BY THE LATE REV. ALEXANDER MACLEOD, ROGART
(FORMERLY UIG, LEWIS.)
“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.”—
John iii. 16.
IN these blessed words of our Lord we have the sum of the whole volume of inspiration, a most wonderful display of divine love, a most glorious intelligence and glad tidings of joy to all people. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, struck with the indications of supernatural powers and authority which were manifested in our Saviour’s miracles, acknowledged his conviction of His divine mission, and immediately came to Him to receive instruction, and there are two things on which our Lord chiefly insists in this discourse on this interesting occasion. He first teaches him the necessity of regeneration, next the medium through which salvation was to be accomplished, and the indispensable necessity of believing in Him in order to eternal life, and as He was discoursing with a master in Israel, He illustrates this great subject by a fact recorded in their law, and which prefigured the Redeemer’s death, viz., that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life, and that He might divest Him of that self-righteousness so peculiar to the Jewish people and so congenial to the human mind, and on which he so much founded his salvation. Our Lord further shows him that in the economy of grace every thing of this kind is superseded for that as the mission of the Eternal Son of God into this world had for its object to bestow eternal life upon those who were ready to perish, so the only way of enjoying the blessing was by faith in the testimony that God has given of His Son, and as this faith is not of ourselves but the free gift of God, so the bestowment of it on men of every character and description corresponds with the grace which appeared in the Father’s sending His only begotten Son into the world that whosoever believeth should not perish but have everlasting life.
In discoursing from these words, I propose, in the first place, to consider the properties of God’s love to
a guilty and lost world; secondly, the evidence He gave of His love, He gave His only begotten Son; thirdly, the end or design of this unspeakable gift of love, viz., that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life; and, lastly, conclude with a short application.
I. The love of God is the brightest beam of divinity that ever illuminated the creation. There is an unfathomable depth in it which even the penetration of angels cannot reach, an ineffable excellence which even celestial eloquence cannot fully express.
(1) It is pure, unmixed love in its nature, object, and operation. It comprehends the various forms of divine beneficence—goodness, that extends its bounties to innumerable ranks of creatures, and diffuses happiness through the various regions of the universe—grace, which so richly showers its blessings upon the undeserving without past merit or further compensation. Mercy, that commiserates and relieves the miserable; and peace, and long-suffering which so long tolerates insolent and provoking offenders. All this divine beneficence in its different forms towards indifferent objects shows the greatness of divine love under various names. It is gracious, merciful, patient, and long-suffering love—love variegated, overflowing, and unbounded. Is not divine love displayed in the creation of this world, so well accommodated and so richly furnished for the sustenance and comfort of its inhabitants, and in rendering them capable of receiving streams of happiness from the immense fountain of divine goodness? It is by the love of God that this universe is preserved in order and harmony from age to age, and its numerous inhabitants supplied with every good thing. But is it not most conspicuously displayed as an unspeakably great, rich, free, and unmerited love in the gift of His Son to a guilty world? Almighty love, which brought the Lord of Glory from the celestial throne to die upon a cross, an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, in order to fit us for the incorruptible inheritance, and then to perpetuate our bliss through an eternal duration. Behold, then, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God, a subject so very grand and so elevating that our limited capacities are quite inadequate to comprehend it. Who can by searching find it out? who can trace it to perfection? It is as high as heaven. What can we do, deeper than hell what can we know? Surely the measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. But while this eternal love of God is an unfathomable ocean, we adore
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the God of our salvation, who sheds it abroad in the hearts of His people by the Holy Spirit, that they with all saints may be able to comprehend in some degree what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. For though creation be replete with evident traces of the goodness and love of God, yet it is the work of redemption that gives the most exalted display of this most animating and delightful truth. Accordingly, when the Lord promised to make a New Covenant with the house of Israel, He intimated that He would therein carry the demonstration of it far beyond whatever could be conceived of it either in creation or providence. I will make an everlasting covenant with them (says He) that I will not turn away from them to do them good. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and will bring upon them all the good that I have promised them, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord. And He gives us this as the amount of the whole—”They shall be my people, and I will be their God.” The highest possible display of His love was manifested when He gave His Son to die to procure our redemption, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God. For in this He at once commended His love to us as unspeakable, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly, in order to redeem them from sin, death, and hell. To teach them the revelations of His will and the declaration of His promises, in His determination to sanctify and to glorify them, in supporting them through life, blessing them in death, and bringing them to glory. When we, therefore, consider the unspeakable highness and holiness of our heavenly Father, and the lowness and wretchedness of those on whom he conferred His unspeakable gift, we are constrained to exclaim with the inspired writer—”God is Love.”
