Man’s Redemption the Joy of Angels.
BY THE REV. ALEXANDER STEWART, CROMARTY.
(Continued from p. 303).
AMONG us, if one discovers a star which no other observed before him, or writes a history of some nation, or accomplishes some literary or scientific achievement, he is straightway applauded as a man of genius and science, and among men he may be entitled to the distinction, nor do we by any means grudge him the honour; but, when like the philosophers of Greece, such an one begins to vaunt himself, and to despise Christ crucified as foolishness, it is high time to remind him that the angels who celebrated the creation of the very star which he has now discovered—the angels, any one of whom knows more of the destiny of the world than all the men on earth together—the angels who lived in heaven thousands of years before he was born—instead of considering the cross of Christ foolishness, turn to it with admiration as an object which eclipses every other manifestation of divine glory! I apprehend their language would be similar to that of Paul, when speaking of the comparative excellence of the Jewish and Christian dispensations, “Creation is glorious indeed, but it has no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory (of the cross) that excelleth.” But philosophers are not the only characters that see no excellence in the cross of Christ. We are surrounded by multitudes who can find in their daily worldly employments and amusements subjects of far keener interest. Oh! is it not wonderful, has it never struck you as surprising, that the angels who never sinned, happy although Christ had never come into the world, should yet feel more interested in the great salvation than the sinners for whom He died?
II. Consider now what, in the mysteries of redemption, makes the subject so deeply interesting to angels, i.e., why do angels desire to look into these things? Here, then—
Negatively, it is not vain or impertinent curiosity. One of the considerations which induced Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit was that the tree was desirable to make one wise; she and her husband expected “to be as gods, knowing good and evil.” They were discontented with the amount of information which God had been pleased to vouchsafe to them, and by unlawful means attempted to pry into what was forbidden. The same disposition continues to characterise their posterity; while, on the one hand, we continue in a state of ignorance of those things which are of the highest importance, and which God has been mercifully pleased to reveal to us, we are on the other very prone curiously to search into what is not revealed, into what God purposely conceals from us. We are not diligent and anxious to be wise up to what is written and yet we often attempt to be wise about what is not written. Hence it was that when God descended on Sinai, He gave solemn injunctions to Moses to set a fence around the mount to prevent the people breaking through to gaze.
But such is not the disposition of angels. These exalted and pure spirits have such views of the infinite majesty of God as humble them in the dust. The mystery of redemption is to a certain extent unfolded to them, and so far as God has been pleased to make the revelation, they show their gratitude and admiration by studiously and earnestly contemplating it. But a step farther they presume not to go. Anything like an irreverent familiarity with God, anything like a scrutinising, arraigning spirit, so common, alas! among foolhardy creatures on earth, is utterly unknown among them.
Since, then, to speak more positively, it cannot be from a principle of vain or impertinent curiosity the angels desire to look into the mysteries of redemption, the question recurs—What is it that thus so deeply engages their attention? Were you, my friends, to see the ark of the testimony, and the cherubim intently looking upon the mercy-seat, and were you at the same time made aware of the spiritual import of these emblems, might not the wish very naturally arise in your breasts—” Would that the cherubim spake, that we might know the subject of their thoughts, and the cause of their admiration, as they stand gazing on the wondrous mercy-seat!” Well, on one occasion they actually did speak. They did break silence—not the golden figures, but the angels themselves, which these cherubims represented. One night (Luke ii. 8-15), as certain shepherds were watching their flocks on the plains of Bethlehem, “the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said to them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest”—in the highest heavens, among the highest order of intelligences, who are the inhabitants of the high and holy place—”on earth peace, good-will toward men,” i.e., salvation to men! Such was the song of angels when they announced the incarnation of Him whom the mercy-seat typified; such, as we learn from their own lips, are the sentiments which fill their hearts and minds as they steadily contemplate the humiliation of Messiah, and the consequences of His sufferings.
