of these preponderating in a remarkable degree over the others;
whereas in the second it is quite the reverse: in these last, one faculty is
developed in the highest degree, as if to compensate for the total absence or
very slight development of others" (p. 242).
Let any one recall what
has been said as to the number 1, and he will see how really this idea of a
typical or first group agrees with what was stated then. This combination of
balanced attributes is just what gives the thought of internal oneness: nothing
in excess, nothing deficient. Yet Swainson says not a word, evidently has not a
thought of this. But in his account of the subtypical or second groups, the
numerical stamp as I have given it is still more striking, if not more
apparent: -
"II. Subtypical groups, as the name implies, are a degree
lower in organization than those last described; and thus exhibit an
intermediate character between typical and aberrant divisions. They do not
comprise the largest individuals in bulk, but always those which are the most
powerfully armed, either for inflicting injury on their own class, for exciting
terror, producing injury, or creating annoyance to man. Their dispositions are
often sanguinary; since the forms most conspicuous among them live by rapine,
and subsist on the blood of other animals. They are, in short, symbolically the
types of evil; and in such an extraordinary way is this principle modified in
the smaller groups, that even among insects where no other power is possessed
but that of causing annoyance or temporary pain, we find in the subtypical
order of the Annulosa, the different races of scorpions, acari, spiders, and
all those repulsive insects whose very aspect is forbidding, and whose bite or
sting is often capable of inflicting serious bodily injury" (pp. 245, 246). Now
it certainly seems to me that this coincidence of view proceeds from its being
truth. My own was derived from Scripture simply, Mr. Swainson's from nature
only. He follows a numerical order without perceiving or imagining any thing in
the numerals themselves. That there should be in these two cases so real an
agreement is surprising, considering the different way by which they have been
reached. And this may help to fill the gap left in the proof of a numerical
system as regards zoology.
We now come to the number - 3. And what does
3 intimate to us naturally? Suppose I were to write upon the board here any
number you please, it may be 3 itself, and now I put on the right hand upper
corner of this a little 3 (33(superscript)) - what would every schoolboy say I
meant by it? He would say I meant 3 cubed: that little 3 stands for the cube -
for cubic measure.
And what is cubic measure? It is solid measure, the
measure of contents. Take any two dimensions, and multiply them together; what
have you? A measure of surface merely. Take a third dimension; now you have
more than surface: this third dimension strikes in deep below the surface, and
gives you a measure of solidity.
Three stands then for what is solid,
real, substantial, - for fullness, actuality. What are length and breadth
without thickness? There is not such a thing in the world: a line that you draw
upon paper is more than that. Therefore I say that 3 stands for actuality,
reality, realization.
Three is the number of the divine fullness. And
in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; what, then, is the
measure of the Man Christ Jesus? A beautiful figure of this you will find twice
in Scripture. Abraham puts meal before his heavenly guests; and the woman of
the parable puts her leaven into meal. Now what is the food which you can put
before God Himself and expect Him to be at the table with you? It is Christ
upon whom if we feed, communion with God is secured. Christ is the bread of
life; and Christ is, as the Revised Version calls it very well now, the
Meal-Offering. And what is it that is in the woman's (the Church's) hands, but
just again this meal-offering.
But there was to be no leaven put into
the meal-offering: she is putting leaven! What is just that which claims most
decisively to be Church-teaching? Alas! it is leavened meal.
But what
is the measure of Christ? Only a Man? No: you have no Christ if you have but
that measure of meal. "Three measures of meal" in the woman's hand: "three
measures of meal" in Abraham's feast; beside that young calf, tender and good,
which had yielded up its life. "All the fullness of God" in the Man Christ
Jesus; and His death our life!
Three is the number of the Trinity; and
the third Person in the Godhead is the Holy Spirit. Note, then, that whether in
creation or in new creation, He it is who realizes all the counsels of God. "By
His Spirit He garnished the heavens." When the deep lay over the waste and
desolate earth, the "Spirit of God brooded over the waters." When men are born
again to God, the gospel comes to them, "not in word only, but in power, and in
the Holy Ghost." What is sanctification, as the work of the Spirit, but that in
which salvation is actualized in the soul? Thus this number 3 has its
significance all throughout, and without the work of the Spirit there is
nothing but outside work: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit;" that is
the third dimension which every saint has.
And the sanctuary, God's
dwelling-place, - that too is a cube; ten cubits in the tabernacle; twenty in
the temple. The final city, which the glory of God lightens, is a cube also:
"the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal." How strange for
the dimensions of a city! How blessed to think of there the counsels of God now
realized, the holiness He seeks attained!
In the sanctuary God
manifests Himself; with the third Person of the Godhead, the Unity becomes a
Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit tell out for the first time fully God. And 3
is thus the number of manifestation. So resurrection is plainly that work of
His where all human power is at an end; and thus resurrection is on the third
day.
Now if we turn to Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, we
find full illustration and confirmation of all this. The tabernacle is just set
up, and God speaks out of the "tent of meeting" where He meets and welcomes
men. The theme of the book is sanctification, and thirty-nine times in
connection with the precepts, of which the latter part of it largely consists,
is appended the word, "I am Jehovah." Seven times it is repeated, "Be ye holy,
for I, the Lord your God, am holy."
At the opening of the book the
offerings are opened out, the beauteous picture of Him through whom all
sanctification is attained, who is the pattern of it. In the middle of the book
the holiest is opened, to sprinkle the precious blood upon the mercy-seat. Not
yet - for these are but the figures of the true, - is the way made for all to
draw near to God, but we have in type the foundation of it.
Thus
Leviticus shows the numerical stamp as plainly as Genesis and Exodus. Our
convictions that it is of God deepen as we proceed. And now we have God's name
fairly written out upon this book of His. When we would show a book to be our
own, we write our name upon the opening page. God has written His in three
successive pages in the beginning of His Word. In Genesis, we may say, we have
the Father, the Life-giver; in Exodus, the Son, the Saviour; in Leviticus, the
Spirit, the Sanctifier. God's book is fairly claimed as His, and he who would
erase the Name must answer it.
Lecture
Three
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