(2) It is an everlasting love. “The Lord,” says the prophet Jeremiah, “appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” exclaimed the illustrious apostle, “who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” O the matchless love of our God to a whole world full of ignorance, carnality, and enmity, against His holy perfections, in a state of actual rebellion against Him, and without the
least desire ever to know, serve, or enjoy Him. Yet, hear, O! heavens, and be astonished O! earth, God loved this world of perishing sinners. But how much no tongue can tell, for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things the Lord prepared for them that love Him. It is so unspeakable and so unlike anything in human affairs that our text makes no comparison in order to describe it. It has no parallel or similitude among men, and, therefore, it is only said—God so loved the world that He gave us His Son. In most cases human love is expressed by words more than by deeds, but the love of God is such that it cannot be fully expressed by words. It is a divine contrivance which we, while in this tabernacle, cannot fully comprehend.
(3) It is an immutable love, as in Mal. iii. 6—For I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed, He will rest in His love towards His people, for His love is engaged for their everlasting security. Having made them the objects of His free love, a primary fruit of His eternal favour, this love must abate, and His purposes must be rendered void before they are left to themselves. But if the Lord of hosts has purposed, who shall disannul it? If His hands be stretched out to execute His designs, who shall turn it back, before He has accomplished the end He has determined. As He thought, so shall it come to pass. As He purposed, so shall it stand. He has set His delight on the sons of men, and, therefore, He rests. He takes the highest complacency in the exercise of His love towards all His favourite objects. He rejoices over them with singing, and takes a divine pleasure in doing them good. So firmly did the illustrious Apostle believe this salutary truth that he exalted in the contemplation of God’s immutable love, expressing himself in the following forcible and pathetic language:—”For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(4) It is a free love, as nothing out of God Himself can be the cause of it, for then there would be a cause prior to Him. The misery of the creature is not the cause of it, for He is not wrought upon as creatures are, nor are the merits of the creature the cause. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. It is, therefore, free, as it arises from His sovereign will
and pleasure through the merits of our Redeemer. Let us then consider the freeness of this love, and rejoice in the exercise of faith and lively hope that the most glorious day shall soon arrive when our happy anticipations of His immediate presence shall be unspeakably realised, and when we shall see Him as He is.
