Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh at home.
Three points are especially noticeable in this chapter. First, the reward of those who have laboured on behalf of their brethren; next, the duty of claiming our privileges as Christians when severed from our brethren; and lastly, the necessity of zeal for the purity of religion.
I. SELF DENIAL SHALL HAVE ITS REWARD. Our Lord tells us that he who gives a cup of cold water to his brother shall not lose his reward. We find a similar statement in Matthew 10:41. The reward includes this life as well as the next (Mark 10:30). Joshua blessed the two tribes and a half, and sent them to their inheritance. So does Jesus say to those who have laboured in His cause, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord." And as the Reubenites and their brethren were blessed with silver and gold and a multitude of earthly possessions, so the Christian enjoys riches which are far above what earth can give, even the riches of the glory of God's inheritance among the saints. If he leaves home and friends for the work of the Gospel; if he devotes himself to a long and weary warfare against sin, the time will come when the true Joshua will dismiss him to his inheritance, across the Jordan-stream of death.
II. WE MUST NOT LET ISOLATION DEPRIVE US OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COVENANT. Many an Englishman is in the position of the two tribes and a half. He emigrates to distant lands, and he often forgets to assert his oneness with those whom he has left behind. So did the members of the Church of England neglect in America to reproduce the organization of their native land. So continually do men
(a) cast off all religious profession whatever, or
(b) neglect to keep up sufficient connection with their brethren at home, and thus to keep up the solidarity and mutual brotherhood of Christian churches.
Of late this evil has been much diminished. The "great altar to see to" is visible on all sides. Those who leave us for the colonies, or for foreign lands, are not left without the ministrations of their own nation and faith. Christians deprived of the superintendence of the ministers of religion assemble for prayer and reading of the Scriptures. Thus a witness is set up before God and man that they have both part and lot in the Christian brotherhood. It is the one worship of the one God. There is no desire to set up altar against altar, to break the bonds of Christian love and fellowship. The new communion has its own laws and regulations, suited to its own peculiar needs, for the gospel practically forbids us to set up one hard and fast rule for all races and regions alike. But the one faith and the one Church exists throughout, united, not in the unity of external rules and rites, and organization and tribunals, but in the holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity.
III. WE MUST BE ZEALOUS FOR THE CAUSE OF TRUE RELIGION. Had the Jews continued to display the same zeal for God which they showed in this instance, they would have escaped the fall which afterwards befel them. So, had Christians maintained their first zeal and purity and mutual love, the Christian Church would have been spared much of its sad history, and so large a portion of the world would not have remained heathen. But as the Jews allowed mixed marriages and intercourse with heathen tribes to undermine their attachment to God and His law, so has familiarity with the world deadened the zeal for true religion among Christians. The zeal which was displayed in early Christian times concerned faith more than morals. The zeal shown now concerns morals rather than faith. But a true Christian spirit will care for both. Faith is the salt that keeps practice from corruption, and a carelessness or tendency to compromise in matters affecting the fundamental principles of Christian truth or worship is as sinful as would have been the conduct of the Israelites had they suffered the erection of the altar of witness to pass without explanation. Such a spirit of compromise is the danger of our own day. It is our duty
(a) to decide for ourselves what are the essentials of Christianity, and
(b) when we have decided it, to declare perpetual war against those who would deny them.
While we are careful not to insist upon anything as essential which is not "contained in Scripture, or may be proved thereby," we must make the maintenance of the recognised truths of Christianity a sine qua non. The spirit abroad which maintains that no teacher should be removed from his post for any consideration whatsoever, is as opposed to truth as that which would remove him without fair trial or sufficient cause. The task of deciding on the limits of religious freedom is a difficult one, and demands exceptional gifts. But the denial that there are such limits is contrary to the main principles of law and gospel alike.
IV. WE ARE BOUND TO RESTRAIN ZEAL WITHIN PROPER BOUNDS. The Israelites did not proceed to action without due inquiry. They sent a deputation to their brethren to invite them to clear themselves if they could. And the result was an honourable acquittal, though there was a strong prima facie case against them. Would that all religious investigations had been as fair! For though the duty of maintaining the purity of the Christian faith is most undeniable, yet the converse is equally true, that we must be sure that it is the Christian faith that is at stake. The practice on the part of the mediaeval Church authorities, of treating suspicion of heresy as a crime, was a violation of the commonest laws of justice. The practice of holding a teacher responsible for every inference which could be drawn by a merciless logic from his theses, although these conclusions are energetically repudiated by himself, was not the offspring of zeal for the truth, but of prejudice and passion. The custom of declaring views heretical which, though opposed to the voice of authority and the force of numbers, did not touch the essentials of the faith, was an outrage against Christian liberty, and a violation of the great principle laid down in this chapter, of subordinating the letter to the spirit. For the Reubenites and their brethren had unquestionably broken the letter of the law. The erecting of such an altar as they had erected was strictly forbidden. And yet by that very violation they had been proving their sincere adhesion to the spirit of the violated law. And their defence was not only accepted, but joyously and thankfully accepted (verse 31). If in those days the spirit was set above the letter, how much more in our own. Let us take heed then that we do not, misled by blind party zeal, fall upon those who are our allies in the great and holy work. Let us not exact too strict a conformity with the letter of Holy Scripture, but let us seek hearts purified by love to God to discern its real spirit. It is no easy task, no doubt, but it may be performed through prayer and love to God and man. With hearts so filled with the sacred fire, it may well be that we shall often gather together to Shiloh ready and burning for the conflict, yet be appeased when we learn what seemed a foul wrong to God was inspired by the deepest devotion to His cause, and may say with Phinehas, whose zeal for the truth cannot be disputed, "This day we perceive that the Lord is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the Lord."
V. ALWAYS BELIEVE THE BEST. "Charity hopeth all things," says the apostle. The Lord Himself bade us always, when we had a cause of complaint against our brother, to begin by talking the matter over with Him. So also says the wise man in the Apocrypha, in words which well deserve to be remembered. "Admonish a friend, it may be he hath not done it, and if he have done it, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend, it may be he hath not said it, and if he have, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander, and believe not every tale." It is never safe to neglect this counsel. The case may look very bad against your friend, but so it did against the two tribes and a half. In fact, in their case, nothing could be worse. They were caught in flagrante delicto. There was the altar, erected in a most conspicuous situation—a great altar to be seen. The Israelites might have argued that it was useless to ask explanations when they had the fact before their eyes. But they were not so rash. And the result showed that they would have been blameable indeed if they had been so precipitate. How many a friendship has been severed, how many a life-long estrangement has been caused, how much misery has been brought about, by the want of courage to go frankly to a friend and ask for an explanation of what seems indefensible. You may have your testimony from unimpeachable witnesses, or witnesses you believe to be unimpeachable, and if in truth they are not slanderers, or mischief makers, they may yet not be in possession of certain material facts which give the ease an altogether different aspect. At least the rule is clear—never condemn any one unheard. Wounded feeling or offended pride may make us averse to seek the explanation; the effort may be painful, almost intolerable, yet justice demands that it should be .made. And you may afterwards have reason to "bless God" that you did not "go up against your brother to battle." Either he may repent, and then "thou hast gained thy brother," or he may never have offended, and then the bonds of Christian friendship will never be relaxed at all.
HOMILIES BY R. GLOVER