A Remnant Shall Return

by J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Category: General | Jan 1975

The background

The Lord instructed Isaiah to take Shear-jashub, his son, and to go and meet king Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field (Isa. 7:3). His son had to be present, because he was a sign to the king. The sign lay in the deep significance of his name, quite apart from the significance also of the place at which they were to meet.

Isaiah had two sons, and he with them were for signs and wonders in Israel. Isaiah's name was, by interpretation, the salvation of Jehovah; Shear-jashub's, a remnant shall return; Maher-shalal-hashbaz, the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth. It was in the meanings of these names that the lessons lay for the men of Judah. The spoiler was the king of Assyria who was speeding on his way to take the ten northern tribes into captivity. Some one hundred and forty years later the king of Babylon would speed on his way and remove the men of the southern kingdom, Judah, to his land. But from Judah's captivity a remnant would return, for salvation was from the Lord.

History's first fulfilment

By reason of several invasions the millions of Israel's twelve tribes trekked the long, weary way into captivity and exile; first the ten tribes into Assyria and then the two tribes into Babylon. From Assyria there was no general return known to history. From Babylon a remnant in due course returned, when the seventy years decreed by God in relation to the land's lost sabbaths were complete.

The captives in Babylon wept in circumstances graphically described in Psalm 137. Away back in the ruins of the holy city, Jeremiah also wept and wrote his Lamentations. He had foreseen the captivity and had predicted its seventy years' period (Jer. 25:11). He sent a letter to the captives who accompanied Jeconiah, counselling them to settle down in their new surroundings, for God was over all and in seventy years would visit them and cause them to return. By that time Israel's land would have enjoyed in annual succession the seventy seventh-year-sabbath rests which had been denied it by the people.

So the people settled in Babylon and prospered with all their natural Israeli ability, many rising rapidly to places of great eminence. The era of temple worship was now a memory of neglected opportunity and the synagogue began to give character to the Jewish faith. "Here Judaism learned its interpretation of the law. Ezekiel 11:16, 'Yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary', was interpreted by Jewish authorities to mean that in world-wide dispersion Israel would have the synagogue as a sanctuary in miniature to replace the loss of the

temple. Unlike the temple, it was located in all parts of the land, and brought the people in touch with their religious leaders". The synagogues in the lands of the nations were a poor substitute for the God-directed, full-orbed services of the temple in the holy city, but they were to become the basis of future worship by the outcasts of Israel.

Inevitably, God's predicted seventieth year came round, and Cyrus, the Persian king, the shepherd of God and performer of all His pleasure, gave effect to the remarkable prophecy of Isaiah 44:28, that Jerusalem was to be built and the foundation of the temple was to be laid. His call to the exiles was in two parts. In the first place he made a strong appeal to individual exercise; there was no compulsion. "Whosoever there is among you of all His people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel" (Ezra 1:3). In the second place he gave instructions to the rest. "And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem" (v.4).

The decree of Cyrus sharply divided the people of Israel in Babylon. "All whose spirit God had stirred to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem" (v.5) set off for the holy city. The whole experience was like a dream to them. Psalm 126 describes how they laughed and sang on the journey. They were going back to the land of their fathers in weakness and fewness, numbering only some fifty thousand, for was it not written, "a remnant shall return"? They were going back to weeping and tears. The work of rebuilding would be hard, the builders would be opposed, their work would be derided. But the house of the LORD would be rebuilt and its services re-established and that was what mattered most to the exercised remnant. No synagogues in Babylon could satisfy those stirred-up hearts now that the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem was in prospect. Their zeal may have proved defective in many ways, but there were prophets and leaders to comfort and correct. The temple they built had not the material glory of Solomon's, but its services and order of worship were "according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt" (Haggai 2:5). So from the ruins brought about by the enemy's hatchet and hammer (see Psa. 74) there arose again a sacred sanctuary for God. Little wonder the word of the LORD came to them, "Consider, I pray you, from this day and upward .

since the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid ...from this day will I bless you" (Haggai 2:18,19). This was truly a delightful word of appreciation from the Lord to a remnant who, at great personal cost, had done what they could to restore the service of the house of God to its earlier, divinely-given framework.

But what of the people of Israel who remained behind in Babylon? Did the Lord cease to care for them because they were not exercised to be in the remnant which returned to the land? In no sense. The setting of the Book of Esther, for example, was in the Persian capital after the remnant had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. The exiled Jews were in great distress and in danger of extinction by reason of their enemy, Haman the Agagite. By the commandment of the king they were to perish in every Province on the same day. Then God stepped in and in one stroke of divine sovereignty turned the appointed day of doom into one of national victory, whereby "The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honour". So while the Lord's name does not appear in the book of Esther, the words of the poet Lowell might well be written over the whole story:

"Truth for ever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

Thus, standing within the shadow, God kept a sovereign, affectionate watch over all Israel, whether or not they responded to His call to return to the land to rebuild His testimony. Those who did not return failed in one of the main lines of God's purpose for the nation at that time. Of that there can be no question. Yet they could never fall out of divine love and care.

