Pearls of great price

Introduction

The Bible is more than a record of outward events. It is the Word of God, and as such, is inspired by Him. The writers of the Bible were not left to themselves in the expression of divine ideas entering their minds by influx, but, instead, the very words of the letter of Scripture were dictated to them by the Lord. This divine dictation and thence inspiration did not involve, in every instance, literal accuracy. St. Paul tells us that all Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, reproof, and instruction that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work. Our English word inspiration is derived from a Latin word meaning, to breathe into. The whole body of the literal sense of the Bible was breathed into by the Lord, and thus inspired.

This thought of the Scriptures lifts them to a higher plane than that which they occupy in the thought of the older theologies, for it involves the concept of a spiritual sense in the Bible, which in itself constitutes an organic spiritual soul, which dwells in every part of the literal sense as in its own body.

This spiritual sense of the Scriptures treats, primarily of the Lord, His coming into the world, the Glorification of His Humanity, and His presence with man in His divine Humanity, and secondarily of the reformation and regeneration of the human soul. The literal sense presents a series of divinely selected pictures of these two processes — the Glorification of the Lord and the Regeneration of Man. This is true of every inspired book of the Old and New Testaments. The life of our Lord as recorded in the four Gospels, while actual and real, was the revelation, in symbols, of His life as He now lives it over again in the regeneration of those who believe in and follow Him. -

The purpose of this volume is to furnish illustrations of these great truths. The chapters composing it were written from week to week as explanations of the spiritual sense of the International Sunday School Lessons covering the period from October, 1917, to October, 1918. The explanations are in no sense critical. It was the author's aim to unfold in a simple and direct way the spiritual sense of the leading features of each lesson in its application to the work of personal regeneration.

It is the sincere hope of the author that the spiritual meaning of the Lord's sayings and doings, as it has been unfolded in these chapters, may prove of spiritual value and help to all into whose hands this little volume may fall, and stimulate in them a spiritual desire to realize the Lord's life of service in their own lives,

Thomas A. King.

Lakewood, Ohio, October, 1918.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Captivity 7

II. The Temple Rebuilt and Dedicated 15

II

THE TEMPLE REBUILT AND DEDICATED. Ezra hi. 8-13.

The supreme work that was to be done upon the return of the captives from Babylon was the rebuilding of the Temple and the establishment of the Jewish ritual and worship; for the Temple service was the central thing in the religious and national life of the Israelitish people.

The lesson for today brings vividly before us the rejoicing of the people over the rebuilding of the Lord's House and the joy of the people as they entered once more upon the holy acts of their divinely ordained worship. The whole literal account i?* beautiful and inspiring; and it is not difficult to imagine the joyousness of it all. But the fact of the rebuilding and dedication of the Temple as recorded in the book of Ezra, is a thing of the past. It is on its mere historic side, a thing of long ago; and while interesting and inspiring as an historical relation, yet if that were all there is in the record, it would be difficult to find in it lessons helpful to the man of the church today who lives amid conditions and faces problems so far away and different from the age and conditions which furnish the setting of this story.

It was an apostle who wrote: 'The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive." The Christian church in both its Dispensations, that of the Lord's first Advent and that of His second Advent, was involved in the story of the Temple and the holy ritual of the Jewish church.

THE REPRESENTATIVE OF A CHURCH.

The Jewish church or Dispensation was representative of the Christian church. In the representative of a church, such as the Jewish church was, the Lord and heaven have connection with it by means of the correspondences and significatives of its outward worship.

Thus the Jewish church was a thing entirely outward. It was a church among the people. The church in heaven was connected with it as a thing that signified or corresponded to spiritual qualities and realities. The angels saw what was within all the forms of the Jewish worship; and the holy states thus awakened in them opened channels through which the Lord could and did establish points 6f contact with man in the natural world and provide a medium of salvation which served the divine purpose until the fulness of time came for His coming into the w T orld and the establishment of the Christian church.

Here, then, lies the whole significance of the Jewish representative of a church. It was a prop — a stay, to the angelic heavens. It held them up and kept open a channel of communication between the Lord and man.

THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.