II. The evidence of God’s love to sinners—He gave us His only begotten Son.
(1) Then, we have the clearest evidence of this love in the Incarnation of our Lord. Here the unspeakable gift of God, manifested in the flesh, is most conspicuously displayed to a fallen race. Now, the original promise made to our first parents is fully realised. The God and Saviour of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the great astonishment of men and angels, condescended to appear in the likeness of sinful flesh, and now the divine predictions are amply fulfilled—”For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” How clearly did He manifest His love to us in the humiliation and sufferings of our Lord, in the poverty of His birth, the reproach of His character, the pains of His body, the power of His enemies, the desertion of His friends, the weight of His people’s sins, the slow, ignominious, and painful nature of His death, and the hiding of His Father’s face, for He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. “And the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Yet some have impiously asserted that the sufferings of Christ were only in appearance and not in reality. But if hunger and thirst, if revilings and contempt, if condemnation and crucifixion be sufferings, our Lord suffered; if the sinless infirmities of our nature, if the weight of our sins, if the malice of men, if the machinations of Satan, if the hand of God could make Him suffer, our Saviour suffered. If the annals of time, if the writings of His Apostles, if the death of His martyrs, if the confession of Gentiles, if the scoffs of the Jews be testimonies, our Lord suffered. He, therefore, that spared not His only begotten Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him, also, freely give us all things. This great doctrine, therefore, of the remission of sins through the expiatory sacrifice of our Lord is that in which we can behold the great and mysterious love of God, and is the doctrine which stands as it were in the very face of the divine oracles, and claims our pre-
eminent regard. It is this which impresses the Christian dispensation with so gracious and merciful a character, and justly gives it the designation of glad tidings. Though every part of our Lord’s obedience was meritorious and tended to magnify the law, yet His death upon the cross was its perfection and consummation; then it was that He exclaimed, “It is finished.” In that tremendous hour He satisfied the penal demands of Justice, He silenced the thunders of Mount Sinai, He conquered death, he triumphed over principalities and the powers of darkness, and opened the gates of everlasting life to sinners, dark and cloudy as that day appeared to the eye of sense, it was the brightest day that ever shone upon a guilty world, for on that day a light above the brightness of the firmament shone through the whole Jewish economy. Types met with their antitype, shadows were turned into substance, victims no longer bled upon the smoking altars. The veil of the temple was rent in twain, and a new order of things rose before us. Whilst infidelity triumphed and insulted our dying Lord, saying, He saved others, Himself He cannot save, it spoke indeed the truth. He was enchained and bound, but it was by a love to us and our salvation. Thus we read He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was He stricken, for it pleased God the Father to bruise Him and put Him to grief, and in this He commended His love most conspicuously toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
III. The end or design of this gift of love was that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This was God’s great object in giving His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. He has not sent Him into the world to condemn the world, as sinners might have expected, but that the world might be saved by Him. In this blessed design of man’s redemption we behold the three divine persons moved by sovereign and free love, heartily joining in the most wonderful scheme of our everlasting salvation. The blessed Father to exert the grace, the Son to advance the merit, the Holy Ghost to apply the purchased benefits, the Father to adopt us for His children, the Son to redeem us for His mystical members, and the Holy Ghost to sanctify and renew our hearts. The design of this unspeakable gift is no less manifested in the resurrection of our Lord, when He secured the union of His people as His quickened and mystical members and their resurrection to everlasting life. It is no less conspicuous in His ascension when He took possession of heaven in their name, prepares them for the heavenly
mansions, pours down His Spirit upon them for that end, weans their affection from transitory objects, and attracts them to things above where He is, making continual intercession on their behalf, and securing their exaltation in due time. It was in the consideration of this grand truth that the Apostle Paul spoke of the great Mystery of Godliness—”God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on the world, and received up into glory.” All which was intended to adopt us into His family to sanctify our nature and receive us into glory, and when we consider the despicable objects on whom this unmerited favour was conferred, we are devoutly struck with unspeakable and holy veneration of the Divine Author, from whom all this has originated freely. When men adopt it is on account of some excellency in the persons adopted, as Pharaoh’s daughter adopted Moses, because he was exceeding fair; and Mordecai adopted Esther because she was his uncle’s daughter and exceeding fair. But man has nothing in him which merits this divine act, as in Ezekiel xvi. 5—”None eye pitied thee to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion on thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born.” It was in this state our Maker found us, when He said—”Live,” and when He pours His Holy Spirit on His people they receive Christ by faith as freely offered in the Gospel to this end. His divine grace is imparted to them in order to excite their gratitude and direct their attention to the glory of Him who called them from darkness to His marvellous light to accomplish the great end of their salvation. They are divinely conducted to run the Christian race with faith, hope, and love; they proceed in their journey towards the heavenly Jerusalem, faith is the foundation and measure of hope. The latter is only the anticipation of those blessings which the former realises and presents to the mind. If faith be strong, hope is full of immortality and glory. Her heavenly prospects vary with the divine principle from which she proceeds. She is associated also with that humility which waits with patience for the full accomplishment of the promises. Hence, as an anchor within the veil, she keeps the soul sure and steadfast amidst all the fluctuating tides and tempests of this lower world. But these graces, however important, beneficial, and permanent in their effects, are only instrumental to that grace of love with which we shall ever be filled in everlasting praises of Him who loved us. All other graces are but means to this blessed end.
