LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
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ri$l I*)1*-
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
THE IMAGE OF GOD
BY
L. ANNA BURKHALTER.
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA.
LAURANCE & CARR, Publishers.
1894.
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COPYRIGHT, 1894
BY
I,. ANNA BURKHAI/TKR.
.3*
PREFACE.
A STUDY of the types of Christ and His work as we find them in the Old Testament seems to the author of this book to prove some of the things which, more than all other things, human- ity wants to prove and is most interested in knowing.
Whence came I, and whither go I?
Is there a God, and does He know me?
Is there life eternal, and how shall I know it?
These are some of the questions a thinking mind must ask. The Bible answers these ques- tions, and then we ask again, Is the Bible true? A study of these "pictures of things in the heav- ens" helps to answer that question.
If these types were actually worked out in the human life of Jesus, and if spiritual truths after- wards made plain were really foreshadowed
in such i Lessons as the "manna," the
"]>i i rpent," and the rest, — then only God
dd have given the types, and only God- "made flesh'1 could have fulfilled the types.
Much of the Old Testament Scripture is meanio W( -do follow on to the conclu-
sions reached in Christ; and the design of this
•k is to aid this "following on to know the Lord." Only some of the many types are here spoken ofj but it is to be hoped that anyone be- holding a part of the panorama of heavenly things will ((• to see all that is written and
that history has unrolled. If then, the study of e things he promoted, — if the Bible truths
ome more living realities to some, the object of this book is accomplished.
r:
*&K«*-
CONTENTS
PAGE.
The Word of God, .... i
Adam, ...... 9
Abel, 19
Abraham, - - - - - -25
Jacob and Esau, ----- 31
Joseph, - - - - - 35
Moses, ...... 45
Egypt, - 53
The Passover, ..... 63
The First-Born, 73
The Tree of Life, ----- 85
Manna, - - - - - 97
The Living Water, 105
The Serpent of Brass, - - - - 113
The Temple, ----- 123
Incense, - - - - - - 135
The Sacrifice for Sin, .... 149
Jonah, - - - - - - 161
The Bride, 169
The Image of God, - - - - - 187
THE WORD OF GOD
Il
THE WORD OF THE LORD.
"In the beginning was the Word."
"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
THE great Creator, the Father of our spirits, the Deity, God — by whatever name he is called, is not without a voice. He is not dumb. He speaks now, has spoken from the beginning, to us his children. Would a Father be voiceless? Would he reveal nothing of himself? How then could his children love him? They could not know him. What is language but revealing the thoughts — the nature? If I wish to communi- cate my thoughts to you, I speak. Our words reveal ourselves. It is a wonderful thing that immaterial substance, such as thoughts, can be run in a mold called language and uttered with the lips. What a device it is! It is God-like. Yes, we are made in His image. When we speak
4 rHE [MAGI
ody for our thoughts. I may make a pin, or a wagon, or a steam engine, or a watch, or a none — ail creations to give body to my
thought. To clearly express myself, however, I
ik continually and so demonstrate what I am.
Sometimes, in teaching children especially, it is advantageous to represent our idea by an object lesson. I draw a picture of an apple on the blackboard to represent to a child who has never seen one, what an apple is like, or even to associate the wrord with what it stands for. God has given us many object lessons. The Word of the Lord often came in pictures, especially in the primary classes, when the race of mankind was
in childhood. These are the "patterns of things in the heavens," the "figures of the true." No doubt the whole material world is a pano-
a of God's thoughts, a series of pictures which represent deep spiritual truths. The spirit ol ( i wd — and God said, and his Word was
made to take shape, his idea was put into a mold.
h nor language, their voice is
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 5
not heard; their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world." Job understood God's language in the works of creation, and after many teachings he said, "now mine eye seeth thee."
In the natural world we find constant illustra- tions of the spiritual world. The parables of Jesus were just this: "Consider the lilies," "If a son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" "The husks that the swine did eat." The resurrection is represented in the seed, dying that it may spring up into larger and continuous life. Na- ture is full of resurrection pictures; the rising of the sun each morning after death-like night; our waking after sleep — "twin brother of death;" the spring-time following frozen winter; the butterfly bursting forth from its chrysalis.
"The Word was God, and without him was not anything made that was made." God gives His Word a body as He pleases. The body, the face of Nature, the form of habitation, the tabernacle, these change, but "the Word of the Lord endur-
b THE [MAGE OF GOD.
eth forever." "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall not pass away."
God has always talked with man. The three ways in which He most plainly talked were the Law, tin Prophets and the Gospel. These were the three which met together on the mount of transfiguration, — Moses the Law-giver, Elijah the prophet, Jesus the Word made flesh.
By the hand of Moses God led his people for forty years. This was a training school, perhaps we may say a primary class. We will consider the object lessons given to this class.
By the mouth of Elijah and all the prophets, God spake to his people telling them the wTay of life.
By the life of Jesus, the Son of Man, the way was made very plain. "I am the way, the truth and the life."
All these teachings of God to us his children, agree in substance. They are the same thing in
THE IMAGE OF GOD. J
different modes of expression. "Search ye in the book of God and read; no one of these shall fail, none shall want his mate." In Christ all was ful- filled. God's Word to man was to the end that God's image might be renewed in man, that man might inherit eternal life, that God's children might be saved from death. "In him was life and the life was the light of men." In Jesus Christ God talked with us face to face; Jesus is the sum of God's language — "I am alpha and
omega" — all language.
"Search the Scriptures," said Jesus, (and of course He spoke of the Scriptures then written, the Old Testament) "for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testi- fy of me. " That is to say, inasmuch as they tes- tify of Jesus, in whom is eternal life, — ye have in them eternal life. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." The same disci- ple v/ho recorded these words of Jesus, John the beloved, saw a vision of his Lord and said, 'His
8 l HE [MAGE OF con.
name is called the Word of God." The angel who showed John this vision said, "I am of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus; the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. "
ADAM.
ADAM.
"First that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual.'"
GOD'S Word took first the shape of the Earth with its wonderful evolution from dead mat- matter, "without form and empty," upward through the marvelous combinings of chemical affinities, through the throes of Nature "when the mountains were brought forth," through the transformation from darkness to light ; up through the rising scale of life, till of the same earth, the same elements of actual chemical composition, Adam was formed — in the image of God.
Who shall say how God made the first germs of life? Who shall say how Adam became "a living soul?"
Just the same evolution goes on every time a child is born into the world. Geology and phys-
12 I HE [MAGE OF GOD.
iology are no longer dark sciences. The har- mony of God's manner of creation is apparent when we compare the two. The first chapter of Gem-sis and the 139th Psalm contain the parallel. We cannot tell how our "bones do grow," nor when our souls begin. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who laid the meas- ures thereof, if thou knowest? Who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereon are the foundations thereof fastened? Who hath laid the corner-stone thereof? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who hath shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued from the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and brake up for it my decreed places and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." "Hath the rain a father? Who hath begotten the drops of dew?
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 13
Out of whose womb came the ice? The hoary- frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?"
God is both father and mother. The undi- vided image of God was also perfect. The di- vision did not change this — 'Tn the image of God created He tliem" Our present nature af- fords proof that man and woman were once a unit. The sea and the dry land were one until God divided them, and now they are barren, alone; but together — the Garden of Eden. Egypt worshipped this Divine arrangement. Egypt is a desert without its Nile.
Adam, in God's image, was not the divided man — that came afterward. Adam, the image of God, had in one sense, God for his father and the earth for his mother. In the sense that God made the earth also, God alone was his father, and God, being perfect, is both father and mother. Herein is Adam the most perfect type of Christ. The prophets foresaw the fulfilment of this type. God told Adam of it, — "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's
14 1 HE [MAGE OF GOD.
head." "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel," which means, "God with us."
So again, the second time, God took clay for His dwelling place. The same earth, the same flesh and blood, was the mother of Jesus. Is it hard to understand how God makes us of the earth? How is it now? We live by it; the products of the earth are our daily food. We are doing commonly every day the same won- ders. The earth is converted into food, the food assimilated by our bodies. So much for our earthly part. Shall we then be orphan as to our Spirit? Shall not the Father provide for this? "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."
The Spirit of God moved, and God said. His Word became light) became a new creation,
ame man, became Adam. Again the Spirit of God moved and God said — this time to Mary, "blessed among women" — ktThe Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 1 5
Highest shall overshadow thee" — and so "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only be- gotten Son of God." This time the "Let there be light" was the "Light of the world" — Jesus. Not more wonderful than the crystallizations in a snowflake is the sweep of the zodiac signs. Not more wonderful than the perfect prism of light's seven colors in the dewdrop is the white and perfect light of God's Spirit manifested in the rainbow variety of his image — man. Shall He who "is a Spirit" create dead matter and bring it up through all the advancing steps to a man wTho is "dust of the ground," and stop there? Shall He not rather provide a way to per- petuate His image? He who made the "herb yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in it- self, upon the earth," He who made life to go on and on, shall He fail to provide a way for life to go on and on for man? Not so. First the nat- ural, then the spiritual. We read how Adam transgressed the law of his spiritual nature, and
16 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
lost it. A tree would have the same fate. The nature of a palm tree is so conditioned that it cannot live in the frigid zone. The day that it in i /« s, it surely dies. Neither can a polar bear live in Africa. Neither can man's spiritual nature live in sin. It is very simple. Look at it. There are plenty of sinners in the world — the whole race of Adam. Are they like God ? What a sad conclusion, if God had made the culmi- nation of His work — this race of sinners! This wretched, blood-stained, sorrow-laden, death- ridden, old earth, filled with corruption and all manner of torture! ' 'Marvel not that I said unto you, ye must be born again."
"For as the Father raiseth the dead and cjuickeneth them, even so the Son also quicken- eth whom He will." "He that heareth my Wordy and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death unto life. Verily, ver- ily. 1 say unto you, The hour cometh when the id shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 17
they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself even so gave He to the Son to have life in Himself, and He gave Him au- thority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man."
ABEL.
ABEL.
"Cain was of the evil one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous."
THE natural outgrowth of sin is death. "He that hateth his brother, abideth in death." The innocent suffer with the guilty. The world is full of martyrs. Every sin means the martyr- dom of some one who is innocent.
The first baby born on this earth. How Eve must have wondered at him. And to think that he grew up to be jealous of his brother, and to hate him, and to kill him.
"Marvel not if the world hate you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own."
The blood of Abel was the beginning, the blood of Christ was the culmination of the hate a wicked world bears toward the righteous. "I find no fault in this man," said Pilate, "Will ye
22 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
that I release him?" and "they were instant with loud voices crying, crucify him! crucify him!"
It is said that the Lord set a mark on Cain, that those finding him might not slay him. So a mark was set on the slayers of Jesus. From nation to nation, all over the earth, the "Jews" have been driven with execrations. Yet no race has been so preserved and kept separate.
The little family of Adam and his first two. children were a little picture of the human fam- ily. It was thus illustrated at once, the very first thing, to what sin will grow. The shedding of blood on account of sin was thus prefigured.
In Jesus all types were fulfilled. He alone, of all flesh, struck every chord that sounds a note of humanity, He alone is the brother of every man. "Tempted in all points like as we are, though without sin." He, like Abel, offered to God an acceptable sacrifice — the sacrifice of an obedient, and of a blameless life. His blood "cries from the ground," but he "ever liveth to make intercession for us." Knowing now that
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 23
sin caused his death, we hate sin. Must not Adam and Eve have sorrowed over their diso- bedience when they saw the fruits of it? Did not Cain's soul abhor himself when he saw what an evil heart had led him to? The common sin of avarice made Judas Iscariot a traitor. He thought he might as well have the thirty pieces of silver. "If I don't somebody else will, and Jesus will certainly deliver himself. " O how our souls loathe sin when we see it as it is! We are ready to cast off the old nature; we cry out for a new nature; then we come to him who alone triumphed over sin and death — Abel's prototype, the brother of mankind. We come "to Mount Zion, to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
Thus, though the earth brings forth fruit — "bearing seed after his kind" — though sin brings forth death, and "all have sinned;" yet the "seed of the woman" triumphs over the "seed of the serpent." Abel, "being dead yet speaketh." Righteousness is greater than death. The life of
24 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
the righteous, poured out upon the earth, cries to God, and God answers by the "fire from heaven/1 which is a new heart, a right spirit, "born of God" — one with Christ the Promised Seed — one with God. This is the atonement.
