40. Value of Historic Sidelights
Value of Historic Sidelights
Chapter 39
Occurrences are the natural precursors and prompters of utterances. Events both suggest and shape speech. Individual words trace their origin to transactions, and it is from what takes place in history that oratory derives its subject matter, its occasion and its force. Circumstances supply opportunities and create necessities for special deliverances by tongue and pen, and so History becomes a commentary on scripture, both in its predictive and preceptive forms. To know when and where a psalm was composed, a parable spoken, and epistle written is to know why, and what it means. A great oration is the product of a threefold sympathy on the part of the orator; sympathy with his theme, sympathy with his audience, sympathy with the occasion. If he be not in sympathy with his theme or subject, he cannot enter deeply into it and unfold it. If he be not sympathetic with his audience, he cannot reach and touch their convictions and emotions and resolves. If he be not in sympathy with the occasion, he will not feel the inspiration of the practical issues, needs and duties which lend to oratory its main value. The first sort of sympathy is rhetorical, the second personal, and the third, actual and practical. A reader and student of scripture needs a similar threefold sympathy: First, with the subject of which it treats; then with the divine Author and human writer; and finally with the object for which it is written, and the circumstances that determined both subject and object. Therefore, beside the incidental references in other sections to the historic sidelights thrown upon the narratives and discourses of scripture, it seems important to give this department further illustration. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-14 is a brief outline of the history of the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan, with the distinct statement that “all these things happened unto them for ensamples, and are written for our learning and admonition;” and we are here taught to find, beneath Old Testament historical narratives, a deeper spiritual meaning. The passage through the Red Sea, the manna, the Rock, are treated, respectively, as types of Baptism, and of Christ as our spiritual food and drink. In 2 Corinthians 3:1 to 2 Corinthians 4:6, the glory on Moses’ face and the veil which he put on, are used as types of the glory of the divine Word and the veiling of the mind of the Jews to its real teaching. In Galatians 4:24-31 the story of Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, is treated as “an allegory,” illustrative of the fact that the liberty, born of grace, and the bondage, born of legalism, cannot dwell together in harmony in the same believing heart; and that the legal spirit must be cast out to make room for the gracious growth of the spirit of faith. A key to the Epistle to the Ephesians may be found in Acts 19, Paul’s experience at Ephesians, with four incidents of major importance:
1. Twelve disciples, receiving the Holy Spirit, are at once raised to the heavenlies, in a higher knowledge and experience of both truth and life.
2. Seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, undertaking to exorcise evil spirits, are by them overcome, and signally worsted and wounded.
3. Many Ephesian magi, masters of deceitful arts, who have practiced on the credulity of the people, are converted, confess their deeds and publicly burn their costly books.
4. There is a terrible tumult in the Ephesian theater and an appeal to Diana worshippers by the town clerk.
How naturally, in writing to Ephesian disciples, Paul would emphasize the new and heavenly knowledge of the power and love of God into which it was their privilege to enter by the Spirit; the awful power and malignity of demoniac agencies, and the need of the panoply of God if we are to overcome and stand in the evil day; the grand transformations both of character and conduct wrought by the power of God (Ephesians 2:1-13; Ephesians 4:14-29; Ephesians 5:6-13); and the Spiritual Temple of God, in contrast with the Fane and Shrine of Diana—one of the seven wonders of the world (Ephesians 2:20-22). Also the glorious beauty and symmetry of the divine Temple and the invisible Dweller therein; as also the sleight and cunning craftiness of moral impostors, who play on popular credulity by tricks of sophistry and cunning (Ephesians 4:14; Ephesians 5:11); and the profane revelry, connected with heathen fanes in contrast with the filling of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; Ephesians 6:19).
Thus the whole contents of this Epistle are illustrated, interpreted and illuminated by placing, side by side, with this letter the brief record of a visit and sojourn at the capital of pagan worship. In Hebrews 3-12, ten entire chapters, constituting the bulk of the whole Epistle, are occupied with the typical treatment of Old Testament history and prophecy; and with such fullness of detail as to suggest that here we have the essence and substance of that discourse of our Lord on the way to Emmaus which is referred to in Luke 24, but nowhere else outlined. The two Epistles of Peter are based on the suggestive analogy between the desert wandering and the pilgrimage of God’s believing people from earth to heaven.
James constantly refers to the same old-time events, particularly naming Abraham’s offering of Isaac, the giving of the Law at Sinai, Rahab’s reception of the spies, the trials of Job, the schools of wisdom in Solomon’s days, the triumphant prayers of Elijah.
