ALTHOUGH sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification His Spirit infuseth grace, and enableneth to the exercise thereof; in the former sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued; the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.—Westminster Assembly Larger Catechism: Answer to Question 77.
Gleanings from Many Fields.
III.
Man’s Redemption the Joy of Angels.
BY THE REV. ALEXANDER STEWART, CROMARTY.
(Continued from p. 376.)
ONCE more, how infinitely does the cross of Christ transcend every manifestation of the divine love. What are the riches of the universe, of heaven itself in all its glory, in comparison with the Creator Himself—the unspeakable gift? They are but as the very dust of the balance—as dross, as nothing. “Herein is love” to make angels wonder. “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 love of Christ in its length, and breadth, and depth, and height, is beyond the mighty grasp even of angels’ comprehension.
Thus does redemption excel in glory, inasmuch as there is a wisdom in its contrivance, a power in its execution, a goodness in the deliverance wrought by it, and an infinite rectitude in the means by which the deliverance is accomplished, which immeasurably surpass all other manifestations of the divine perfections. The pre-eminent glory of redemption appears further, in that excellencies which elsewhere are manifested separately are here combined. The works of creation afford abundant illustration of the wisdom and power of God; but the traces of His moral attributes are by no means so apparent therein. In heaven all exult in the goodness of God; but there is no practical display of His justice, and of the severer attributes of His nature. In hell God’s justice and purity are awfully manifested. He appears as an offended King and Judge; but there is little evidence of His kindness as a Father who hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. Nor is there in this, you will observe, any discernible inconsistency. The miseries of a place of punishment may not directly illustrate the goodness of God, but they are not inconsistent with His goodness. The joys of heaven may not display God’s anger, but neither are they inconsistent with His being angry. It is not an inconsistency, but rather a speciality in the occasion (as being a limited one from the very nature of things), in consequence of which there is but a partial illustration of the divine character.
Now, the peculiar excellence in redemption, to which we at present call your attention, is that it is entirely free from any such imperfection; that it illustrates the divine attributes, not separately, but in combination, not partially, but fully. It not only exceeds each, but it combines all. On the Cross of Christ not only is divine justice more awfully illustrated than in hell itself, goodness more gloriously than in heaven, power and wisdom more illustriously than in the works of creation; but the Cross contains in itself all that is to be known of God in heaven, in earth, and in hell together. All the lovely tints of the rainbow that surrounds the throne blend here in purest, intensest light. In the Cross of Christ the glory of God is manifested in all the colourless purity of meridian splendour.
The pre-eminence of redemption appears in its possessing a glory peculiar to itself, a glory found nowhere else. For anything we can learn from the Bible, an angel might traverse the vast extent of creation; he might, with the eyes of heaven, look into the depths of hell, and yet never discover that God was merciful, gracious, and long-suffering; that He both would and could pass over transgression and sin. Mercy seems to partake so much of human weakness that it might be deemed almost incompatible with the unsullied purity and unbending rectitude of the divine nature. But the Cross of Christ demonstrates that God is merciful; that though He be infinitely holy, even a consuming fire, He can, nevertheless, without tarnishing His purity in the slightest degree, endure with long-suffering the provocation of sinners; that although He be just and right, and without iniquity, He can, nevertheless, without deviating from the strictest rectitude, justify the ungodly. Nay, so far in this case is mercy from encroaching on purity, truth, justice, or any of those perfections towards which it seems most unfriendly, that these attributes are actually more glorified, more conspicuously illustrated than if mercy never existed. Never did judgment appear more awfully sacred and glorious than at the very time that “mercy rejoiced over it.” But let us consider how such a manifestation could affect angels. For although they be sinless creatures, and therefore in no personal need of mercy, yet the fact that God is merciful is a discovery of very high interest and importance to them as well as to us. We cannot say that angels in a state of innocence feel pain; yet when they considered the fate of their companions, and their own situation, they must at times have been filled with care approaching at least to painful apprehensions. They must have felt as if standing on the brink of a precipice—their footing not so secure, so firm, but a slight error might precipitate them irrecoverably—might infinitely remove them beyond the very possibility of restoration. God must have appeared to them utterly without mercy, incapable of anything like forbearance towards creatures—creatures certainly by no means incapable either of sinning or suffering—and this arising directly from the absolute perfection of His nature, as the polish and lustre of a diamond are due to its extreme hardness. In private life you may perhaps have met with a man of very high sense of honour—a man whom you would pronounce incapable of a mean or dishonourable action, but who, if you had inadvertently given him any cause of offence, would prove inexorable and unforgiving. In your intercourse with him, although his politeness and attention might be very agreeable while they lasted, you would yet be pursued by a disagreeable fear that they might be suddenly arrested. Something you may have thoughtlessly said has most unintentionally but too certainly given him great offence. The breach of friendship is irreparable, for he has no toleration for a failure of which he is himself incapable. Some such feelings as this—a feeling of the brittleness of the tenure by which they held their place, might sometimes have occurred to angels, an apprehension which the fate of their companions was by no means calculated to diminish. Now, the glory of redemption is that it removes all such painful apprehensions, so far as the character of the infinitely holy God is concerned. The Cross demonstrates the blessed truth that God is not only a Sovereign of infinite majesty, and a Judge of inexorable righteousness, but that the great God has the heart of a Father; that He punishes, not because He has no feeling for the sufferings of His sinful creatures, for “His Name is love,” “He delighteth in mercy,” “He has no pleasure in the death of a sinner,” “and judgment is His strange work,” but because the sovereign demands of righteousness in the all-supreme Governor require, when the occasion arises, that the irrevocable doom shall be pronounced.
Mercy, however, is His delight; what He does from choice—what it gives Him pleasure to do. Oh! with what sacred, what intense interest must angels have pondered testimonies to the divine character in terms like these—”As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth” (Ezek. xxxiii. 11).
