The measure of our realization will be in proportion to the measure of our communion with God. If we are satisfied to move at a cold and heartless distance from God, our consciousness of the power and value of any truth will, as a consequence, be meagre and shallow: while, therefore, it is not to be forgotten that the root and source of all life and communion is the truth stated in the passage to which we are alluding, it is manifest that the more we walk in communion with Him who gives us the life, the more shall we enjoy both Himself and the life which He gives. Dear Christian reader, let us pray that the cross and passion of the Lord Jesus may sink so deeply into our hearts that we may have on the one hand such a view of the loathsomeness of sin as shall lead us to abhor it with a holy abhorrence "all the days of our life," and on the other hand such a view of the amazing love of God as shall constrain us "to live not unto ourselves but unto Him who died for us and rose again."
Thus, then, we see that the laying on of hands shows forth nothing less than a change of places on the part of the sinner and the Saviour. The sinner was out of the favor of God: "O my soul, come not thou into their habitation." The Saviour was in the favor of God, "daily His delight," dwelling in His bosom from before all worlds. But the amazing plan of redemption shows us the Saviour out of the favor of God, and God forsaking Him, while at the same time a condemned malefactor is brought at once into the very presence of a loving and pardoning God. Amazing, deep, inconceivable, eternal love! unfathomable wisdom! love which soars far aloft above the most gigantic conception! wisdom which has written everlasting contempt upon all the power and base designs of the great enemy of God and man! For, ere Levi could be introduced into the enjoyment of the "covenant of life and peace" (Mal. ii. 5), a spotless Victim must stand the shock of the king of terrors and all his thunders. But who is this Victim? We ask not, "Who is this King of glory?" but Who is this Victim? The answer to this question it is which gives to the plan of redemption its grandest and most divine characteristic. The Victim was none less than the Son of God Himself! Yes! here was love, here was wisdom. The Son of God had to stoop because man had exalted himself. And surely we may say, If God had not entered upon the work, all, all were lost, and that forever. No mere mortal could have entered into that dark scene where sin was being atoned for; no one but the Son of God could have sustained the weight which, in the garden and on the cross, rested on the shoulders of the "One that was mighty." And here we might refer to the Lord's language to His disciples when He was about to enter into conflict with the adversary: "Hereafter I will not talk much with you; for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John xiv. 30). Why could He not "talk much with them?" Because He was just going to enter upon the work of atonement, in which they could do nothing, because the prince of this world, had he come, would have had plenty in them; but then, the moment He, as it were, in spirit passes through that sorrowful hour, He says, "Arise, let us go hence;" i.e., although we could not move a single step in the achievement of the victory, yet we could enjoy the fruits of it; and not only so, but display the fruits of it in a life of service and fruit-bearing to God, which forms the subject of teaching in the next chapter.
Here, then, is what gives peace to the awakened conscience of the sinner. God Himself has done the work. God has triumphed over all man's wickedness and rebellion, and now every soul who feels his need of pardon and peace can draw near in faith and holy confidence and reap the fruits of this wondrous triumph of grace and mercy.
And now, dear reader, if you have not as yet made these wondrous fruits your own; if you have not as yet cast the whole burden of your sins on God's eternal love as seen in the cross, I ask you, Why do you stand aloof? Why do you doubt? Perhaps you feel the hardness of your heart, perhaps you are ready to say that you feel yourself even now unmoved by the contemplation of all the deep sorrow endured by the Son of God. Well, what of that? If it be a question of your guilt, you may go much farther than even this, for in that hour of which we have been speaking you stood unmoved, looked on with cold and heartless indifference, while all creation owned the wondrous fact. Yea, more, you yourself crucified the incarnate God, you spat in His face, and plunged your spear into His side. Do you shrink back and say, "Oh, not so bad!" I say it was the act of the human heart; and if you have a human heart, it was your act. But the Scriptures at once decide this point, for it is written, "For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together" (Acts iv. 27). This passage, I say, proves that all the world were representatively around the cross. But why insist on this? Simply to show forth the riches of the grace of God, which can only be seen in all its effulgent lustre in the cross; and therein it is seen mounting far above all man's sin and malignant rebellion; for when man, in the fiendish pride of his heart, could plunge his spear into the side of incarnate Deity, God's cry was—Blood! and through that blood "remission of sins, beginning at Jerusalem." Thus, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and "grace REIGNS through righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord."
Enough, I trust, has been said to show the grounds upon which the Levites stood before God. These grounds were free and eternal grace—grace exercised toward them through the blood, which is the only channel through which grace can flow. Man has been found to be utterly ruined before God, and therefore it must be a question either of salvation through free grace, or eternal damnation; for "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh living be justified." But then, while man is by nature utterly unfit to render anything like an acceptable righteousness or service to God, yet, when God gives us new life through grace, He, of course, looks for the development of that life. In other words, grace brings the soul into circumstances of responsibility and service, and it is as we meet those circumstances that God is glorified in us and our souls grow in the knowledge of God. Thus it was in the case of the leper: up to a certain point in his history he had nothing to do, the priest was the sole actor. But when the priest had done his part; when, by virtue of the blood which had been shed, he had pronounced him "clean," the leper had then to begin to "wash himself" (Lev. xiv. 8). Now we shall find that the history of Levi develops all these principles most fully.
We have hitherto been engaged with Levi's condition and character by nature and also the wondrous remedy devised by grace to meet him in his lost estate, and not only to save him from that estate but also to raise him up to an elevation which could never have entered into the heart of man, even into the very tabernacle of God. We shall now, with God's blessing and grace, proceed to examine that high elevation to which we have referred, and also the service which it involved, as put before us in
Numbers iii.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring the tribe of Levi near, and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister unto him. And they shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tabernacle of the congregation, to do the service of the tabernacle. And they shall keep all the instruments of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the charge of the children of Israel, to do the service of the tabernacle. And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron, and to his sons: they are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel" (vers. 5-9).
Here, then, God's marvelous purposes of grace toward Levi fully open before us, and truly marvelous they are indeed. We see that the sacrifices were but a means to an end; but both the means and the end were in every way worthy of each other. The means were, in one word, "death and resurrection," and all included therein. The end was, nearness to God, and all included therein.
Looking at Levi by nature, there could not be any point farther removed from God than that at which he stood; but grace in exercise, through the blood, could lift him up out of that ruin in which he stood, and "bring him nigh," yea, bring him into association with the great head of the priestly family, there to serve in the tabernacle. Thus, we read, "You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.... But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii. 1-6). And again, "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ" (ver. 13).
When nature is left free to work, it will ever go as far away from God as it can. This is true since the day when man said, "I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid and I hid myself" (Gen. iii. 10). But when grace is left free and sovereign to work, it will ever bring the soul "nigh." Thus it was with Levi. He was by nature "black as the tents of Kedar;" by grace, "comely as the curtains of Solomon:" by nature he was "joined" in a covenant of murder; by grace "joined" in a covenant of "life and peace." The former, because he was "fierce and cruel;" the latter, because he feared and was afraid of the Lord's name. (Comp. Gen. xlix. 6, 7; Mal. ii. 5.) Furthermore, Levi was by nature conversant with the "instruments of cruelty;" by grace, with "the instruments of God's tabernacle:" by nature God could not come into Levi's assembly; by grace, Levi is brought into God's assembly: by nature, "his feet were swift to shed blood;" by grace, swift to follow the movements of the cloud through the desert, in real, patient service to God. In a word, Levi had become a "new creature," and "old things had passed away," and therefore he was no longer to "live unto himself," but unto Him who had done such marvelous things for him in grace.