Jude makes at least ten references in his brief letter, to the events of Old Testament history from Adam to Balaam; and as for the Apocalypse, it would be a temple without windows—one dark mystery—but for the constant references to the same Old Testament records which flood it with light. For example, as we have already seen, the successive rewards promised to the overcomers, in the Epistles to the seven churches, must be interpreted by the history from Eden to Solomon—the “tree of life,” the “death” of the fall, the “manna” of the desert, the war with Amalek, the “white raiment” of the priesthood, the building of the temple, and the “throne” of Solomon.
How obvious it is that here, in at least seven or eight conspicuous books of the later Scriptures the illustrations and imagery are so drawn from the earlier, that the two are inseparably interwoven; in many cases the very pattern of the fabric is in Old Testament design and coloring; or, to adopt Paul’s own figures in Ephesians 2:21; Ephesians 4:16, it resembles a temple in which all the parts are fitly framed or joined together, or a body in which they are not only so framed and joined, but compacted into living unity by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
Peter’s Epistles, so obviously framed with reference to the desert journey from Rameses to the Jordan, show at least fifty points of illumining correspondence if compared with the narrative from Exodus to Joshua. Every great stage and experience of that forty years may be found hinted more or less obscurely:
In the very names and words used, “pilgrims,” “strangers,” “sojourning,” etc. (1 Peter 2:11; 1 Peter 1:17)
In the reference to pilgrim attire and habits (1 Peter 1:13)
The Paschal Lamb and Bloody Sacrifices (1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 Peter 2:5)
The Consecration of the Priesthood (1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9)
The Divine choice of the People as an elect nation (1 Peter 1; 1 Peter 2:9-10)
The need of harmony among pilgrims
The awful judgments upon the disobedient (1 Peter 4:17)
The appointment of the Seventy (1 Peter 5:1-3)
The Tabernacle and Tents (2 Peter 1:13)
The Entrance into Canaan (2 Peter 1:11)
There are many more possible and probable references:
The promised Inheritance (1 Peter 1:4-5)
The Trials of Faith (1 Peter 1:7)
The Revelations of Jehovah’s Holiness (1 Peter 1:15-16)
The scorched pastures of the Desert (1 Peter 1:24)
The Exodus from Egypt (1 Peter 2:9-10)
The flocks and herds of the pilgrims (1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:2; 1 Peter 5:4)
The spoils of Egypt, their jewels (1 Peter 3:3-4)
The Temptations to Lust, Moab, etc. (1 Peter 4:1-4)
The wild beasts encountered (1 Peter 5:8-9)
The forty-two stations on the route (2 Peter 1:5-11).
What a flood of Light the Transfiguration throws on the words of Peter (2 Peter 1:16-21). The four words applied to our Lord, “power,” “majesty,” “honor,” “glory,” are nowhere else found in such conjunction. This was the one occasion in His earthly life when His divine characteristics, omnipotence, supreme majesty, essential glory, and exalted dignity were disclosed to mortal eyes—when His disguise was swept aside to reveal the star of universal empire, glittering beneath, and the crown of imperial dominion on His brow. In fact no other commentary is needed, when Matthew 17:1-8, Mark 9:1-9, and Luke 9:26-36, are used as side lights to illumine the words in Peter’s Epistle. Even the reference to the “tabernacle”—a word very rarely used in the New Testament—is explained by his impulsive exclamation on the mount—“let us make here three tabernacles;” the word he uses of his own “decease” is the same which our Lord used on that occasion—“exodus”—of his approaching death; and then, when “the Kingdom of God came with power,” in that vision of glory, were made known unto Peter the “power and coming” of the Lord Jesus. That Transfiguration was a revelation of the “excellent glory”—eyes and ears being overwhelmed by what they saw and heard. It was the day dawn of glory, making even the light of prophecy only, in comparison, as a glimmer of a torch in the darkness of night. There is perhaps no one instance in which one paragraph in an Epistle is so lit up with illuminative clearness and transparency of meaning by a narrative in the gospel history, as in this case. The number so mysteriously found in Revelation 13:18, as the number of the Beast, 666, is found but twice, elsewhere (1 Kings 10:14; Ezra 2:13). Its first occurrence seems to be significant. There is something at least startling in finding, in this simple historical statement, explicitly repeated in 2 Chronicles 9:13, the same number which is thus afterward invested with a significance, so terrible and mysterious—a coincidence which Prof. Plumptre says can hardly be looked on as casual. Inasmuch as the “Seer of the apocalypse lives entirely in Holy Scripture,” on this territory alone is the solution of the sacred riddle to be sought (Hengstenberg). Is there here, then, any hint supplied of the possible significance of this repeating decimal .666+?