ABRAHAM.
ABRAHAM.
"Before Abraham was, lam."
THE idea of a new and an eternal inheritance through faith is bodily set forth in the life of Abraham. God called him — "a Syrian ready to perish," and said, "Leave your own country and go forth whither I will lead, and I will give you a country, and in thy seed shall all the na- tions of the earth be blessed." Abraham obeyed God. He believed. At first he "fell upon his face and laughed" at the seeming absurdity, but God assured him and he believed.
Then came that marvelous trial of Abraham's faith, and the showing of God's plan to save the world. "In Isaac shall thy seed be called, "had been God's promise. Isaac, the son of promise, foretold by the angel, born by a miracle — "Take Isaac, thy son, and offer him on the altar, a sac-
28 ! HE IMAGE OF GOD.
rifice. " It is said that Abraham believed that God could raise him from the dead — he doubted not.
"Father, I see the altar, and the wood for the sacrifice; where is the lamb?"
"My son, God will provide a lamb."
So there on Mt. Moriah, where the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" was after- ward offered, Abraham laid upon the altar his son.
"Abraham, stay thy hand! Behold the ram caught in the thicket; offer him instead of thy son."
We know what we have felt, and testify what we have seen. Could Abraham ever forget that the ram was instead of his son?
Jesus said, "If ye cannot believe when I tell you earthly thing's, how can ye understand when I tell you heavenly things?" Abraham be- lieved every step of the way and God showed him his purposes. "Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." To Abraham, the
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 29
man of faith, God gave this most plain object lesson of all, this picture in miniature of the only begotten Son offered for the sin of the whole world. Abraham knew the meaning of the sac- rifices, that they were pictures of one to come — an only Son "in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed;" one who should be of- fered, not for his own sin, and who should over- come death.
The heart which has sacrificed some darling thought, something "the apple of the eye," yet leading away from God's way; something which "the natural" cries out for, and yet which is at variance with "the spiritual," — by that heart the sacrifice of Isaac is understood. To that heart, also, God has given ten-fold more — even the un- counted treasure of Himself. This it is to "take up the cross and follow me," and without it no one can be His disciple. The whole meaning of Christ on the cross lies here. He is not an im- age, a picture, a figure in history. If He avails us anything, if He is to us that which He came
30 THE I MACK OF GOD.
to be — a Savior — then our life, like His, shows forth this principle. "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off; if thy right eye, pluck it out." "No man hath left all for my sake and the Gos- pel's, who shall not receive ten-fold more in this present life, and in the world to come, life ever- lasting." "Seeing ye have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts."
God will surely provide a Golgotha for each child of Adam. Again we may "eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil," disbelieving God's word; or wre may follow the way of Abra- ham— the way of Christ.
JACOB AND ESAU.
JACOB AND ESAU.
"The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
ESAU is a type of the "natural man." His was the birthright and inheritance. God had promised to Abraham, Canaan — the figure of the; "better country which is the heavenly." Esau*, cared nothing for these things. He sold his- birthright for a "mess of pottage. " He preferred the seen to the unseen, — the present to the future. A modern instance of two natures, either of which might rule, is the story of "Jekyll & Hyde;" but the bible instance is more true. For in one- instance the two natures cannot exist permanent- ly. Either he will love the one and hate the oth- er; or he will cleave to that other, and hate the: first." The instance of Jacob and Esau is true* to life. Twins, and not one man, they represent the spirit and the flesh, the temporal and the eter-
34 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
nal. First the temporal, the natural — Esau, the firstborn; then the eternal, Jacob, who preferred the promises of God to the "things which are seen." So Jacob superceded Esau, in the nature of things, as spirit out-lasts flesh. "As a prince," Jacob had "power with God and prevailed." Esau conld never regain his lost birthright, "though he sought it carefully with tears." He did not comprehend that it meant the utter put- ting away of all that made up his life, and the choice, instead, of God's unseen leadership; no present glory, but one which shall come, and shall be everlasting. Esau had not faith in God; Jacob believed.
So God has put them in his lesson book for us to study — for every one of us has the choice to make between the two.
3^
JOSEPH.
JOSEPH.
"And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-pa- aneah— [Savior of the age]. "— Gen. 41:45.
'Thou shalt call his name Jesus [Savior], for He shall save His people from their sins."— Matt. 1:21.
THE story of Joseph, considered as a parallel to the life of Jesus, fills us with astonish- ment. We wonder that it was possible to lead forward a human life, to form a human history, in such an exact pattern of that which was to fol- low. And yet, wThy should we marvel? Is not the God who made day and night, and formed us for sleeping and waking, picturing thus in dumb nature and in us also, the resurrection after death and our part in it, — is not that God able also to lead along a life history?
As we go on considering these types and shadows of the thing which was to be, it becomes more and more evident that the record is made
38 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
and given to us because of its bearing on our eternal destiny. "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." The story of Joseph is a testimony of Jesus.
The first we hear of Joseph, he is telling his dreams to his brethren, — "We were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and also stood upright, and behold your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf." And his brethren said, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou have dominion over us? and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. " He dreams also that the sun and moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to him. "His brethren envied him but his father observed the saying."
Even so Mary, the mother of Jesus, while she "marveled at those things which were spoken of him," "kept all these sayings in her heart;" but his brethren envied him. "Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 39
prophets are dead? Whom makest thou thyself?" "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God."
Joseph is sent to "see if it is well with his brethren and with the flocks." Jesus is sent "to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."
"And when they (Joseph's brethren) saw him they conspired against him."
"Then assented the chief priests and scribes, and the elders of the people, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty. "
"And Judah," of Joseph's brethren, said, "Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites;" and they sold him for twenty pieces of silver."
"Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests and said, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver."
40 THE I M\<;!-: OF GOD.
Joseph became great in Egypt, all that the king had, he committed to Joseph's hand. To [esus, the Prince of the House of David, the "Lord [« sus," every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord."
But first Joseph endured temptation, and be- ing falsely accused, was cast into prison. The temptation of Joseph as it appeared to his mind, in his own words, was singularly like that of Adam, — "And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowl- edge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Joseph says, "Behold, my master hath committed all that he hath to my hand; none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee." But the difference in Adam and Joseph, was the dif- ference in Adam and Jesus. "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" spoke the true heart of Joseph. "Get thee hence,
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 41
Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Thus spake Jesus, when the devil offered him earthly glory, the world, the flesh, instead of God only.
The parallel goes further; for Jesus resisted evil to the death. He left the garment of his flesh in the hands of the wicked world, to which he would not conform. That wricked world brought against him as accusation the very thing he refused to do. The accusation written over the cross was "The King of the Jews," and the plea made by the rulers was that he wished to displace the Roman powers and make himself king instead of Caesar.
Again, going on with the parallel, Joseph was cast into prison, "but the Lord was with him, and the keeper of the prison committed to his hand all the prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it." "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
42 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit; by which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison."
Then came the time of famine, and the people saved from starvation only by the wisdom of Jo- seph who had provided them bread. When the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, he said, "Go unto Joseph; what he saith unto you do." Surely this reminds us of the "bread of life," — "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. " " Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." "The Word of God." "In Him was life." "The wrords that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."
"And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy, because that the famine was sore in all lands." — "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth, and whoso will not come up of the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 43
shall be no rain." — Zech. 14: 17. "For the na- tion and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish."
Finally, Joseph says to his brethren, "Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. "
So Joseph, the beloved son, shows us — in a way that none but God could devise and carry out — the central truth, coming from the begin- ning of time, — "God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth on him should not perish but have ever- lasting life."
MOSES.
MOSES.
4iI will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him."
Very much like Jesus was Moses, the man of God — Moses, the mediator — Moses, the law-giv- er— Moses, the meekest of men.
Moses was born in a time of bondage of his brethren; so was Jesus. "The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick and in allotment of service in the field." — Ex. 1:13-14.
"And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." — Lu. 21: 1.
Both Moses and Jesus wrere hid from the in- fant slaughter of the king. Moses was found in the "ark of bullrushes;" Jesus in a manger. Both
48 1 HE IMAGE OF GOD.
fulfilled the saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son." Jesus, the son of Mary; Moses, called the Son of Pharaoh's daughter (Ex. 2: 10); each was brought up as the son of a King. Pilate said to Jesus, "Art thou a king, then?" Jesus an- swered, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born and for this cause came I in- to the world, that I should bear witness to the truth."
Like Jesus, who refused an earthly kingdom when the people wished to take him by force and make him king, so Moses, "when hewascometo years refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he had r< spect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing him who is invisible."
NIK [MAGE OF GO I>. 49
Moses was called to lead God's people out of bondage into the promised land. Jesus finding the place in the book of the prophet Isaiah, read these words to the people: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliver- ance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."
By his name "1 am," God authorized Moses: "Tell the people i am hath sent thee." — Ex. 3: 13-14. When Jesus was questioned as to his au- thority, ( "Art thou greater than our father Abra- ham?") he said, "Before Abraham was, 1 am." Jn. 8: 58. This is he whom John describes, "which is, and which was and which is to come." Rev. 1: 8.
When God sent Moses he gave him power to work miracles, that the people might believe. It is interesting to note that the miracles God showed and instructed Moses to perform, were
50 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
types of sin — the serpent and leprosy — and pow- er was given him to restore to health and useful- ness. Jesus, also, began his ministry with mira- cles of healing and restoration, "and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. " Chiefly as a leader and commander of the peo- ple, does Moses resemble Jesus, leading them through the wilderness to the promised land. "I go to prepare a place for you," and "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," says the captain of our salvation.
Moses was the intercessor, — "Forgive them, O Lord — and if not, blot out, I pray thee, my name from thy book of remembrance." He who -'was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God through him," "ever liveth to make intercession for us."
During the forty years that God was leading Israel through the desert he gave them by the hand of Moses a continual series of lessons illus- trating his salvation through Jesus Christ. The
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same pattern that God gave to Moses, "an ex- ample and shadow of heavenly things," was lived for us by Christ. Moses led the way — Jesus was the way.
EGYPT.
EGYPT.
"Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many.— Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit."— Is. 31: 1-3.
NO sooner did a nation arise in the earth, than that nation became a part of God's series of lessons for mankind.
"So I doubt not, through the ages One increasing purpose runs."
Egypt, land of the fertile valley of the Nile, land of corn and wine, of "flesh pots" in abun- dance, of false gods, — Egypt, the House of Bon- dage ! The sons of Jacob little dreamed that they would soon forget the promised Canaan. The lotus blossom soon entered their blood. They were content to remain. By degrees the chains of slavery were forged. The shepherds were turned into brick-makers, and "bricks without straw," at that. The glorious power of Egypt,
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the greatly desired Egypt, the life-giving Egypt, was found a tyrant's power, a hateful Egypt, a death-dealing Egypt. Egypt the desert, Egypt whose river was turned into blood, whose fertile soil brought forth frogs and vermin, whose balmy air could swarm with flies! Egypt, the ideal of ashes for beauty, mourning instead of the oil of joy: Egypt, where there was none to inherit, from the son of Pharaoh on the throne to the son of the slave who embalms the dead! The land of death!
As Canaan stands for heaven, so Egypt stands for earth.
Hunger for the things of this wrorld drives us to forget Canaan and return to Egypt.
In a time of famine Abraham went to Egypt. Only by God's help did he come out alive. He was not then the "Abraham" of faith he after- ward became. Doubtless his experience in Egypt of his own weakness and God's deliver- ance, made him the man of faith, the Friend of God.
