JEREMIAH 23

1 Woe be unto the pastors [ro'im] that destroy and scatter the sheep [tzon] of My pasture! saith Yahweh.

The Sheep.

-- Who they are, Jesus makes plain:

"My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me" (Jno. x. 27).

Here is their characteristic wherever found: men who submit to the word of Christ and do what he commands.

This is a more cordial and distinct type of discipleship than is common among the multitude who recognise the lordship of Christ in the abstract. It is the only type of discipleship acceptable with him, and the type acceptable with him is the only type of ultimate value. He spoke very plainly on this subject more than once:

 "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me" (John xiv. 21). "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I have commanded" (xv. 14). "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. vii. 21).

The apostles spoke with equal plainness. Thus Paul:

"If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. viii. 9). Thus John: "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked" (Jno. ii. 6). Thus Peter: "If; after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning" (2 Pet. ii. 20).

The men who submit to the word of Christ and obey his commandments are most aptly represented by sheep. The sheep is a strong but harmless animal, from which no living thing suffers injury. There could be no more powerful exhortation than the employment of such an animal to figure the disciples of Christ. He is himself the Lamb of God, and those who follow him are like him in the strength of their spiritual attachments and the guilelessness and inoffensiveness of their characters.

Nazareth Revisited Ch 29.

6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, Yahweh OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

YAHWEH-TZIDKAINU -- He shall be our righteousness."

..."another name" was to be proclaimed to Israel and Judah than any they were acquainted with in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. These both prophesied concerning it. The former says of the child born and son given,

"He shall call his name Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty Power, Father of Futurity, Prince of Peace ... upon the throne of David:"

 and the latter says of him, 

"the Great, the Mighty Power, YAHWEH of armies, his Name" (xxxii. 18)...

This is certainly a name of glory, honour, power, dominion, wisdom, and holiness. It is the name for the Olahm emanating from Deity: who shall bear it? Shall it be borne wholly and solely by Jesus; or shall a multitude share it with him? We, who have confessed that he is Lord to the glory of the Divine Father, rejoice that he hath already received it in part, which is an earnest of the whole.

The name of the Deity hath been written upon him; for he hath received a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow: the name of the New Jerusalem, which is his new name, has also been inscribed upon him; for he is the glory, the light, the wall, and the temple thereof.

The gospel of the kingdom was preached to Israel and the nations, that by faith in it a people might be separated from them for this name. All who accept it are baptized into this name and for it. All such are in this name, and anxiously looking forward to the time when the

 "New Name of the Deity" 

will be written upon them by the resurrection-power of the Father.

What Jesus now is they will become; for they are joint-heirs with him of all he inherits. He is Deity manifested in flesh; and so when those who are now in the name shall rise from among the dead, and put on incorruption, they also will be the Deity manifested in immortal flesh -- the "New Name" of glory, honour, incorruptibility, life, and power, will be written or engraved into their new nature -- incarnate focalizations of spirit-emanation from the substance of the Eternal Father.

"I, YAHWEH, will be to Israel and Judah for Elohim." 

The resurrected saints are these Elohim, who arise to judge the earth; and to rule Israel when they become a righteous and truth-loving people. They are the Elohim of Truth elohai-amen -- in whom Israelites will bless themselves in the earth; to whom -- that is, to Israel and their Elohim -- the name of Israel, under the law and to this present, comparable to Jeremiah's good-for-nothing girdle, will be a by-word and a curse.

Eureka 3.2.8.

24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith Yahweh. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith Yahweh.

The Deity

We can follow the idea of the Creator to a certain small height, and there we stop. We cannot go beyond our little atmosphere. Overwhelming immensity bewilders: eternity and the ways of infinity stagger the mental man; and he drops his flight, and returns to earth with the stunned feeling of one who has ventured too high in a baloon.

We know that the person of the Deity is "in heaven;" but this knowledge is apt to mislead us. We are apt to think of Him as we think of ourselves, or those we know. We are apt to think of him as confined to the space His dazzling and inscrutable substance occupies. This were a great mistake; He "fills heaven and earth;" His being occupies boundless space-(Jer. 23:24; Psa. 139:7.)

His person "in heaven," is but the focus of His being as it were-the seat of that ineffable Intelligence which guides, and is embodied in Universal Power. His illimitable being is ONE. You cannot divide anything from God, or any part of Him from himself. He consciously fills all.

He is, as it were, an Intelligence of measureless vastitude, holding in himself all that exists or can exist, occupying all space by spirit, irradiant from His person, "in heaven," which is spirit intensely.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1869