History's second fulfilment

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall remain, from Assyria ... and from the islands of the sea" (Isa. 11:11). This relates to the re-establishing in their own land the outcasts of Israel in the terminal years. In its completeness the verse will find fulfilment in the day of millennial splendour, when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (v.9). But after centuries of exile from her national home, it is evident that the position of outcast Israel is already radically changing. Since the founding of the State of Israel, in May 1948, her sons and daughters have returned to her soil in considerable numbers from the lands of the nations, albeit blind to the purpose of God in their regathering and motivated simply by a strong political urge. It was figured that within forty months from that date some 700,000 came from 74 lands. 600,000 alone from the ancient communities in the Arab world found refuge in Israel. They have been returning steadily ever since, so that now there are reckoned to be some 2,610,000 Israelis in their own land, whereof 1,400,000 are immigrants in the last twenty-four years. But there are another estimated 12,107,000 Israel is still settled among the nations of the world. Only a remnant has returned. Those who are still abroad for the most part live in ease and comfort, with peace and plenty. But for the returned remnant it has meant hard work with much endurance, in field and city, in the constant vigil of a land encircled by foes. But they love it. They are rebuilding the waste places of their great ancestral land. And though God still loves the whole nation for the fathers' sake, and keeps watch over them in whatever land they dwell, He is nevertheless working out a unique present-day purpose in the remnant which has returned. They form that part of the nation on which many of the ancient prophecies will shortly make a direct, devastating impact.

"Which things contain an allegory"

In the household of Abraham, Paul saw in the natural an allegory of the spiritual (Gal. 4:21-31). We now consider briefly a spiritual allegory in these returns of Israel. The present testimony of the Churches of God in the Fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, came into being during the period 1892-94. It is a spiritual movement. It had its beginnings in hearts which in those years were stirred up by the Lord to set up again on the earth a testimony based on the pattern of the New Testament churches. Those thus exercised were in companies of believers whose spiritual exercise went back to the early days of brethren around 1825. Their fellowship with other believers in these companies had been sweet. The bonds of personal friendship were strong. But increasingly the vision of a fellowship of assemblies, all bound together by the same teaching, all adhering to the same scriptural practices, gripped the minds and hearts of some brethren. These pioneers could see the holy nation of Israel dwelling together in their tribes, bound century after century by the original, unalterable terms of the covenant of Sinai, ruled by elders in their varying spheres of responsibility. They saw the spiritual nation of New Testament times, not simply members of the Church the Body as such, but disciples gathered together in churches of God, grouped together in geographic areas, holding fast to the apostles' teaching and the decrees which they laid down to be kept, all under the care of elders who would ensure the maintenance of the rule of God throughout a united people. They could see the finality of the authority of New Testament revelation. It allowed no human deviation from its pattern of church constitution, service or government. To set aside, for example, disciple baptism as a prerequisite to participation at the Lord's table was seen to be unscriptural. So also was the contention that each local assembly is autonomous. The truth of the holy nation made a profound impression. They saw the need to think and to act imperially, nation-wise. It was evident to them that, in Israel, when Benjamin sinned, "all the men of Israel were gathered together against the city, knit together as one man. And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What wickedness is this that is come to pass among you?" (Judges 20:11,12). The tribe affected the nation, just as much as the city did the tribe (2 Sam. 20:19).

The story of those heart-stirring, soul-searching days is narrated in the book, "The search for the truth of God", now, unfortunately, difficult to obtain. Should any reader wish a copy he should get in touch with the present writer, do the Publishing Office on the back page. Suffice it here to say that those whose hearts were stirred to rise up and build again the spiritual house of God, taught their understanding of the Faith both orally and in Needed Truth, endeavoured to practise it in certain of the assemblies, and waited, longing and hoping that the doctrine of the Lord would become acceptable, the Fellowship become more defined, the wall built up. But after some years of appeal they found themselves with no alternative but to take their stand and to separate from their brethren, to give effect to their understanding of "the whole counsel of God". History was repeating itself.

It was not an easy stand to take. It was not then: it is not now. It still involves hard work, scorn, opposition, and the inevitable accompaniment of fewness of numbers. But the thrill of the sense of providing a collective testimony according to the will and heart of God is abundant compensation. Spiritually, a remnant has returned. The glory of the present-day house of God is nothing by contrast with that of New Testament times, as in the analogy in Ezra's day. Yet Haggai's word to that other remnant people has a stirring, relevant message for us today, "Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes as nothing? Yet now be strong ... saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you" (Haggai 2:3,4).

The vast majority of God's children have not, from whatever cause, been exercised to return and build. They remain in companies of believers, and in state and other churches. All God's promises in Christ are assured to them. They share in all the glories and opportunities of the Church which is His Body. His love for them is both real and precious although they are not builded together in the spiritual house as expressed in the churches of God. But that in no way alters the fact, that there is something in the present desire of God for a collective people, united in visible testimony, to which they are not giving effect. It is His will that they should come to this "knowledge of the truth", and be numbered with the remnant which has returned. It is still very well-pleasing to the Lord to see His children walking in meticulous conformity to the pattern He was so careful to lay down for the dispensation in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles. This is a conformity both to the form of the house and to the godly manner of life associated with it. The former is a challenge to those readers who are not in it, the latter an equally real challenge to those who are.

J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Jan 1975
General