It is on the promises of God’s Word that the hope of the believer relies. If our hope is in God, then what need we have, at the beginning of another year, to lay hold on the promises of God’s Word which are all “Yea and Amen” in Christ Jesus. The believing soul rejoices in the steadfastness of the promises, knowing that they are the Word of Him who cannot lie and who will surely fulfil all that He has spoken.
If it is true of us that we have not yet come to know in our own spiritual experience the reality of Gospel blessings, then it is to Christ that we must look as poor needy sinners in order that we may know God as a promising God in Christ, a God who promises to blot out sin, iniquity and transgression for His own Name’s sake. If we come to know Christ as our own personal Saviour through the effectual working of His Spirit in us, then all the promises of the Gospel are ours in Christ Jesus. By faith we may lay hold on them, and on Christ who is the centre and substance of them all. What a beginning for 1978 if Christ was made all in all to us!
The Lord has promised to give grace and glory to His people. It is by grace they are saved through faith in Christ Jesus. It is by grace they progress in the life of faith — “by the grace of God I am what I am”, the Apostle Paul could say. It is by grace they stand; it is by grace they endure. It is by grace that they grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is by grace they are kept through faith unto the day of redemption.
What a noble thing grace must be when its uses are so varied and its effects so wonderful! This will make us ask, What is grace? The answer may not be easy to arrive at. Perhaps the more we look into it, the more deep and amazing it will appear to us, so that we will be compelled to cry out, Oh, what is grace? What is grace then? As it is manifested by God in His grace towards sinners of our fallen race, it is the manifestation of His free, overflowing favour and love to the hell-deserving. Grace in His people, on the other hand, is the disposition which the favour of God in Christ produces in them. Grace is also the fruit that flows from that disposition. Grace is divine in its origin, it is heavenly in its nature and it draws the soul upwards towards God. The possessor of it can only marvel at it and glory in the Giver of it. Its effect, whether given in large measure or small, is not to lift up but to humble the soul in the dust. It causes the soul to say:
Not unto us, Lord, not to us,
but do Thou glory take
Unto Thy Name, ev’n for Thy truth
and for Thy mercy’s sake.
Those who have shone conspicuously in this world because of how richly grace was bestowed upon them were, in their own eyes, but worms of the dust. Dependence upon God for renewed supplies of grace is the hall-mark of grace in the heart. Oh, how we need this dependence at the beginning of another year!
But grace is not glory. Grace and glory are joined together. What God has joined shall never be put asunder. He will give grace and glory. Death or hell cannot sever these two. Grace is glory begun. Glory is grace perfected. There is but a step between the gracious soul and everlasting glory. In what will glory consist? The unveiling, in never-ending display, of the glory of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. In time, the outflowing of grace is through Christ. He has opened a way for grace to flow out to the undeserving through the rent veil of His flesh. So in glory, through the vehicle of His glorified humanity, shall the riches of divine grace stream forth to the objects of His love. Its effect will be to fill their hearts with love and peace and joy. But not only this, for it will also so overwhelm them in its rich profusion and glory, that it will make them fall down before the throne of God and “cast their crowns before the throne, saying ‘Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power’.”
Heaven must be in thee before thou canst be in heaven.
George Swinnock.