BY THE REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.
Preached before the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church, met in St. Jude’s Hall, Glasgow, on 10th November, 1908.
OUR text, as Luther has said, is a little Bible in itself. In our exposition, we shall regard the text as a chain, by means of which poor sinners may become bound in the bundle of life with the Lord their God. A chain is made up of links, and the links of this chain are four in number. These are:—
I.—The source of the salvation of sinners of mankind;
II.—The way in which this salvation was procured;
III.—The greatness of the salvation; and
IV.—The manner in which sinners become interested in this salvation.
I.—The source of the salvation of sinners is God’s love to the world.
In regard to those who ultimately perish, the Scriptures everywhere represent them as the proper cause of their own ruin. “The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.” As that ruin comes from God upon sinners, we must, with the Scriptures before us, conclude that its source in God is His avenging justice. It is, because to Him belong vengeance and recompense that their foot slides in due time (Deut. xxxii. 35). But the Scriptures nowhere teach that sinners are the proper cause of their own salvation. The source and, indeed, cause of the salvation of as many of the race as escape perishing, is God’s love. So is the matter represented to us in the words of our text: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
This love, which is the spring and proper cause of the salvation of sinners, is a love that, as being the love of God, is like God Himself—infinite in its nature. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His thoughts of love towards poor sinners higher than our thoughts. It is a love which passeth knowledge. That, we may say, is the manner in which Scripture generally speaks of the source or origin of the salvation of sinners. And being infinite in its nature, it is comparatively but little that we can really comprehend of it. Yet, from another point of view, it may be held that not a little concerning this love may be learned if we consider its object. The object of that love which is the spring of man’s salvation, is “the world.” From this we gather:—
(1) That this love is a pitying love.
The world is here viewed as an undeserving—yea, an ill-deserving—world, a world of sinners. So the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, puts it elsewhere: “He commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Our text teaches that it was not God’s purpose, in virtue of the gospel, to manifest the goodness of any creature, but rather to manifest His own goodness, seeing that He bestows such unspeakable favours upon creatures who deserved so ill at His hands. And, to use an illustration, just as a teacher, in giving demonstrations, makes use of a blackboard because the blackness of the board sets forth to better advantage the whiteness of the chalk he makes use of, so God, in order to make the nature of that pitying love which is the source of our salvation better understood, and to make its freeness more abundantly evident, set it not upon objects that were deserving of it, but upon creatures the most undeserving—a world that lay in wickedness.
(2) That this love is a large or comprehensive love.
It is a love which embraced not the nation of the Jews only, but every nation under heaven.
We have often thought that this aspect of divine truth must have been to the Apostle John, the human author of the Gospel in which our text occurs, a source of profoundest comfort. He was, as to birth and upbringing, a Jew of the Jews. But as the Scriptures themselves—corroborating the consentient testimony of the ancient Church—teach us, his lot, in his riper years, was to have had his mission assigned him in Asia Minor, to have been placed among a people who but recently had been aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise. The case having been so with him, it must have been with profoundest gratitude that he recalled so many of our Lord’s utterances in the days of His flesh, which intimated that His saving operations were not to be limited to the Jewish nation, but were to embrace every nation and people under the sun. As the labours of his riper years were among a people not by fleshly descent of the seed of Abraham, he would, with great comfort, recall that it was not for sinners of the Jews only that the good Shepherd laid down His life, but that His were other sheep also which were not of that fold, and that, by His death, them also He must bring in, so that there should be but “one fold and one shepherd.” It would be with like gratitude that he recalled the promise that, when the Holy Ghost should come in New Testament fulness, they were not sinners of the Jews only who were to be the subjects of His saving grace, but that He was to convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. And in like manner, we believe that it was with unspeakable comfort the Apostle John recalled the words of our text, declaring that the love of the Father embraced not sinners of the Jews only, but had as its objects the world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Apostle John, although removed so far from his native land, would still feel at home as he recalled the circumstance that his labours—if not among a people who were Jews by nature—were, notwithstanding, among a people who were the objects of the Father’s love, a people for whom Christ died, a people among whom the Holy Spirit was carrying on His saving operations. And if the Apostle, who was not by nature a sinner of the Gentiles, dwelt thankfully upon this aspect of divine truth, as the place the doctrine in question obtains in his writings clearly shows, how much greater cause of thankfulness have we, who are not of the Jewish race by nature, but sinners of the Gentiles, that the grace of God should embrace us in its ambit?