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Jacob and his sons went to Egypt to buy corn "because the famine was sore in all lands."
It is some kind of "famine" in the soul which drives humanity to seek some spiritual Egypt. It is taking the bribe of the serpent because we long for the fruit which is "pleasant to the sight — a tree to be desired to make one wise."
So comes to every child of Adam, the knowl- edge of good and evil. So the people of God, the race he made in his image, go, all of them, to Egypt for wealth, for pleasure, for ease, for power, for love, for help, for life. The glory of Egypt is found to be "a fading flower;" at the last a chain of slavery. The famine of the soul is not taken away but increased ten-fold. The riches of Egypt bring no satisfaction. It proves to be not bread but a stone that we find there.
"Woe to the rebellious children that take counsel, but not of me, saith the Lord; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin; that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, to
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strengthen themselves in the strength of Egypt, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion." "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, be- cause they are many, and on horsemen because they are strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. Now the Egyptians are men, not God; and their horses flesh, not spirit."
The failure of "the flesh" leads us to "the spirit." For our deliverance from the dominion of the flesh — which ends in slavery and death, God sends "plagues." "Let my people go," he says to Pharaoh and to Egypt. To his people he says, "Flee out of the House of Bondage."
Isn't it so ? Do the world, the flesh and the devil bring us any joy ? When we have list- ened and been led into captivity — the plagues begin. In vain we cry out to the gods of Egypt. No answer is in the silent sphynx, no help in the
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pyramids — stone images of the Trinity. Egypt is a desert. No soul could ever find a way out of the desert without a guide. We are all lost there, all famished for the water of life.
Lo, in the midst of this desert, a voice — "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
We are shown the way out of Egypt. A leader "like unto Moses" is sent us. He went through the wilderness unscathed, unfettered by satan's wiles. He knows the way. He has the strength we need.
"With whom took he counsel, and who hath instructed him and taught him in the paths of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?"
"Behold, the nations as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing."
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He moves the nations as one moves the pieces on a chess board. Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, check-mate each other in turn. He moves Cyrus over his board, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Xerxes, and Darius the Mede. "Have ye not known ? Have ye not heard ? Hath it not been told you from the beginning ? Have ye not un- derstood from the foundations of the earth ? He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grass-hoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ; that bringeth the princes to nothing ; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity."
"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight.; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." "Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righte- ousness and strength, even to him shall men come."
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So shall Egypt be the battle ground of good and evil in our mixed nature of clay and spirit. "Tophet was ordained of old." The chaff must be burned out of us, else the wheat cannot be made into bread. Egypt was ordained of old. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." "Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer, be- hold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribula- tion ten days ; be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that over- cometh shall not be hurt of the second death. "
Ah, what a desert, filled with thirst and hope- lessness, would this world be without that Son of Man whose voice yet rings through all the world, — "Come unto Me." Even Egypt points to him. Moses spoke of him. All Scripture re- volves around him. History points to him, from
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the beginning all the way down. "Without him was not anything made that was made." Who shall say we have no voice from God ? Listen to the voice of history, which Scripture interprets for us. That voice was incarnate in Jesus Christ. "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which tes- tify of Me."
THE PASSOVER.
THE PASSOVER.
"Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us."
It/ HO is worthy to open the book and to loose II the seals thereof ?" Did ever you try to open the Book of Life to any soul ? O, how our own imperfections, blemishes of character, yea, sins, stood in the way then ! How many dare not even name religion to others for fear the "beam that is in thine own eye" would be pointed out. How many, if they undertake to teach the way of righteousness, are shown to be but Pharisees. "There is none righteous, — no, not one."
"And I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders said unto me, weep not ; behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
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And behold and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four cherubim, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain, and they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by tin blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests."
This was the "Lamb of God," pointed out in the land of Egypt, long, long ago ; ever present in the mind of God, "the same yesterday, to-day and forever," the lamb "without blemish and without spot."
"There was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead" — only the houses of God's people, sprinkled with the blood of the lamb. "When your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? Then ye shall say, "It is the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the Children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians
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and delivered our houses." Down through the years the race of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the brethren of Moses, the man of God, kept the yearly feast of the Passover, making it the begin- ning of the year, since the night when they were delivered from Egypt.
"Now before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." "Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe al- so in Me." Could any other man say that? We have heard men compare Jesus Christ with Bud- dha, Mahomet, Confucius. Could any one of these men say, "ye believe in God, believe also in Me?" Were any of these foretold by the prophets? Did God from the foundation of the world ordain types which were fulfilled by any of these? Does the Paschal Lamb describe them? They are dead. Abraham, also, is dead, and Moses. What meaning could there be in the
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* 'sprinkling with blood" — if it were the blood of these, or of any of the race of Adam who are dead and gone?
It is only because it is the life, that blood sig- nifies anything. To be sprinkled with the blood of the passovef lamb meant life to those who obeyed, who availed themselves of it. It is the Jiving Christ who saves; his blood means his life. His life can be imparted to us. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." "For he is our life." "Your life is hid with Christ in God." "When he who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." "I am the way, the truth and the life." ''He is not here; he is risen." "Seeing he ever liveth." "Christ in you, the hope of glory. " This is what it is to be ' -sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb." "This is life eternal, that they might know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. "
The time of the feast of the Passover was therefore the time when Jesus was crucified. The
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Word made flesh had lived and taught, and now he was to die. The Word, the "Book" was to be closed. The Lamb was to be slain. "Fa- ther, save me from this hour — yet for this hour I came into the world."
Jesus was able to open again the book of his life; he alone, of all the race of men. His death meant triumph over death. The shedding of his blood meant everlasting life. He who "took on him the seed of Abraham," became the first-fruits of the resurrection. "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." Jesus died that he might overcome death. The ''sting of death is sin," that is, the poison which causes death. "In him was no sin" — "it was not possible for death to hold him." "Whatso- ever is born of God cannot die." Therefore, the "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" becomes part of our life — even as blood flows in our veins. How? We love him. Two are not made one without love. "We love, because he first loved us." Loving him, we are "conformed to his
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image" — we are "new creatures in Christ Jesus." We look at things through his eyes. We can no longer hold to the things which drive him from us. "As the hart panteth* for the water brooks," our hearts cry out for Him who is Love itself. We fly from our Egypt of bond- age; we care no more for the things which en- slave us. Egypt's power is broken and we are saved with a great deliverance, even as Pha- raoh's hosts were swallowed up in the Red Sea.
"Jesus, the same night in which he was be- trayed, took bread, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, This is my body broken for you. Eat ye all of it. And he took the cup, and said. Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, unto the remission of sins."
Behold, then, "the Lamb of God, that tak- eth away the sin of the world."
How shall it be ? The Passover lamb was eaten. It was thus made part and parcel of the substance of those who partook. The bread of
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the new covenant is eaten — assimilated with the body and life of the disciple. "This do in re- membrance of Me," said Jesus. "I in thee and thou in Me" — "as the Father and I are one" — "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profit- eth nothing."
Thus did He who came to fulfill all that the law and the prophets had spoken — he who "spake as never man spake," — thus did Jesus explain to us the type of the "blood which is the life," and of the bread and wine of the new pass- over covenant. His words make plain his death and his abiding life. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." "Lo, I am with you alway. "
THE FIRST-BORN
THE FIRST-BORN
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.— Heb. 1: 1-2.
A NATIVE element in the soul of man, is the hope of leaving his estate, all the treasures he has gained, all his honor and glory, to an heir. To be snuffed out like a candle, to vanish like the mists of morning and leave no trace behind, — this is repugnant. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is not the inherent philoso- phy of the genus homo. It is rather, "Let me accumulate all that I can; let me work diligently for time is short; and let me find a wrorthy suc- cessor to inherit my name and fame." All kings and potentates of the earth have sought an heir for the kingdom they must sometime leave. This heirship has devolved upon the first-born.
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When we study the Book, we find that God ordained that his people should set apart as his, the first-born of every creature, both man and b< ast The first-born of beasts should be offered on the altar, and the first-born of man should be consecrated a priest of God.
What! we exclaim, did Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, look forward to an heir? It must be so, else what meaning had he in calling the first-born of every creature, "Mine?" We examine to see how and why this is, and we find here one more type of the Only Begotten Son of God.
The final deliverance from Egypt, when death visited all the first-born of those whose houses wire unsprinkled with the blood of the Lamb, was the occasion of this ordinance of God com- manding his people to set apart the first-born as his. This meant that there was no heir for Egypt — no continuation of their line, but the heir should be God's heir. He should be the source of life. Through him should be "a seed"
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saved alive. The prophets foretold this, later. David says, "None can keep alive his own soul — a seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation." And Isaiah says, "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands."
It was the moment when Israel wras in the last extremity — no possible human deliverance, that God founded this type of the first-born, coupling it with his final destruction of all their enemies. The Egyptians pursued the Children of Israel — "All the horses and chariots of Pha- raoh, his horsemen and his army, and overtook them camping by the Red Sea." Israel was "sore afraid" — Pharaoh's host on one side, the sea on the other. They said to Moses, "Be- cause there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Where- fore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Did we not tell thee in
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Egypt, L<^t us alone, that we may serve the
ptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.
"And Moses said to the people, fear not, Stand still and thou shalt see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you to-day; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace." Then it was that life from the dead was prefig- ured— life for those " thou hast purchased." The death of the Egyptians was the deliverance of Israel. Pharaoh and his hosts, who would have destroyed Israel, were themselves the vic- tims, their evil determination to destroy the peo- ple of God being their own destruction.
The position of Israel when Pharaoh drew on and the)r were driven to the sea's edge, was the position of the Lord Jesus upon the cross. When he had followed the way God had ordained for him, and rejecting all this world had to offer.
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escaping the snares of satan, choosing God's way, drinking the cup God gave him; — when all was done, and Death was encamped against him, he cried out, "My God, My God, why has thou for- saken Me?" These words are the title of the twenty-second Psalm. Jesus meant that whole Psalm. "A reproach of men and despised by the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn." He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." "Thou hast brought me unto the dust of death. Dogs have compassed me about, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. They part my garments among them and cast lots up- on my vesture." Then comes the triumphant cry of the "first-born" from the dead, — "All the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn to the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the Kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor amongst the na- tions— All they that go down to the dust shall
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bow before him; and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this."
This is "the song of Moses and the Lamb." This is the deliverance from Egypt, which is evil; and from "him which has the power of death, which is the devil." God "hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things. " ' 'Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every crea- ture; for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and in- visible, whether thrones, or dominions, or princi- palities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist; and he is the head of the body, the church; who is the begin- ning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things he might have the pre-eminence."
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After Jesus was raised from the dead he said to his disciples, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." David said (Ps. 89), "Also I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth — his seed also will I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven." John calls Jesus "the first-begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth."
From the beginning God prepared every gar- ment his Son should w7ear; just as mothers pre- pare the raiment of their first-born. There were his garments of kingship, as wre shall see; his. priest-robes; his vesture for the wilderness and for the cross. In all that God has done, in the creation of the world and in human history, Jesus is in the grain of it, in the warp and in the woof. He made the day "darkest before the dawn," and formed night and day and sleep and waking, and death and life, and hid the world in darkness while Jesus met the last enemy — before the day-break of his resurrection.
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Jesus was there when God said, "Let there be light." "The Light is the life of men."
When the seasons were created, and death- like Winter laid its hand on all the springs of life, God had provided a seed for each plant and tree to tide it over, a power to burst forth anew in the fullness of time. "I am the resurrection and the life." The first-born from the dead was clothed in the garment prepared for him, "the Seed of Abraham."
Was it all for him alone? Not for himself at all. For us. God has no need to be made flesh. He laid aside his glory — he emptied himself — he drank the cup our sins prepared for him; he "was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Yes, he died the sinner's death — "capi- tal punishment" as the Romans administered it.
