The great pyramid passages and chambers
down the Descending Passage, because now he can take advantage of the greater vertical height (4 feet 5 inches). The Pyramid thus teaches that the Jew was less degraded than the Gentile.
166 The way also is so dark, steep and slippery, that he readily stumbles and falls, more especially as there is nothing to hold on to when he slips. So slippery is this passage, that we found that our measuring rods and other articles, when laid on the floor, glided rapidly to the bottom. Does not this wonderfully represent the condition of the Israelites during the Law Dispensation? Though raised above the condition of the Gentile nations, they were still imperfect, still below the plane of human perfection. Those who were sincere delighted in the Law of God after the inward man, but they saw another law in their members warring against the law of their mind, and bringing them into captivity to the law of sin which was in their members—Rom. 7: 22, 23. Bowed under the yoke of the Law, they were weary and heavy-laden with the ordinances which were against them, and, as the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world had not yet appeared, their lamp, the Word of God, shone as yet but dimly. Asa result, they stumbled readily, and since they were under Law and not under Grace, they had nothing to hold on to when their feet slipped. No wonder the noble Apostle Paul, when he reflected on his former abject condition under the Law, cried despondently: ‘‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this death-doomed body?” But at the time when he uttered these words he had already found the answer, and so he exclaimed triumphantly: ‘I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
167 As the terminal 3314 inches of this passage represents the years of the earthly life of the “man Christ Jesus,” who nailed the Law to his cross, and thus by his death brought the Law Dispensation to a close (Par. 127), so the faithful Israelites, who were looking and longing for the coming of the Messiah, the great Deliverer, must have rejoiced when they reached the last few years of that Law Dispensation and the Messiah came. Burdened by the Law, they must have been comforted when they heard the gracious words of the Master: ‘‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for Iam meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light'’—Matt. 11: 28-30. Those who accepted this loving invitation found to their joy that from that Pentecostal day, fifty days after the resurrection of Christ, when the Holy Spirit fell upon them, they were no longer under the Law symbolized by the First Ascending Passage, but were members of the high or heavenly calling, symbolized by the Grand Gallery. The Law Dispensation had come to an end, and the Gospel Dispensation had commenced. The Apostle declares: ‘* That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident: for ‘The just shall live by faith.’ And the law is not of faith: but ‘The man that doeth them shall live in them.’ Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree’’’; and again, “ Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, he took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross ''—Gal. 3: 11-13; Col. 2: 14.
168 These ‘Israelites indeed’ were now able to stand fast (upright) in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. This, the teaching of the Scriptures, is also
79