(Continued from page 47.)
Before we pass on, we must notice one strange series of supports which for most are found among those who attend a sound ministry, and on that account are found very frequently among our own people. I refer to those who in a normal way believe in such doctrines as election, man’s inability, effectual calling and the sovereignty of grace. The supports drawn from the misuse of these doctrines run something like this—”Some time, somewhere, somehow God will come and convert me.” The Word of God finds natural men just where they are, on the broad way to destruction and its constant message to them is, “now,” but as there is some semblance of truth in the above view, the deductions made by these people are all the more delusive.
“Somewhere, sometime,” but for the present, what? For the present continue in sin, renew your covenants with death and your leagues with hell, continue on the broad way to destruction, an enemy of God and righteousness, a candidate for the bottomless pit surely. This is the truth and the man is to see it in the only light that brings a message of truth to him. Under the faithful “hands” all truth is now so presented to him that it leaves him far from being content with his present state. The sovereignty of God he finds is applied to the whole round of truth equally. With equal power it applies to the now of reconciliation as surely as to the predestination of election. The doctrine of election he sees is now a warning to him to make his ‘calling and election sure.’ “Inability,” he finds, is taught so that he may make use of the help of another. God’s “mighty One.” “A man is never so ready to call in the help of another as when he knows through and through that he can do nothing to save himself.” This is the truth, and the man is stirred out of sleep to act accordingly. A god-given experience of one’s inability is to make that truth insufferable in a man’s soul, it is to feel the sentence of eternal death already in our bosoms. A miserable torturing, unendurable condition that gives a death blow to complacency and goes on to spur the man to a day and night search for help from somewhere beyond himself. A true sense of one’s inability is heavier on the soul than the burden of sin is on the conscience. In the propitiation set before us in the Gospel there is a balm for our consciences, but however freely it is offered, man’s inability will not permit him to make use of it. The man sees that if he does not make use of God’s remedy he will be damned, and his attitude to his inability is now one of acute distress. Cursed inability is now how he regards it. He sees himself before the judgment seat, in his hand is his own lost soul, and he sees the responsibility for his lost condition placed firmly and justly on his own head. Cursed inability, my bane and my blame.
Broken bones, useless supports, Godless helps removed the man finds that this is not a very flattering way of approach to God. With the removal of his trusted supports his dignity suffers, he has become the empty beggar the Word of God has always been telling him he is. But there is a word he must learn to love, and the removal of false supports will go far to make him appreciate it. It is the word that looks out on the miserably guilty and helpless, and its name is Merely. “Broken bones” is on the way to learn it, and the Lord offers this for his encouragement. “He beholds with a pleasant countenance all those who betake themselves in hope to his mercy.”
And now we come to the important matter of direction and destination and these we find in Psalm 56. “Blessed is the man whom thou dost choose and causeth to approach to thee.” A strong word this “causest,” and a strong work it has to perform. The world, the flesh and the devil united in their strongest effort, and in their deepest depths of cunning must fail before God when he causest a man to approach him. By promise, by threat, by allurement, here a little, there a little, the Lord causest the man to rise and to move forward. Many offers of false peace meet him, he may turn aside and linger hopefully among them for a time, but he is caused to move on. The sure direction is “to thee.” This corresponds to the drawing of the Father to his Son recorded in the New Testament.
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” yet he is caused to approach to God. “God is a consuming fire,” yet it is to him a sinner must go. He learns the good news. Christ who is God has been set up as representing the Trinity in his reception of sinners. There needs to be no fear in meeting with him who by his death removed all that a sinner needs fear from an angry God. Christ is God, but he is no consuming fire to sinners, since he himself is that fire of love which many waters cannot quench. By giving himself to be consumed of it, he has taken away the fire. The fire of love remains, a cleansing fire, no longer a consuming one. His hands carry no sword, they are weighted down with grace and truth, and are stretched to bless. “To thee” caused to come to the God against whom we have sinned. The agony of that heart which was melted like wax from sin, must be met by the sinner’s agonising confession “against thee and thee only have I sinned.” Here pride receives the supreme blow. From the God of deserved wrath he must seek and obtain undeserved mercy. “To thee”—this is the sure direction the man is caused to take. In Adam he went away from God, now under the grace of the Gospel his return is to God in Christ. The same God, but the man on a new footing.
