T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

The Church Foreshadowed by the Levites

Reading: Heb. 12:18-29; Matt. 18:1-3; Num. 3:5-7,9,11-13,41,45.

"...to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven...".

In that designation there are two things; firstly, the church, which is the supreme object of God's concern throughout this dispensation. Then, secondly, the words "the firstborn" set forth the nature of that object. It is the "church of the firstborn". The word is in the plural, and the more perfect translation would be: "The church of the firstborn ones, whose names are enrolled in heaven". Thus the second part of the statement gives character to the first part; it is the church of the firstborn ones.

Being in the letter to the Hebrews, and being, as it is, a part of a large statement which goes right back to the beginning of the history of the nation, when they were constituted a nation under the government of God at the Mount, it is easy to see that this phrase, "the church of the firstborn ones", links immediately with the Levites, of whom we read in the book of Numbers that they stood for the firstborn ones. They were a representative company in whom all Israel were gathered. So that, away back there in the constituting of Israel as the people of God under His government - and for our present purpose, especially the Levites - there are bound up spiritual, heavenly and eternal principles.

You will be familiar with the object of this letter to the Hebrews, and the last part of chapter 12 very largely expresses that object; that is, an earthly representation of heavenly things, which has served its purpose was passing or had passed; that a great shaking was to come, in which all that was not spiritual, heavenly and eternal would pass away and only that which was other than of this world would abide. The Jewish system, as a system of representation and of type, was a part of this earth and was to perish. It had passed in the coming of Christ, but as a system it was about to be entirely broken and scattered. And the letter was written to seek to hold these Hebrew believers to the heavenly and the spiritual and the eternal realities as their earthly system was passing, and to show them that Christ had taken up all the spiritual values of the Jewish system, had embodied them, and carried them into heaven and that now for them everything was in Christ above in heaven: "we see Jesus, crowned with glory and honour...". He, there in heaven, was the centre and fulness of the life of His people, and the earthly was passed.

We are familiar with all that, but our object is to see the abiding spiritual principles which have been introduced by figures and types and representations, "patterns of things in the heavens", and to seek to be in the value of these spiritual principles, for they endure.They are eternal, they are heavenly, they are unshakable, immovable; they abide all that is of the shaking of the heavens and the earth. So we are to be occupied in these meditations with this phrase, "the church of the firstborn ones".

We take the second half of the phrase first - the firstborn - and observe that it embodies several things.

The Firstborn Relates to (1) A New Beginning

God begins in, and with, a firstborn. The firstborn shows where and how God begins. Israel's beginning as a nation, as a people before God, was bound up with the firstborn: "all the firstborn are mine; on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn to Israel" (Numbers 3:13). By the taking of the firstborn God began the history of that people. Thus the phrase speaks of God's new beginning. The Lord Himself said, "Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3).

We shall speak more of these things as we go on. For the moment, we want to indicate something of what is represented.

(2) The Rights of God

The second thing set forth by the firstborn is that God's place, God's rights are represented by them. The thought, the idea of the firstborn ran throughout everything in the life of Israel. It commenced with the firstborn of the family, and then it extended over the flock and the herd to the field, so that the very first fruits of all their labours in the field, and in the vineyard, were claimed by God, and had to be brought into the presence of God before anything else could be appropriated. Indeed, God held them so much to this principle that, if they failed in the firstfruits, in the course of their history they lost the whole harvest. You remember what the Lord had to say to His people through the prophet Malachi, at a time when a blight lay upon everything, and the crops failed, and failure was seen in all directions. In answer to the question, Why? the Lord said it was because of their tithes and offerings. Bring the whole tithe, said the Lord, and you will have the whole blessing. It was a question of the Lord's people, and of the Lord's rights, so that the firstborn represented or symbolized God's place and God's rights as first, supreme.

The church of the firstborn ones represents these two things to begin with; firstly, that God begins with birth (first-born), and never takes up anything at any later date. It is a law with God that He will never take up a thing at an advanced point. He will start right at the beginning, no matter how long its history, no matter how long-standing its tradition. If God is going to take it up He will bring it right back to the beginning, where it is born out from Himself, and He never accepts anything else.

The church is the embodiment of that truth, and of this also: that God has the first, the pre-eminent place. The church stands for God's place, God's rights.

(3) Death and Resurrection

Israel is represented as being a people which has come out of death by a mighty intervention of God, out from where death was raging, active, spread like a blanket over the land. There was this act of God which meant that people were given power to overcome death. There was that in them of God which defeated and defied the other, an ultimate work of death, and they are regarded as a people who have been in death, and have been taken out of death in resurrection. That very truth is set forth in their own history again at the Red Sea, and yet again at the Jordan. It is basic to their life at every stage. At its inception they are a people brought out unto God, and are brought out unto all that is of God. In the stages from Egypt to the land, everything is based upon the great truth of death and resurrection.