The eldest sons of kings, of earth's nobles, lords, millionaires, are not like this. Jesus in- herited nothing for himself — all for us, that we might be "heirs of God, joint heirs with him."
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This is love. Now we can believe that God is our Father, and that God is love, since God was in Christ. Now we can cease to be at enmity with God, since "God so loved the world;" now we are at one with him. This is the at-onement which our Cain-like hearts made necessary. For the first-born, in the type given to the children of Israel, was a sacrifice — always a sacrifice.
Earth's first-born was Cain. Sin brought forth death. To change the heart of the murderer, to overcome sin and death — this was God's prob- lem, solved in Christ.
So it was all for you and me — not a vague, abstract image in the mind, called "man." It was very real to the human heart of Jesus of Nazareth. When he fought the battle in the Garden of Gethsemane, our Elder Brother's un- speakable grief was a reality. When our Geth- semane comes, we fly to him. He is one of us. He is but the elder, and we his brethren. He is the perfect image of God, and we the less per-
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feet, to be perfected by his aid. We love him, and it becomes "Christ in us the hope of glory," "a new creature in Christ Jesus." Thus are we born again; "Now are we the sons of God — when he shall appear we shall be like him."
THE TREE OF LIFE.
THE TREE OF LIFE
"The Tree of Life also, in the midst of the Garden." — Genesis 2:9.
AFTER the Song of Moses, after the triumphal dance and responsive chorus, when Miriam took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances and Miriam answered them, "Sing ye to the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea" — what then?
Why if all the people had learned through and through the lesson of faith in God — if in them all his image had been renewed, that would have been the end of the story of man's pilgrim- age from Egypt to Canaan. But it was not so. The journey was a life-time journey, just as it is now wTith us. Lesson after lesson God sends.
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Time after time are we shown the weakness and folly — yea, the sin and evil, of our hearts. A great many reviews and a great many examina- tions are necessary before the final examination which fixes our degree. "And thou shalt remem- ber all the way which the Lord thy God led thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. " — Dent. 8: 12.
So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness — three days journey in the wilderness, and found no water. "And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter." The place was called "Marah," bitter, because the waters were bitter.
Did the perfect Man, who traveled every foot of our life-journey, ever come to this? What three days journey through a land without life, did he take? Of whom did David speak when he said, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd; my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast
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brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet!" "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink."
That disciple whom Jesus loved stood by, with the mother not forgotten at this time, and saw and heard and writes it down for us, — "Af- ter this Jesus, knowing that all things were now to be accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar; and they filled a sponge with the vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost."
"And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto
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the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet; there he made for them a stat- ute and an ordinance, and there he proved them and said, if thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his com- mandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And they came to Elim where there were twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters." — Ex.f 15:23-27.
"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." — Rev. 22: 1-2.
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"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." — Rev. 2: 7.
"To him that overcometh. " The tree of life was free in the Garden of Eden, when there was no sin to overcome. Not for hearts that yearn for clay, is the golden fruit of immortality. Not for souls that believe Satan rather than God, for this means a heart which has in itnosonship, no such fibre of God's nature as would recognize his truth and distinguish it from Satan's perversions. When we '-see him as he is," "we shall be like him," we shall be the sons of God.
The Prodigal Son is our Lord's illustration of how we are driven to find out our need of our Father, to appreciate his love and his home — our home. When we have consumed our all of earth's alluring joys, and found at the end pov- erty— "husks that the swine did eat" — then we are ready to desire the fruit of the tree of life. Then we look for water in "the dry and thirsty land where no water is." Then we find bitter
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waters, "gall and vinegar." Then we meet the diseases sin has brought upon us. Both pesti- lence and fire and swrord have always followed sin. The pestilence may be an incurable disease of the mind, the fire may consume the soul, and the sword may cut off all the hopes and ambitions which made life seem worth living. Our body is dead because of sin. We find ourselves chained to this dead body and we cry aloud, * 'Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" — Paul has the answer — the same which God showred Moses. "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. " Here is the Tree of Life. * 'If Christ be in you the bod)' is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life, because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you." Here is the renewed sonship — the re-establishment of the lost image of God in us — the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life — the sweetening and healing of the
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bitter waters, changing them unto the means of life. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together."
How many journeys through the wilderness must be ours before we learn our own insuf- ficiency? How many times Satan comes to try us — and we are found wanting, excepting as God shows the Tree of Life to save us! How long the time, how hard the way, before we learn what manner of spirit we are of! How many lessons to show us all that is in the heart "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked!" But in all these things "we are more than conquerers through him that loved us" — till we come to the time when neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any
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other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord."
"The tree of life bare twelve manner of fruits and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
"And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." These are the "twelve manner of fruits," one for every month of the year of a full human life. "Are there not twelve hours in a day?" said Jesus, speaking of the fixed time of every human life. There need be no period, therefore, in all our Lives, when the tree of life is barren.
When we have fully and finally overcome, we shall eat of the tree of life "in the midst of the Paradise of God." No longer will the flaming
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 95
sword bar our way — all our sins and all our sick- ness gone — "death swallowed up in victory." -Who forgiveth all thine iniquity, w7ho healeth all thy diseases. " ' 'Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or, Rise, take up thy bed and walk?" The Word of the Lord will be to those who overcome, not a flaming sword as it is to all uncleanness, but a voice of welcome — "Enter into the joy of your Lord." "And God shall wipe away ail tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."
After the waters of Marah, healed by the tree which God showed Moses, "they came to Elim where there wTere twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters." When the work of "the twelve" is done, and the work of the "seventy," which were also sent out for the same purpose, then will come the camp beside the still waters and in the green pastures. When we follow the
96 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
Good Shepherd, we shall not want. When I have eaten of the Tree of Life — * 'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." "Blessed are they that do his com- mandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."
MANNA.
"MANNA."
"Give us this day our daily bread "
JESUS himself explained the meaning of the Manna, which was the daily food of God's people during all the forty years of their journey through the wilderness. "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. I am the bread of life. He that believeth on me hath everlast- ing life."
In this type we have, not a sudden deliverance from death — a resurrection, as God's rescue from Pharaoh's power and Pharaoh's fate foretold. We have a picture of daily life, sustained by daily food. Just as our "salvation" through Christ is not alone a sudden transaction, which, being ac- complished once for all, we are redeemed there-
IOO THE [MAGE OF COD.
by and nothing further follows. There is the desert yet to cross. We must have strength re- newed each day. Our new-born spirit requires the ' 'sincere milk of the Word," that we may grow thereby. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."
The children of Israel were commanded to gather the manna lievery morning — each accord- ing to his eating." When the sun rose it melted away. How certainly does our opportunity to commune with God, to renew and upbuild our spirits by his Word and his answer to us "melt away" in the multitude of daily duties which arise, unless we "gather the manna" first, and early! It is like the morning dew; there is no place for it after the "heat and burden of the day" has come. We cannot bear that heat and burden without it. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
This is the simple, inherent nature of man. His body must have daily bread, and hunger
THE IMAGE OF GOD. IOI
makes him know it. He hungers, and he eats. Man's spirit hungers, likewise. He is always reaching out for strength and power beyond what is in himself. The more his own power comes short of his desires, the greater is his craving. This craving, the devil offers false food to supply. He tempts man to make of a stone, his bread. This is the underlying cause of that wide-spread delusion of strong drink. We want both joy and strength beyond what is in us. "In the joy of the Lord is your strength." "Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit." That is the alternative. The false food produces not joy, but intoxication (poisoning). It does not feed the blood and tissues of the body, but deteriorates both, increasing the craving instead of satisfying it. It dissipates the strength and health of the mind and spirit. So it is writh every other sin — it becomes a slave-driving force within us; wre are driven by it; we are the slaves and sin the master.
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The hunger for all that is beyond and above us should find in God its daily and constant sup- ply. We want the universe — and rightly, for God made us heirs of all things. We want all power and all knowledge — and rightly, for God has made us Kings and Priests. We are not born to be as the beasts that perish. To become such is to throw away the daily bread God has provided for us, the bread of God, which alone can keep alive our spirits.
Often the "things which are seen" seem much more real to us than the eternal things; especially when we have abundance and our souls know no lack. So "God dealeth with us as sons," and the withdrawal of the unreal supports teaches us to seek and find the real, the true, the bread which fits our nature, feeds our spirit, makes us grow strong and joyful "in the Lord." "Your joy no man taketh from you." "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." This is the language of a man who knows. We ask and receive. "If a son ask bread, will he
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give him a stone?" "He giveth the Holy Spirit to them that ask him."
Could any other man than Jesus, the "Word made flesh," say, "your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die?"
If he should say to each of us, "Will ye also go away?" — we must answer as Peter did, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the son of the living God."
THE LIVING WATER.
THE LIVING WATER
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. — Isaiah 55: 1.
AS bread sustains life, so water restores it. Is- rael journeyed on through the wilderness of proving and trying. At Rephidim they camped and there was no water. "And the people thirst- ed there for water; and the people murmured there against Moses, and said, wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children with thirst?" Not yet had they learned faith in God. "And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do with this people? they be almost ready to stone me?"
Then it wras that God stood upon the rock in Horeb, before Moses, and Moses smote the rock, and there came water out of it, in the sight of all Israel. Again at Kadesh, where Miriam died,
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there was no water. Again the people cried out against God and against Moses, and again the smitten rock gave water.
Paul interprets this rock to mean Christ. "Our fathers did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that Spiritual Rock which went with them, and that Rock was Christ." "Now all of these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition."
Is Christ, then, the Rock smitten that the world may drink and live? So he explained it to the woman of Samaria, — "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a wTell of water springing up into ever- lasting life." Again he said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."
What is it to thirst? What is it to drink? Is the longing to be cleansed from sin, to be restored to God's favor and delight and salvation, like thirst? David found it so. "As the hart pant- eth for the water brooks, my soul longeth, yea,
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 1 09
thirsteth for God, for the living God." Does not every living soul desire life? Is not death the greatest evil of all? "Yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. " What a search has this earth seen, for "elixir of life!" Living water is what we want — water that we may drink of and find life eternal.
Who can satisfy this inborn thirst if not he who himself overcame death? Who but he who hath "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows?" "Yet we did esteem him smitten of God and af- flicted. But he was wounded for our transgres- sions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." He it is who says, "I will give unto him that is athirst, of the fountain of the water of life freely."
God led his people "in the wilderness, in a solitary way. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. Fools, because of their trans-
IIO THE IMAGE OF GOD.
gression and because of their iniquities are afflict- ed; their soul abhorreth all manner of meat, and they draw near to the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions."
Jesus numbers among the blessed, those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness." Zech- ariah looked forward to his coming and said, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jeru- salem, for sin and for uncleanness" — "It shall come to pass in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem — and the Lord shall be King overall the earth." Ezekiel saw a vision of life-giving waters flowing out of the Sanctuary. David said, "There is a river, the streams where- of make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High." "For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light." John responds, "In him was life,
THE IMAGE OF GOD. Ill
and the life was the light of men." Isaiah, after speaking of the "rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch out of his roots," on whom "shall rest the spirit of the Lord," says, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of Salvation."
The "last Adam is made a quickening spirit. " "Let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."
THE SERPENT OF BRASS.
THE SERPENT OF BRASS.
"Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."
THE serpent is God's type of sin. Hiding is his nature. He is always under something. He has a power to "charm," and his bite means death. A very small crack is large enough for him to insinuate himself; and though he looks so slim, he swallows his victim whole.
Adam and Eve believed the serpent— rather than God! Every one of us has done the same thing, over and over. "Ye shall surely die," said the God who made all things. "Ye shall not surely die," said the serpent. Eve did not consider the matter thus baldly. She was per- suaded that there was some mistake — that the nature of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not the deadly poison she had supposed, but "'a tree to be desired to make one wise."
Il6 I HI. [MAGE 01 <;OD.
