_(b)_ The redemption of an inheritance.
This was the task of the kinsman-goel. The land belonged to the tribe.
Pauperism was thus kept off. There could be no "submerged tenth." The theocratic reason was, "the land shall not be sold at all for ever for it is Mine!"
_(c)_ The avenging of murder. Blood feuds were thus checked, though not abolished. The remarkable inst.i.tution of "cities of refuge" gave opportunity for deliberate investigation into each case. If wilful murder was proved, the murderer was given up to the Goel for retribution; if death had been by misadventure, the slayer was kept in the city of refuge till the high-priest"s decease.
This is the germ of the figure of the Redeemer-Kinsman in later Scripture. Notice how higher ideas began to gather round the office.
The prophets felt that in some way G.o.d was their "Goel." In Isaiah the application of the name to Him is frequent and, we might almost say, habitual. So in Psalm xlix. 7, "None can be Goel to his brother"; verse 15, "G.o.d will be Goel to my soul from the power of the grave."
Job xix. 25, "I know that my Goel liveth...."
II. Our Kinsman-Redeemer.
The New Testament metaphor of "Redemption" or buying back with a ransom is distinctly drawn from the Hebrew Goel"s office.
Christ is the Kinsman. The brotherhood of Christ with us was voluntarily a.s.sumed, and was for the purpose of redeeming His brethren.
He is the Kinsman-Redeemer from slavery,--a slavery which is voluntary.
The soul is self-delivered to evil and sin; but blessed be G.o.d! this slavery is terminable. The kinship of Christ was needful for our redemption. "It behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren." He thus gave His life a "ransom" for many. Note the objective value of His atonement, and its subjective power as setting us free.
He is the Kinsman-Redeemer of our inheritance. G.o.d is the inheritance here. The manhood of Jesus brings G.o.d back to us for our--(1) Knowledge; (2) Love; (3) Possession. Heaven is our inheritance hereafter. His manhood secures it for us. "I go to prepare a place for you." "An inheritance incorruptible." "The redemption of the purchased possession."
The Kinsman-Avenger of blood. It is only in a modified sense that we can transfer this part of the Goel"s office to Jesus. The old Kinsman-Avenger of blood avenged it by shedding the shedder"s blood in retribution. But that was not the kind of vindication (for Goel means also Vindicator) for which Job looked when he used the expression.
Resurrection to the vision of G.o.d was to come to him "at the last," by the standing of his Goel on the earth, and that was to be the true avenging of his death, and his vindication. The great murderer Death is to die, and his victims are to be wrested from him, and their death be proved to be the means of their fuller life. "Precious shall their blood be in His sight," and when their slayer is slain they will live for ever, partakers of their Kinsman-Redeemer"s glory, because they had been partakers of His death, and His blood had been precious in their sight. Let us cling to our Kinsman-Redeemer in all our life that He may give us freedom and an inheritance among His brethren, and, closing our eyes in death, we may commend our spirits to the "Angel that redeemed us from all evil," and be sure that He will "redeem" our "souls from the power of the grave."
THE OLD STORE AN THE NEW
"Ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new."
LEV. xxvi. 10.
This is one of the blessings promised to obedience. No doubt it, like the other elements of that "prosperity" which "is the blessing of the Old Testament," presupposes a supernatural order of things, in which material well-being was connected with moral good far more closely and certainly than we see to be the case. But the spirit and heart of the promise remain, however the form of it may have pa.s.sed away. It is a picturesque way of saying that the harvest shall be more than enough for the people"s wants. All through the winter, and the spring, and the ripening summer, their granaries shall yield supplies. There will be no season of scarcity such as often occurs in countries whose communications are imperfect, just before harvest, when the last year"s crop is exhausted, and it is hard to get anything to live on till this year"s is ready. But when the new wheat comes in they will have still much of the old, and will have to "bring it forth" to empty their barns, to make room for the fresh supplies which the blessing of G.o.d has sent before they were needed. The same idea of superabundant yield from the fields is given under another form in a previous verse of this chapter (ver. 5): "Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full": which reminds one of the striking prophecy of Amos: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." So rapid the growth, and so large the fruitfulness, that the gatherer shall follow close on the heels of the sower, and will not have accomplished his task before it is again time to sow. The prophet clearly has in his mind the old promise of the law, and applies it to higher matters, even to the fields white to harvest, where "he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together." In the same way we may take these words, and gather from them better promises and larger thoughts than they originally carried.
