Gaining The Inheritance

by J. Bowman, Cowdenbeath, U.K. | Category: General | Jun 1983

It was an historic day in God's dealings with Israel when He came down to speak to a man in the solitude of the Sinai desert. To Moses God revealed His purpose to deliver His people and to bring them into the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite (Exodus 3:8). God said that He would drive out those nations (Exodus 34:11), but He also said that Israel would drive them out (Num. 33:52). Both things were true. Left to themselves the task would have been beyond the people of Israel but with God's power working with them and through them such a thing could be done. God also said, "I will not drive them out before thee in one year ... By little and little I will drive them out" (Exodus 23:29,30).

Israel's inheritance was an earthly one, ours is spiritual. We do not, of course, refer to the eternal inheritance which is reserved in heaven for each believer (1 Peter 1:4). That will become our possession unconditionally. By our being born again, born to God, we become God's heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Through birth comes the right to inherit. This inheritance is not to be gained. It will be granted.

The fact, however, that Israel had to fight to possess it would surely show that there is teaching in relation to an inheritance which we have responsibility to possess. Such an inheritance is spoken of in Acts 20:32 which gives Paul's words to the Ephesian elders, "I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified." Clearly, this inheritance is additional to that consequent upon the new birth (1 Peter 1:4) and to which the Ephesian elders were obviously already entitled. Paul preached firstly that sinners might believe and be forgiven, but the purpose of his preaching did not end there. He taught those who believed so that they might be baptized and added to a church of God.

To be in a church of God is to have an inheritance in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5). To be put away from a church of God is to lose one's inheritance in the kingdom of God. Being in a church of God is a very great privilege and one which we ought to value very highly. There is, however, more to the possessing of the inheritance than simply having a place in the Fellowship of God's Son, which, need we say, is a collective term for the Churches of God. It was not enough for an Israelite that he should be in the land but that he might have a part of it as his own possession. Referring again to Acts 20:32, it states that the Word of God is able to build us up and give us the inheritance. We must listen to what God's Word says. We must make its teachings our own possession. We must seek to understand them for ourselves individually. It is not enough that some, such as overseers or other brethren, should know the truth. It is God's desire that we should all come to the knowledge of it. We cannot become filled with the knowledge of His will (Col. 1:9) all at once but like Israel's possession of the land we learn by little and little. This requires study of the Word but not, of course, without the help of the writings or ministry of others. We owe much-very much-to outstanding ministers of the Word of the past and also of the present. Such men fought to possess the land. It cost them much to give expression to the truths they learned. They had to separate themselves from others and become sanctified in truth (John 17:19). They saw that there was error and non-recognition of vital doctrines of the scriptures by believers in the place where they were and so they had to come out from among them in order to give expression to the truths they had laid hold upon.

We would now refer back to Israel and their earthly inheritance. When

Joshua allocated to the tribes their inheritances in the land, Judah and

Benjamin were given common borders converging on Jerusalem (see Joshua

15:8 and 18:16). They both, therefore, had responsibility to take possession

of the city of the Jebusites, but both failed. "As for the Jebusites ... the children of Judah could not drive them out" (Joshua 15:63). Similar words describe Benjamin's failure (Judges 1:21). This was not as God intended. He had said "Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you ... and ye shall take possession of the land" (Num. 33:52,53). It is surely not without significance that Israel's first king was a man of the tribe of Benjamin. In early days he showed himself to possess many commendable qualities. Not the least was his humility. He was also a real saviour to the men of Jabesh-gilead (1 Sam. 11). His greatest fault was his failure to appreciate the importance to God of obedience to His word. There were also things that were wrong in Israel and Saul did not have eyes to see them. We refer to two things in particular. Firstly, Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and the ark of God was in the house of a man named Abinadab of Kiriath-jearim. Saul was not a good leader for God's people. He did not lead them nearer to God neither did he enlarge their knowledge of His will. He apparently had no exercise to learn that for himself.

The man who succeeded Saul as king was from the tribe of Judah and was an entirely different sort of man. He is described as a man after God's heart (Acts 13:22). He loved what God loved. He lived in sweet communion with God as he kept his sheep out there in the wilderness. He had enlightened eyes. He saw what Saul did not see and moreover he was deeply exercised about it. The first thing recorded of David after he was anointed in Hebron to be king of Israel is that he led his men against Jerusalem to take it. That the Jebusites, some four hundred years after Israel entered the land, should still be in possession of Jerusalem, was to David something that was wrong because it was not according to the word of God which said, "Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land." It weighed heavily with David that God's word had not been obeyed. Jerusalem should belong to Israel. This gave impetus to David's action. He would not be deterred because others had not attempted to take what seemed to be an impregnable fortress or that they had been content to leave things as they had been for so long. It is possible to become so familiar with an order of things that is wrong as to have no exercise about it. The task confronting David and his men was not an easy one. The Jebusites told him that he could not take the city and, taunting him, stated that the blind and the lame could defend it. They reckoned, however, without the military genius of David. He saw that it was possible to enter the city by means of the watercourse and so Jerusalem was taken. Thereafter David named it "the city of David." He built quite extensively, including a house of cedar for himself. It became his capital city. What a history it has had since that day and what a future is in store for it!

Zion was to fill a very important place in the subsequent history of Israel. In it was God's dwelling place (Psalm 76:2; 74:2; 9:11). God chose Mount Zion and He also chose David. He chose both the place and the man. God can always produce His man for the hour. At the time of his taking the stronghold of Zion there is no indication that David knew of God's choice and purpose in Zion. He acted to put right what was wrong and in so doing took his first great step towards the building of the house of God. Not until all the Promised Land was possessed could God's purposes move forward, and it was a human responsibility to bring this about. Because of the exercise of heart of this great man of God other steps were taken which eventually resulted in the temple being built.

We can see an analogy between these happenings and what took place ninety years ago. The rediscovery of scriptural truths which had been lost for centuries began at the time of the Reformation over four hundred years ago. Following the reclamation of the truth of justification by faith by Luther and others of his day other truths came to light. Such truths as believers' baptism, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the personal coming of Christ for His church brought great joy to believers. In the latter part of the last century the connected truths of the house of God, Church and churches of God and the kingdom of God became clear to certain men studious in the Scriptures. Not until then was it possible for the house of God to be in existence in the form of churches of God in various localities and so to-day it can be the experience of believers who accept the teachings of the Scriptures to have an inheritance among them that are sanctified.

J. Bowman, Cowdenbeath, U.K. | Jun 1983
General