When we enter into a state of grace the full fruition of God, even eternal life, is ultimately intended. The end of God’s unspeakable gift and all the graces of His Spirit through Him are to land us at last in the unfading and incorruptible inheritance. Love should adorn our Christian profession while here below—”The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.” “Now abideth, faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” It is of a superior and transcendent nature, without it all other gifts are but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. While faith is that primary grace which apprehends and appropriates the salvation of Christ, and while hope ardently looks for the perfect and ultimate fruition of this salvation, divine love is that holy affection which constitutes the health and felicity of the soul. It is the greatest evidence that we can have of being called of God. It is the prize itself, for in proportion to our love we dwell in God and God in us. Of all the Christian graces it is the most general and comprehensive, concentrating every other into its own nature. It suffereth long and is kind, without usurping the place or disturbing the functions of the rest. Love allies itself to them all, regulates their exercise, preserves their simplicity, refers them to their proper end, and by purifying the secret chambers of the soul, keeps up a hallowed flame of devotion which diffuses life and splendour over every part of divine truth, and thus maintains their just empire in the heart with a single eye to the glory of God. It is also eternal in its duration, charity never faileth; faith ere long will be lost in vision, and hope in enjoyment. Their specific operations do not extend beyond the grave. When they have conducted the Christian to the confines of a better country they consign him over to perfect love, there to arrive at the very fountain of love, from which all the streams run for the healing of perishing sinners, and join the spirits of the just in songs of everlasting praises to the Lamb that was slain and redeemed them by His blood.
I conclude with a short application. Is the love of God therefore from everlasting? Is it the great, the eternal, and absolutely free favour of God in Christ manifested in the vouchsafement of spiritual and eternal blessings to the unworthy entirely detached from all supposition of human worth and absolutely independent of any such thing as human goodness? O! then, all ye children of want and sons of wretchedness, whether Jews or Gentiles, to this unexhaustible fountain of God’s free and unmerited love ye may freely come.
Here the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, with longing hearts and uplifted hands, big with expectations of being healed, may come with the utmost readiness, for the invitation extends to all characters and descriptions of men, and the proclamation (whosoever) is expressive of the freest favour and richest grace, including offenders of the worst characters, publishing pardon for sins of the deepest dye, and all ratified by Veracity itself. It affords sufficient encouragement to the vilest of sinners who is willing to owe his all to divine bounty, to receive the heavenly blessing, and with faith and gratitude to rejoice in the royal donation. Yes, it is the sovereign love of God that raises the poor from the dunghill and the needy from the dust, and sets them on thrones of glory, and numbers them among the princes of heaven. Happy, then, are they who are taught the infinitely marvellous, pleasant, powerful, and profitable truths of God in a manner that enlightens, draws, renews, ravishes, and sanctifies their heart. Happy they who being chargeable with every guilt and pollution, have them all washed away through the efficacious and expiatory sacrifice of their Lord, their righteousness and strength. How freely may they come to His throne of grace to receive of His love and sing in the heights of Zion. Happy His subjects who is love itself, whose laws are holy, just, and good, a perfect law of liberty, and whose whole administration is wisdom, righteousness, condescension, kindness, and love. O! then may that blessed day hasten when time shall give place to eternity, when our transient glimmerings of His glory here issue in our being for ever with the Lord, when our beloved ordinances of His grace shall be exchanged for seeing the God of infinite love as He is, who will acknowledge us in the face of His dear Son, who is the light of the celestial mansions, our everlasting light—our God, and our eternal glory.
While I was afflicted with the fears of my own damnation there were two things would make me wonder. One was, when I saw old people hunting after the things of this life as if they should live here always; the other was, when I found professors much distressed and cast down when they met with outward losses. Lord, thought I, what ado is here about such little things as these!—John Bunyan.
Gleanings from Many Fields.
The Influence of Christ’s Deity in the Matter of the Atonement.
