“The House of Jacob shall Possess their Possessions” (1)

by Charles H. Welch

No.1. The significance of the word “possess”. 

It seems strange to some believers that there are still those who, while affirming that they believe the Scriptures, nevertheless deny the possibility of a literal restoration of Israel. Some take this attitude because they have already accepted as a principle of interpretation, that the promises made to Israel in the O.T. must be spiritualized and apply now only to the Church. Others reject the idea on moral grounds, “How could God”, say they, “invest such a disobedient and rebellious people with such a title as Kings and Priests?” in apparent ignorance that this very objection is met in such a passage as Rom. xi. 28 where it is plainly stated that the very people who are at present ‘enemies’ concerning the Gospel ‘for our sakes’, are nevertheless “beloved for the father’s sakes” adding as the one grand reason ‘For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance’. It is good to know that the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. The text of our meditation is found in the prophet Obadiah, and it is utterly beyond the range of legitimate exposition to read Edom, Esau, Teman and Jacob in such a prophecy and then to read into it references to a church unknown and unborn. However, we are not turning to this utterance of Obadiah in order to deal with Israel and their failure, but to use these prophetic words as a text covering a series of studies relative to ourselves. 

The believer in Christ already possesses all things if he has Christ (I Cor. iii. 23), yet how poor is our experimental acquaintance with this treasure. The church of the Mystery is blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, yet who among us can claim to any present approximation of such an inheritance? It is plainly revealed in the epistle to the Corinthians and in that to the Hebrews, that the history of Israel, especially from the Exodus to the crossing of Jordan, sets forth in type the general principles which will be found in the church. While we must avoid reading into this history teaching that is foreign to it, members of the One Body will gather much help and guidance as they ponder Israel’s pathway through those ‘forty years’. 

The hindrances that prevented Israel from taking immediate possession of their inheritance are many and by no means simple. We shall have to examine the record of Israel’s attempts to enter their inheritance, but before doing so, it will be as well for us to examine the word translated ‘possess’. 

The English word ‘possess’ is derived from the Latin possidre, which in turn is composed of pot, the word giving us ‘potent’, and sedere ‘to sit’, the original sense being ‘to remain master’. By other avenues this word is allied to the Greek ‘despot’ which in its turn goes back to the Sanscrit and means ‘the master of the house’. 

Possessions can be of two kinds according to the Hebrew Scriptures. There are those that are such by inheritance, Hebrew nachal (Numb. xxxiv. 13) inherited by lot, in which no idea of merit or effort enters. There are, however, possessions which must be taken and possessed. These are indicated by the Hebrew morash and the verb yarash. 

“And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it . . . . . hast thou killed, and also taken possession?” (I Kings xxi. 16, 19). 

Gesenius gives as the primary meaning of yarash: 

“To take, to take possession of, to occupy, especially by force”, and adds: “This, and not to inherit is shewn to be the primary signification, by the derivatives reshbeth a net, so called from taking or catching: and tirosh must, new wine, from its affecting (taking possession of) the head.” 

This element of seizure, or the putting forth of vigorous effort, can be seen in the meaning attaching to certain modes of the verb: 

“Drive out” (Deut. iv. 38); “dispossess” (Deut. vii. 17); “destroy (margin repossess)” (Exod. xv. 9); “cast out” (Exod. xxxiv. 24); 

all with the sequel, the possession of such possessions for oneself. We believe the testimony of all Scripture indicates that over the entrance to no inheritance will the believer find the words written “WITH VACANT POSSESSION”, every inheritance will be found occupied by a usurper, like unto the Canaanites. 

Moses enunciates a principle that is closely allied with the idea already expressed, when he said: 

“If . . . . . then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours” (Deut. xi. 22-24). 

Here we observe that there are two sides to this question of inheriting. In the first place the action is the Lord’s. He it is Who drives out the nations and grants to Israel the land from which these nations have been dispossessed; but in the second place, Israel had to arise and cross the Jordan and definitely put in an active claim before this possession became a realization. The promise was made four hundred years before to Abraham, but that of itself would not have given Israel possession. Even today as we pen these words, Israel are still without actual possession, even though the title deeds to the land are as good as ever. There are conditions attached which must be fulfilled. Even though Abraham did not actually ‘possess’ the land, but was a pilgrim and a stranger in the land of promise, nevertheless, he too was bid: 

“Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever . . . . . Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee” (Gen. xiii. 14-17). 

It was not sufficient even for Abraham merely to lift up his eyes and look, he must lift up the sole of his foot and walk in order that his title may be established. 