There is in them a promise as to the fullness of the divine gifts, which has a far wider reach and n.o.bler application than to the harvests and granaries of old Palestine.
We may take the words in that aspect, first, as containing G.o.d"s pledge that these outward gifts shall come in unbroken continuity. And have they not so come to us all, for all these long years? Has there ever been a gap left yawning? has there ever been a break in the chain of mercies and supplies? has it not rather been that "one post ran to meet another," that before one of the messengers had unladed all his budget, another"s arrival has antiquated and put aside his store? True, we are often brought very low; there may not be much in the barn but sweepings, and a few stray grains scattered over the floor. We may have but a handful of meal in the barrel, and be ready to dress it "that we may eat it, and die." But it never really comes to that. The new ever comes before the old is all eaten up; or if it be delayed even beyond that time, it comes before the hunger reaches inanition. It may be good that we should have to trust Him, even when the storehouse is empty; it may be good for us to know something of want, but that discipline comes seldom, and is never carried very far. For the most part He antic.i.p.ates wants by gifts, and His good gifts overlap each other in our outward lives as slates on a roof, or scales on a fish.
We wonder at the smooth working of the machinery for feeding a great city; and how, day by day, the provisions come at the right time, and are parted out among hundreds of thousands of homes. But we seldom think of the punctual love, the perfect knowledge, the profound wisdom which cares for us all, and is always in time with its gifts. It was that quality of punctuality extended over a whole universe which seemed so wonderful to the Psalmist: "The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season." G.o.d"s machinery for distribution is perfect, and its very perfection, with the constancy of the resulting blessings, robs Him of His praise, and hinders our grat.i.tude.
By a.s.siduity He loses admiration.
"Things grown common lose their dear delight." "If in His gifts and benefits He were more sparing and close-handed," said Luther, "we should learn to be thankful." But let us learn it by the continuity of our joys, that we may not need to be taught it by their interruption; and let us still all tremulous antic.i.p.ation of possible failure or certain loss by the happy confidence which we have a right to cherish, that His mercies will meet our needs, continuous as they are, and be strung so close together on the poor thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jewelled circle.
May we not apply that same thought of the unbroken continuity of G.o.d"s gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience? His supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power, to our souls are always enough and more than enough for our wants. If ever men complain of languishing vitality in their religious emotions, or of a stinted supply of food for their truest self, it is their own fault, not His. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our Christian life. It is not His doing if times of torpor alternate with seasons of quick energy and joyful fullness of life. So far as He is concerned the flow is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in jets and spurts as from an intermittent well, it is because our own fault has put some obstacle to choke the channel and dam out His Spirit from our spirits. We cannot too firmly hold, or too profoundly feel, that an unbroken continuity of supplies of His grace--unbroken and bright as a sunbeam reaching in one golden shaft all the way from the sun to the earth--is His purpose concerning us. Here, in this highest region, the thought of our text is most absolutely true; for He who gives is ever pouring forth His own self for us to take, and there is no limit to our reception but our capacity and our desire; nor any reason for a moment"s break in our possession of love, righteousness, peace, but our withdrawal of our souls from beneath the Niagara of His grace. As long as we keep our poor vessels below that constant downpour they will be full. It is all our own blame if they are empty. Why should Christian people have these dismal times of deadness, these parentheses of paralysis? as if their growth must be like that of a tree with its alternations of winter sleep and summer waking? In regard to outward blessings we are, as it were, put upon rations, and "that He gives" us we "gather." There He sometimes does, in love and wisdom, put us on very short allowance, and even now and then causes "the fields to yield no meat." But never is it so in the higher region. There He puts the key of the storehouse into our own hands, and we may take as much as we will, and have as much as we take. There the bread of G.o.d is given for evermore, and He wills that in uninterrupted abundance "the meek shall eat and be satisfied."