(3) That this love is a love which is fruitful in results.
The fact of “the world” being said to be the object of that love which is the source or spring of man’s salvation, suggests how marvellous the ultimate success of Christ’s cause is to be. For it implies, we believe, that at the last day it will appear that Christ was worthy not only of the name, “Saviour,” but also of the title, “Saviour of the world.” And just as when one views the comparative smallness of Denmark and the greatness of Britain, King Edward VII. may be said to have honoured the whole Court of Denmark in taking his bride from among them, so God may be said to have honoured the whole human race in taking from among them a bride, even the Church, for His Son, Jesus Christ.
(4) But this infinite love of God, which is the source of the salvation of sinners, as it is, in relation to its objects, a pitying and comprehensive and marvellously fruitful love, so it is, on the part of God, a love which is self-denying.
For as truly as it was a self-denying act on the part of the Son to have made Himself of no reputation, in assuming the form of a servant, so truly was it equally a self-denying act on the part of the Father when He sent His Son into the world to be the Saviour of that which was lost. But this brings us to the second link in our chain.
II.—The way in which the salvation of sinners was procured.
How was the salvation of sinners procured? It was by an infinitely marvellous display of that very love which is the source of their salvation. God gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In this connection, then, we have to attend to the marvellousness of the manifestation of divine love, which is made through Christ crucified, and also to the manner in which this manifestation of love procures the salvation of the lost.
(1) Consider then in connection with the former of these considerations that the Son given is the only begotten Son of God.
Other sons, indeed, God had. For example, angels appear to be called His sons in Job xxxviii. 7; and an innumerable number of redeemed sinners of mankind become sons in virtue of adoption. But not one of these is, in this high sense, a begotten son. Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father; that is to say, Christ is a Son, the only Son who has the Father’s very nature, and that not in the sense of having part of the whole, but in the sense of having the same identical, infinite, divine nature with the Father. Nor is it an unwarranted, but well grounded conclusion, that the Father beholds His own infinite nature in the Person of this Son, and loves it infinitely in that Person. The Word that was and is in eternal, ineffable fellowship with God, was and is Himself God; one with the Father “in the incomprehensible unity of the Godhead,” as the late Dr. Charles Brown, of Edinburgh, was so fond of putting it. That, we take it, is the force of the expression “only begotten,” viz.:—that to Christ appertained the Father’s own nature, a circumstance that as to His essential nature raises Him infinitely above all creatures, and a circumstance which implies that Christ was and ever is the object of the Father’s necessary, as well as infinite love.
(2) But, still further, we have to remember what indeed the Gospel everywhere lays so great emphasis upon, that this Son, the object of the Father’s ineffable love, did not become in a less degree the object of His love, when, in order to carry out the Father’s own will, the Son assumed a nature which was not His from everlasting, and thus entered upon a state of poverty and of humiliation.
Christ was none the less the Son of God because, being made of a woman, He became man. The Son of God incarnate is still the only begotten Son of God (John iii. 16), His own Son (Romans viii. 32); and as He was none the less the Son of God when, through the incarnation, He became what He had not been—so, equally, He was none the less the object of the Father’s ineffable regard and love as the Son of God incarnate, than He had been the object of that love ere yet the incarnation had taken place, in the Father’s bosom, with no nature His but the divine. It was touching the incarnate Son that the voice was heard at Jordan: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” It was touching the same incarnate Son that the voice from the excellent glory, on the mount of transfiguration, was proclaimed: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.” And it was through the giving of this beloved Son that the Father gave perfect expression to His own pitying love towards sinners, and it was through that manifestation of pitying love that the salvation of sinners was procured.
What is meant by “giving” the Son? God may be said to give the Son in a twofold way, and although it is to the former of these ways that our text immediately looks, yet the second manner of giving is implicit in our text, and must be attended to in expounding the mind of the Spirit in this portion of His word.