The use of the word ‘tread’ has a bearing also on this matter of conquest and possession. Caleb, said Moses, shall be given the land that he hath trodden upon (Deut. i. 36), and in fact there are five references wherein the word specially signifies the ‘overcomer’. Two passages speaking of Israel, and three of the Lord. These references associate ‘high places’ with the verb ‘to tread’.

“Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and Who is the sword of thy exellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places” (Deut. xxxiii. 29). 

“God . . . . . which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves (heights marg.) of the sea” (Job ix. 8). 

“For, lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of Hosts, is His name” (Amos iv. 13). 

“For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth” (Micah i. 3). 

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom . . . . . Yet will I rejoice in the Lord . . . . . The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hind’s feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places” (Hab. iii. 17-19). 

We hope, by the grace of God, to be enabled to bring to light lessons from the history of Israel that will not fail to be a blessing, a warning and an encouragement to those of us whose blessings are not to be enjoyed on earth, but in heavenly places, where Christ now sits at the right hand of God. 

Do we, as believers, ‘possess our possessions’? Do we enter into the blessings that are ours in Christ? This series is intended to be a challenge to us all, so that we may be exercised in this matter and under the benign influence of the Word of Truth ‘be filled unto all the fullness of God’. 

Let us consider the matter of our calling. By this we might mean our peculiar calling as members of the Body of Christ, and that is a phase of the truth which we hope to deal with later. At the moment we ignore the dispensational distinctions that exist between one ‘calling’ and another, and look at the subject in its primary significance, namely the fact of the choice, election or calling of God without which dispensational distinctions can have no value, for they could never be enjoyed. Like ‘predestination’, ‘election’ has gathered to itself, though erroneously, the ideas of fatalism and pre-determinedism. ‘Election’ ekloge; ‘elect’ eklektos; ‘to elect’ eklegomai simply refer to the fact that a choice has been made, a selection made. The word lego primarily means ‘to lay’ and its first use is to describe someone asleep in bed. It then, like the Latin lego takes on the meaning ‘to lay in order’ and so by a natural transition ‘to gather for oneself, to pick out, to choose’. However, we are not at the moment so concerned with the actual etymology of the term ‘election’ as we are with the question ‘how far have we realized this fact in our lives and experience?’ Writing to the Church of the Thessalonians, the Apostle said: 

“Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God” (I Thess. i. 4). 

“Knowing.” In what way did Paul ‘know’ so profound a matter? He used a word that means “something that has come within the circle of one’s sphere of vision”. In this same epistle we read ‘to see’ your face (ii. 17); ‘to see’ us (iii. 6); which is in the original the same word that is translated ‘to know’. In the same epistle the Apostle refers to current events, using this same word, ‘As ye know’ (ii. 2, 5, 11). What therefore had he ‘seen’ to make him so sure of the ‘election’ of these Thessalonians? Had he seen their ‘work of faith’, their ‘labour of love’, and ‘the patience’ of their hope? Yes, for he follows his claim to the knowledge of their election with an explanation: 

“For our gospel came not unto you in word only . . . . . ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost” (I Thess. i. 5, 6). 

To take another illustration, Peter, writing to the believers among the ‘dispersion’, said of them:

“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. i. 2). 

Here once again we see the perfect combination of things high and things lowly; things of eternity and things of time.

We have The Father - - - Foreknowledge. 

              The Spirit - - - Sanctification. 

              The Son - - - Blood sprinkled. 

However, we have omitted one word in our summary, the word ‘obedience’. This is the believer’s response to this gracious choice of God. 

“As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance; but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (I Pet. i. 14, 15). 

“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit” (I Pet. i. 22).

Paul knew the Thessalonian election by their response to the Word; the same was true of Peter’s perception. This he enlarges upon in the second epistle where he speaks of making their ‘calling and election sure’. How could this be accomplished? After speaking of the ‘precious faith’ and the divine power that had given all things pertain to life and godliness, the apostle Peter goes on to urge that to faith should be added virtue, to virtue knowledge, and concludes: 

“For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . . Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (II Pet. i. 8-10).

