(Concluded from page 307.)
IV.—“That ye through his poverty might be rich.”
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it passeth knowledge in its very existence, so it contemplated and craved for its objects a riches corresponding with its own immensity; and this riches His glorious, meritorious poverty procured for them. This grace sought their deliverance from wrath, and His poverty procured it—procured it so truly and so fully that the wrath can never touch them; that neither heaven nor hell can lay anything to their charge; that the law can never sue them for payment, nor justice for punishment. To estimate this riches it were necessary to feel the horrors of this wrath, and to feel it through eternity—which the God of all grace grant that we may not feel. To this unutterable woe they were exposed, and from this bottomless pit His grace rescued them. This grace sought their deliverance from sin, and His poverty procured it so truly that the reign of the tyrant is destroyed here, and its very being in the soul extinguished at death, and extinguished for ever. With this hideous, hellish, and degrading leprosy they were covered, to the utter loss of all dignity, all glory, all blessedness. His poverty procured their deliverance from it—a deliverance begun here and perfected hereafter—so that they shall be faultless, without spot and blemish. This grace sought their deliverance from their outcast and apostate condition, as banished from the divine presence and estranged from the divine fellowship, and His poverty procured it. He brings them nigh by His blood, obtains for them a reception at the hands of the divine majesty corresponding with His own preciousness, procures for them and calls them to the dignity of His joint-heirs, and obtains for them the shining forth in complacency and love of the divine countenance. This grace sought for them a watchful, tender, and gracious guidance through this world, a safe passage through the waters of death, a sure conduct to the gate of heaven, and admission there to His own presence. His grace sought and His poverty procured it. He guides them by His eye through the wilderness of this world; He watches their steps and holds up their goings; He preserves them from falling—from falling away from grace, and from falling into the hand of their spiritual enemies; He administers consolation and strength as they need; He goes with them through fire and through water; and finally presents them before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, that they may behold His glory, that they may be with Him, that they may see His face, that He may lead them unto fountains of living waters, that He may crown them with unfading and everlasting felicity. To estimate this riches, then, it were necessary to know the extreme of misery and the extreme of felicity—the misery of hell and the happiness of heaven.
Let us then—if we would contemplate this grace, and know it as passing knowledge—seek to perceive the uncreated riches of the Son of God; let us pray for a discovery of it; let us next contemplate the pit in which its objects lay—its misery, its guilt, its hideous foulness and pollution; let us then seek to be conducted along the road of Christ’s humiliation and poverty; and finally, let us—if we have tasted in any measure of this grace—endeavour to bring together and concentrate the rich blessings it procures for its objects, and let us say that the grace of Christ passeth knowledge.
The practical reflections that arise out of this subject are numerous and important. Let us notice a few of them.
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How is the work of redemption impressed in all its parts with the footsteps of divinity! Here is God becoming poor for vile sinners, to raise them up from a bottomless depth of misery and guilt. It is this great and most wondrous truth that constitutes the glory of redemption, and that gives its divine excellency to our holy religion.
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Do we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? In other words, Are we Christians indeed? As the truth that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” is the sum and substance of God’s revelation, it is the one great truth to be believed in. Do we truly believe it? This is not such a very unimportant question, as many would have it to be. Do we believe it so as to rest in it, casting anchor for an eternity upon it, so as to glory in it, so as to experience its power in our hearts—for it is not the bare speculation that will avail us—so as to have our hearts filled with its wonders, so as to have our aims and our end of existence fixed by it. He deserves not the name of a Christian who does not thus know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose mind has not been filled by it as the noblest of all truths, whose affections have not fixed upon it as the most attractive of all objects, whose soul has not found rest in it, or who would conjoin with it as a ground of dependence any doings, works, duties of his own; in a word, whose mind it has not fixed in contemplation, whose heart it has not claimed and obtained possession of, and whose life is not guided and directed by its holy and sin-overcoming power.
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How should it enhance, sweeten, and endear the blessings of salvation to poor sinners, that they have been purchased at the expense of Christ’s poverty! Did He become poor that we through His poverty might be rich; did He leave heaven and descend, as it were, into very hell, to snatch you as a brand from the burning and to raise you to heaven; did He endure the full weight of wrath, that you might enjoy the smiles of His Father’s countenance and be comforted with everlasting consolation? Oh, then, let the thought endear to you the blessings of His salvation. Think of them, when they are offered to you and when you taste of them, as dearly bought—as bought with Christ’s blood. Think of them thus, that you may see an inexpressible preciousness in the least drop of mercy. Think of them thus, that you may be taught to love Him who first loved you.