The Lord provides that when one dispensation^ the church closes another shall be given and thus a New church founded, through' which He may be able to bestow the things of eternal life upon men.

Thus when the Jewish church could no longer serve the divine purpose, it came to its end. It was consummated. This took place when the Lord came into the world. He judged and removed it. The rebuilding of the Temple is the picture He gives us of the rising up of the church that was built upon Him — the Christian church, which would be a representative church. For in a representative church, heaven has connection, not with mere outward ceremony and ritual, but with the inward quality of spiritual life formed in its members.

The Christian church was not a thing merely among men, but a new life in them. It was the Temple rebuilt, with a new significance attaching to every phase of worship and life. It was a representative church, the very substance of which the Jewish church was the shadow.

The apostolic period of the Christian church wa^s its golden age. It was not concerned about outward things of mere theology. It "builded the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings thereon." The worship of the one God in the Divine Manhood of Christ was the altar it built. And this worship was not formal. It was of the heart. The Lord was real to the early Christians. He was not an ecclesiastical Christ. He was God in the flesh — God revealed to their hearts in the Divine Humanity.

The love of Him filled the heart of the church. Every offering made to Him came from the heart and was warm from the love of serving the Lord and one another. How beautiful was the life of the early church! All the states of its life were of love. Evening and morning — states of shade and states of light — were of love. They fulfilled the meaning of what we are told in this lesson : "They offered burnt offerings morning and evening."

What we are told of the returned captives keeping again the Feast of Tabernacles and establishing the daily burnt offerings and the continual burnt offerings, both of the new moons and of all the set feasts of the Lord and the free will offerings unto tie Lord — all these things found spiritual fulfilment In the life of the early Christian church. The outwaid form passed away, but the spiritual qualities of life for which they stood was unfolded, and the new^ Temple of a real spiritual church and a real internal worship of the Lore! ^as built.

Peakls of Great Price 19

The new Temple was' spiritual. It was the church of the Word made flesh — a house of God made not with hands. The outlying world soon felt the power of this church. It was set on a hill; and the life it stood for soon drew to it the Gentile world. Paganism, thrones and dominions went down before the triumphant march of its truth. It created a new world and a new form of life for man. How sad to think of the dreadful thing that came to destroy this Temple of the Lord! But the dreadful thing happened. The Lord foretold and the church realized it. As the church grew in power and influence, soon there was a waning of its spiritual life; and then the effort was made to substitute outward pomp and show for spirituality of faith and life. Gradually the church receded from its simple life and doctrine. A tripersonal trinity was foisted upon it and the true vision of the risen and glorified Lord was lost. A great decline came. The church began a world-power, but in doing so it lost its true character and became a mere ecclesiasticism, and could no longer serve as the channel of spiritual life to men. The Temple lay in ruins with not one stone left upon another. Its apostolic doctrines and its beautiful life were clean gone. The end came. "Darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people.' ' The Lord then called out His captive remnant. They returned. A new Temple was built and dedicated,

What do we mean? We mean that when the first dispensation of the Christian church closed, when there was no longer the worship of the one true God in Jesus Christ, the Lord opened the spiritual sense of His Divine Word and from it revealed the deeper things of His wisdom and established the church of His Second Coming.

The story of the rebuilding of the Temple, considered in this sense, is the story of the re-establishment — the actual restoration of the apostolic church.

This is what is taking place in our day and in our Aery midst. The early Christian church, while it was formed on a plane above the Jewish church, yet it did not bring to itself all the depths of truth — all the fulness of life, that was involved in the Old Testament and in the ceremonials of the Jewish church.

Something deeper was to come. So, when the end came and the world was prepared for it, a New church arose which was not only the restored apostolic church, but which opened to men a degree of truth and the possibility of a life transcending the apostolic age.

This new age of the church restores the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ as the visible God in whdm is the invisible. This truth is the foundation stope of the new Temple; but His doctrine is not oilly restored; but it is rationally explained, Divin ty and Divine Humanity in one person are the Father and the Son in Jesus Christ; and the Hoty spirit is the divine operation of the Lord for the salvation of His children.