The calling and election from the Godward standpoint had been settled in the counsels of eternity; but for the believer to enter experimentally into these exceeding great and precious promises, in other words, for the believer to ‘possess his possessions’, the knowledge that he had of Christ must be neither barren nor unfruitful; he must prove the reality of the calling of God by the activity of the life within. In the phrase ‘Make your calling and election sure’ the Apostle does not mean what Pilate meant when he said of the sepulcher of the Saviour ‘Make it as sure as ye can’ (Matt. xxvii. 65), where the word used is asphalizo, and which primarily means ‘not falling, unmoveable, safe’, neither did he mean what Paul meant when he said ‘nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure’ (II Tim. ii. 19), where the word used is stereos, something solid or stable. He uses the word bebaios which indicates not so much that the thing itself is solid or firm, but that it has been confirmed, as may be seen from the examples of its translation in the N.T.

The verb bebaioo which gives us bebaios, is used in the following passages: 

“Confirming the word with signs following” (Mark xvi. 20). 

“The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you” (I Cor. i. 6). 

“Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us . . . . . with signs” (Heb. ii. 3, 4).

Here it will be seen that the confirmation was not so much the thing itself, the Word or the testimony, but the confirming of that Word or testimony to the heart and conscience of the hearer, and that by external signs and wonders. Thus, no believer can add to the trustworthiness of the Word of God. He cannot make his calling or election more sure than it is in that sense, but by the added evidence of the new life, the added evidence of fruitful and abounding knowledge of Christ, he will confirm to his own heart the calling he has received. He will, in other words ‘possess his possessions’. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 40, page 201).

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The Pleroma (1) - Charles H. Welch

No.1. Introduction and Chart. 

Some lessons taught by the parable 

of the patch. 

The problem of the ages is the problem of the presence of evil, of the apparent necessity for suffering, accompanied with a baffled feeling of frustration. Men like Job, and Asaph, and books like Ecclesiastes ventilate these feelings, but the consciousness of redeeming Love, enabled these men of God to trust where they could not trace. The present study is set forth with an intense desire, to borrow the words of Milton, “To justify the ways of God with men” (see also Rom. iii. 4), to show that there is a most gracious purpose in process, and that there are indications of that purpose in sufficient clearness, to enable the tried believer to say with Job “When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”. 

In the opening study, we commence with the primary creation of Gen. i. 1 which is followed by the ‘rent’ of Gen. i. 2. This we denominate “The Beginning” and conclude with “The End” of I Cor. xv. 24-28. The New Heavens and Earth, with its Paradise restored, relates, not to “The Beginning”, but to the subsequent creation of Adam and the Heavens and Earth of the six days. By observing the parallel between the words of Eph. i. 4 and II Tim i. 9 we are able to show that the ages commence with the reconstruction of the earth in Gen. i. 3. What follows is a series of “fillings” in the person of men like Adam, Noah, Abraham or Nebuchadnezzar with the economies associated with them, but all such are provisional, they are failing and typical only, and for this reason we call them but “fillings”. They but carry the unfolding purpose on to “the fullness of time” when “The Seed should come to Whom the promises were made”, in Whom alone all the “Fullness” dwells. Adam was but a “filling”, he was not “the fullness”, that title belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 

The only company of the redeemed who are themselves called “the Fullness” is the Church of the Mystery, the church of “heavenly places”, the church which is now closely associated with the seated Christ.

Two words, found in Matt. ix. 16 must ever be kept together in the course of this study, they are the words “fullness” and the “fuller”. We shall see presently that God is preparing during the ages, as it were, a piece of “fulled” cloth, so that at last there may be a perfected universe, the “rent” of Gen. i. 2 healed, and “God all in all”. Fulling involves several processes, most of them drastic and rigorous. 

“Clooth that cometh fro the wevying is noght comely to were til it be fulled under foot” (Piers Plowman). 

Nitre, soap, and the teasle, scouring and bleaching at length make the shrunken cloth “as white as snow” (Mark ix. 3). We can say therefore concerning the fulfillment of the purpose of the ages “No FULNESS without FULLING”. 

We do most earnestly desire that consummation when the Son of God shall deliver up to the Father a perfected kingdom, with every vestige of the “rent” of Gen. i. 2 gone. We do most ardently desire to be found, in that day, as part of that blessed pleroma or fullness, but we remind ourselves that every thread that goes to make that “filling” will have passed through the Fuller’s hands; “fulled under foot” must precede being “far above all”. 