On the long journey toward the promised Canaan, over and over again the people lost faith m God's leadership. "Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilder- ness? There is no bread, neither water, and our soul loatheth this light bread (the manna)." Just as it is with us now, — the spiritual food which is to make us sons of God and heirs of life eternal, is constantly getting out of sight behind the more earthly food which our clay nature craves. The things we want seem better, more to be desired; we set our affections continually on that which hinders our progress Zionward. We do not realize at first that this is sin. It is the Old Serpent, deceiving us once more.
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much peo- ple of Israel died.'1 Therefore the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee; pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us."
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The world is filled in every corner with sin- bitten humanity, suffering torture and death. We see, and therefore we believe, that sin brings sorrow and ends in death. "Take away the ser- pents from us," cried Israel. "Take away the sorrow, more than I can bear; save me from death," is the cry of the human.
Who but God can devise a way to do this? "Can the leopard change his spots? Then can ye do good that are accustomed to do evil?" The serpent poison is in the blood.
Moses prayed for the people. God answered, — "And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live." One would sup- pose that every one was saved at once by this simple cure. Yet it required faith. Doubtless there were those who "didn't believe in it," and who died in consequence, unable to receive the gift of life. The record says, "Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole; and it
I 18 THE IMAGE OF GOD.
came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any one, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."
When Nicodemus came to Jesus to talk about eternal life, j« sus said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. " Again he said, "Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me. (This he said, sig- nifying what death he should die)." It was the serpent upon the pole. It was sin crucified. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. that we might be made the righteous- ness of God in him." "As it is written, cursed is every one that is hanged upon a tree." He was condemned. He was "executed" — "hung" —
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"Crucified." He suffered the extreme penalty of the law. That is the sinner's sentence — death. "The wages of sin is death." He accepted our rightly earned wages. "And with him they cru- cify two thieves; the one on his right hand and the other on his left. And the Scripture was fulfilled that saith, and he was numbered with the transgressors."
This is the way God has devised to overthrow Satan, to deliver us from the poison of sin and its power over us, to save us from death. When Christ died and rose again he "overcame princi- palities and powers;" and you being dead in sins hath he quickened together with him, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." "Who hath deliv- ered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us to the kingdom of his dear Son."
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Once again we ask, Who of all the sons of men, fulfilled this type of the bazen serpent, if not Jesus Christ? Of whom can it be said that 4 'through death he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil?" "There is no other name given under heaven whereby we may be saved." "None of us can save his brother." "His name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." "The law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death." "If the spirit of him which raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you."
Certainly when God sent serpents to bite the people of Israel, that they might know they had sinned, and when he told Moses to put a brazen serpent upon a pole and whoever looked on it should live, he was thinking of his "purpose and grace in Christ Jesus, now manifest by the ap- jn aring of our Savior, who hath abolished death,
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and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
Isaiah looked forward to this and said, "He Will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it." Paul quotes this, and adds, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." — John says, "For this purpose the Son of God was man- ifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." In John's vision on Patmos he saw the overthrow of "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world" — "and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb."
How did they overcome by the blood of the Lamb? Even as he loved not his life, but gave it; so his people love not their life — the life sepa-
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rate from him. 4<He that loveth his life shall lose it: he that loseth it, for my sake shall find it." This is being "dead with him, that we may also live with him." This is to "crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts." In the spirit of obedience and faith, one would cut off a right hand or pluck out a right eye, rather than be at variance with his spirit. He that served Mam- mon, leaves all and follows him who won the vic- tory by giving all — even life itself. "He that taketh not his cross and followeth me, is not worthy of me."
Thus "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," as Israel looked upon the pictured image of crucified sin, — looked and lived; so we live unto holiness and die unto sin. So the works of the flesh are eliminated, the poison of the serpent: and the new life of the risen Savior is shared by all the children cf God. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh 1 live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
THE TEMPLE.
THE TEMPLE.
4*He spake of the temple of his body."— Jn. 2: 21. "For ye are the temple of the Living God."— I Cor. 6:16.
THE Bible represents God a trinity — Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Man also, his image, — is in Bible Psychology, a three-fold being — body, soul and spirit. If the three-fold nature of God seems hard to understand, or if God the Father is spoken of as an offended King, whilst Jesus is the victim of his wrath; we have only to look at the image of God — our own self, to see the ab- surdity of this latter statement and the demon- strated fact of three in one.
Jesus was the man — the human soul and body inhabited by the Spirit of God; "God manifest in the flesh." The Father who ran to meet his prodigal son while he was yet a great way off, and put upon him the robe and the ring — was
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God in Christ, coming to meet us, to restore our son ship, to receive us with joy into his house. 1 'His name shall be called Immanuel — God with us." Is. 7: 14.
The tabernacle, which God showed Moses the pattern of in Mount Sinai, was a very complete type of Christ — of man in God's image. It had the three-fold division — the outer court, the holy place, the holy of holies. To study the structure of the tabernacle with all its furniture, will there- fore help us to understand our own nature, and the nature of our God and Savior. More than all this, it will prove to us that the bible is the true word of God to us; for if we find the temple to be really of the same pattern after which Christ is made, and both called the dwelling place of God, we shall see that none but God could have builded the house.
This is the very sign that Jesus gave to Israel of his day; — "What sign givest thou that thou art the Christ, the Son of the Highest?" "De-
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stroy this temple, and I will build it again in three days." "Forty-and-six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou build it again in three days?" "But he spoke of the temple of his body" — "There shall no sign be given to this genera- tion but the sign of the prophet Jonah."
God said to Moses, "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Ac- cording to all that I show thee, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instru- ments thereof, even so shall ye make it." Then follows the instruction how to make tbe ark, on which was the law of God written on tables of stone; and upon the ark was the "mercy seat." This was in the Holy of Holies. Around this was the Holy Place, where was placed the golden table, on which bread was always to be, and the candlestick with seven lamps to be kept lighted, and the golden altar before the mercy seat — where incense was to be burned morning and evening, and the brazen altar for burnt offerings whereon a lamb was offered morning and even-
128 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
ing, and the brazen basin at which the priests must continually wash hands and feet.
A41 these things became as familiar to ,the Children of Israel as day and night, summer and winter.
When Moses had finished the work and all was done as God commanded, a bright cloud rested upon the tabernacle and "the glory of the Lord filled the place." In all of their journeys this sign of God's presence, dwelling in the tem- ple he had ordained, went with them. When the cloud rested on the tabernacle, they camped; when it rose and moved forward, they followed. It was cloud by day and fire by night.
So it was when Solomon dedicated the temple; — "The cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister be- cause of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord." Solomon said, "Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot con-
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tain thee; how much less this house that I have builded."
The prayer of Solomon, in the 8th chapter of First Kings, contains the history of Israel — the history of man, with regard to God.
The prophet Haggai, encouraging the rebuild- ing of the temple in his time, says, "The desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts, and in this place will I give peace."
To this "latter temple" came no bright cloud, as to the others; but the "Prince of Peace" him- self came to it in the flesh, he at whose birth the angels sang, "Peace on earth, good will to men" — and who said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."
The prophet Malachi said, "Behold I will send my messenger, who shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple."
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But we know that the types and shadows, the
figures of the true, have long since vanished. We no longer pray toward the temple. We pray "for Christ's sake" — "in the name of thy Son
US Christ." He is the temple. Him the bright cloud overshadowed. "This is my be- loved Son: hear ye him." "The hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusa- lem shall ye worship the Father." — "When Mes- sias cometh, he will tell us all things" — "I that speak unto thee am he." "In him dwelt the full- ness of the Godhead bodily." "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth." Here is our "Mer- cy Seat," crowned always with the shekina — the "brightness of God's glory and the express im- age of his person."
The pillar of fire stood in the door of the tab- ernacle when Moses talked with God. "I am the
r/' said [esus. "Ever)' man stood in the door of his tent and looked toward the door of the tabernacle and worshiped." Solomon
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prayed, -What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands unto this house; then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men.)"
"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it," said Jesus. The epistle to the Hebrews, particularly the eighth and ninth chapters, con- tains an account of the parallel between the tem- ple ser/ice, and the truth in Christ, which it pic- tured. The temple and its ordinance are called "the patterns of things in the heavens" — "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."
Christ, being "the fullness of him that filleth all in all," was the fulfillment of all spiritual
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types. The u mpl< contained the shekina, the
I'lLsence of God's glory vis r the mercy-
I and the ark within the veil. The veil was
"rent in twain from the top to the bottom*' when Jesus was crucified — "This signifying that the way to the holiest is now open to every man, since the veil of his flesh is rent/' explains the writer to the Hebrews. There was also in the temple the table of pure gold with its bread al- ways upon it. 'T am the bread of life," said Je- sus. Also the golden candlestick— "I am the light of the world;" and the golden altar of incense — "Who ever liveth to make intercession for us;" and the altar for burnt offerings — "So Christ was once offered to bear the sin of man);" and the laver for washing — "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean! I will: be thou clean."
God built this temple — Christ, here on earth, that every one of his children might be likewise the temples of God. "Ye are the temples of the living God." "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you, which ye
1 HE [MAGE OF GOD. 1 33
have of God, and ye are not your own?" "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
So we, the living temples of God, need no longer the stone tables of the law which were in the ark, in the Holy of Holies, in the tabernacle which God shewed Moses in Mount Sinai; for he says of this law, "I will write it on your heart." Nor do we need the offerings of the temple, for we, following Christ, "offer ourselves a willing sacrifice, which is our reasonable service." Nei- ther need we the incense, for everywhere — "by prayer the earth is bound as by gold chains about the feet of God;"nor the golden candlestick with seven lamps, for Jesus said, "ye are the light of the world'' — "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
When John saw the new heavens and the new earth, and the heavenly city, he "saw no temple
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therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
So it is, from Genesis to Revelation, God's word is a complete harmony. "Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want his mate." God's
word is like light, a rainbow of seven colors. Should we not stud)' and harmonize the whole word of God to us, that we may see clearly by the white and perfect light? The "seven candle- sticks" of John's vision had the Son of Man in their midst. By his light we see — his Spirit leads us to all truth. "Search the Scriptures," and "see that thou makest all things according to the pattern showed thee in the Mount."
INCENSE
INCENSE
"Ask, and ye shall receive; Seek, and ye shall find; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
UNCERTAINTY as to the usefulness of prayer has cut off this means of communion with God, in the minds of many of his children. They do not see that the great author of the universe could alter his laws at the cry of a creature, or that it is likely that he wTould listen to the vapor- like voices that rise from the earth. Adam talk- ing to God in the garden, ' 'in the cool of the day," seems to such only a beautiful myth.
Probably all the myths of all religions can be traced to a foundation in reality. A granite boul- der found on a western prairie might be to many "only a stone;" but a thoughtful mind asks, Whence came that stone and how is it here? Not more certainly is the granite a dislodged part of a great underlying body of rock, than is the myth
I38 ! !i I I\!A D.
a dislodged bit of underlying truth. Let us know of the bed rock of truth, then, and through all the oceans of forgetfulness and the frozen periods of ignorance, let us examine the source of these glacial fragments called "only myths."
At this age of relic hunting, of antiquity lov- ing, of searching for the old — just because it is old — of placing high money values upon ancient books, how wonderful to think that in every man's possession is a book containing writings older than any we unroll from the folds of Egypt's mummies! The stories of Homer are but recent tales, to the poetry of Job. The tra- ditions of the Koran, the wise sayings of the Vedas — all but of yesterday, compared with the account of the vision of creation, in Genesis. There is one ancient Book, of unquestioned au- thority, which the poorest human being may have for the asking. It is translated into all languages, and a free gift to everyone.
As to prayer, we find the Bible full of ac- counts of God's answers, Cull of instances of help
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and healing and forgiveness and leading and in- structing, because of men's asking for these.