[The following extract is from Dr Smeaton’s able work, “Our Lord’s Doctrine of the Atonement,” which with its companion volume “The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement,” is one of the finest pieces of exegetical work standing to the credit of Scottish theology of the good, solid, Scriptural type. Dr Smeaton has also to his credit another excellent work, “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit” (Cunningham Lectures). As a theologian Dr Smeaton was well equipped for his work. He was regarded by competent authorities as one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of his time, and his acquaintanceship with patristic, medieval, and modern German and Dutch theology, was very intimate, as his writings indicate. He occupied the chair of New Testament Exegesis in the New College, Edinburgh, and on the death of Principal Cunningham he became editor of the “British and Foreign Evangelical Review.” Dr Smeaton was not only an exegetical theologian of the first rank, but was also a sincere and humble Christian, and there are still some living who remember his beautiful and spiritual addresses. He died in 1889, and the Free Church of Scotland lost one of its noblest teachers. He was deeply grieved at the progress the new, unsettling views on the infallibility of Scripture were making in his own time. It gives us great pleasure to introduce our readers, who may not have read any of his excellent works, to this eminent scholar and true servant of Christ.]
SO close is the connection between the doctrine of the atonement and that of Christ’s Deity, that they are always found, as history shows, to be either received together or denied together. The one is necessary to the other; and hence the true Church has always in every age confessed to both. The Lord connects the two as the two “heavenly things,” on which He lays the greatest stress in His interview with Nicodemus (John iii. 13, 14). It is the person of Christ or Himself as a divine person, in the performance of a work given Him to do—and not His teaching merely, or the republication of lost truth—that constitutes the ransom. But one equal to the task of bringing a satisfaction or atonement for millions must needs possess a divine dignity. A mere man could as little redeem the world as he could create the world; the Restorer of man must be the Maker of man. It does not fall to our present task to refer at large to the proof of Christ’s Deity; for our doctrine presupposes the reality of the incarnation—that miracle of miracles, and the grand fact of all history. Still less does it lie within our plan to notice the recent negative speculations which look askance on the whole miracle of Christ’s life on earth. While they would explode a particular incarnation as the unique fact of history, in order to assert
a general one, or an incarnation of the race, as they delight to phrase it, their deep error utterly mistakes the vast run of mankind. And it assumes, too, the possibility of access to God, and of reunion to Him, without a mediator.
Our Lord, for obvious reasons, lays great stress on His coming into the world, or His coming in the flesh to do a work which should at once rectify men’s relation and bring life (John v. 24). His entire teaching proceeds on the supposition that the primeval harmony between love and holiness in promoting man’s good, which was disturbed by sin, is restored only by His incarnation and death; not by the incarnation alone—for then the grain of wheat would have continued to abide alone—but by His incarnation and death. Not to speak of rationalism, which always assumes that God is willing, without any atoning intervention, to receive back the lost son to favour, the more mystic theories of Christ’s work, which lay all the stress upon the fellowship in Christ’s life, and the commencement of a new humanity, are not greatly different. They presuppose no work for which the incarnation is absolutely necessary, and which could not as well be done without it. They seem to say that the incarnation or the person of the God-man is itself the atonement; and yet it soon appears that for the production of the new humanity they plead for, the incarnation is superfluous. That which places the Church upon Bible Christianity, and severs her from every phase of rationalism, is the firm belief that the atonement was the work of the incarnate Son, and that it is a provision offered by the divine love for the satisfaction of the inflexible claims of the divine holiness and justice.
The point to be noticed here is the influence of Christ’s Deity in the matter of the atonement. It may seem at first sight that our Lord has said extremely little on the subject of His Deity, considered in this light. But the testimonies which touch it are not few when they are all put together; and He has given the germ of all the subsequent statements made by the apostles. If we examine the history of Christ’s life, as written by inspired men, we find that the two sides of His Person are brought out together in a quite peculiar way; and that the scenes which represent Him in His deep abasement always contain, if we look for them, discoveries or outbeams of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily. The whole person, as divine and human, is in some way brought out—a peculiarity of the narrative, which is wholly lost in human biographies of Christ. They cannot approach it.
