Man Upon His Trial to See Whether He Has Any Righteousness Foe God.
1st TEST- MAN IN INNOCENCE IN EDEN.
2nd TEST-MAN UNDER CONSCIENCE.
3RD TEST-MAN UNDER LAW.
4TH TEST-MAN IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SON OF GOD.
Result.-Man is disobedient in Eden and loses innocence; every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually under the conscience he acquired at the Fall; he breaks the Law; and finally crucifies the Son of God. Henceforth he is not on his trial, but under judgment (Jno. 12:31), and must take his place as Lost; hence a Saviour is provided, who comes to seek and save that which was lost.
5. MAN UNDER GRACE.
6. MAN IN THE KINGDOM.
7. THE ETERNAL STATE.
MAN IN INNOCENCE.
Man is first tested in innocence in the Garden of Eden, under one known command, "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it" (Gen. 2:17). He listens, however, to Satan's suggestion that God is not as good as He would appear to be, but is withholding some good thing from" him, and takes Satan as his guide, and falls.
MAN UNDER CONSCIENCE.
We next find man, who had acquired conscience by his fall, tested under it simply, with no direct revelation from God. In result, God sees the wickedness of man great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually; and the earth is cleared of its pollutions by the Flood; Noah and his household, taking refuge in the ark (type of God's salvation in Christ), alone being saved. Afterwards, idolatry is instituted (Josh. 24:2), and God, now that all have departed from Him, brings in the great principle of election, by calling out Abraham from idolatry to Himself, and making him the father of a specimen people, if we may so say, upon whom God might confer every advantage which " man in the flesh" can enjoy, so as to test thoroughly what is in his heart, and see whether, under the most favorable circumstances, he has any righteousness for God.
MAN UNDER LAW.
Next, the law is given, being a direct revelation from God of what the measure of righteousness is which God demands from man. It tests man to find out whether he has any righteousness for God. It proves him to be a sinner, and, when rightly applied, convicts him of his inability to keep it, and at the same time condemns him, so proving that it is impossible for him to stand before God on the ground of works at all. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3:10). It was indeed a schoolmaster until Christ the Saviour came (ver. 24). But the specimen people broke the law, and slew the prophets whom God sent to recall them to it, effectually proving that man is ungodly and hopeless on the ground of responsibility.
MAN IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD'S SON.
The next and final test of man in responsibility (and hence this is called the " consummation of the ages," for so it should be translated-Heb. 9:26), is the presence of God Himself come in flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But man hates both Him and His Father, and ends his mad wickedness by thrusting off the earth the One whom he cannot convict of sin (John 8:46); Jew and Gentile, in the persons of the chief priests and Herod and Pilate, alike agreeing to effect His death (Luke 22:66; 23:12). And now, man having failed when innocent, when under conscience, when under law, and when in the presence of God manifest in flesh, he is no longer upon his trial to see whether he has any righteousness for God for he has conclusively proved that he has none, and must take his place as lost. "Now," says the Lord Jesus Christ in view of the cross, "is the judgment (not trial) of this world" (John 12:31). Hence-forth with man it is the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the lost sou (Luke 15:).
MAN UNDER GRACE. THE CHURCH.
(The present interval between the ages, or God's dispensational dealings with the earth.)
Christ having come in humiliation, and being rejected by man, God brings to light how utterly man and He were at variance, by raising from the tomb and setting at His right hand the One whom man had crucified ; as Peter declares to the Jews, "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ "(Acts 2:36). Now Peter had already by a revelation from the Father discerned that Jesus was the Christ, and the Lord had declared that "upon this rock" (1:e., the confession of Himself as Christ, the Son of the living God) " I will build My Church ; " (the Lord thus plainly showing by His use of the word "will build" that the' existence of the Church was a future thing; see, too, Eph. 3:3, 8; Col. 1:24, 27). "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;" – keys which Peter subsequently used to unlock the door of the kingdom to the Jews in Acts 2:, and to the Gentiles in Acts 10:, the Holy Ghost on each occasion ratifying what he had loosed or unlocked on earth, for we read on each occasion that He was poured out (Acts 2:18, 33 ; 10:45), God thus formally doing away with the natural distinctions between Jew and Gentile (distinctions formed by God Himself, and in the Millennium to be re-established) – a fact which Peter was quick to recognize (Acts 11:17). Both Jew and Gentile are now baptized into one Body, the mystic Body of Christ, the Church; " For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles" (1 Cor. 12:13); and this Body, consisting of all true believers in this interval, is united to Christ the Head in heaven by the Holy Ghost (Col. 1:18). " He is the Head of the Body, the Church ; " and the expression of the Church in any place is, according to Christ's own definition, where two or three are gathered together unto His name.
Peter then, having performed his allotted task in opening the door of the kingdom to Jew and Gentile, retires as it were into the background, and henceforth Paul, the vessel chosen by God to be the minister of the Church, is brought to the front (Col. 1:24, 26; Eph. 3:1, 11). To him was revealed, as he informs us in each passage, the mystery, hitherto hidden in God Himself, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs with the Jews, and of the same Body, and that Christ should be in them. God thus contradicts the errors of the Romish Church, for it is Christ, not Peter, who builds His Church; nor do men build with keys, but unlock doors with them, while the ministry of the Church was entrusted not to Peter, but to Paul.
The Church, then, is characterized by the Holy Ghost being sent down to earth, consequent on Christ having gone up to heaven, to unite believers to one another and to Christ the Head where He is. "It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send Him unto you " (John 16:7). She was formed at Pentecost at the coming of the Holy Ghost, and will remain till the Holy Ghost departs (2 Thess. ii, 7), when the dead and living saints are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, before the vials of God's wrath are poured out on a guilty world. She fears no judgment, for her judgment has been borne by Christ (John 5:24), but Enoch-like, before her rapture, speaks of it to a guilty world (Jude 14, 15). Chosen, as the individuals composing her were, in Christ before ever Adam sinned or a world was (Eph. 1:4), and blessed, not as the earthly people, Israel, will yet be with all material blessings in earthly places, but with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3), and to be caught up at any moment out of this scene as the Bride to meet her Lord (1 Thess. 1:10 ; 4:15-18 ; 1 Cor. 15:51-
57 ; Rev. 22:17); the Church's privileges and portion are peculiar and heavenly; and God's dealings with the earth are therefore during this present period in suspense, though directly the Church is removed they are again resumed.
(To be concluded in our next.)