God thought prayer worthy of a symbol among the patterns of things in the heavens which he gave to Moses. It was a symbol wrought of pure gold — the altar of incense. He placed it nearest to his throne, the Mercy-seat. The incense was made of precious and fragrant spices and God showed how it should be made. Morn- ing and evening this incense was to be offered. Whilst the priest, in the Holy Place, offered in- cense before the Mercy-seat, the people were praying without.
Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was thus offering incense in the temple "and the whole multitude of the people were praying with- out at the time of incense" when the angel ap- peared and announced to him the birth of John.
David says, "Let my prayer be set forth be- fore thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. " The feelings we have "in the gloaming," at "early candle light,"
140 THE [MAGE OFGOD.
have their root in a reality. Then it was that Adam "talked with God," and every child of Adam — rather, every child of God since then is listening and looking, when there is neither sun- light nor moonlight, neither the sound of the day's business nor of the evening's revelry, — for the light of God and the voice of the Father. This is the hour when the whole earth shall hear his voice and see his light. "At eventime it shall be light." The Word of the Lord shall come once more, with a light which blots out all the suns — "The Lord my God shall come, all the saints with thee!" Then, not our prayers only shall arise, nor the incense kindled with fire from God's altar; but our whole being shall arise, our spirits quickened with God's spirit, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall
I in: [MAGE OF GOD. 141
we ever be with the Lord." "We shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is." The "even- ing and the morning were the first daw"" when
time began. The evening shall usher in the morning of "That Day" when ''time shall be no longer."
John saw in his vision, "An angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God." The pray- ers of the saints are represented in John's vision as being kept as incense in golden vials. Incense was the symbol of prayer, and was ordained by him who ordained the laws of the universe. For the heart of man to seek God, is as natural as for smoke to rise heavenward, sweet odors to fill the air, flowers to turn to the light. It does not upset the laws of the universe nor throw all na- ture out of plumb when the mists arise from the
142 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
oceans and descend again in showers of blessing upon the dry ground. This is but the primary, the picture-book end of that continuity of law which has its deepest, widest truth in the spirit- ual world. "God is a Spirit, " and the "Father of our spirits." Shall he cause the inarticulate response which the oceans render to the sun, shall he answer the rising wind from the dry and thirsty land, — and be deaf and blind to his children?
When the plague broke out in Israel because of sin, Aaron took a censer and incense upon it and fire from the altar and ran amongst the plague-stricken, and the plague was stayed.
Daniel says, "I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications," "and whilst I was speaking and praying and confess- ing my sins and the sins of my people Israel — yea, whilst I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, touched me about the time of the evening oblation" — who said, "At the beginning
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 1 43
of thy supplications the word came forth, and I am come to show thee."
•-More things are wrought by prayer than this world wots of." It is only in the Book that we have the real history of man, and the history be- gins in the thoughts of his heart, in the offered incense out of which God works events. It is like the story of the "Fisherman and the Genie." When the seal of Solomon was off, the incense- like vapor rose from the long hidden vase and took shape of a mighty "genie." So, out of the heart's desire, grow all the actions of a life. So, from the heart in unison with God, its offered in- cense is one with the Eternal Spirit which first "moved upon the waters" at the earth's creation, and still and always moves to bring to pass what- ever is in truth. To our offered prayer, asking for what is beyond our own power, is added the power of the Holy Ghost. This is the fire from off the altar, which is added to our incense. No "strange fire" was accepted — only that which God ordained. Cain's sacrifice was not in the
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manner God ordained. Nadab and Abihu offer* d '•strange fire," not from the golden altar where the original fire from heaven was always kept burning, and they were destroyed. Neither could any man not ordained and chosen of God as a priest, offer incense. Korah tried the ex-
iment. '-Who is this Moses and Aaron? Ye take too much on yourselves," cried he. God made it plain that his laws were inexorable, that is, that they meant realities and could not bo overthrown.
Who then, is our priest to offer for us our in- cense? Who but that ' 'Priest forever" who "ever liveth to make intercession for us?" The book which tells us of the incense, tells also of the "Lord's annointed." We are not left to guess our God's object lessons. "Ask and ye shall receive.*' "Thy sins be forgiven thee." "Go in peace." "Be thou clean." — "Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" cried the people. It is he of whom Aaron was but the far-off type. He who makes of his own. the sons of God.
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 1 45
Aaron's sons carried on the priesthood. Jesus, "to as many as receive him, to them gives he power to become the sons of God." "He hath made us kings and priests" and the way to the Mercy- seat is open to us all through him.
The fire on the altar of incense came down from heaven, even as fire came down at the prayer of Elijah and of many prophets, priests and kings and men of faith "of like passions as we are." The connecting link between the old dispensa- tion of types and the new of their spiritual ful- fillment, occurred on the Day of Pentecost. The disciples were praying and waiting for the prom- ised baptism of the Holy Ghost. "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The second chapter of Acts con- tains the history.
146 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
Ah, it is with very good reason that we say, "For Jesus sake, Amen!" The promises of God, the symbols he gave, all the types and shadows of eternal realities are "yea and Amen in Christ Jesus." All that is enduring, immortal, has in it the same spirit which dwelt in him. This spirit, the fire on the golden altar symbolized. "He giveth his spirit to them that ask him." "I will send the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost; He shall lead you into all truth." Who but God's Anointed, who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, saying, "I AM hath sent thee;" who but the ever-present, self-existent God, who ordained symbols of the laws of his nature, and dwTelt in the flesh that all flesh might know him; who but the eternal Son of Man who said, "Be- fore Abraham was, I AM" — could give the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God?
He does not alter his law at the "cry of the human." His law is simply his nature. It is therefore always in harmony, in us and in him.
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 147
It is a unit; not a set of opposing forces. The problem is too great for us, for we are like the wide end of divergent rays of light; but not too great for God, who is the light. The "fullness of him that filleth all in all" simply abides in us also.
THE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
THE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."— Lev. 17: 11.
THE sublime simplicity of Bible truths is no- where more blinding in its radiance than in the whole line of type, prophecy and fulfillment connected with the sacrifice for sin.
Doubtless God showed the first man, Adam — the first sinner, the principle that the life of the flesh is in the blood and that the "flesh lusteth against the spirit" and must die before the spirit can live. He told him that death was the out- come of sin. He promised final victory through "the seed of the woman." He provided "coats of skins," when sinning had brought the need of a covering. Doubtless the animals whose skins furnished the covering, had been offered as a sac-
152 THE I MACK OF COD.
rifice; else why should Abel's offering have been accepted rather than Cain's? The idea of the type, also, demands that the sacrifice provides the covering.
"The life of the flesh is in the blood." The "flesh" is a term which Bible writers always use in the comprehensive sense — the two-fold sense, the body and the mind. The carnal mind, the mind of the flesh, that is, the "natural man." All his characteristics are "in the blood." Not merely his physical life is in the blood, but his mental life as well. Inherited qualities are "in the blood." All the traits of nature which dis- tinguish one from another; as the rose, the violet, the nettle differ; as oranges are not apples; as birds are not fishes, and one bird and one fish differ from another; as lions differ from lambs, and serpents are unlike doves; all these traits of nature are "in the blood."
The passions possess the blood. "Love strong as death and jealousy cruel as the grave" are in the blood. This is not the love which is
THE [MAGE OF GOD, 1 53
an attribute of God, and by which we become one with him, and which is like all true, holy, unselfish love. Here is the power of sin. Here it was that Satan got the easy victory over foolish flesh and blood. A little sin in the mind soon takes root in the blood. It is like the microbes, and we are not aware of it till the mortal sin is developed. It is beyond the power of man to change the current of his blood to any radical ex- tent. "He cannot make one hair black or white." The "leopard cannot change his spots."
How then can flesh inherit spirit? How can the strange creature, man, attain to that which he feels himself to be capable of — that eternal life and freedom from sin's slavery which should be his because he can comprehend it? He knows he is more than a mere beast. He de- spises the beast-like qualities which get domin- ion over him. He longs for God. This is the problem which has agitated the heart of man in every age, in every race and clime and nation.
154 ' ttB IMAGE OF GOD.
"Here sits he shaping wings to fly; His heart forebodes a mystery, He names the name — Eternity. "
But his wings are but carved in stone — like the Sphinx of Egypt, and like the Sphinx his strength is but four feet upon the earth, his life principle only a breast of stone.
Like the Persians, he may call on the far-off stars, and worship the symbols of life handed down by tradition: he may keep the fire ever burning — but he worships it with no sacrifice of his own death-bearing nature; he mingles all his own polluted heart in his ideal — and there is no cleansing in his fire, no eternity in his star, his sun goes down.
Or he finds no rest m any of God's creation, and comes to believe the sum of all attainable good will be to be reabsorbed in that indefinable essence which is in everything, fills all space, and which he calls "God." This is heaven — nirvana — rest.
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 155
This last idea is a going back to the begin- ning, when "the earth was without form." Sure- ly it would be foolish even in man, to spend his life perfecting an invention, and when it was de- veloped to crush it to atoms, saying the idea in his mind was enough. Think of losing all those identities perfected at so great expense — Noah, Moses, Job, Daniel, Joseph, John, Mary, Ruth, Esther, Deborah, Sarah, all our own loved ones "gone before." What a heaven, with all these essences mixed in one indefinable chaos! God does not go backward. An organism is not de- veloped unless there is a reality to inhabit the organism. God "repented that he had made man," when man obeyed the flesh rather than the spirit; but the same book which tells us this and that he did make man, tells also of the way to remedy that false obedience. He does not make us nameless, but gives us a "new name."
"These are they which came out of great trib- ulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb." What is
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the flesh but a garment for the spirit — a "robe?" "For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for the soul. " But this lamb ordained of (rod was to be perfect — "without blemish;" not our blood, therefore, not sinful flesh and blood. Who but a sinless one could have power to rise from the dead, since "the wages of sin is death?" Who can lay down his life and take it up again? Our lives are an offering to sin — without avail. Only One ever said, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again," and this he did. And if he had power to do this has he not power also to give life to those who love him and trust in him? Why else should he pour out his life on this earth? "Believe also in me." "Because I live, ye shall live also."
This is our only hope of righteousness. Ab- raham "believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." Faith brings obedience. If Adam had believed God he would not have dis- obeyed. It helps us to "believe God" when we
I Hi. I MAC) OF GOD. I 57
read of an atonement for sin, prefigured in the earliest records of man's history. No tribe of humanity can be found without the traditions of this idea of sacrifice for sin.
In the land of Moriah, "In the Mount of God he shall be seen." There God provided an offer- ing instead of Isaac the son of promise. There he accepted Abraham's faith and obedience, the token of God's Spirit in-dwelling. In the land of Moriah, ■ Tn the Mount of God he shall be seen. " There Solomon built the temple, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman, the Jebusite. There David built an altar where God forgave his disobedience, where the chaff was once more winnowed from the wheat, where evil was overcome and the kingdom of peace was promised.
In that land was seen the sacrifice foretold by all the prophets. "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his*stripes we are healed. All we like
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sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made the iniquity of us all to meet on him. — He hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was num- bered with the transgressors: and he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." So wrote Isaiah, seven hundred years before the angels sang ' 'Peace on earth; good will to men."
Who but Jesus, crucified in the Mount where centred all these types of sacrifice for sin, has verified them all? Of him testified his disciples in words like those of Peter, — "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." In the words of John, "Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin" — "and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." In the words of Paul, "But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath
THE IMAGE OF GOD. 1 59
been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood." The words of Jesus, recorded by Mat- thew, are, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins."
The whole life of Jesus was a triumph of spirit over flesh. His death was an atonement on account of sinful flesh, in which he clothed himself that he might be made one with us who wear that garment. His rising was a victory in which his brethren partake — because they are at one with God, through Christ. This is the an- swered prayer of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ — "Even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us — and the glory which thou hast given unto me I have given unto them. And I make known unto them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
JONAH.
JONAH.