Any system of doctrine looking with an unfavourable eye on Christ’s Deity or His divine Sonship cannot
have a consistent theory of the atonement, as a few words will suffice to show. This will appear whether we have respect to the Arian, the Sabellian, or the Nestorian view of Christ’s person.
(1) The Arian scheme* destroys all proper conceptions of His satisfaction. If Jesus were not a divine person and infinitely exalted above all law, He could not act for others. He could not put on a lower nature for the purpose of being made under the law; and there could be nothing of merit in His work for others. Supposing any scheme of attempted satisfaction for others, the mediation of a finite person, it is obvious, could only be of limited value, and could give no peace to a conscience awakened by a sense of sin. With what confidence could we depend on another if He had not power over Himself to give up to death a humanity which He had freely taken into union with Himself, and which was His own? He could have no merit to give away or to rectify man’s disordered relation to His Maker.
(2) Nor is an atonement possible on the Sabellian or indwelling scheme. This theory, too current in our day, does not admit a proper incarnation, and in fact goes no further than a humanitarian theory of Christ’s person. Such a person would have nothing to spare, no superabundance of merit beyond what was absolutely necessary for his own wants. By the supposition of being merely inhabited by God, He is but a creature necessarily subject to the law, and precluded by the nature of the case from acting vicariously. He could not put himself under the divine law for others. The utmost that could be done would only be His duty. Whatever a creature has or is capable of rendering, he owes already to His Maker.
(3) Nor is an atonement possible on the Nestorian theory which divides the natures. We meet in all the words of Christ—as was to be expected from Him who is a person in two conjoined but distinct natures—the utterance of one self-conscious I. It has been happily said by a modern writer:—“Considered in a purely exegetical light, there is no more certain or clearer result of Scripture exposition than the position, that the
* Arius held that while Christ is God He was inferior to Him in His divinity, substance, properties, and dignity. According to Arius He had a beginning, being created before the foundation of the world. Sabellius denied the existence of three persons in the Godhead—the Son was merely an energy of the Godhead without a separate existence. Nestorius, in his protest against the Alexandrian use of the term Theokotos, Mother of God, went to the extreme of maintaining that the divine and human natures in Christ were not only distinct but separate.
I of Jesus on the earth is identical with the I who was before in glory with the Father. Every rendering of the Son speaking on the earth into two I’s, one of whom was the eternally glorious Word, and the other the humanly abased Jesus, is rejected by clear Scripture testimony.” We everywhere meet with the conscious utterance of the divine Word made flesh; and there is a communion between the two natures, of such a kind that the properties of either nature belong to the person. Thus the Son of God knows the human nature as His, and speaks of it as His, while the human nature in like manner speaks to us in the person of the only-begotten Son, and regards the divine nature as its own. Hence all that can be affirmed of the one nature can be said of the whole person. And from this flows the infinite value of all He did and suffered. We are warned by the whole mode of speaking followed by Christ to avoid such a notion as thinks of a person who is neither properly God nor man, but an undefined third quantity.
The works of Jesus, accordingly, are the works of the person. The humanity belonged to the Son of God, not to another, and the actions He performed were the actions of the Son of God. This is assumed in all Christ’s words; and this guiding principle must be carried with us into the interpretation of all His language. If we ascribe, then, to the person what belongs to either nature, as we may and must, more value attaches to the obedience and suffering of the Son of God than to the sinless service of all creation.