This great truth of God incarnate — God revealed in the Divine Manhood of Christ, is what the Temple stands for in the highest sense. It is now rebuilt; and the everlasting Christian church, under the new Dispensation comes into a new power and life. It is apostolic, but goes beyond the bounds of the early church in that it comes with its message of salvation made rational, thus giving a basis of reason for its faith to rest upon.

And in this Christian church rebuilt, there shall be realized in complete fulness all that is meant by the rebuilding of the altar, the offering of the daily sacrifice and the free will offering of the people. It is not a new sect, but a new concept and a new life — a world movement, the building of a Temple that shall fill the world with the glory of God. For it is a Temple that shall be built in each human life — a dwelling place for Him who said: Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again.

The temple at Jerusalem was also built of whole stones, for by the temple of the Lord was represented the Lord as to Divine truth. That the Lord was represented by the temple He Himself teaches in John II. — Apocalypse Explained \ 585,

Ill

EZRA RETURNS FROM BABYLON.

Ezra viii. 15-36.

This story of Ezra's return from Babylon with all its incidents is literally true; but its literalness does not do away with the thought of it as the outward form of the spiritual experiences through which the church and the man of the church pass, Indeed, if we were to limit the story to the national life of the Jews, it would be without any special interest to us. The Bible is a spiritual book and its great message is to human souls. Outward history is only the natural form in which the Lord conveys His wonderful message to human souls; and when the literal historic veil is drawn aside, we stand face to face with the spiritual realities of God and the soul.

THE GENEALOGY OF THOSE WHO RETURNED.

If we keep clearly in mind the spirituality of the Lord's Word we shall see that it always treats of tie spiritual life. The captivity in Babylon is the divine symbol of the captivity of the life of the church — its bondage to evil especially when the love pi ruling over the souls of men has displaced the love of feeding and guiding them by the truth. This being true, the return from captivity would stand for the church's return to its true freedom and to its rightful love of saving souls, and leading them by its revelations to heaven.

The genealogy given in this chapter, while doubtless true in the letter, has a deeper significance than that of a mere genealogy. Down, under its surface, it stands for all the various states of spiritual affection and thought — of love and faith, in those who are fpund worthy to form the nucleus of a new dispensation of the church. For, as we have seen, the story of the return from Babylon and the rebuilding of the Lord's House and the re-establishing of the divine order of worship in Jerusalem, is, at the same time, the story of the raising up of the New Church which shall be in the worship of the Lord.

But this remnant which returns is the remnant because, notwithstanding they have been in spiritual bondage, they have in them those spiritual qualities that give them an internal hold on the Lord, and a plane of life that makes it possible for the Lord to call them out of captivity and lead them back to a truly spiritual life. Those inward qualities of mind and soul — their spiritual derivation, are what is meant by the "genealogy of them that went up . . . from Babylon. "

The genealogy has also its meaning for the individual. The qualities of the individual soul have a spiritual genealogy. The Lord can lead us back to Himself and to true freedom only by means of the things in our minds that are His own in us. He can flow only into what is His own in man. And these good qualities are called remains. They have their spiritual genealogy. They are not from self, nor from one's parents after the flesh. They belong to and form one's heredity from God. They come from the Lord and they run back to Him.

In our regeneration, it is these holy states that have been held in captivity, that are reached and freed. They are denoted by this genealogy.

THE SONS OF LEVI.

When the people were gathered together it was found that there were none of the sons of Levi among them. Ezra, therefore, sent and had them brought to their brethren.

This fact, spiritually considered, is of vast significance.

The Levitical priesthood -stood, not only for a class of men who were separated in their office from the other tribes of Israel, but the Levites represented an essential element of the spiritual life — an element without which there can be no internal union with the Lord.

The Levites, among the tribes, stood for the principle of good in the soul. This, after all, is the real priest. Where this is lacking, no matter how W3ll one is equipped as to true doctrine, life is without connection, both with the Lord and heaven. There can be no return, either on the part of the church or on the part of the individual, until this principle is among the other spiritual principles of the church and of the individual soul. Good of life is the end that a genuine religion has in view. Doctrines are essential — all that is meant by this genealogy is essential, but everything fails of. its purpose if there be no son of Levi among them — no real interior purpose of good by which God may unite Himself to man and man unite himself to God.