Mark it in the case of the Lord Jesus. While by birth He is the Son of God, there is that particular attestation of Him in resurrection: "set forth (or designated) the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead"; "God raised him from the dead"; "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." - Begotten again from the dead, and designated in a particular way the Son of God.

So that with regard to the firstborn, whether it be in the type in the Old Testament or the Antitype of Christ, or in the church which is the corporate expression of Christ, the principle underlies all; that the firstborn are invariably with death and resurrection. Therefore, the church of the firstborn is the embodiment of that truth of death and resurrection, or the power of life which conquers death.

(4) The Inheritance

Then the next thing about the firstborn is that they are related to the inheritance. It is a matter of honour, position, government, and administration. There is no need for us to trace that through the Word. We know that it is always so. The firstborn represent the inheritance. The inheritance belongs to them. What is the inheritance of the saints? It is the place of honour in glory, the place of the government in the ages to come. The church of the firstborn is chosen unto this.

Thus in this letter to the Hebrews you find that from the outset Christ is presented as the Son. Then reference is made to His brethren: "He was not ashamed to call them brethren"; "Wherefore, holy brethren, partners in a heavenly calling". Thereafter the inheritance comes into view, and we hear the echo of Paul's word to the believers in Rome: "heirs... and joint-heirs with Christ". All that is in this letter and then it is all gathered up at the end in this comprehensive statement of chapter 12, what the church is: "the general assembly and church of the firstborn ones...". We are come to that.

There is one all-governing fact which runs right through the ages. It is that Christ is in all the thoughts and ways of God. That is a statement that is comprehensive. Through all the ages, in all the thoughts of God, and in all the ways of God, Christ is central, Christ is supreme. Everything relates to Him, and everything connects with Him; Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning. If we could stand by the side of God and see through God's eyes, and become governed by God's mentality, we should recognise that God has but one thought and that one thought is influencing Him in every one of His dealings with men, with nations, and with the world throughout all the ages. That one thought centres in His Son, Jesus Christ, and therefore the very essence of revelation, and the very heart of spiritual enlightenment is that you see Christ in all those thoughts and ways of God as they are expressed in His Word and in His activities. If you ask: What is revelation, what is it to have spiritual enlightenment? the answer is this: that you are able to see in a living and ever-growing way God's thoughts as centred in Christ. We could put that in another way, and say that you are growingly able to see Christ and His place and His meaning in this universe, that this universe is interpreted and explained in the light of Christ, and that everything in our own lives in God's dealings with us, is connected with Christ in some way. If that is true universally, and if that is true sovereignly and providentially; if that is true not only in the whole history of things in this universe, but true in a special way in human life, it is true, perhaps, in the most essential way in the Word of God as the expression of God's thought. So that revelation, spiritual illumination, is to see Christ in all the Word of God;not truths, not doctrines, but Christ.

Here we have a concrete and very clear instance and example in the case of the Levites. The Levites are a divine thought. They are set forth as having come out of the mind of God. Everything concerning them that is written is a part of that mind of God. Now if what we have said is true, then everything to do with the Levites is the expression of a divine thought concerning Christ, and we too look to see what of Christ there is in this and in that. The end is Christ. The question then, that we ever need to ask, is: In what way does this or that lead us to Christ? In what way does this mean an increase of Christ, a knowledge of Him in a living and experimental way? We are looking for what is of Christ. We are not interested in anything else, because God is not interested in anything else. God is not interested in merely running a wonderful universe, in seeing His sovereignty operating in this world, in just seeing how He can bring good out of evil, and overrule everything to His own ends. God is interested in one thing, and that is in bringing all things to His Son, and bringing His Son into all things. He has one thought - comprehensive, vast, many-sided, but one thought.

Now then, we have one thought, and only one. This is not how much we can do for the Lord, and how much we know of Christian truth; it is not things at all, it is Christ. Our whole course here is to learn Christ, and with our latest breath we shall still, if we are living in a spiritual way, cry, "That I may know him". The longer we live, and the more we know, the more we shall be made aware of how little we do know, and how vast this Christ is.

Now we see in the Levites as a type a concrete example of God's thoughts leading to Christ.

The Levites Represent (a) The People of God Related to Him in Christ

In the first place they set forth in representation the people of God as connected with God in Christ. They were taken in the place of the firstborn, which means that they represented all Israel. They were, in the thought of God, not a class called ministers, separated from all the others, but a spiritual representation of God's thought concerning all His people, that all His people should be Levites.