"This generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
NOWHERE is God's plan of teaching by ob- ject lessons more apparent than in the lives of the prophets of the Old Testament. He who formed the ear and the eye has unfolded through both of these channels "the things which are not seen," the eternal things, to the mind and heart of man. "I have spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the hand of the prophets."
Jonah attempted to flee from the presence of God. He became the great illustration of the fact that God is everywhere. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou
164 IHK [MAGE OF GOD.
art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand uphold me."
"The Deep'7 is the spot furthest removed from sight; the "bottom of the sea" is the uttermost depth. The devils which Jesus cast out, asked to be allowed to hide "in the deep." It is said that they entered into a herd of swine and rushed violently down a steep place into the sea. Were they then where Jesus could not find them?
When Jonah rebelled against God's leader- ship he joined, for the time, the ranks of those ' 'angels which keep not their first estate. " God's judgment overtook him. He learned — and we learn through his lesson — that no depth is deep enough to furnish a spot where God rules not. This answers for us the question as to the final triumph of the Spirit of Truth and Holiness in all Gods universe. Jonah went on the mission God sent him — a mission of warning and saving
THE [MAGE OF GOD. 165
to the wicked Nineveh. Being a prophet, God's Spirit within him urged obedience and the fulfill- ment of God's command. In the depth of the sea, the perverse heart of Jonah acquiesced and he said, "They that observe lying vanities for- sake their own mercy." He no longer joined himself to those "principalities and powers" who rebel against God. His trial proved that he really belonged to God. "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. Sal- vation is of the Lord."
The certainty of God's undertakings and his complete control, through all time and space, are linked together with his character of Savior. "I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness," said that bigoted Jonah. Behold the wonder God has worked. This prophet is made the very "sign" of God's greatest act of mercy — the emblem of his message even to the underworld, to the "spirits in prison;" "for as Jonah was three days
l66 THE [MAGE OF GOD.
and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
There are plenty of Jonahs at this age of the world who would rather all the "spirits in prison" — all the dead, should stay in prison to all eter- nity— should never hear a message of life, just because they have so interpreted God's words. But God knows how to have patience with the "Elder Brothers, as well as to go out to meet the Prodigal Sons.
Perhaps the towering structure of Church Doctrines, Creeds of various kinds, are the flour- ishing Jonah's-Gourd in the shade of which many self-satisfied prophets of our days have tranquilly rested — till God sent some worm to destroy it all, that the heat of the desert might reveal that "there is no difference — for all have sinned."
There are those who believe in the resurrec- tion of Jesus Christ, and yet discredit the story of Jonah. Is it likely that God would prepare types of everything else in the history of Jesus,
THE IMAGE OF con. 1 67
and leave out the most important fact of all? Would the prophets be shown visions of all but the thing of all others which God sent his Son to accomplish? "Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first and with the last; I am he." "Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them."
He whom John saw in his Apocalyptic vision said "I am Alpha and Omega — the first and the last." Whilst he was yet on earth he said, "I tell you these things before they come to pass, that when they are come to pass ye may believe." The "sign of the prophet Jonah" was in harmony with God's plan of types. Jesus cites it as pre- eminently the sign given from God to tell them of his death and resurrection after "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
THE BRIDE.
"And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, com- ing down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." — Rev. 21:2-4.
THE BRIDE.
"Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him."
GOD has filled all nature full of dualities which become unities. Foremost in this series is the make-up of man himself. He has two eyes, but one perfect vision; two ears, but one sense of hearing. With two lips he opens his mouth to utter one voice. So his unseen self is a unit in all these impressions and expressions. An- other duality, and this one is the type we now consider, came into existence when God divided the man he had made in his image into two halves — " In the image of God created he them. " How are they in God's image? The "seed of the woman" is Christ. Christ is the picture God has given us to show how man and God can be one. Christ represents all his people. "I pray that they all be one, as thou, Father, art in me,
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and I in Thee, that they also be one in ns" — "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." This one is the Bride. This is the loved one for whom Jesus gave all of life, for whom he suffered death, from whom he will not be separated by "height nor depth nor princi- palities nor powers." John calls the united people of God — "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife." He is thinking of Christ as the one who con- quered through sacrifice of himself — the "Lamb of God."
But the "Seed of the woman" is "bone of our bone," and he and his people are one — but a half one; the other half is God. Without the union with God, we are imperfect in nature, sterile as to all God meant us for. As the branch must abide on the vine, so must we be united to God. But being one with God, as Christ was, we have the perfect image of God restored in us. "This is life eternal, to know God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
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Does anyone ''stagger with unbelief" of the type — the divided man, Adam and Eve? How then can we believe that God and man are temporarily divided and must be reunited to be made perfect? "If I tell you earthly things and ye believe not, how can ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?"
We know that man cannot inherit eternal life of himself. This is the prototype of that object lesson God gave us in man and woman. With either one or the other, of man or woman, we know that life would end when their brief candle of existence was snuffed out. We know God's plan of union and the continuance of life and wTider, vaster, endless fruit, peopling the whole earth. Is it likely that he invented a trivial de- vice for time and left eternity out altogether?
Again we find the wonderful Book has the account of type and prototype. As man and woman are one, so Christ and God are one, and so all the people of God are united with him and are one and perfect in him. But see this
174 IHK IMAGE OF GOD.
truth in the picture of union, — nothing but love can do it. It is as certain as all the other laws of nature.
It ought to be easy for scientists to see spirit- ual laws. Chemical affinity is the material equivalent of this law of nature. God makes "nature" — and it is alike all through. As we quench our thirst with a draught of cold water, we seldom stop to think of its imperfect halves or parts. The divided water would profit us not. How can we tell the reason why oxygen and hy- drogen will combine to form water? We name the union, explain it as chemical affinity, — and drink the water. We can't live without it.
Chemical affinities will unite, do we say? Yet it is not that they have a will, but that this nature has been given them. Just so it is with love. John explains it, — "We love because he first loved us." We love because "God is love."
All the world may not know of, or be inter- ested in chemical affinity; but all the world has
THE I.MAC E OF GOD. 1 75
heard of love — "all the world loves a lover." What is the story — with love left out? It is what we all read about, and go to see played upon the stage. Love is the flower we gather, regardless of thorns. It is the real blossom, all else being but leaves. God pictured love with every bright color, every graceful form, every enchanting fragrance, when he made the flowers; for the bloom season of every flower is its wedding fes- tivity. These gay petals mean love and union. These bright, beautiful dresses are wedding clothes; and the odor of rose, violet, lily of the valley — all pictures of a holy, happy atmosphere of pure love.
Would God * 'so clothe the grass of the field" — and leave his children out? All that he has made is like his nature. "We also are his offspring." If the flowers bloom, if the heart rejoices in love, does it not mean something eternal? "Whatso- ever is born of God cannot die." The flowers fade — "Leaf by leaf the roses fall;" and love's light is dimmed by time and death; and the
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tilings which seemed most real are found to be
a vanishing dream. Why? An old poet sang,
three hundred years ago, this song about "Love. n
44Love is a sickness full of woes,
All remedies refusing; A plant that most with cutting grows, Most barren with best using.
Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, Hey, ho!
"Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so ? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, Hey ho!"
This is because love on earth is only a shad- ow of the real. When there is a shadow, there is a substance somewhere to cast that shadow. Therefore the love, always like a flower here, — the union which death may break, or which is not after all enough for a mind and heart which craves eternity and love with no end, — this is the type and shadow: the substance is found in
THE !M \c.i OF GOD. 177
that union with God which Christ showed forth in his life, and which is the portion of every soul which can believe in and respond to the
love of God.
God is in all his works. What is the use of a beautiful and well furnished house, if no one dwells in it? Let it tumble into ruins, for it is without inhabitant. Just like an untenanted house, would be anything of God's building, if it had no thought in it, no truth shining through it like the lights in the windows. God never made anything which is not thus a showing: forth of himself, a dwelling place of his thought. From this fact the Greeks evolved Pantheism; but the mistake appears when we apply this parallel, — Man's house, with all the things he wears and uses, are not man. His thought is. in them all, and his nature may be read in his; thoughts there expressed, but we do not con- found man's works with man himself.
THE [MAGE OF COD
A homeless man with nothing he can call his own, is a sorry thing to contemplate. God him- self would be homeless and have no dwelling place had he given no expression of himself in works of creation. If he has an expression thus in all his works — in winds and waves and light and life, how much more must he desire a home in the hearts of his children! How pitiful to think that "he came unto his own and his own received him not" — that "there was no room for him at the inn!" How quickly should the heart rise to fly to him when he says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock!"
This is why God's works are types of spirit- ual truths, because he dwells in his works. This is why we recognize "patterns of things in the heavens." But we should not recognize if we were not "in his image." If we had not the re- lationship, the same nature, we should no more see spiritual truth than a blind man sees colors. But he whose children we are and who furnished
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for us the world we live in, — he made colors and forms and eyes to see them with; he made spiritual eyes, also, and spread before those eyes the eternal realities in manifold types.
Materialists, those who see no meaning in God's creation, have lost these truths; but poets, artists, prophets, have translated these messages in every age. Ask thy heart what it means thus to cry out for love that cannot fade and union that cannot be broken? It means that a part of you is not here. You sigh for wholeness. Think not to find it on earth. He who "knew what was in man" and said it "was not good for man to be alone," gave the love- united Oneness — for this world; and in it, ac- cording to his method of "first the natural and afterward the spiritual," he set forth the eternal unity which love shall make, of God and man. This will be wholeness. In this way the people of God are termed "the Bride."
i i M IGE OF GOD.
"Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far
Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a flittering star.
In raiment white and clean. He lifts me to the golden doors:
The Hashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strows her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates
Roll back, and tar within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits
To make me pure of sin."
What has more inspired the hearts of all poets, all seers, whether they interpret their visions of truth in words, in music, in painting, than the central idea of existence contained in the reunion of God and Man0 It is Immanuel, God with us, in the pictures of the divine Child and the holy Virgin Mother. This was the sign given by the God and Father of us all that his power and his will unite to make us anew. By this we know that "God so loved the world," in that he comes to us in our estate. The power of the Highest, the same Spirit which "moved upon the waters" in the beginning,
rshadows us still, and this time not to bring
IMF. [MAGE OF GOD. l8l
forth a material world, but "Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." He triumphs over sin and sacrifices all that is of earth in our nature which he makes his own. He pours out his blood for us and gives up all that separates us from God. What more than the Holy Grail, the cup of love and sacrifice, the cup signifying union with him, of which all drink with Christ the Lord, — what more than this has fired the hearts of our greatest composers of music? This symbolizes the very bond of union with the Son of God.
"Oh, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides
And star-like mingles with the stars. A maiden Knight, to me is given
Such hope I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often met me here. I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure 111 lies of eternal peace,
Whose odors haunt my dreams."
Those who understand the voice of "rolling organ harmonies" may find in these days an in-
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terpreter of this greatest fact in our history. The poets and musicians of old who strove to inter- pret this theme are called ''the prophets" now. Another generation may add Wagner to the prophets, and Tennyson. It was singing of this theme which has preserved through all the years, the harp-strains of David, the shepherd boy, as well as the orchestra psalms of David, the King. This theme has made Isaiah's sub- lime utterances the voice of God in Man for all generations. -'Fear not, for thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. " "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, shall thy God rejoice over thee."
Always it is "the pure heart" wTho "shall see God." Always must the oil of anointing, conse- crating, be in the lamp, and the lamp kept trimmed and burning to join the happy throng of those who "go forth to meet the bridegroom." The union of the divine and human spirit is to
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be now and here. We wait not for the coming moment when he shall "descend from heaven
wih a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God," when "the dead in Christ shall rise first and we which are alive and remain shall be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, and so shall meet in the air" this city of God descending "like a bride adorned."
