FOOD FOR THE LAND
David A Brown
Joshua 5: 10-15
John 3: 11-13
Ephesians 2: 4-7
We spoke in the reading of the victuals referred to in Joshua 1, which were food necessary for going over Jordan. I would like to say a little in this address as to food for the land. This is depicted for us in the old corn of the land and Joshua 5 gives us the only reference to it in Scripture. The old corn of the land refers to our Lord Jesus Christ, and my exercise is that we might have our souls stimulated to feed on Him where He is. The reading of the epistles helps us as to our spiritual state, and provides a way into the gospels where we find the Man who fills God’s heart. The gospel writings stand alone and in particular John 17, a chapter which gives a most precious insight into the Lord’s affections for His Father. When the Lord addressed His Father as “Holy Father”, and then as “Righteous Father” this gives an insight into the blessedness of that relationship between two divine Persons.
Now, what the old corn of the land really means to us is that Christ is indigenous to heaven. That means that heaven is Christ’s place: and ours as well! It is wonderful to think of the Lord as indigenous to heaven, as that is the place where He always lived and drew His resource from. Our brother Bert Taylor often used to speak of the assembly as being an exotic, which means that she displays down here features of heaven and that heavenly Man. How precious therefore to the heart of Christ that He has His counterpart, the assembly as an exotic displaying features of the heavenly Man and His world here. I would therefore seek to elevate our affections and our view as to what we mean when we talk about the old corn of the land. The manna did not stop until the children of Israel were in the land, and that is clear from Scripture. There was therefore no gap in the food supply. Only when they partook of the old corn of the land does it say that the manna ceased. It is very precious to consider that God in His grace continued the food supply all the way through without interruption. How wonderful therefore was God’s provision for His people! They had the manna in the wilderness, provided every day, and those that were exercised were to go out and get it. It is interesting to note that Exodus 16: 33 speaks of the fact that they put the manna in a pot, as if the manna was not to be forgotten. God’s faithfulness in the wilderness was not forgotten. God followed these children of Israel with the manna, providing for them day by day.
Then a time came when they reached the land: “the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and held the passover on the fourteenth day of the month, at even, in the plains of Jericho”. That speaks of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and His suffering love. In some way it refers to Acts 20: 28, “the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”. That is a term of endearment: “which he has purchased with the blood of his own”. In the Acts Paul did not need to put some other word after “own”. It draws the reader into a worshipful state when you consider the cost that it has been to God to give His only-begotten Son: not only for us individually, but for the assembly! How precious that was and is! It says, “And they ate of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened loaves”; there was no leaven now, “and roasted corn on that same day”. It was there! This was the ‘old’ corn of the land, the corn from the previous year, suggesting that it had been there all the time, and when they came into the land there it was! I liken that to “the Son of man who is in heaven”, John 3: 13. Christ is there as the old corn of the land; He is also the manna, and there are many other wonderful aspects of the preciousness of that heavenly Man that we can read of in Scripture and feed on. Go through the scriptures and see how many different appellations are given to the Lord Jesus Christ and feed your soul on them! How precious they are! One figure of Him is “the old corn of the land”, Christ indigenous to heaven!
One has the impression that after all the journeyings and wilderness exercises of the people the time came when peace and mutual relationships were enjoyed together as they sat down to eat of the old corn of the land. They would feed as respecting what there was of the work of God in one another and having their minds and affections and hearts filled with what the old corn of the land would mean to them, provided by God, and speaking to us of that blessed and heavenly Man! Man has sought to bring Christ down to an earthly level but His true and only place is heaven. And I say to my brethren too, that is our true place, “such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones”, 1 Cor 15: 48. The old corn of the land speaks of Christ in His own sphere, and He wishes us there! I do not think we realise enough how the affections of divine Persons are bound up in such a great way with the affections of the saints. They are absolutely bound up with one another but I think we need to see the blessedness of the fact that the affections of divine Persons are bound up in the hearts and affections of the saints. God exists as the eternal God, the Spirit as the eternal Spirit, the Person we know as the Lord Jesus as the One without beginning and without end, and could have done so without any reference to creatures! However, the grace of God operated in such a way, that we as creature vessels might be brought into our eternal portion.
I just wanted to touch on verses 13 to 15. Earlier in the chapter it speaks of circumcision and it is noticeable that when they were made whole (v 8) they partook of this food. That means that everything of the old fleshly order, the man after Adam was gone, and what is before God is Christ and Christ in you and me! We can then be free and at liberty to partake of this old corn of the land. However, there is a warning given to us. Verse 13 says, “Joshua … lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man before him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to him, and said to him: Art thou for us, or for our enemies?”. In saying what he did, it would appear that Joshua was slightly misaligned! “Art thou for us, or for our enemies?”: he was really on party lines! How wonderful it would have been for Joshua to be ‘on thy side’! Let us be on the Lord’s side as there is only one side. “Then Joshua fell upon his face to the earth, and worshipped, and said to him, What saith my lord unto his servant?”. I am not going to go any further; we know that there was conflict in view, conflict in the land, and with these nations arrayed against the children of Israel they surely needed food for the land.
