Part 62 (1/2)
Current ideas of the love of G.o.d distort it by pitting it against His retributive righteousness. Current ideas of sin diminish its gravity by tracing it to heredity or environment, or viewing it as a necessary stage in progress. The sense of G.o.d's judicial action is paralysed and all but dead in mult.i.tudes.
All these things taken together set up a strong current of opinion against any teaching of punitive energy in G.o.d.
The text may express the pitying reluctance of the prophet.
Jeremiah is remarkable for the weight with which 'the burden of the Lord' pressed upon him. The true prophet feels the pang of the woes which he is charged to announce more than his hearers do.
Unfair charges are made against gospel preachers, as if they delighted in the thought of the retribution which they have to proclaim.
II. The solemn necessity for the unsheathing of the sword.
The judgments must go on. In the text the all-sufficient reason given is that G.o.d has willed it so. But we must take into account all that lies in that name of 'Lord' before we understand the message, which brought patience to the heart of the prophet. If a Jewish prophet believed anything, he believed that the will of the Lord was absolutely good. Jeremiah's reason for the flas.h.i.+ng sword is no mere beating down human instincts, by alleging a will which is sovereign, and there an end. We have to take into account the whole character of Him who has willed it, and then we can discern it to be inevitable that G.o.d should punish evil.
His character makes it inevitable. G.o.d's righteousness cannot but hate sin and fight against it. To leave it unpunished stains His glory.
G.o.d's love cannot but draw and wield the sword. It is unsheathed in the interests of all that is 'lovely and of good report.' If G.o.d is G.o.d at all, and not an almighty devil, He must hate sin. The love and the righteousness, which in deepest a.n.a.lysis are one, must needs issue in punishment. There would be a blight over the universe if they did not.
The very order of the universe makes it inevitable. All things, as coming from Him, must work for His lovers and against His enemies, as 'the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.'
The const.i.tution of men makes it inevitable. Sin brings its own punishment, in gnawing conscience, defiled memories, incapacity for good, and many other penalties.
It is to be remembered that the text originally referred to retribution on nations for national sins, and that what Jeremiah regarded as the strokes of the Lord might be otherwise regarded as political catastrophes. Let us not overlook that application of the principles of the text. Scripture regards the so-called 'natural consequences' of a nation's sins as G.o.d's judgments on them. The Christian view of the government of the world looks on all human affairs as moved by G.o.d, though done by men. It takes full account of the responsibility of men the doers, but above all, recognises 'the rod and Him who hath appointed it.' We see exemplified over and over again in the world's history the tragic truth that the acc.u.mulated consequences of a nation's sins fall on the heads of a single generation. Slowly, drop by drop, the cup is filled. Slowly, moment by moment, the hand moves round the dial, and then come the crash and boom of the hammer on the deep-toned bell. Good men should pray not, 'Put up thyself into thy scabbard,' but, 'Gird Thy sword on Thy thigh, O thou most mighty... on behalf of truth and meekness and righteousness.'
III. The sheathing of the sword.
The pa.s.sionate appeal in the text, which else is vain, has in large measure its satisfaction in the work of Christ.
G.o.d does not delight in punishment. He has provided a way. Christ bears the consequence of man's sin, the sense of alienation, the pains and sorrows, the death. He does not bear them for Himself. His bearing them accomplishes the ends at which punishment aims, in expressing the divine hatred of sin and in subduing the heart. Trusting in Him, the sword does not fall on us. In some measure indeed it still does. But it is no longer a sword to smite, but a lancet to inflict a healing wound.
And the worst punishment does not fall on us. G.o.d's sword was sheathed in Christ's breast. So trust in Him, then shall you have 'boldness in the day of judgment.'
THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER
'Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is His name: He shall thoroughly plead their cause.'--JER. l. 34.
Among the remarkable provisions of the Mosaic law there were some very peculiar ones affecting the next-of-kin. The nearest living blood relation to a man had certain obligations and offices to discharge, under certain contingencies, in respect of which he received a special name; which is sometimes translated in the Old Testament 'Redeemer,'
and sometimes 'Avenger' of blood. What the etymological signification of the word may be is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. It is taken by some authorities to come from a word meaning 'to set free.' But a consideration of the offices which the law prescribed for the 'Goel' is of more value for understanding the peculiar force of the metaphor in such a text as this, than any examination of the original meaning of the word. Jehovah is represented as having taken upon Himself the functions of the next-of-kin, and is the Kinsman-Redeemer of His people. The same thought recurs frequently in the Old Testament, especially in the second half of the prophecies of Isaiah, and it were much to be desired that the Revised Version had adopted some means of showing an English reader the instances, since the expression suggests a very interesting and pathetic view of G.o.d's relation to His people.
I. Let me state briefly the qualifications and offices of the kinsman-redeemer, _'the Goel.'_
The qualifications may be all summed up in one--that he must be the nearest blood relation of the person whose Goel he was. He might be brother, or less nearly related, but this was essential, that of all living men, he was the most closely connected. That qualification has to be kept well in mind when thinking of the transference of the office to G.o.d in His relation to Israel, and through Israel to us.
Such being his qualification, what were his duties? Mainly three. The first was connected with property, and is thus stated in the words of the law, 'If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his _kinsman_ that is next unto him come, and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold' (Lev. xxv. 25, R. V.).
The Mosaic law was very jealous of large estates. The prophet p.r.o.nounced a curse upon those who joined 'land to land, and field to field... that they may be alone in the midst of the earth.' One great purpose steadily kept in view in all the Mosaic land-laws was the prevention of the alienation of the land from its original holders, and of its acc.u.mulation in a few hands. The idea underlying the law was that of the tribal or family owners.h.i.+p--or rather occupancy, for G.o.d was the owner and Israel but a tenant--and not individual possession.
That thought carries us back to a social state long since pa.s.sed away, but of which traces are still left even among ourselves. It was carried out thoroughly in the law of Moses, however imperfectly in actual practice. The singular inst.i.tution of the year of Jubilee operated, among other effects, to check the acquisition of large estates. It provided that land which had been alienated was to revert to its original occupants, and so, in substance, prohibited purchase and permitted only the lease of land for a maximum term of fifty years. We do not know how far its enactments were a dead letter, but their spirit and intention were obviously to secure the land of the tribe to the tribe for ever, to keep the territory of each distinct, to discourage the creation of a landowning cla.s.s, with its consequent landless cla.s.s, to prevent the extremes of poverty and wealth, and to perpetuate a diffused, and nearly uniform, modest wellbeing amongst a pastoral and agricultural community, and to keep all in mind that the land was 'not to be sold for ever, for it is Mine,' saith the Lord.
The obligation on the next-of-kin to buy back alienated property was quite as much imposed on him for the sake of the family as of the individual.
The second of his duties was to buy back a member of his family fallen into slavery. 'If a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger... after that he is sold, he may be redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him.' The price was to vary according to the time which had to elapse before the year of Jubilee, when all slaves were necessarily set free. So Hebrew slavery was entirely unlike the thing called by the same name in other countries, and by virtue of this power of purchase at any time, which was vested in the nearest relative, taken along with the compulsory manumission of all 'slaves' every fiftieth year, came to be substantially a voluntary engagement for a fixed time, which might be ended even before that time had expired, if compensation for the unexpired term was made to the master.
It is to be observed that this provision applied only to the case of a Hebrew who had sold himself. No other person could sell a man into slavery. And it applied only to the case of a Hebrew who had sold himself to a foreigner. No Jew was allowed to hold a Jew as a slave.