Accompanying this introduction the reader will find a chart which endeavours to set forth in diagram the way in which the Divine purpose in the Fullness is accomplished. At either end of the chart stand between the “Beginning” and the “End” the two creations, the black division that immediately follows the one representing the condition of Gen. i. 2 “Without form and void”, and the black division that immediately precedes the consummation, represents the corresponding state of dissolution foreshadowed in Isa. xxxiv. 4 and II Pet. iii. but associated with “the last enemy”. Running along the bottom of the chart is “the deep”; that was the vehicle of judgment in Gen. i. 2 and which is to pass away at the end, for John says “and there was no more sea” (Rev. xxi. 1). By comparing Eph. i. 4 “Before the foundation of the world” with II Tim. i. 8, 9 “before the world began (literally, before age times)”, we have the start and the finish of the ages indicated. What follows is a series of “fillings”, “stop-gap” types and shadows pointing on. The fullness of time (Gal. iv. 4) did not come until 4,000 years after Adam, and the fullness of the times (seasons) will not arrive until the day which is about to dawn ushers in the glory that will be, when all things in heaven and on earth are gathered together under the Headship of Christ. 

As we have seen, it is not until we reach the dispensation of the Mystery, that we come to a company of the redeemed which constitute a “fullness”, and there we read of the Church which is His Body, “the FULNESS of Him, that filleth all in all” (Eph. i. 23). The Fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, and the heavenly places, far above all, with which both the seated Christ and His church are associated, constitute a sphere untouched by the catastrophe of Gen. i. 2. This does not pass away. The heavenly places where Christ sits, are far above all heavens (Eph. iv. 10) that is, far above the temporary heaven called “the firmament” which is likened to a spread out curtain and which can be folded up and put aside. This “tabernacle” character of the Adamic earth is of extreme importance; it places the whole purpose of the ages under a redeeming aegis, and the reader is advised to give the article which deals with this aspect careful attention. The chart which accompanies this article should be at hand throughout the series. 

To the reader of The Berean Expositor, the principle of Right Division needs neither introduction nor commendation. Its recognition underlies every article that has been printed in its pages and determines both the Gospel we preach, the Church to which we belong, and the hope that is before us. Dispensational Truth is not confined to one aspect or phase of the Divine purpose, for every dealing of God with man, whether under law or grace, whether with saint or sinner has its own dispensational colouring which is inherent in its teaching and is in nowise accidental. Much has yet to be written and presented along these suggestive and attractive lines of study, but the particular application of this principle now before us, focuses the reader’s attention upon one fact, namely, that while in the mind of God the whole purpose of the ages is seen as one and its end assured, in the outworking of that purpose, the fact that moral creatures are involved, creatures that can, and alas do, exercise their liberty to disobey as well as to obey the revealed will of God; this fact has had an effect upon the manifest unfolding of the purpose of the ages. This is seen as a series of “gaps” and “postponements” which are filled by new phases and aspects of the purpose until at length He Who was once “All” in a universe that mechanically and unconsciously obeyed, will at length be “All in all” in a universe of willing and intelligent creatures, whose standing will not be that of Creation and Nature, but in Redemption and Grace. 

Here we can do little else than indicate the presence of these “gaps”, and consider the terms that are employed in the Hebrew of the O.T. and the Greek of the N.T. and of the LXX. The well-known example of the Saviour’s recognition of a “gap” in the prophecy of Isa. lxi. must be repeated for the sake of completeness and for the value of its endorsement. We learn from the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, that the Lord attended the service in the synagogue at Nazareth, and, apparently, after the reading of the law by the official, He stood up “for to read” the Haphthorah, or the recognized portion from the Prophets that was appointed for the day. He found the place, and commenced to read Isa. lxi. Now it is laid down by Maimonides that “He that reads in the prophets, was to read at least one and twenty verses” but he allowed that if “the sense” was finished in less, then the reader was under no necessity to read so many. Even so, it must have caused a deal of surprise to the congregation that gathered for Christ to read what is one verse in our Bible, an one sentence of the second verse, shut the book and sit down. He did so because “the sense” was indeed finished in “less than twenty-one verses”. He was about to focus attention upon one aspect of His Work, and said: 

“This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke iv. 21). 

The sentence with which the Saviour closed His reading of Isa. lxi. was “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”. The next sentence, separated in the A.V. by but a comma read “And the day of vengeance of our God”, yet that comma represents a gap of at least nineteen hundred years, for the day of vengeance are not referred to until Luke xxi. 22 where the Second Coming and the end of the age is in view. 

The word translated “fullness” is the Greek pleroma, and its first occurrence in the N.T. places it in contrast with a “rent” or a “gap”. The three references in the Gospels are: 

“No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse” (Matt. ix. 16). 

“No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse” (Mark ii. 21). 

“No man putteth a piece of new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old” (Luke v. 36). 