The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply. The only limit is our capacity, which again is largely determined by our desire. So after all His gifts there is more yet unreceived to possess. After all His Self-revelation there is more yet unspoken to declare. Great as is the goodness which He has "wrought before the sons of men for them that trust in Him," there are far greater treasures of goodness "laid up" in the deep mines of G.o.d "for them that fear Him." Bars of uncoined treasure and ingots of ma.s.sy gold lie in His storehouses, to be put into circulation as soon as we need, and can use, them. Hence we have the right to look for an endless increase in our possession of G.o.d; and from the consideration of an Infinite Spirit that imparts Himself, and of finite but indefinitely expansible spirits that receive, the certainty arises of an endless life for us of growing glory; a heaven of ceaseless advance, where in constant alternation desire shall widen capacity, and capacity increase fruition, and fruition lead in, not satiety, but quickened appet.i.te and deeper longing.
But we may also see in this text the prescription of a duty as well as the announcement of a promise. There is direction here as to our manner of receiving G.o.d"s gifts, as well as large a.s.surance as to His manner of bestowing them. It is His to subst.i.tute the new for the old. It is ours gladly to accept the exchange, a task not always easy or pleasant.
No doubt there is a natural love of change deep in us all, but that is held in check by its opposite, and all poetry and human life itself are full of the sadness born of mutation. Our Lord laid bare a deep tendency, when He said, "No man having tasted old wine, straightway desireth new; because he saith the old is better." We cling to what is familiar, in the very furniture of our houses; and yet we are ever being forced to accept what is strange and new, and, like some fresh article in a room, is out of harmony with the well-worn things that we have seen standing in their corners for years. It takes some time for the raw look to wear off, and for us to "get used to it," as we say. So is it, though often for deeper reasons, in far more important things. A man, for instance, has been engaged in some kind of business for years, and at last G.o.d shows him, by clear indications, that he must turn to something else. How slow he is to see it, how reluctant to do it! How he cleaves to the "old store"! How he shrinks from clearing out the barn, to bring in the new! Or a household has been going on for many days unbroken, and at last a time comes when some of its members have to pa.s.s out into new circ.u.mstances; a son to push his way in the world, a daughter to brighten another fireside. It is hard for the parents to enter fully into the high hopes of their children, and to accept the new condition, without many vain longings for the old days that can never come back any more. So, all through our lives, wisdom and faith say, "Bring forth the old because of the new." Accept cheerfully the law of constant change under which G.o.d"s love has set us. Do not let the pleasant bonds of habit tie down your hearts so tightly to the familiar possessions that you shrink from the introduction of fresh elements. Be sure that the new comes from the same loving hand which sent the old in its season, and that change is meant to be progress. Do not confine yourselves within any mill-horse round of a.s.sociations and occupations. Front the vicissitudes of life, not merely with brave patience, but with happy confidence, for they all come from Him whose love is older than your oldest blessings, and whose mercies, new every morning, express themselves afresh through every change. Welcome the new, treasure the old, and in both see the purpose of that loving Father who, Himself unchanged, changeth all things, and
"... fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
In higher matters than these our text may give us counsel as to our duty. "G.o.d hath more light yet to break forth from His holy word." We are bound to welcome new truth, so soon as to our apprehensions it has made good its t.i.tle, and not to refuse it lodgment in our minds because it needs the displacement of their old contents. In the regions of our knowledge and of our Christian life, most chiefly, are we under solemn obligations to "bring forth the old store because of the new"; if we would not be unfaithful to G.o.d"s great educational process that goes on through all our lives. It is often difficult to adjust the relations of our last lesson with our previous possessions. There is always a temptation to make too much of a new truth, and to fancy that it will produce more change in our whole mental furniture than it really will do. No man is less likely to come to the knowledge of the truth than he who is always deep in love with some new thought, "the Cynthia of the minute," and ever ready to barter "old lamps for new ones." But all these things admitted, still it remains true that we are here to learn, that our education is to go on all our days, and that here on earth it can only be carried out by our parting with the old store, which may have become musty by long lying in the granaries, to make room for the new, just gathered in the ripened field. The great central truths of G.o.d in Christ are to be kept for ever; but we shall come to grasp them in their fullness only by joyfully welcoming every fresh access of clearer light which falls upon them; and gladly laying aside our inadequate thoughts of G.o.d"s permanent revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, to house and garner in heart and spirit the fuller knowledge which it may please Him to impart.
So the law for life is thankful enjoyment of the old store, and openness of mind and freedom of heart which permit its unreluctant surrender when newer harvests ripen. And the highest form of the promise of our text will be when we pa.s.s into another world, and its rich abundance is poured out into our laps. Blessed are they who can willingly put away the familiar blessings of earth, and stretch out, willingly emptied, expectant hands to meet the "new store" of Heaven!
