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_.