Let us now look at the man’s destination. It is “To thee,” “whose delights were with the sons of men before the world was.” To thee, who from eternity has been set up as representing the Godhead for the reception of sinners. To thee, “a just God and a Saviour; to God our Saviour.” To thee, who art seated upon a throne which at one and the same time is a throne of God’s highest glory, and the fount of all grace for poor sinners. The bruised and the wounded sinner is drawn by the Father to him who is the Father’s equal and fellow, the express image of his person. Emmanuel who was wounded for our sins, bruised for our iniquities. His destination is to the feet that came over mountains to reach him, to the hands that reached to Hell to deliver him, to the heart that having loved loves to the end. Atonement reaches its full end only when it arrives here. “He was raised for our justification.” In the same way effectual calling only reaches its end when justification is attained. “Whom he called he justified.” To thee, to Christ through whom a just God justifies the ungodly that believe in him.
There is no other place where justification is bestowed save at the feet of Christ. The drawing of the Father is to no other person; to Christ only. The purpose of the Father in drawing to this one person is to accomplish this one thing, the man’s justification. The man so drawn knows that it is useless to go anywhere else for this blessing, and he knows that Christ is the end of his quest as Christ is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” No need ever to go past him. There has been nothing fortuitous in this meeting. The cross ends in the presentation of Christ’s propitiation which holds in its bosom God’s justification. The call, the guileless and humbling confession, the broken and helpless approach of the invincible “causing” has its end in Christ, the lone fount of justification. The man comes with cries and prayers which God alone can teach him, he comes to the meeting place where God has appointed his Son to meet him. They meet; a holy, just, pure God and a hitherto condemned sinner, on the one ground where such a meeting is possible—ground consecrated by the solitary dignity of the blood of Christ. Every inch of ground here has a voice for one witness only. It may take different forms in different cases, but all signify the one same blessing, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”
Faith may be dim, and a man’s exercise of it may fluctuate very much, but as Christ is the object such faith cannot be but sound. It is only a wrong object that can support a wrong faith. “Faith in Christ is a grace whereby we receive and rest on him alone for salvation as he is offered in the Gospel.” This “alone” answers to both the direction and the destination of the Father’s drawing. In answer to the question, “How art thou righteous before God?” the Heidelberg Catechism answers—”Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; inasmuch that, if my conscience accuse me that I have grievously transgressed against all the commands of God, nor have kept any one of them and moreover, am still prone to evil; yet notwithstanding the full and perfect righteousness and holiness of Christ is imputed to me, without any merit of mine, of the mere mercy of God, even as if I had never committed any sin, or as if no spot at all did cleave to me, yea as if I myself had perfectly performed that obedience which Christ fulfilled for me, if I only accept such benefit with a believing heart.” Faith, rest, belief—looking to Jesus and believing the testimony the Father has given of him, “This is my beloved son, hear ye him, the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sin, hear him, full of grace and truth.” Believing this, rest in the testimony that in so believing you have set your seal that God is true.
It is worth while noting that believing and resting are expressions which seem to emphasize faith in its more passive moods, and as our souls are for the most part active, our peace drawn from these expressions is often broken. Because of this, many of us draw most comfort from those examples in Scripture that show faith in active exercise. I think this is especially true when we find faith revealed as a “fleeing.” “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous flee into it and are safe.” “I flee to thee to cover me.” “By faith Noah moved with fear prepared an ark.” “Who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.” In a sense Israel’s dwelling under the blood token was a fleeing and a resting—a fleeing to God’s appointed refuge, and a resting under his token. Even in the most intense fleeing, there is a great amount of resting. The refuge and all its particulars of safety are matters of belief, and grounds of hopeful rest and activity.
While we flee to Christ for mercy, for the shelter of his blood, for righteousness, for atonement, for washing, and flee to him as the way and the door into salvation, we carry the faith of God’s elect in so fleeing. In the great matter of justification, it is where God finds us sheltering that is the important thing. Having fled to Christ, He gives us entry into “this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” This entrance he affords to us in virtue of his own merit and not for anything in us or done by us. Within this “grace wherein we stand” there is nothing of human merit or demerit, there can be neither, since this gracious standing is already filled to infinite measure with the Divine fullness of “God our saviour.” It is in view of this fullness imputed to those within this gracious state that God pardons iniquity. With reverence let it be said, God will not impute sin because he cannot. Dwelling with Divine satisfaction in that work wherewith Christ glorified God in the highest, God proclaims forth comfort to all within this state, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” In his love and grace God brought about this “grace wherein we stand” so that he, as a “just God and a saviour,” might be in a position to pardon our sins; in his love and grace he brought us into this state so that we might be in a condition to receive his pardon. With holy and loving finality he assures us that there shall never be imputation of iniquities where already there has been the imputation of his Son’s work. He will not impute sin, since already sin has been imputed to His dear Son. It is as impossible that this man should suffer in a punitive way, as that Christ’s work should be insufficient and unacceptable to God. Blessed man indeed. How wonderful the grace that wrought for him, how wonderful the grace that wrought in him. How wonderful the grace that has infallibly secured a destiny so blessed—an unending state of justification. And be it remembered, that this is the man who in himself merited eternal condemnation, and that only. “Done in a day and wondered at forever,” is how Spurgeon speaks of it. “I know that what God doeth he doeth it forever, nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it, and God doeth it that men should fear before him.” The reasons why he may hope that never in a judicial way his iniquities shall be imputed to him are many, and the blessed Spirit being willing, we shall attempt to view some of them in a second paper.