EMANc.i.p.aTED SLAVES
"I am the Lord your G.o.d, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright."--LEV. xxvi. 13.
The history of Israel is a parable and a prophecy as well as a history.
The great central word of the New Testament has been drawn from it, viz. "redemption," _i.e._ a buying out of bondage.
The Hebrew slaves in Egypt were "delivered." The deliverance made them a nation. G.o.d acquired them for Himself, and they became His servants.
The great truths of the gospel are all there.
Henceforth the fact of their deliverance became the basis of all His appeals to them; the ground of His law; the reason for their obedience.
In the previous context it has shaped the inst.i.tution of slavery. Here it is the foundation of a general exhortation to obedience. The emphatic picture of the men stooping beneath the yoke, and then straightening themselves up, erect, ill.u.s.trates the joyful freedom which Christ gives. That freedom is our subject.
I. Jesus gives freedom from the slavery of sin.
Freedom consists in power to follow unhindered the law of our being. So sin is slavery because it is contrary to that law.
When Jesus promised freedom through the truth, the Jews indignantly spurned the offer with the proud boast, which the presence of a Roman garrison in Jerusalem should have made to stick in their throats: "We were never in bondage to any man." A like hardy shutting of eyes to plain facts characterises the att.i.tude of mult.i.tudes to the Christian view of man"s condition. Jesus answered the Jews by the deep saying: "He that committeth sin is the servant of sin." A man fancies himself showing off his freedom by throwing off the restraints of morality or law, and by "doing as he likes," but he is really showing his servitude. Self-will looks like liberty, but it is serfdom. The libertine is a slave. That slavery under sin takes two forms. The man who sins is a slave to the power of sin. Will and conscience are meant to guide and impel us, and we never sin without first coercing or silencing them and subjecting them to the upstart tyranny of desires and senses which should obey and not command. The "beggars" are on horseback, and the "princes" walking. There is a servile revolt, and we know what horrors accompany that.
But that slavery under sin is shown also by the terrible force with which any sin, if once committed, appeals to the doer to repeat it. It is not only in regard to sensual sins that the awful insistence of habit grips the doer, and makes it the rarest thing that evil once done is done only once.
But he who sins is also a slave to the guilt of sin. True, that sense of guilt is for the most part and in most men dormant, but the snake is but hibernating, and often wakes and stings at most unexpected moments.
"The deceitfulness of sin" lies to the sinner, so that for the most part he "wipes his mouth, saying I have done no harm," but some chance incident may at any time, and certainly something will at some time, dissipate the illusion, as a stray sunbeam might scatter a wisp of mist and show startled eyes the grim fact that had always been there. And even while not consciously felt, guilt hampers the soul"s insight into divine realities, clips its wings so that it cannot soar, paralyses its efforts after n.o.ble aims, and inclines it to ign.o.ble grovelling as far away from thoughts of G.o.d and goodness as may be.
Christ makes the man bound and tied by the cords of his sins lift himself up and stand erect. By His death He brings forgiveness which removes guilt and the consciousness of it. By His inbreathed life He gives a new nature akin to His own, and brings into force a new motive, even transforming love, which is stronger than the death with which sin has cursed its doers. "The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."
II. Jesus gives freedom from a slavish relation to G.o.d.
Apart from Him, G.o.d, if recognised at all, is for the most part thought of as "austere, reaping where He did not sow," and His commandments as grievous. Men may sullenly recognise that they cannot resist, but they do not submit. They may obey in act, but there is no obedience in their wills, nor any cheerfulness in their hearts. The elder brother in the parable could say, "Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment," but his service had been joyless, and he never remembered having received gifts that made him "merry with his friends."
But from all such slavish, and therefore worthless, obedience, and all such reluctant, and therefore unreal, submission, Jesus liberates those who believe on Him and abide in His word. He declares G.o.d as our loving Father, and through Him we have authority to become sons of G.o.d. He "sends forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts," and that makes us to be no more slaves but sons. Sullen obedience becomes glad choice, and it is the inmost desire, and the deepest delight, of the loving child to do always the things that please the loving Father. "I ought"
and "I will" coalesce, and so there is no slavery, but perfect freedom, in recognising and bowing to the great "I must" which sweetly rules the life.