TABLE SERVICE No. VI.*
* This Table Service was delivered at Free St. Luke’s, Edinburgh (Rev. Dr. Moody Stuart’s), on Communion Sabbath, 11th July, 1869.—ED.
(Address before Distribution of Elements.)
“IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The foundation having been laid, not simply in the Word of God, but laid doctrinally before us this day, in the High Priest over the household of God, and the one offering by which He hath perfected for ever all “them that are sanctified,” we are here directed by these words into the way of our personal dealing with God on this foundation. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Mark, these words are not to be isolated; it will be pure Socinianism if they are isolated from the High Priest and His one offering; yet in that connection they point out to us the way of our dealing with God through this High Priest as regards the remission of our sins. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” Ah! sin is easily committed—I say not whether sin is or is not easily forgiven; both are true; the expiation cost so much—but sin indeed is not easily confessed. David is one example. He roared all the day long. He had sung “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and so on. Sweet had been his communion with God, but he had been tempted, had fallen, and had sinned most grievously, both in adultery and murder. And when he had sinned, he would not part from God, and he would not confess to God. If he could have parted with God, he would not have roared, and if he would have confessed to God, he would not have roared; but he would do neither—would neither part with God nor confess to God—and so there was nothing for him but roaring, while his moisture was turned into the drought of summer. God remembered him, sent His prophet and made the king unwittingly condemn himself, and the moment that conviction was carried home, the prophet proclaimed, in the name of God, his absolution.
Still we find in the Fifty-first Psalm that he came to God through the High Priest. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” That is sacerdotal; it is the Priest. He had to come to God; nothing would satisfy him but God’s own priestly absolution. But we find David saying, in this Thirty-second Psalm, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Wonderful transaction! “I said, I will confess.” He roared, and would not confess. Like a son who has grieved and offended his father, and fallen into disgrace, the filial heart was still in him, and the filial heart would not give up his Father, and the pride would not own his sin. But at last, “I will confess, and thou forgavest.” David was about to make his confession: “I said, I will confess;” the forgiveness came. Not without confession, but when he said, “I will confess.” When the heart was open to make a clean breast of it, when he made up his mind to tell God, God waited no longer. He might have waited longer, I do not say before He pardoned, but before He intimated the pardon; but the words, “Thou forgavest,” are the language not only of a man forgiven, they are the language of a man who knows that he is forgiven, of a man to whom God has intimated it. So, when he had made up his mind to confess, he was not left to go on with his confession; whatever way it came, when he resolved to call on the Father, there was the indication of His answer. And then David took up the list of sins, and read on; and he read: “This sin is forgiven, and that sin forgiven, and the next sin forgiven.” The list was read as the list of forgiven sins. Oh, to read over the list of sins committed put into your hand, when, what was to be read as a list of debts due to divine justice, is now put into your hand as a list of debts forgiven by divine mercy, debts of gratitude, of binding obligation.
And it is to confirm faith in this forgiveness through the broken body and shed blood of Christ, believing communicants, that you are invited to this Table. By faith of the operation of the Spirit of God, you have been in your measure enabled to receive Christ—I say not, without doubts and difficulties—while salvation in one of its parts, sanctification, is incomplete, these will stand—but with more or less of confidence in the divine grace and mercy, through the High Priest, and His broken body and shed blood alone, you have been enabled to receive Christ Jesus the Lord. You have fed on that body broken and that blood shed, set before you in the word of the truth of the Gospel; and to strengthen and confirm faith—not to produce, but to strengthen and confirm it—the Lord has invited you to His Table. That which has been set before you in word, and which faith has received in word, the same is set before you in sign and seal, that it may be received as symbolised and sealed. Yea, for further and more effectual and powerful application, He hath called you to His Table, where He gives you His flesh and blood, both in word explicatory of the sign and seal, and in sign and seal confirmatory of the Word. “My body,” the incarnation of the Word. “My body broken.” Ah, what a breaking should we have had for ever, had it not been broken!
(Address after Distribution of Elements.)
“Forgive us our debts.” “There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared,” and plenteous redemption. “Debts;” and sins are treated as debts in the whole transaction of our forgiveness. There is no relaxation of the demands of God’s law; there is no taking down, even to believers, of the spirituality and extent of that law. There are no indulgences; sins are forgiven, but they are ever treated as debts. And so the law stands, and we do not make void the law through faith; God forbid! Yea, we establish the law. There are no indulgences. Believers are not under the law as a covenant of works; they, through the law, are dead to the law, and married to another, yet “not as without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” And with regard to the precepts of the law, God gives no indulgences; though He will multiply to pardon, He will not change the law; the gospel is that He will multiply to pardon, but will not take down His demands. Debts are debts, the debts of sins which we have contracted, and the debts of obedience which are due from us.
O, therefore, let us remember that perfect obedience is God’s demand, which He will not take down. “Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” That ever is our debt, as well as the debt for sin contracted. But oh, how sweet it is to confess sin before a sin-forgiving God! A sin-forgiving God! In this thought there are two considerations, the greatness of God’s pardoning heart, as well as the satisfaction of divine justice; because grace is not founded on the atonement; the atonement is founded on grace. The atonement is God’s device through which His grace, self-moving, can flow forth, reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The atonement did not make God propitious, merciful, long-suffering, but God’s great love said, “I am ready to forgive, if I can do it justly,” and His infinite wisdom finding that He could do it justly in this way, He resolved on the sacrifice, on this way to it. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us”—the gift of His Son is the fruit of the love—” and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
But to return, in conclusion, to where we commenced—” I will confess.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” It is John Owen, I think, who has said: “It is sweet to mourn over forgiven sin, and to water a free pardon with tears.” Lately I was reading an address of the godly Flavel’s to the ministers of England, after the great deliverance which God had afforded at the glorious Revolution. He calls upon them to fling aside all their animosity and jealousy, and unite in thanking God for the great deliverance, and in duly improving it by the faithful discharge of their ministerial duties. Then he says, in very beautiful Latin, “And let us not be ashamed to confess our faults, shortcomings and provocations. For nothing is unbecoming to us which is honourable to God. And our faces will appear beautiful in His eyes, when He sees the tears of joyous gratitude followed by the gush of penitential shame and sorrow for our manifold sins.” The Lord give us open hearts, to hide no sin from Him, that, while we confess with shame, we be not ashamed to confess!