The love of God comes not alike to all. To Saul of Tarsus came suddenly, out of the noon- day sky, the vision which transformed him. But who knows how7 love grew in the heart of "that disciple whom Jesus loved ?" When he was young he was for calling down fire from heaven to con- sume those who would not receive his Master, but when he was old his outstretched hands and voice of benediction constantly proclaimed, "Lit- tle children love one another; love one another, for love is of God."
When we love him "who first loved us," there is a real union of our heart and mind with the divine Spirit, and then there is a real new
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birth in us, a separate identity, a "new creature" which shall inherit all that God can bestow on his child — shall inherit with Jesus Christ the heir of all things. Love makes us one with God.
This is that which was shown forth on the Day of Pentecost. Who can tell how a bit of hard, black, cold mineral like anthracite coal, for example, is transformed by heat into a glow- ing, brilliant, warmth-giving substance, most useful to human life? If the coal could and should refuse this transforming heat, it would be like the heart which can and will refuse that ••baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost," which comes with the love of God. This is why the call, "Follow thou me," is urgent. The spirit called to be one with God, the human called to knighthood by such a king, does not say, "Wait" — for anything. Like the "Knight of Pentecost, "
"Not in the dark the tongue of flame came leaping, Upon his lips, across his torehead sweeping;
Not prostrate in great glooms of temple shade: But while he gazed, one only with his Master, In deathless circles swelling vast and vaster,
The dawn, swift-sworded. rlash^d his accolade.
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"Full of the word that made the sunlit weather, Full of the strength that holds the stars together,
White with the whiteness of the Holy Ghost, By all the forces of the day surrounded, Then rode he forth, his trump of onset sounded,
All sacrosanct, a Knight of Pentecost."
We see now, the answer to that "Why so?" of the old poet — and of many an aching heart since then. God makes human passion like a shadow — that we may look toward the light and find what casts the shadow. Do we lose the life we give to God? Just as the Bride loses, if she marries the husband she loves, and who is worthy of love. Just as Jesus Christ lost, "of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." God send us the love without which it avails us not to "understand all mysteries," the love which makes us one with God.
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"For the invisible things of him since the creation ofc the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinitv. "— Rom. 1:20.
WHEN the mind is full of vague thoughts, fused together, conglomerate beyond distinction; should there be no ability to express them — this would be as if God had left forever in dark- ness, forever without form, forever empty, his universe.
Yet who is devoid of some form of expression? Do not eyes speak whole volumes? And is not a hand-clasp, a smile, a tear, a true message from the heart? Has God made anything without ex- pression? God is the Father of expression. This is saying that he is the Creator.
It is always the truth — something real, that God's works express. When man gives expres- sion to anything untrue, he "is of his father, the
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devil," the "father of lies." Better be dumb, than a liar. That which is unholy hides from the light. It has the serpent nature.
Silence and darkness belong to death. With life, comes expression, light, a reality which can be seen. Does not this prove something? You must have a thought before you can express it; conversely, your words, deeds, works, the ma- chine you invented, picture you painted, music you composed, — these stand for the thought be- hind them; they are the image of the thought; the unseen thought is proved by "the things cre- ated, which are seen."
So when the Spirit of God moved upon that formless chaos "in the beginning," light broke forth and sea and land took shape.
When the blank page lies before you and form- less ideas mix together in your consciousness, you put forth an effort of your will, light breaks and words are written on the paper. The solid earth appears. What germs are in that earth you know not; it will be evolved. What thoughts in
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other minds may grow from these our thoughts, we cannot tell. But if we give them no expi sion, our tlioughts are only the inborn image; they are the nebulous mist of the might have been; they are darkness on the face of the deep. When God wrote his thoughts on the page of nature, it was for us to read — a legacy of letters to his children. The more we can spell out the wondrous forces of nature, all the laws of light and heat, how the crystals form, how the seed sprouts, how the winds rise and blow, how the worlds revolve, — the more we read of these thoughts of God, the better we know him — IF.
If what? A little child holding its father's hand might know that father better than a man of his own age and of equal mental attainments — with an enemy's heart. He knows his friend the best, who loves him best. Love is the heat in nature, and light goes with it; and wisdom — the true knowing is found in that company. Weis- heit and wissenscliaft should be twins; but recog- nition is of the spirit, and cognition is only of the
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brain. A kinship, a sympathy, a likeness, is necessary to recognition. One must have met before — that which is recognized. "When we see him as he is, we shall be like him."
The elements of nature, all the material which goes to make up earth — "dust of the ground" and the wraters of the sea, brought forth "the things that are made" and through them shine "the invisible things" of God's nature. But this was not enough; this was only a home furnish- ing, a place prepared, and the final image of God, from the same material, completed the work of creation. Out of that formless begin- ning, God evolved Man. This was the image he undertook. All the previous works of creation were but steps up to this, a pedestal for this to stand upon.
The earth is man's platform; on it he stands alone. He stands, the three-fold likeness of Father, Son and Spirit. Creation led up to him; counterparts of his nature were in the furniture God prepared tor him. The ilower cried, Where
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is he who shall behold my beauty and enjoy my fragrance? The fruit echoed, Why was I made if none lives to eat that which is good? The night for sleeping and the day for waking fore- shadowed the coming One — half of the day, half of the dark. He is mine, said the earth; for out of me was he taken. He is mine, said night and darkness; for behold, he sleeps! As thou doest, so will we do, said the animal creation.
Alas, that their Master, Man, taught brute strength to the lion, gluttony to swine, stealth to the fox! Alas, that his dominion led them to "bite and devour one another!" Alas, that his nature is reflected in the vulture, as well as in the dove; that he who sometimes sings praise and joy with the birds which greet the morning — at other times joins the desperate wolf-pack in desolate places, and laughs with the ghoul-like hyena in caves of death and despair!
Alas, that the image of God, printed on clay — loved the clay, and forsook God ! "Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return," cries the Father
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to his lost child. For there was no eternity in the clay, Adam's choice. The only door opening into eternity, through the rising scale of creation, was the door of hope and of promise to the image of God, "Obey and thou shalt live" — obey the laws of Spirit, and be not deceived. The choice Adam made bore its fruit in Cain, the murderer; brought forth its harvest in the days before the flood, when "God repented that he had made man;" and made of Sodom and Go- marrah cities which it took fire from heaven to purify and the Dead Sea to cleanse.
Yet God did not plant the tree of Life in the Garden of Eden for no purpose. When he said, "Let us make man in our image" — we know that he would continue what he begun. "God is not a man that he should lie nor repent." "His hand is not shortened that it cannot save."
The earth brought forth thorns and thistles and man ate bread "in the sweat of his brow." Man learned the value of God's gifts when he had to earn them by hard work. Man had to
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"work out his own salvation. " God made it hard
to fall back to the clay> to degenerate to the beast. He set a penalty upon the flinging away of the divine and the lapsing into the human, which had seemed so easy. He made the way of the transgressor hard.
But always, from the begiuning, God prom- ised to man the final victory over evil and death- "The seed of the woman shall bruise the ser- pent's head." The works of creation shall again reflect God's image, as when "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." "The lion and the lamb shall lie down together — They shall not hurt nor de- stroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." All the ages have borne testimony to a new Image of God — which should endure. If God saved Noah and his family, when he destroyed wicked- ness by the flood, and so gave mankind a new start with clean surroundings; if he rescued Lot and his family, when he burned the evil cities of the plain; would he give up? "The everlasting
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God, the Creator, fainteth not, neither is weary. " The types we have considered are some of the milestones on this heaven-ordained road to eternal sonship. As in the beginning the works of creation all pointed to man, so all history pointed to the Son of Man — the Son of God. The "last Adam," the "quickening spirit," is the sure response to the continuous cry of the human.
Everything brings forth fruit "afterits kind;" and if this is true, it is true because God made it so; and if he made it so, that is because it Is his nature; therefore God will bring up to his own likeness, all that he has made. The eternal Son of God is a necessity.
Under cultivation, the earth brings forth fruit, and with labor the weeds are rooted out. That which is essential to sustain life is got out of the earth by man; he finds he cannot live on the spontaneous growths, — the brambles, weeds, 4 'thorns also and thistles." He finds, further, that what will support the brute nature — "husks
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that the swine did eat" — is not enough for him. He starves for his home, for fellowship higher than the swine. He finds out, as did Job, the
evanescent character of earth's best gifts. He learns that "man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." It is proved to man by this process that his real, abiding nature is intended to be in harmony with God. "Who shall de- liver me from this body of death?" is now his cry. He finds himself a slave doomed to death. God will bring up to his own likeness all that he has made. The eternal Son of God is a nec- essity. But the Son of God is not alone. It is a raee of sons of man that the world was made to support. Growth is a lawr of life. God did not leave his image without the power he gave to lesser lives. So his perfected image, Christ, is by love and faith made one with every soul that longs for God — and so each soul becomes a Son, by "adoption," by marriage, by whatever figure best represents the actual relation of Man to
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God. "Now are we the sons of God — when he .shall appear we shall be like him." Thus has God accomplished what he undertook — "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
A son may look like his father, and yet not A like him. That is to say, he is the physical image of his father — but of a different spirit. A good father sometimes has a bad son. Adam liad the lineaments of his Father. He corre- sponded to all the works of God which consti- tuted his environment. His nature was a per- fect structure, like a temple, for the indwelling of his Father's Spirit; but he took another spirit to dwell there — a spirit whose end is destruction, instead of life. The ruling of that evil spirit, not corresponding to the laws of life and growth, not in harmony witn reality, truth, righteous- 5S, eternity (synonyms in this case), brought death. Death is the eternal extinction of that which has nothing of God in it. It is God's Spirit that makes alive. Whatever is not born of God, has no abiding life in it.
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God gave his child a choice, for this child was like our children are to us, and we cannot command their love. If you say, Love me, — love does not obey the command. Love is absolutely free. Obedience is of the heart. The stone tables of the law wrere broken. Of course they were. Stone tables are like stone images. The Pharisees demonstrated the amount of God's image which outside commandments — stone tables of the law, can bring about. None loved Ged so little as these who bowed down to the forms of his law. Having kept the forms, they were persuaded of their own righteousness — even though their righteousness brought forth murder. "Crucify him — crucify him!" cried these hate-filled souls who had made their god a stone image of the law. They did over again what Cain did in the beginning. Forever have the Scribes and Phari- sees shown to the world that righteousness is not of the law, not to be got from the outside, but to be "written on the heart." Their descendants
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the adherents of dogma and creed and every sort of religious formula, have drenched the earth in blood, invented every species of torture cruel hearts could devise, burned martyr's and slaughtered innocents, and at this age of civiliza- tion are content to attend church in good cloth- ing whilst the world for whom Christ died goes on to death with the devil. "Except your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."
Through love, recognition of what God is, knowing him in Christ Jesus, his law is wrritten on our hearts. Thus do we grow into his like- ness. This likeness cannot be broken. It is born of God. It is holy spirit, as is the Spirit of God, and it continually rejects and overcomes sin. It continually repents of error and offers all things contrary to holiness "a willing sacri- fice." The Father does not forget his child; he never forsakes him. Having led the race of Adam up to Christ, he adds in full measure the gift of the Holy Ghost. He accepts the sacrifice.
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With holy fire from heaven be burns away the
dross and sets free the pure gold. What we so painfully and fearfully give up, he shows us was but the chaff. He winnows our wheat with the winds of heaven, and gives us a character tha- can live and help others to live. The threshingt floor is the spot on which God builds his temple. There he adds his glory, the gift of the Holy Ghost. He dwells with his child. "If any man hear my voice and open the door, we will come in to him and will sup writh him." "The taber- nacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them."
God is, as Jesus taught us, "Our Father." Through Jesus, the "express image" of God, the Only-begotten Son, we have fellowship with God. "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" — says this Brother of ours. "Because I live, ye shall live also" — says the Victor over sin and death. "I call you friends — for I have told you everything." "Peace I leave with you; let not your hearts be troubled." "It is I, be not afraid."
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"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;" for "he is the image of the invisible God."
This is "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery — Christ in you, the hope of glory."
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