Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy, Volume II

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

We need to look very earnestly to God to enable us to enter more deeply and practically into the sufferings of Christ, and into the application of the cross to all that in us which is contrary to Him. This will impart depth of tone, tenderness of spirit, an intense breathing after holiness of heart and life, practical separation from the world, in its every phase, a holy subduedness, jealous watchfulness over ourselves, our thoughts, our words, our ways, our whole deportment in daily life. In a word, it would lead to a totally different type of Christianity from what we see around us, and what, alas! we exhibit in our own personal history. May the Spirit of God graciously unfold to our hearts, by His own direct and powerful ministry, more and more of what is meant by "the roasted lamb," the "unleavened bread," and "the bread of affliction."[15]

We shall now briefly consider the feast of Pentecost, which stands next in order to the passover. "Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee; begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free-will offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee; and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place His name there. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt; and thou shalt observe and do these statutes." (Ver. 9-12.)

Here we have the well-known and beautiful type of the day of Pentecost. The passover sets forth the death of Christ; the sheaf of first-fruits is the striking figure of a risen Christ; and in the feast of weeks, we have prefigured before us the descent of the Holy Ghost, fifty days after the resurrection.

We speak, of course, of what these feasts convey to us, according to the mind of God, irrespective altogether of the question of Israel's apprehension of their meaning. It is our privilege to look at all these typical institutions in the light of the New Testament; and when we so view them, we are filled with wonder and delight at the divine perfectness, beauty, and order of all those marvelous types.

And not only so, but—what is of immense value to us—we see how the scriptures of the New Testament dovetail, as it were, into those of the Old; we see the lovely unity of the divine Volume, and how manifestly it is one Spirit that breathes through the whole, from beginning to end. In this way we are inwardly strengthened in our apprehension of the precious truth of the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, and our hearts are fortified against all the blasphemous attacks of infidel writers. Our souls are conducted to the top of the mountain where the moral glories of the Volume shine upon us in all their heavenly lustre, and from whence we can look down and see the clouds and chilling mists of infidel thought rolling beneath us. These clouds and mists cannot affect us, inasmuch as they are far away below the level on which, through infinite grace, we stand. Infidel writers know absolutely nothing of the moral glories of Scripture; but one thing is awfully certain, namely, that one moment in eternity will completely revolutionize the thoughts of all the infidels and atheists that have ever raved or written against the Bible and its Author.

Now, in looking at the deeply interesting feast of weeks, or Pentecost, we are at once struck with the difference between it and the feast of unleavened bread. In the first place, we read of "a free-will offering." Here we have a figure of the Church, formed by the Holy Ghost and presented to God as "a kind of first-fruits of His creatures."

We have dwelt upon this feature of the type in the "Notes on Leviticus," chapter xxiii, and shall not therefore enter upon it here, but confine ourselves to what is purely Deuteronomic. The people were to present a tribute of a free-will offering of their hand, according as the Lord their God had blessed them. There was nothing like this at the passover, because that sets forth Christ offering Himself for us, as a sacrifice, and not our offering any thing. We remember our deliverance from sin and Satan, and what that deliverance cost; we meditate upon the deep and varied sufferings of our precious Saviour as prefigured by the roasted lamb; we remember that it was our sins that were laid upon Him. He was bruised for our iniquities—judged in our stead, and this leads to deep and hearty contrition, or, what we may call true Christian repentance. For we must never forget that repentance is not a mere transient emotion of a sinner when his eyes are first opened, but an abiding moral condition of the Christian, in view of the cross and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. If this were better understood and more fully entered into, it would impart a depth and solidity to the Christian life and character in which the great majority of us are lamentably deficient.

But in the feast of Pentecost, we have before us the power of the Holy Ghost, and the varied effects of His blessed presence in us and with us. He enables us to present our bodies and all that we have as a free-will offering unto our God, according as He hath blessed us. This, we need hardly say, can only be done by the power of the Holy Ghost; and hence the striking type of it is presented, not in the passover, which prefigures the death of Christ; not in the feast of unleavened bread, which sets forth the moral effect of that death upon us, in repentance, self-judgment, and practical holiness; but in Pentecost, which is the acknowledged type of the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.

Now, it is the Spirit who enables us to enter into the claims of God upon us—claims which are to be measured only by the extent of the divine blessing. He gives us to see and understand that all we are and all we have belong to God. He gives us to delight in consecrating ourselves—spirit, soul, and body—to God. It is truly "a free-will offering." It is not of constraint, but willingly. There is not an atom of bondage, for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

In short, we have here the lovely spirit and moral character of the entire Christian life and service. A soul under law cannot understand the force and beauty of this. Souls under the law never received the Spirit. The two things are wholly incompatible. Thus the apostle says to the poor misguided assemblies of Galatia, "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by works of law, or by the hearing of faith?... He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth He it by works of law, or by the hearing of faith?" The precious gift of the Spirit is consequent upon the death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of our adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and consequently can have nothing whatever to do with "works of law" in any shape or form. The presence of the Holy Ghost on earth, His dwelling with and in all true believers, is a grand characteristic truth of Christianity. It was not, and could not be, known in Old-Testament times. It was not even known by the disciples in our Lord's lifetime. He Himself said to them, on the eve of His departure, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient [or profitable—συμφέρει] 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 xvi. 7.)