(1) First of all, the Father gave the Son when, in the fulness of time, He sent Him into this world.
To whom did He give Him? He gave Him doubtless on behalf of sinners, and, because of that, He may be said to have given Him to sinners when He sent Him into the world. But although Christ was thus given on behalf of sinners, it was really to Himself that He gave Him. And why to Himself? In order to satisfy His justice, and in order that—His justice being satisfied—it should be He, whose gracious countenance would be the salvation of lost sinners. But, one may ask, Is it clearly revealed that God, in sending His Son into the world, gave Him to Himself, gave Him, in other words, in order to satisfy His own justice? Unquestionably it is so revealed. For Christ, in coming into the world and in being obedient unto death, was but carrying out the Father’s will and purpose; so that, in that sense, what the Son did the Father did also. But that Christ gave Himself to God is expressly and frequently taught us in the word of inspiration. Did He not give Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour? (Eph. v. 2.) Did He not, according to Hebrews ix. 14, offer Himself through the Eternal Spirit without spot to God? There can be no question that Christ’s main end in coming into the world, His main end in descending into the valley of humiliation, until He reached the Cross, was that He might give Himself as a sacrifice unto God. And it was just in that sense and for that main end that the Father gave His Son, gave Him to be lifted up, the anti-type of that brazen serpent which Moses erected upon a pole in the wilderness. And, truly, it was a fearful thing for the Son to have been given in this sense. But we must be on our guard against imagining for a moment that because God gave Christ to His own avenging justice, that, therefore, the sufferings of the Son of God, when thus given, were a matter of indifference to the Father who gave Him. It is just as we realise that when He bruised Him, He was still the object of His infinite affection, the object of a love which, although free, was necessary, that we can have any apprehension of the proof given of God’s love to sinners in the death of Christ. The cries of the young ravens when hungry are not a matter of indifference to God. How infinitely more could it not have been a matter of indifference to Him when it was His own Son, the only begotten Son, who offered up to Him prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears? Nay, must we not say that if, according to Jeremiah xxxi. 18-20, when He regards the pangs of a sinner whom He hath rebuked for his sins, and who, in consequence, lays his sins to heart, God’s bowels are moved for such an one, how infinitely more is the language applicable to the state of mind in which He must have heard the cry of the only begotten Son when, having been made a curse, He cried, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The giving of the Son of God, to which our text primarily refers, was so far from being a matter of indifference to God that it was through it God gave perfect expression to His infinite self-denying love, and through this giving His pitying love is felt upon Calvary in its noon-day heat. And, moreover, this was a wise giving on the part of God, for by giving His Son to Himself, even to His avenging justice, He realised a basis in righteousness whereby He is just, in the sense of giving each his own, especially in the sense of giving to God, the Judge of the whole earth, His own, when He justifies those that believe upon Jesus. In this way it is seen that He procured the salvation of sinners by an infinite manifestation of pitying, self-denying love.
But (2) in order that God’s purpose in giving His Son to His own avenging justice in the days of that Son’s flesh, might be accomplished, it is necessary that there should be another manner of giving, that is to say, it is necessary that God who, in sending His Son into this world gave Him to Himself, should through a preached Gospel give Him to sinners.
This He does. For in the offer of the Gospel, Christ Jesus is, according to Gal. iii. 1, evidently set forth before the eyes of sinners, crucified among them. The testimony of a preached Gospel is that God hath given to us sinners, eternal life, and that life is in His Son. Sinners as such have through the Gospel, a warrant which must not be questioned, to appropriate Jesus Christ for salvation as their own. No other but sinners have this warrant, for Christ did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He came to save that which was lost; and if we can prove ourselves sinners, no creature in heaven, earth, or hell can legitimately call in question our warrant to appropriate the Son of God, the satisfier of divine justice, as our own.
III.—But how great is that salvation which God through the giving of His Son procured for sinners?