A right view of this important truth will conduct us through all the intricacies of this question; and it may be well to put it in a clearer light from His own expressions. Thus He speaks of the human nature as “My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,” or the flesh of Him who came down from heaven (John vi. 51)—meaning that the humanity is personally united to Himself. If the humanity was not His own flesh, but that of a man existing apart from the Son, and therefore independently of Him, however sanctified, and however occupied by God, it could avail nothing. There would be no merit of more than creature-value in His obedience, no atonement in His blood equivalent to our infinite guilt. A Biblical view of this truth is of the greatest importance for our present discussion; for the foundation of our redemption is overthrown at once by any separation of the natures, or by any Nestorian division of them. When they are looked at apart in this matter, then we may say, as was once said in the hearing of Nestorius: “Mere man could not save;
the naked Godhead could not suffer.” The humanity of Jesus was not a separate person with a distinct standing, but was taken into personal union, and existed in the person of the Son, or was the Son made flesh. Hence our Lord commonly expresses Himself in such a way as to show that His humanity was that of the Son of God, and that the actions which were done in it possessed, on this account, an altogether peculiar value. Thus He speaks of “My body broken for you”—intimating that the broken body of such a person alone could meritoriously wash away sin, and save the sinner exposed to deserved punishment. If that body did not belong to the Son of God as His own, and as assumed into His person, the suffering involved in the breaking of His body, which was but of brief duration, would not have been an equivalent for sin. Again, when He speaks of His blood as “My blood,” the emphasis laid on the person, and the blood as belonging to such a person, and not another, cannot be mistaken. The actions are the actions of the person, and hence the blood was of infinite value, because it was the blood of the Son of God.
The Sabbath Question in Ballina, Richmond River, New South Wales.
BY REV. DUNCAN MACKENZIE, KAMES.
PLEASURE loving Australia, like the Home Country, is noted for its desecration of the Lord’s Day. It is cheering that there are a few who raise their testimony against the widespread desecration of the holy Sabbath of the Lord. At a meeting of the Ballina Municipal Council, on 16th June last, the following motion was submitted by Alderman Bailey:—”That on recreation preserve or public park, under the Council’s control, the playing of cricket, football, tennis, golf, and hockey, also cycling, be forbidden on Sundays.” He said in a nation where the Christian spirit, the Christian influence, did not predominate, that nation in less than twenty years would be worse than a nation of Bolsheviks. The motion was seconded by Alderman Stranger. Alderman Mobbs, who supported the motion, said he was not a kill-joy, but he did not forget the lesson taught at his mother’s knee, “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.” Alderman Stone said—”If the people believed in their Bible and their Commandments they would not go in for Sunday sport. I would prohibit
all kinds of sport on that day.” The motion was carried by 6 to 3. The decision has raised the ire of the Secularists. They are bending their whole strength to get the decision overturned.
Appended is a letter by Mr James D. Kidd, one of the elders of the Australian Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland congregation at Ballina, which appeared in the “Ballina Beacon”:—”Ballina, June 12. Sir,—In your issue of 3rd inst. appears a report of the last meeting of the Ballina Municipal Council, with special reference to Alderman Bailey’s notice of motion for discussion anent Sabbath sport. . . . We congratulate him on the stand he has taken, and feel sure that whoever may be opposed to him, he has God and truth on his side. This alderman, at least, has the courage of his convictions, and deserves the thanks of every real patriot and true Christian. It is well when those in authority are guided, not by the decisions of councils nor popular sentiment, but by the infallible standard of God’s Word. That the Sabbath is a divine institution no one but an infidel will deny. The objects which the benevolent Creator had in view in giving the Sabbath were twofold—His own glory and the spiritual and bodily good of men. The day of rest affords opportunity to the weary labourer to rest from his toil, and to have his spiritual energies renewed, and his soul refreshed, by waiting upon God in the public and private exercise of His worship; and thus be the better fitted for the duties of the ensuing week. The words of the Fourth Commandment—’Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,’ are so simple and plain that even a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. It is hard to believe that any man, possessing even a modicum of common-sense and religious knowledge, can have his judgment so completely perverted as to believe that he is keeping the Sabbath holy when engaged in sport. God has said, “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord” (Lev. xix. 30). One would think this should be an end of all controversy among men. The only question to be settled is, shall we obey the Commandment of God, and keep the day holy, or shall we act the part of rebels against the divine government, and devote the day to business and pleasure? It is evident from Scripture that God has severely punished Sabbath-breakers in the past, and that He has also promised blessing to those who keep it holy (Jeremiah xvii. 21, et seq., also Isaiah lviii. 13-14—Yours, etc.—J. D. KIDD.”