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him” (Ps. ciii. 13)—absolutely, unchangeably. Perfect as He is, He yet “knoweth and considereth the frame” of His creatures. “Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Is. xlix. 15). “I could wish myself accursed for my brethren,” said Paul, but God first took upon Himself the nature of man, and then actually made Himself accursed for His brethren. When Christ came near and saw the city of Jerusalem, He wept over it. Angels might indeed adore with profoundest awe the Eternal Majesty seated upon a throne, of which it is said that Justice and Judgment are its habitation. They might thank Him with all their heart for His innumerable favours. But the Almighty God, in human nature, weeping over sinners—God in tears—is a sight which must have for ever enshrined Him in their hearts! This is the all-surpassing glory of redemption, a circumstance in which it indeed excels in glory.
God created the worlds by Jesus Christ; and Christ by His Spirit made the heavens (Ps. xxxiii. 6). But from the work of creation itself we could never have learnt the distinction of persons in the ever-blessed Trinity. By the work of redemption, however, the glorious distinction is made apparent. We are thereby admitted into a view of the divine nature which we could never have imagined nor comprehended otherwise. Not only God glorified generally, but each of the divine Persons manifesting forth His own peculiar glory.
Finally, the Cross excels in glory, because it illustrates, sheds a lustre on, everything else. The prophet says—“God created the earth not in vain, but He formed it to be inhabited” (Isa. xlv. 18)—which evidently intimates that, were the earth not inhabited it would in a certain sense be a world in vain. What would the world and all its contents be were it not for man, were it not that it ministers to the support and education of spirits who shall live for ever? Many objects derive an interest and importance from circumstances to which nothing in themselves gives them any title. The admirers of ancient history know well the enthusiasm which classic names and classic objects inspire; and it were easy to make mention of places and objects in our own country in themselves very insignificant, such as no traveller would think of observing, but they are hallowed in our remembrance—the spots where patriots have fought or martyrs have fallen—or where our ancestors, driven by persecution from their homes, have met together to worship the God of their fathers. And that man is not to be envied who could walk unmoved throughout the highly favoured land where patriarchs wandered as strangers and pilgrims, where prophets delivered their predictions, where apostles first proclaimed the Gospel, where angels conversed with men, and where the Prince of Prophets and Apostles and Angels lived and died.
What Judah is to us, the earth is to the angels. Insignificant the world may be in itself, poor and worthless we its sinful inhabitants may be—but this is our glory, that the Creator himself tabernacled for a time amongst us; that the earth we tread was trodden by Him; that the air we breath was breathed by Him. Once it was man’s highest glory that he was beautified with the image of God; but his glory now is that God Himself has become man.
The salvation of the Cross sheds a lustre on the dispensations of providence. What are those mighty empires which in our youthful days we were taught to admire? In Scripture they are denoted by the emblem of “beasts of prey.” The page of history is filled with pictures of human ambition, tinselled by what is only the semblance of virtue. To our apprehension, on a review of those dim ages past, their intrinsic insignificance and vanity are perceived. But this speedily disappears when we recognise the ever-ruling providence of the Eternal Sovereign, who guides all events however insignificant, in preparation for that kingdom which cannot be moved.
The Cross makes heaven itself more glorious. It is the place where God confers on His people the rewards of the Redeemer’s sufferings; whilst Hell is the place where are confined the enemies of the Redeemer, the place to save men from which the Son of God died.
Angels, as beings of pure and disinterested benevolence, we have said, delight in contemplating the happy consequences of Christ’s sufferings in the salvation of myriads of the human race. Amongst us superior privileges invariably excite envy. Joseph was greatly beloved and favoured by his father Jacob, and this exposed him to the envy and hatred of his brethren. Were angels in the least disposed to envy, they could find far greater reason for it than they. That a race of beings inferior to themselves should be so peculiarly honoured as that God Himself should take their nature into union with his own, would have been astonishing enough. But that this condescension should be exhibited towards sinful rebellious creatures, and that they should be exalted to an equality of rank and privileges with them, beings undoubtedly of higher order, would be peculiarly surprising, and that which, in fallen human nature, would have inevitably awakened feelings of jealousy and hatred. But angels have no pride of rank or of birth, for they greatly rejoice in the salvation of men and sinners. They rejoice in the addition of a new order of creatures to the heavenly society. They might have rejoiced at the prospect of this indeed at the creation of man; but the parables of the fifteenth of Luke inform us that the recovery of man, dead and lost, is, emphatically, their joy.
The general principles upon which a sinner of the human race is saved are precisely the same in respect to each individual. There is one common Saviour, one atonement, one faith, one hope; all are in this respect saved in the same way. But while there is thus but one Spirit, there is a great diversity of operation, according to the peculiar circumstances and dispositions of individuals. This must have occurred to everyone who has read with interest the lives of Abraham, David, or any pious person, either recorded in Scripture or not. You cannot say, after concluding the life of any distinguished saint, that you have found one who is saved in a manner different from other sinners; nevertheless there is a peculiarity always in each case which gives us new and interesting views of the manifold grace of God.
Such is a specimen of the society of heaven. Are we fit for that society? Are we preparing for it? Or are we still under the influence of the malignant fallen Angel? And are we content to be his wretched companions and captives for ever? What a reproof to the apathy of man is the deep interest which angels discover in the Gospel! For us was the Saviour given—for us He suffered and died. To us has the word of salvation been sent and preached, yet what listless indifference do we manifest! What frivolous excuses do we make for that indifference! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” “Kiss ye the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way!”
Little sins multiplied become great. There is nothing less than a grain of sand; there is nothing heavier than the sand of the sea when multiplied.—Brooks.