There is one matter in connection with David’s personal justification which I doubt not supported David in his finding regarding the “blessed man.” It was while he was in enjoyment of all the blessings of a justified state that David sinned. David’s spiritual abode was at that time deep down in the hands of God’s loving kindness, and surrounded with all the securities and blessings of the covenant ordered in all things and sure. It was while he was in the privileged enjoyment of this “great goodness” reserved for God’s loved ones, that he thought on sin, planned his sin, and carried it out, and consequently his sin carried the particular aggravations arising from this gracious relationship. The unpardonable sin apart, the worst sins of the unreconciled seem light to David’s weighted guilt. Yet this was what David found. God, knowing his sin beforehand, having weighted it in all its heinousness, and having measured it down to its worst possible depths, he did not hesitate to include it in all the sins forgiven to David when he first became a child of God. Great though his sin was, it could not cancel his adoption, nor the justification which gave entry to his gracious relationship. God always knew that his servant would be guilty of this sin and judicially dealt with it beforehand. God cannot be tested by any, but in our minds we feel as if we do put him to a test at times; the outcome of David’s test on God’s work was that nowhere at any time did God so much as think of cancelling his justification. True, David had to suffer, had to confess, had to feel great shame before his generation, and had to forego the comfortable presence of God. Even great fear of having committed the unpardonable sin might have taken hold on him. Judgment, guilt, doubts, fears, shame, confusion, condemnation, gross darkness, despair—these were his grievous companions. Yet this was what he found. All that had happened on earth changed nothing of his in Heaven. God, his grace, David’s gracious relationship to him and all that that meant remained absolutely unchanged. While he lived the harrowing experiences of this period of his life would over and over again live with him, but one thing he would have no reasonable grounds to fear—that God in a legal way would impute this sin to him. In this, the all important aspect of the matter, God had finally dealt with it before ever it had been committed. Justification, the basis of it, God’s action in it and the love behind it all, has been put to proof in the court of human experience. The verdict was foreknown, but for poor humble sinners the proclamation of it is reassuring—”He will not impute sin.” No, should it be the sins of many Davids rolled into one, since God will not give resurrection to the question, the matter of justification will never arise. God will bring home sin on the soul, he will chastise it, and such chastisement may have a legal aspect to the man and to others, but human ignorance and frailty alone accounts for that. God will permit questions about the man’s justification to arise in his mind, but only that he may use these for the furtherance of his sanctification. Justification is past and all things about it are immutable in their nature.
Because his covenant relationship remained unbroken, the gifts of the covenant continued to come to David; faith, confession, humility and hope, and although in the exercise of these David might feel some measure of legality (and who can blame him if he did), yet in the conviction wrought in him God did not manifest one legal line upon his loving countenance. He went even further. By his Spirit, his free Spirit, he extended to David the greatest gift of all—the infallible knowledge that he would not impute this sin nor any sin. In his mind and conscience he would meet with his sin many times, but there was one place where he would not meet with it. He would not meet with it, nor it with him, before the judgment seat. No, it cannot come there. God had made an end of it everlastingly. Well might he count himself a blessed man. Thanks be to God that the blessedness of this man is exactly the same blessedness as that possessed by all who have made entry into “this grace where wherein we stand,” and as a sign of this sure blessing, “the blood shall be to you for a token to all such.”—Penuel.
When a Christian learns with Paul to “glory in the cross of the Lord Jesus,” he anticipates something of that triumphant pleasure which is felt by the redeemed in glory, in surveying their eternal reconciliation to God by the sacrifice of the Cross.—Rev. John Love, D.D., 1818.