The wicked King Jehoiakim burns up the scroll of God

 Today we will cover the fact that each successive Church established by the Lord ends up knowing more than the preceding Church in the course of a gradual and unfolding divine revelation. As an example of this and as is generally known, the Christian Church was taught many things about the Word which the members of the Jewish Church did not know about; and which they cannot know about until they acknowledge Christ such that the veil is removed from the glory:

"But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ" (2 Corinthians 3:14). 

Jesus' disciples, having acknowledged Him, were in a position to receive more information than the members of the Jewish Church otherwise could who had not so acknowledged. And thus, on the road to Emmaus where the risen Lord appeared to certain of His disciples, we read this:

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27).

This situation is generally known as 'being in greater light'. Someone in lesser light may still have a decent heart and some understanding, and those people will gratefully receive instruction when given the opportunity; either in this life or the next. It is just like those people described in Acts as knowing only the gospel of John, the gospel of repentance which prepares the way for the King.

Let us now look at an episode in Jeremiah which the mainline Church, the Old Church, is as unlikely to understand in the proper light as the Jewish Church is to understand the one Lord's having come into the world:

"20 And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the ears of the king.

21 So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the scribe's chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king.

22 Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.

23 And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.

24 Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.

25 Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them" (Jeremiah 36:20-25).

The scroll in question is the book of Jeremiah being read to the wicked King Jehoiakim; more broadly, the scroll represents the the whole Word, not just Jeremiah, and the generality of divine truth. Thus the episode represents the rejection and profanation of divine truth by the Jewish Church.

Mention has been made of its being winter; and this is a reference to the four-quarter life cycle of love and understanding's decline in the Church till it is no Church but a whore. Winter is of course the fourth quarter, and it therefore corresponds to night, feet of iron and clay, and the pale horse death.

We have frequently heard how sin and error and love of self and the world burn up the goods and truths of the Church like fire. So that is the significance of the King's hearing the words and then straightaway putting the finished bit in the fire to burn up. We notice that neither the King nor his ministers are afraid to do this; that is the same thing as what the Word calls 'not having the fear of the Lord'. As a refresher, the fear of the Lord is not terror but fear of not being loving enough and of not sufficiently aligning with divine good and truth; like the fear of hurting someone versus the mere fear of being punished for hurting them. 

We see that at least some of the people present with the King are upset by his actions, and that corresponds to what sometimes gets called the 'righteous remnant'; or, as stated earlier, 'knowing only the baptism of John'. These are the people whose hearts yet have some decency despite having grown up in a religious group that is dying in the sight of God; these people can be instructed and saved, unlike those who have no fear of the Lord and are happy to collaborate in rejection of divine truth and its practice. 

Of course, the mere fact that some religious people -- even many religious people -- have rejected God while appearing on the outside to be religious does not change the fact that these whitened sepulchers will face the consequences for their actions if they do not learn to love and to apply divine truth to love. And the mere fact of someone's rejecting divine truth and even attempting to destroy it does not mean that they will be victorious in the end. For this is what God does in response to Jehoiakim's burning of the scroll:

"27 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying,

28 Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned" (Jeremiah 36:26-27).

"Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words" (Jeremiah 36:32). 

As you can see, not only does the Lord protect the divine truth which He has already revealed from destruction; but He also reveals new truths in abundance in addition to these. It is just like the way He revealed much more information about the Word to those disciples whom He encountered on the road to Emmaus after raising Himself from the dead.

It is also like this prophecy that the Lord gave us:

"12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you" (Jeremiah 16:12-14).

Notice the mention of "all truth"; this the abundance of good and truth to which we often refer and it is the "many like words" which were added to the scroll of Jeremiah after the original manuscript had been burnt up. It is a direct reference to the additional information that comes to each successive Church upon the death of the previous Church; and it is a direct reference likewise to the New Jerusalem of whose abundance of good and truth you are now partaking.

Now, the Lord mentions that His people cannot bear too much truth at that time or at any given time; this is so like humankind, which as the poet T.S. Eliot eloquently put it "cannot bear too much reality". Even in the course of the Gospels an attentive reader will notice how carefully the Lord spaces out teaching about Himself and the divine plan. For He was obliged to be circumspect and not to openly reveal His nature right away or all at once. And it is a type of the way He always operates; for He proceeds in a loving way that is commensurate with our capacity to receive instruction without being overwhelmed.

The basic message for today about the many things that are added to the scroll of divine truth with each successive visit that the Lord makes to His people with bread from Heaven has been sufficiently conveyed; and it is to be hoped that incidents like the burning of the scroll in the winter house will now make more sense to those, perhaps, who have never even heard teaching on it before; let alone anything remotely accurate. Enjoy your Fridays and your weekends; and as always Godspeed.

Appendix:

" In Jeremiah:

His dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost (36:30).

This was said of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, after he had burned the scroll written by Jeremiah, which act signifies that the truths of the church will perish by a lust for falsities and a consequent aversion from truths. The kings of Judah represented and thence signified in the Word truths from good, and this king the truth of the church about to perish; "the scroll that he burned" signifies the Word, which is said to be burned when it is falsified and adulterated, and this is done by the lust of falsity from evil; "the dead body" signifies the man of the church without spiritual life, which is had by means of truths from the Word; when this life is extinct, only falsities are desired and truths are avoided, and in consequence man becomes dead, and in the spiritual sense "a dead body." The lust for falsities is signified by "the heat in the day," and aversion from the truths by "the frost in the night;" for when the light of heaven, which in its essence is Divine truth, flows in, those who are in falsities from evil become cold with an intensity corresponding to the warmth of the falsity from evil" (Arcana Coelestia 1183).