THE FAST PROCLAIMED.

The fast of the Jewish church had a wonderful spiritual significance. They were outward things among the Jews, but within them there was the lesson of the spiritual fast, which is to abstain from evils because they are sins against God. The natural man is in the love of himself and the world; andi this love is infernal, arid when allowed to go unchecked fills life with untold disorders; for all evils originate in this fallen love. We must fast from it. We must afflict it — utterly deny its demands, and thus break its power over us. Abstinence from certain articles of food for a season, such as Lent, may have in it for many people a spiritual value and use, but the real fast is the denial to the natural man of those things of his love that stand in the way ol the soul's growth in the unselfish life of the Lord

The fast we must keep is wonderfully brought out in our Lord's saying: "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." When one does this he keeps the real fast; and the right way of life is shown him. He can then be led back from Babylon. He can then come into the Holy city and to the temple of God. As one keeps this fast, the power of evil is broken in his life and the spiritual man comes into freedom and dominance.

THE HAND OF GOD.

Ezra was shamed to ask of the King a band of soldiers and horsemen to help him against the enemy, because he had spoken unto the King saying: "The hand of God is upon all them for good that seek Him; but His power and His wrath is against all them that forsake Him."

Here we have clearly set before us the beautiful lesson of trust in the Lord's power to deliver the church, and the man of the church, from the enemies of the spiritual life. Things of a mere worldly nature — motives of worldly policy — trust in the things :hat have power on the material plane, and that make their appeal to the natural man — all such outward means of help, we ought to be ashamed to look to. The great and triumphant appeal of the Christian man should be to the Lord's power. "The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid/' Here is the source of our strength against our spiritual foes — against all the forces that stand in our way as we seek to return to the Lord our God. The King's soldiers and horsemen are of no avail. And yet, here lies the great temptation. How frequently the church forgets that the hand of God is upon them for good who seek Him! The modern church, sad to say, has largely turned to the King's soldiers and horsemen for help, These things, when turned to, drag the church down to their own level. They fix a worldly motive in its heart and it becomes an institution, not only in the world, but of the world. Its aim becomes worldy, and it loses the true vision of the spiritual life and devotes its energies to matters of civic, moral and worldly life. The things of this world can minister only to the things of the world in man; and when the church forsakes the Lord's power, when it no longer seeks Him and His strength, and the guidance of His hand, while its numeric growth may be marked and its popularity great, yet it loses its spiritual power, and the work it was raised up to do is left undone. The gospel of the Word made flesh is lost and a mere humanitarian morality takes its place. The great redemption of Jesus Christ — the subjugation of hell, and its eternal subjection to the majesty of the Divine Humanity, is put aside, and in its stead there grows up the utterly fatal doctrine of Christ as "Man at his climax" — a great human example for us — one whom we may follow as a perfect human pattern. The Holy Scriptures, when the church turns to the King's soldiers and horsemen for help, are reduced to the level of a venerable literature and human reason is made the supreme arbiter of truth, And what is true of the church, as an institution in the world, is true of the individual. No man can turn away from God and the invisible helper to the world and seek its help and employ its standards without making a supreme failure of life. True, he may seem to succeed on the outside, but on life's inside he makes the saddest of all failures. No man needs the King's soldiers and horsemen to help him. "Our help is in the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth."

So it is Ezra's trust in the Lord must become our trust in Him. He will lead us back. His hand is the power of His victory over all forms of evil. He, in His human nature, met and conquered all the evil powers, and is present with us to deliver us from the hand of our enemies. When the church learns the meaning of redemption — learns and comes to really believe that Jesus Christ conquered the hells and holds them in subjection, then it shall come into its power and no enemy shall be able to stand up against it.