As holy creatures, they derive their chief happiness from beholding the glory of God. In the history of redemption the divine glory is manifested in a manner so singular, so remarkable, as to attract the notice and admiration of angels, and to afford them a delight so great that with incessant and unwearied earnestness they look into it. This indeed is one great end which was to be accomplished by the redemption of man. The Apostle informs us that the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the manifestation of Him who was the brightness of the divine glory—the great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh—that this mystery which, from the beginning of the world, had been hid in God, was so revealed—that Christ was now seen of angels—for this among other reasons, that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. iii. 9, 10). And, further, the angels’ song discovers to us likewise that they not only desire to look into the singular manifestation of the divine glory, but also that, as beings of the highest and most disinterested benevolence, they delight in contemplating the blessed consequence: of the Redeemer’s sufferings in the salvation of myriads of the human race. “Peace on earth,” they say, “and good-will to men.” Thus are we furnished with a two-fold reply to the question, “Why do angels desire so earnestly to look into the sufferings and glory of Messiah?” They do so, first, because in these things they behold a peculiar manifestation of the divine glory; and, secondly, because, as benevolent beings, they rejoice in the salvation of sinners.
Let us inquire, then, how the scheme of redemption affords a manifestation of the divine glory even to angels.
Here we must bear in mind the character and attainments of these exalted spirits. There are many things which to children are matters of the utmost astonishment, which excite no such surprise in persons of maturer years. Men, even prophets and apostles, are but children in comparison with these sons of the morning of creation. They are children in capacity compared with the elder sons of God. Were a person born and brought up in the retirement of the country to be introduced at court, made acquainted with the policy of the Empire and the affairs of the State, and were he shown the wonderful works of art with which the metropolis of a mighty empire abounds, he might very probably be overwhelmed with wonder. Whilst persons born and bred in the metropolis would view them with comparative indifference. Now, the holy angels are the inhabitants of the metropolis of the universe, the city of the great King. They live and have always been in the court of the King of kings. If, then, the cross of Christ be an object which angels stoop from heaven to contemplate, if it be such as to rivet the attention even of these natives of heaven, who have for ages been favoured with various manifestations of the divine character, it can be no ordinary object. It must, if only in common with the other works of God, be glorious; but it must in some important respects excel in glory. What we have to inquire into, then, is the pre-eminence, the excellency, of the glory of redemption.
The mystery of redemption excels in glory, because in it each particular attribute is more illustriously manifested than in any of the works of God.
There are two circumstances which prevent us from experiencing an overwhelming astonishment on this subject which otherwise we certainly should. The one is the blindness of our minds, and our ignorance of the exceedingly rigid principles of the divine government. We are, as the Psalmist says, apt to think “God such an one as ourselves.” The other is, that we are taught from our very infancy that God’s own Son became man to save sinners; hence this great truth is to us very much deprived of its novelty, and also of its moral grandeur. But this is not the case with angels. They lived before a Saviour was known or needed, and while they experienced the riches of the divine goodness, a mysterious dispensation had deeply imprinted on their minds a most awful sense of the divine justice and the purity of God. They had seen their own companions, once holy and happy as they were, presuming to sin against their Maker. The punishment of the crime seems to have instantaneously followed the commission of it. The rebels were expelled from heaven, and cast into outer darkness. They had seen the earth when she opened her mouth and swallowed up Korah and his company, and had heard their cry as they descended alive into the pit. Had you seen the fiery destruction which overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, had you seen the avenging waters of the deluge sweep away into perdition the myriads of an ungodly world, you might then have some faint conception of the feelings of awe and fear which filled the minds of the holy angels when they saw hell—that terrible and then unknown place—first open her jaws to receive the apostate spirits. Such a dispensation must have impressed their minds with a sense of divine purity, justice, and majesty, which nothing short of annihilation could erase. Conceive, then, if you can, with what sentiments of astonishment these celestial spirits must have witnessed this great and dreadful God, this consuming fire, assuming the character and the office of the Saviour of sinners. The Creator a creature! The Eternal an infant of days! The Omnipotent a man compassed with infirmities! The Supreme Law-giver made of a woman, made “under the curse” of a violated law! The Majesty of heaven and earth an object of insult and derision to those very devils whom so lately His own right hand had hurled into hell! He who is emphatically the living One, the Author and the Prince of Life, stretched cold and lifeless in the tomb! And what I cannot but feel to be the greatest wonder of all, the Holy One—He whose absolute holiness angels adore with veiled face—submitting to have sin imputed to Him, to have sin brought into immediate contact with Him, to be charged with guilt—remaining speechless as if guilty, standing like a condemned criminal at the judgment-seat of God and man, to be numbered with transgressors, and suffering the vilest, the most ignominious of deaths, as if He were the very “chief of sinners!”
(To be continued.)