Notice at least three points: 1. The wealth of Solomon represented worldly accumulations largely contrary to the express prohibition of God (Deuteronomy 17:16-17). In fact, his whole course in this respect was in disobedience to the explicit will of God. This estimate of his annual revenue of gold, exclusive of all payments in kind (£4,000,000), represents mammon, worldly riches, carnally accumulated.
2. The Apocalyptic Seer writes expressly to set in contrast the earthly Babylon and the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Man of Sin and the Son of God—the counterfeit apostate woman and the genuine Bride of Christ—the false riches and the true—and it is not unnatural that this number should reappear stamped on the image of the Beast.
3. The Worship of the Beast and the homage paid to Mammon are identical. It reproduces in the latter days the illusive glamour and glory of the former days when Solomon’s disregard of the law of God led to these vast multiplications of gold in his coffers. That annual revenue then marked the glory of his riches as not of God but of the Devil—more becoming to Babel than to the city of God.
Revelation 15:3. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. This unique phrase is found nowhere else, and must have some marked significance. As to the “Song of Moses,” at the shores of the Red Sea, that is the first song sung in the Bible narrative; it is the first great psalm of victory, and is especially ascribed to Moses in Exodus 15:1. As to the “Song of the Lamb,” it seems to be referred to in Revelation 14:1-3. There is a curious correspondence between the two: these are respectively the first and last instances when the word “song” occurs. They celebrate the Deliverance from Egypt and the pursuing foes, on the one hand, and the final Deliverance from Satan and all foes of spiritual life, on the other; they mark the two bounds of Redemption history, and between them lies the whole history of God’s ransomed people. The reference to the song of Moses carries us back to the Red Sea, rather than to that dying song of Deuteronomy 32, and hence the title “Servant of God” (Exodus 14:31). The mission of the angels was to renew the plagues of Egypt (Revelation 15). The song of Moses was sung after the Hebrews escaped those plagues; the song of the Lamb anticipates the final triumph of the Redeemed over the enemies of Christ and His church. Thus the song of Moses is renewed and invested with a higher meaning in this new connection.
Moreover, as Israel had stood on the shore of the Red Sea, whose waters had stood upright as a wall for their protection, having victoriously passed over and seen the destruction of their foes; so now the victorious saints stand on the sea itself, now no longer as treacherous waters wherein the feet sink, but as solid glass under the feet, having a firm footing like their Master on the Galilean Lake; and the sea is no more tumultuous as well as treacherous, but smooth as glass, and reflecting their glory as they stand upon it. As to reference to the “White Stone” in Revelation 2:17, Professor Ramsay in a learned but lucid article finds the interpretation in the fact that superstitious people would sleep in a temple in the hope that some vision for their guidance would be vouchsafed to them by the god of the shrine. If during such incubatio they deemed such a vision was granted them, they henceforth wore around their necks a white stone, upon which was written a new name, which they took. In support of this interpretation the learned Professor instances Aelius Aristides, the great rhetorician of Asia Minor in the second century, who always carried with him such a “synthema,” as a pledge of divine aid in the pursuit of the course marked out for him by his god. Upon this memento was his newly adopted name of Theodoras, “the gift of God.” This is a case in which secular history becomes a side light on the sacred narrative. Of the value of common historic facts to interpret biblical references, perhaps the best illustration is found in the Olympic and Isthmian games, from which Paul especially draws no small proportion of his figurative and metaphorical language, as in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Php 3:12-14; Hebrews 12:1, etc. In the first of these three passages a knowledge of the laws of the racecourse and arena of competitive athletics is quite essential to avoid misinterpretation. Before the games began a herald entered the stadium and proclaimed aloud the conditions of entrance into the lists, such as these: Competitors must be of pure Hellenic blood; freemen, not slaves; untainted by crime or treason; and must have gone through the prescribed course of training, etc. And this explains Paul’s words about possibly being a “castaway”—the word adokimos means a “rejected candidate”—one who could not stand the test. It refers not to his salvation, which he never questioned, but to his reward as a racer. He kept himself in training, lest after entering the racecourse as a herald proclaiming the conditions of acceptable service, he himself should be set aside as unworthy of the race and the prize.