This power is, of course, unseen, but of all power it is the greatest. And only as the church that is called by the name of Christ learns to accept Him as the one only God and Saviour, who has all power in heaven and on earth, can she come into her own rightful place and return to the true order of spiritual life. When this recognition of redemption comes in all its fulness; when, instead of turning to the world for standards and help, the church turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead, and from His strength goes forth to do its work, then shall be fulfilled the dream of the ages; for then "the church which the Lord founded on the word shall revive, stand upon its feet and draw breath again through heaven."

Remains. — No man could live — especially as man — unless he had something living in him, that is, something of innocence, charity, and mercy. . . . This man receives from the Lord when an infant and a child. The things thus stored up are called in the Word " Remains." They are of the Lord alone with man. Man does not learn these states, but receives them as a gift from the Lord. As far as man in adult age extinguishes these states, he becomes dead. When man is regenerated these things are the beginning of it, and he is led into them, for the Lord operates through the remains. — Arcana.

IV Defeat Through Drunkenness

I Kings xx. 1-21.

Temperance is a word with wide meaning and application. Ordinarily, temperance is a word used in reference to drink. We all know that the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors is an evil, and a thing to be shunned as a sin against God. The great temperance wave that is sweeping over our land today is caused by the feeling that the natural man should be clean and sober, for there comes a time in the life of the natural man when he sees that certain evils are hurtful to him, his standing and use. He may see this, however, without being in the least influenced by any spiritual motive. From purely worldly policy and selfish interest the natural man is able to make clean the outside of the cup and platter. An atheist may be a moral man and shun evil because it is evil — that is, because the practice of evil, brings him under the ban of the community and stands in the way of some selfish aim he may lave; but in such a case the evil is not removed, but only suppressed.

The only way of getting rid of an evil is to shun it because it is sin against God.

The community, the state, the nation are only larger individuals; and the law that governs the individual man is, at the same time, the law that governs the larger individual as represented in the community, the state and the nation. As the individual natural man, without any regard to God and the laws of the Divine order, is able to reform his outward life and practice temperance in all the forms of its application, so the larger natural man — the community, the state, the nation, may do the same thing. The natural man, both in the individual sense and in the collective sense, is governed by a selfish policy. He has no religion, but he may be very moral.

This is not said as in any way a disparagement of the great movement of our day in the direction of ridding the community, the state, the nation of the drink evil. It is said to show that it is not neces-j sarily a spiritual movement. It may lead to it and because it may it should enlist our sympathy and co-operation. But drunkenness will not be removed until it is shunned because it is a sin against God.

The world cannot be legislated into spiritual life for spiritual life must be chosen in freedom; and the evils inimical to it must be seen, confessed, repentec of and shunned because God says; a Thou shaL not."

THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF THE LESSON.

The Lord has opened the inside of the Bible and thus revealed its spiritual sense ; and the story which furnishes the basis of today's lesson is replete with heavenly wisdom and clear in its warning against evils of all kinds. We have grown familiar with the thought that the Kingdom of Israel is the Bible type of the church, or, what is the same, the Kingdom of God in human souls and in the world. Drop out this~ spiritual conception of the Kingdom of Israel and we have left to us only history.

The Bible is the Book of the human soul. Its letter is only the earthly form of the heavenly meaning within it.

So, we come to think of this story as a scrap of Jewish history used by the Lord to convey to our minds the story of the conflict, both in the individual and in the church, that takes place with the evil forces that are opposed to heaven.

Ahab was a wicked man, but that does not mean that as King of Israel he may not be used to represent the truth that reigns as king in all who are following the Lord in the regeneration.

The inspiration of the Bible is a thing entirely apart from the personal character of those who figure in its symbology. Ahab as Ahab does not represent the truth but Ahab as King does. It is the office and not the man that we are to think of.

As King of Israel, Ahab stands for the divine truth — the truth that reigns in the spiritual Israel — the Kingdom of God, for as it is the use of a king to reign and govern his kingdom, so it is the office and use of the divine truth to reign and govern in the kingdom of the soul.

The spiritual standardization of life cannot be left to the individual. Divine truth is a thing of revelation from God. It is not the creation of man's mind. It is not a thing of human legislation. It is from God. And truth from God in His word, when looked to and obeyed, is a spiritual king and reigns in the kingdom of the soul and in the church which is God's kingdom in the world.