They are saved from perishing, and they are put in possession of eternal life. That is an awful word, perishing, when it is spoken in regard of creatures who are destined to have a self-conscious existence, not only after they have drawn the last breath upon this earth, but even after the great day of judgment is past—who are destined, in a word, to enter upon an eternal state. The devil, who is a murderer from the beginning, only then realises his full wish, when that state proves for sinners of the human race a lost state. Yet apart from the intervention of the Son of God, it is certain that the portion of the whole human race must have been with the devil and his angels. Do not the words of our text clearly imply that, if no Saviour had been provided, the whole human race would have miserably and eternally perished; that those, who by believing upon the Son of God are saved from perishing, would, if they had not thus believed upon Him, have inevitably perished; and that those who do not believe upon the Son of God will certainly for ever sink in endless despair? For we through sinning against God lost that favour with which God regarded us in our first creation, and we procured for ourselves God’s intolerable wrath. Now, herein is seen the greatness of the salvation which God procured through the death of His Son. Christ, through His blood and righteousness, not only turned away the intolerable never-ending wrath which we procured for ourselves, but also inasmuch as His work was the condition of God’s countenance being lifted upon us, procured for us a favour which is better than natural life, which indeed from its depth and enduringness is worthy the name, eternal life. We opened hell for ourselves, and we closed heaven against ourselves. But Christ opened heaven—the heaven that we had shut against ourselves—opened it, we say, for us, and the hell that we had opened for ourselves, He closed against us, achieving the opening of the former and the closing of the latter in such a sure way that His gracious work for us can never be reversed—whilst, blessed be His name, the opening of hell and the closing of heaven which we, through our wicked works, achieved, is, through grace, reversible upon earth.
IV.—This brings us to say a word in the last place in answer to the question, “How may sinners become interested in this much-needed and glorious salvation?”
Our Lord’s answer is that it is by faith in Him who, on behalf of poor sinners turned away the avenging wrath of God, and procured for sinners a favour which is better than life, in which indeed true life lies. It is by faith in Him who must needs have been given, in order that these blessings might be procured, and in the thus giving of whom the pitying infinite grace of God came to its rights, that we are saved.
When the Israelites were bitten of fiery serpents, and God had ordered that a serpent of brass should be erected upon a pole, there was one condition upon which alone the wounded of Israel got good of the provision of God in the brazen serpent. The bitten of the serpents must look upon the serpent of brass; in no other way could they benefit by it but by attending to this. But as God could not lie, neither could they who looked, die of the wounds inflicted by the serpents. And similarly in regard to sinners and the Gospel. Sinners in yielding to the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience have wounded themselves with a wound which, if not attended to, must end in the second death, while in regard to God’s provision for sinners so wounded, namely, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, it matters not what we do, if we do not believe in the only begotten Son of God, crucified for us; we shall have no lasting benefit through this provision; but if, on the other hand, we fall in with this way, as God cannot lie, we cannot be lost, nor fail of being put in possession of eternal glory.
It is a great matter in this concern that the object of faith be understood. “The Lord Christ,” says a scribe well instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, “in the work of His mediation, as the ordinance of God for the recovery and salvation of lost sinners, is the proper adequate object of justifying faith.” It is this object which we have sought, however feebly, to set before ourselves and you in this discourse.
The faith to which we are called in order to our eternal salvation is essentially trust in the one foundation laid for the poor in Zion. This trust is wrought in the heart of sinners through that Holy Spirit, the indispensableness of whose new creative work, Christ insists upon in the beginning of that discourse with Nicodemus of which our text forms a part, even that Holy Spirit whom Christ by the work which He finished upon Calvary procured for sinners. The warrant for our exercising, as sinners, self-condemned, this trust is God’s giving this Mediator to sinners as such in the offer of the Gospel; and we believe no one ever fully realised how freely God gives His Son to sinners in the Gospel. This faith, whereby we become interested in the salvation of God, may indeed be considered as a new, or spiritual eyesight, a new, or spiritual hearing, but it is, as we have said, in its essential act, trust, or confidence.
Is it not a matter of profoundest thankfulness that God requires of us in order to our being saved only that we should be heartily shut up to His own way of saving sinners through Christ crucified, yea, so shut up to this way, as that we should renounce every other, especially the way of having some dependence upon ourselves as the authors of our own salvation? May the Lord bless to us His word!