“That which is put in to fill up”, is the translation of the Greek pleroma a word of extreme importance in the epistles, and there translated “fullness”. In contrast with this “fullness” is the word “rent” which in the Greek is schisma. Two words translated “new” are used. In Matt. ix. 16, and in Mark ii. 21 agnaphos not yet “fulled”, or dressed from gnapheus, a “fuller”, and kainos which is used in Luke v. 36, meaning “newly made”. In place of “put unto” or “put upon” used in Matt. ix. 16 and Luke v. 36 we find the word “to sew on” epirrhapto employed in Mark ii. 21. One other word is suggestive, the word translated “agree” in Luke v. 36. It is the Greek sumphoneo. Now as these terms will be referred to in the course of the following exposition, we will take the present opportunity of enlarging a little on their meaning and relationship here and so prepare the way. 

Pleroma. This word which is derived from pleroo “to fill”, occurs seventeen times in the N.T. Two of these occurrences occur in Matthew and Mark as we have seen, the remaining fifteen occurrences are found in John’s Gospel and in Paul’s epistles. It is noteworthy that the word pleroma, “fullness” is never used in the epistles of the circumcision. When Peter referred to the problem of the gap suggested by the words “Where is the promise of His coming?” he referred his readers to the epistles of Paul who, said he, deals with this matter of longsuffering and apparent postponement and speaks of these things (II Pet. iii. 15, 16). The word pleroma is used in the Septuagint some fifteen times. These we will record for the benefit of the reader who may not have access to that ancient translation. I Chron. xvi. 32 “Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof”, so, Psa. xcvi. 11; xcviii. 7. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” Psa. xxiv. 1, and with slight variations Psa. l. 12; lxxxix. 11. In several passages, the fullness or “all that is therein” is set over against flood or famine, as in Jer. viii. 16; xlvii. 2; Ezek. xii. 19; xix. 7 and xxx. 12. Some of the words used in the context of these Septuagint references are too suggestive to be passed over without comment. Instead of “time of healing” we find “anxiety”, the land “quaking”, “deadly serpents” and a “distressed heart” (Jer. viii. 15-18). Again, in Jer. xlvii. 2 (xxix. 2 in the LXX) we have such words of prophetic and age time importance as “an overflowing flood”, Greek katakluzomai, kataklusmos and variants, a word used with dispensational significance in II Pet. ii. 5 & iii. 6, and preserved in the English cataclysm, a word of similar import to that which we have translated “the overthrow” of the world. The bearing of II Pet. iii. on this gap in the outworking of the purpose of the ages, will be given an examination in this series. In the context of the word “fullness” found in Ezek. xii. 19, we have such words as “scatter” diaspero, a word used in James i. 1 and I Pet. i. 1 of the “dispersed” or “scattered” tribes of Israel, also the word “waste”, which calls up such passages of prophetic import as Isa. xxxiv. 10, 11 and Jer. iv. 23-27, where the Hebrew words employed in Gen. i. 2 are repeated. The pleroma or “fullness” is placed in direct contrast with desolation, waste, flood, fire and a condition that is “without form and void”. 

Schisma, the word translated “rent” in Matt. ix. 16 is from schizo which is used of the veil of the Temple and of the rocks that were “rent” at the time of the Saviour’s death and resurrection. 

Two words translated “new” have been mentioned. One agnaphos refers to the work of a “fuller”, who smoothes a cloth by carding. The work of a fuller also includes the washing and scouring process in which fuller’s earth or fuller’s sope (Mal. iii. 2; Mark ix. 3) is employed. A piece of cloth thus treated loses its original harshness. The whole process of the ages is set forth under the symbol of the work of a fuller, who by beating and by bleaching at length produces a material which is the acme of human attainment, for when the Scriptures would describe the excellent glory of the Lord, His garments are said to have been “exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth could white them” (Mark ix. 3). So too the effect upon Israel of the Second Coming is likened to “a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s sope”. The other word translated “new” is kainos and has the meaning of “fresh as opposed to old”, “new, different from the former”, and as a compound, the meaning “to renew”. It is this word that is used when speaking of the New Covenant, the new creation, the new man, and the new heaven and earth. We shall have to take this into account when we are developing the meaning and purpose of the Fullness. Job xiv. 12 reds “Till the heavens be no more” which in the Septuagint reads “Till the heavens are unsewn”. The bearing of this upon the argument of II Pet. iii., the present firmament and the fullness will appear more clearly as we proceed. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 41, page 233).

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