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Instead of loving that Name, and revering it, this son of an Israelitish woman
blasphemed, and blasphemy is the mark of Antichrist.
Neh. 13: 1-13 shows how Israel, when returned from captivity, mingled with the
Ammonite and the Moabite, and these are called `the mixed multitude'. In Neh. 13: 23,
24, Ashdod, Moab and Ammon are cited as nations which had intermarried with Israel,
and Nehemiah draws a sad lesson from Solomon:
"Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was
there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all
Israel, nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin" (Neh. 13: 26).
Ezra 9: 1, 2 likewise mourns over the fact that Israel had not:
"separated themselves from the people of the lands . . . . . the holy seed have mingled
themselves with the people of those lands."
Jehoshaphat was another king who had a good record, for he `walked in the first ways
of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim, but sought the Lord God of his father'.
In the third year of his reign he sent princes and Levites with the book of the law of
the Lord to teach in Judah. Yet like Solomon and like Israel of the Exodus he failed, for
II Chron 18: 1 says:
"Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab",
and that `affinity' was his ruin. It is interesting to note that chathan, `to join in affinity',
is translated "to be a son-in-law", "to make marriages", "father-in-law", and
"mother-in-law", showing the closeness of the union between Jehoshaphat and Ahab.
Returning to Israel and the mixed multitude, we see the failure to put into practice the
truth contained in the type of the unleavened bread. The Corinthians, we have seen,
were `called saints', and Christ had been made to them `sanctification' as well as
`redemption'. They were `unleavened' in Christ, but they had failed to realize their
position. II Cor. 7: 1, summing up the argument of II Cor. 6: 14-18 where the
unequal yoke and unholy fellowship is seen in all its ugliness, says:
"Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, PERFECTING
holiness in the fear of God."
We can neither make nor merit holiness, but when the grace of God separates us by
the blood of Christ (as of a lamb without blemish and without spot) from sin and death
with its bondage and its bitterness that are worse than those of Egypt, then `our
reasonable service' must include this heart and life separation, the absence of which
worked such disaster in the spiritual experience of Israel, of Solomon, of Jehoshaphat and
of the Corinthians. This is `perfecting holiness', or taking it to its logical conclusion.
"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch
not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall
be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (II Cor. 6: 17).