Reader, let us, with holy vigilance, watch against all this; let us seek to cultivate a tender conscience. It will demand from us what it demanded from Paul, namely, “exercise.” But it is blessed exercise, and it will yield most precious fruits. Do not suppose that there is aught that savors of the legal in this exercise; nay, it is most thoroughly Christian; indeed we look upon those noble words of Paul as the very embodiment, in a condensed form, of the whole of a Christian’s practice. “To have _always_ a conscience void of offense toward God and men” comprehends every thing.
But, alas! how little do we habitually ponder the claims of God, or the claims of our fellow-man! How little is our conscience up to the mark! Claims of all sorts are neglected, yet we feel it not. There is no brokenness and contrition before the Lord. We commit trespass in a thousand things, yet there is no confession or restitution. Things are allowed to pass that ought to be judged, confessed, and put away. There is sin in our holy things; there is lightness and indifference of spirit in the assembly and at the Lord’s table; we rob God, in various ways; we think our own thoughts, speak our own words, do our own pleasure; and what is all this but robbing God, seeing that we are not our own, but bought with a price?
Now, we cannot but think that all this must sadly hinder our spiritual growth. It grieves the Spirit of God, and hinders His gracious ministry of Christ to our souls whereby alone we grow up into Him. We know, from various parts of God’s Word, how much He prizes a tender spirit, a contrite heart.—“To this man will I look, even to him that is of a contrite spirit and trembles at My word.” With such an one God can dwell; but with hardness and insensibility, coldness and indifference, He can have no fellowship. Oh, then, let us exercise ourselves to have always a pure and uncondemning conscience, both as to God and as to our fellow-man.
The third and last section of our chapter, which we need not quote at length, teaches us a deeply solemn lesson, whether we view it from a dispensational or a moral point of view. It contains the record of the great ordinance designed for the trial of jealousy. Its place here is remarkable. In the first section, we have the corporate judgment of evil; in the second, we have individual self-judgment, confession, and restitution; and in the third, we learn that God cannot endure even the mere suspicion of evil.
Now, we fully believe that this very impressive ordinance has a dispensational bearing upon the relationship between Jehovah and Israel. The prophets dwell largely upon Israel’s conduct as a wife, and upon Jehovah’s jealousy on that score. We do not attempt to quote the passages, but the reader will find them throughout the pages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Israel could not abide the searching trial of the bitter water. Her unfaithfulness has been made manifest; she has broken her vows; she has gone aside from her Husband, the Holy One of Israel, whose burning jealousy has been poured forth upon the faithless nation. He is a jealous God, and cannot bear the thought that the heart that He claims as His own should be given to another.
Thus we see that this ordinance for the trial of jealousy bears very distinctly upon it the impress of the divine character. In it He most fully enters into the thoughts and feelings of an injured husband, or of one who even suspected an injury. The bare suspicion is perfectly intolerable, and where it takes possession of the heart, the matter must be sifted to the very bottom. The suspected one must undergo a process of such a searching nature that only the faithful one can endure. If there was a trace of guilt, the bitter water would search down into the very depths of the soul and bring it all out. There was no escape for the guilty one; and we may say that the very fact of there being no possible escape for the guilty, only made the vindication of the innocent more triumphant. The self-same process that declared the guilt of the guilty, made manifest the innocence of the faithful. To one who is thoroughly conscious of integrity, the more searching the investigation the more welcome it is. If there were a possibility of a guilty one escaping, through any defect in the mode of trial, it would only make against the innocent. But the process was divine, and therefore perfect; and hence, when the suspected wife had gone through it in safety, her fidelity was perfectly manifested, and full confidence restored.