(2.) God governed Israel as a nation, not as an individual man. Now since nations as such exist in this life only, it follows of necessity that all retribution that is truly national must be in time, not in eternity. The nation as such is not known in the eternal world. The individuals that compose the nation have their own personal account to settle with God in the world to come; but this has no bearing upon the government of God over the nation. This national government must be complete in time, else it remains incomplete forever. It may run on through many human generations; national life may outlast scores of individual human lives; but God’s retribution as to nations must be administered in this world, no part lying over to the next. Hence when God made himself king in Jeshurunover the Hebrew nation, he of necessity established a government to be administered mainly in time, not in eternity; by the rewards and penalties of this world—not of the next.——This again would be in itself a sufficient reason for the fact we are accounting for, even if there were no other.
(3.) This national system of government was intended to be a moral lesson for all other nations of all time. Hence the government must be put on the same basis as that of all other nations in the point of providential retribution. As God holds every nation on earth to a positive retribution in time, giving them prosperity for their righteousness, and adversity for their violation of the common laws of humanity; and as he would fain make his administration over Israel a cogent moral lesson to every other nation on this great point, he must needs govern Israel in this respect as he governs them—i. e. administering his retributions in time.
(4.) Yet one reason more. Distinguishing carefully between God’s providential government and his moral—the former being of time only; the latter of both time and eternity; the former being (for our present purpose) over nations as such; the latter over individuals only and not over nations—it remains to say that God manifestly designed his providential government over Israel to be suggestive, perhaps we might say typical—certainly illustrative of his moral government over all men which is not of time only, but which reaches into the eternal world. In the early ages of the world men needed some proof that God would punish sin in the world to come. They needed some illustrations of God’s character as a righteous, moral governor. Therefore the Lord planned to put himself at the head of the Hebrew nation, and then in that position, to give to mankind some illustrations in this world of what all sinners are to believe and expect for themselves, not in this world only or chiefly, but in the world to come. He would make this limited government illustrate that universal one. He would show in the case of the Hebrew people under his law what all men have to expect from their righteous God when his moral government shall have had full scope and shall have administered its perfect retribution in the world to come. This divine policy is well set forth by Peter (2 Pet. 2: 4–9); “For if Godspared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell”; and “spared not the old world, but saved Noah”; if he “turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, but delivered just Lot”;—then (we may infer), “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” Yes, the Lord knoweth how to do this, and he means to let all living men see that he knoweth how; and see also that being a holy moral Governor, he can not fail to do it. He will give them occasion to see in his ruling over nations in time that his ruling over individual sinners can not be less righteous—can not be less retributive according to deeds done; and since equal and perfect justice calls for more time than one human life on earth, there must be an after part to it, to come in when death has located men in the eternal world.——This designed use of a theocratic government over Israel to illustrate God’s moral relations to every individual man, required an administration mainly in this world, in time, before human eyes; and is therefore another reason for working this theocracy mainly with temporal rewards and punishments.——I do not see that further reasons can be rationally called for.
3. I am to rebut the inference made from the fact of a theocracy administered mostly in time, viz. that Moses and the patriarchs did not believe in or even know of a future life.
(1.) The inference is utterly illogical. The rewards and penalties of the Hebrew system were of time and not of eternity, for other good and sufficient reasons, and not necessarily for the reason that the Hebrew law-giver and his people knew of no future life. To be of any force the argument must assume that if Moses had known of a future life he would have built this system upon it. But what is the proof of that? By what right is that assumed?——On the contrary there are reasons in abundance, not to say in excess—far more than would be sufficient—why the theocracy should be temporal in its penalties, whether Moses knew or did not know of a future life.
(2.) That Moses and the patriarchs assumed and believed in a future life is apparent from their words.
Moses wrote of Enoch (Gen. 5: 24); “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” “Took him” where? Did not Moses know where? “Took him”—in what sense? Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation—taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! Is this a credible construction? Shall it be assumed that Moses was so ignorant, or so misinformed, or so little versed in logic, as this?——If the Lord had made this problem a special study—how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we can not see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted, viz. to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying.
Again, Moses constantly spoke of the death of the godly patriarchs as a being “gathered to their people.” He said this of Abraham (Gen. 25: 8); of Ishmael (25: 17); of Isaac (35: 29); of Jacob (49: 33). And he records these as Jacob’s words when he supposed Joseph to have died: “I will go down into Sheol to my son mourning” (37: 35).——In the face of these facts can it be said that Moses knew nothing of the future life? Did he think the fathers—the righteous people—had passed by death into non-existence—into what was not life in any sense whatever?——Again, when at the bush the Lord said to Moses so solemnly: “I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3: 6), is it credible that Moses was so obtuse as not to see that this implied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet living, since the Lord could not be the God of dead things, but only of living souls?——A sensible view of the case may be obtained thus: Suppose that Moses had replied—“Lord, I see not how that can be, for Abraham has been dead and out of existence more than two hundred years”! If really Moses had no knowledge of a future life, he ought frankly to have made substantially this reply at the bush.
(3.) In proof of their faith in the future life, is another argument, of greater force if possible than their words; viz. their lives. For men sometimes say more than they mean, or perhaps something other than what they think; but their lives testify truthfully to theirreal beliefs.——Here we might expand the argument already suggested by the writer to the Hebrews (11: 8–16), calling up to review the actual lives of the patriarchs; how Abraham tore himself away from home and kindred, and went, obeying a call believed to be from God, to a land before unknown; how he and his family sojourned as strangers there, dwelling only in tents but “looking for a city on beyond which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God”; how they lived in the faith of promises to be fulfilled far in the future ages of time; and how by such a life they “declared plainly that they were seeking another and better country, even an heavenly” one.——But waiving this, the argument will be more directly in point if made on the case of the man Moses himself.——Born a slave, it was little of earth that he had at his birth save the faith and consequent heroism of a godly mother. In the providence of God it fell to him to be taken—a beautiful babe of three months—into the family of the reigning Pharaoh. There he lived, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, till he was full forty years old. Of prepossessing person and splendid talents; of capacities equal to any responsibility, the honors of all Egypt lay before him—we might probably say—were pressing upon his acceptance. What did he do?——The writer to the Hebrews answers our question on this wise: “When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”——Was not this choice and all this course of conduct unaccountably strange? Did any man in his senses, knowing nothing of the future life, ever make such a choice before or since? What! choose affliction before pleasure; reproach before the highest of earthly honors? What could be in the man to make such a choice and even carry it out in his actual life?