I come now to John 3, and the Lord is speaking to Nicodemus. He was like a secret disciple in many ways. At the end of John’s gospel it speaks of both Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, “And after these things Joseph of Arimathæa, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly … He came therefore and took away the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also, who at first came to Jesus by night, came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes”, chap 19: 38, 39. I would like to have known what the conversation was between Joseph of Arimathæa, and Nicodemus. I wonder if Nicodemus would have spoken with Joseph of Arimathæa of his communication that we get in chapter 3. The Lord says to Nicodemus, “We speak that which we know, and we bear witness of that which we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have said the earthly things to you, and ye believe not, how, if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe?”, v 11, 12. How the Lord as the heavenly Man would seek to bring in heavenly things. And then He says, “And no one has gone up into heaven, save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven” (v 13), the preposition “in” is important. The Lord did come from heaven, He came into lowly conditions, but it says here “the Son of man who is in heaven”. That place is His, and our place is there, but it always was His place. In becoming Man He left the sphere of glory, but His place was always there. I speak reverentially and guardedly, of when the Lord says of Himself, “the Son of man who is in heaven”. He moved here, taking up all the difficulties of man, bearing in His spirit what He was going to take away in His power; but as “the Son of man who is in heaven” Christ always demonstrated the atmosphere of heaven on this earth. Christ always brought the blessings of heaven into the circumstances in which He found Himself. Let us never detach the attributes of Christ from the blessedness of His Person! The glories of that blessed Man must fill our souls, but let the preciousness of who He was and is to His God and Father also fill our affections, “the Son of man who is in heaven”. John’s ministry brings heaven and the heavenly character down here; Paul’s takes us up to heaven. Chapter 6: 62, “the Son of man ascending up where he was before”, goes along with the verse in John 17, “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me”, v 24. That was not the world but heaven, and we can be with Him there. What a blessed portion is ours!
I just finish with the reference in Ephesians. Ephesians gives us the height of the truth and really has in view the result of feeding on “the old corn of the land”. I suppose that, with the Philippian saints, it is a matter of heavenly influence as a result of feeding on Christ, both as the manna for the wilderness and the old corn of the land for the heavenly inheritance. Whilst Ephesians is really the height of the truth, I think Philippians gives the atmosphere of what is arrived at in Ephesians: in other words it gives the working out of spiritual and heavenly life down here. Paul writes, “God … because of his great love wherewith he loved us, (we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,)”. It is wonderful to say, “because of his great love”; the quality that will bear upon man in the eternal day will be divine love. I would not say that it is the only quality but it will certainly be appreciated and seen in a great way, the love of God as it will pervade every heart.
Then we have, “and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”; we are together in unity. Paul was opening out the heavenlies to these Ephesian saints. He was really opening out the third storey! In Solomon’s temple there were three floors, “The lowest floor was five cubits broad, and the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad” (1 Kings 6: 6), and the third storey suggests our heavenly portion. That is what Paul was doing, opening up to the Ephesian saints the third storey! Despite difficulties, Paul operated characteristically from the third storey (as he did at Troas, Acts 20: 9). That is where the height of the truth comes from, the third storey, suggesting heaven itself. I have been thinking much recently of Paul’s missionary journeys, travelling thousands of miles, establishing assemblies; just think of the work! We think we have got heavy workloads at times but just think of the workload of Paul. During all those missionary journeys he was bringing about something of heavenly teaching, opening up the first storey to many of these saints: maybe that suggests Romans. Then when he wrote to Colosse he was opening up something of the second storey to them, but when he wrote to Ephesus I think he was opening up the third storey! What Paul had in his mind for these saints was the heavenly line.
As this is our portion we may be there already in spirit. How many times have we known a brother making reference on Lord’s day morning to touching our eternal portion now? Sometimes we say just for a moment, but last Lord’s day morning I experienced it for a lot longer than just a moment, my eternal portion. That phrase ‘In spirit there already’ was composed by a sister called Miss Mary Bowly (we have her maiden name in the hymnbook) and used in hymn No 56:
In spirit there already,
Soon we ourselves shall be
In soul and body perfect
All glorified, with Thee.
That is our outlook! Our outlook is heavenward, our outlook is the rapture, our outlook is to be forever with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Miss Bowly taken home at the age of forty three and wrote most of her hymns by the time she was thirty. She was in her twenties when she wrote:
The Comforter, now present,
Assures us of Thy love.
Well I was just thinking of these matters, dear brethren. Heavenly truth is very wonderful: “he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Heb 2: 11. There are such scriptures that the brethren can range over in their minds today, rejoicing that we are one with Christ, a wonderful portion. May we therefore know what these things are ourselves as feeding on that heavenly Man and that kind of food, food for the land; and the Spirit brings the enjoyment to us now, as being “the earnest of our inheritance”, Eph 1: 14.
May our souls therefore be encouraged with these few simple thoughts, dear brethren.
For His Name’s sake.
Glasgow
7th October 2017