SOME thirty years ago there went from Scotland to America a young man under deep religious impressions. He had been awakened to a sense of guilt, but could, by no means, find peace. And it was this he wanted.
His life was miserable. He carried about a conscience troubled, and a soul full of despair. He could look back on sins committed, and had to look forward to a judgment seat. All was bad behind, and all was dark ahead. He had committed sins against God, and God was to him unknown.
Such a state he could not endure, but sought relief therefrom by adopting the life of a missionary. Leaving his native land he sailed for America, taking along with him an immense supply of tracts, calculated to awaken and profit others, whilst, poor man, he was in spiritual darkness himself. He did not go saying, like Paul, “I am sure that when I come unto you, I shall come on the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ;” no, but with the hope that, in carrying a Gospel in which he did not fully rely for himself, he might, somehow, find peace through his labor for others.
He hoped to find peace through his works! A vain, but not uncommon, hope. Oh! what multitudes, both of men and women, enter upon a religious life, as they say, in order that thereby they may obtain rest of soul!
Reader, such a rest cannot be found in a “religious life.” Peace with God cannot be bought by our good works. It is not to be found in “the church,” in the monastery, or in the convent. It is not to be found in labors in the closet, or in labors in the shuns. It is not to be found in preaching to the heathen, or in ministering to the Christian.
Peace with God is found in none of these things. Yet this young man had the idea that, if only he went away, and labored for the conversion of others, he himself would, in like manner, by some unknown reflex action, be converted too.
It was a grand mistake! For, after doing all he could for some time, and feeling that he was “no better, but rather grew worse,” he returned to his native country; and, being in Edinburgh, he attended the meetings of a well-known evangelist, when he heard, and, through mercy, believed the truth, and found, there and then, by faith, what all his labors failed to give him. On the very first occasion of his hearing him, this servant of Christ read from the eighth chapter of Proverbs, verses 22-36, beginning with the words, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old; I was set up from everlasting, or ever the earth was.... When he prepared the heavens, I was there,” &c.
Suddenly stopping, the preacher looked round, and solemnly said, “Who is speaking here?” He repeated the question, still looking at his audience. Our friend supposed that he had heard some interruption, and wondered why no one responded to the preacher’s query.
But his wonder soon gave place to a very different feeling. After a pause the evangelist answered his own question by saying. “Christ is speaking here!” On hearing these words this deeply anxious auditor found peace with God, and his long weary years of seeking, and toil, and travel in quest of rest, came to a happy and final end. Faith came by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Now, what is there in the above passage to give such perfect peace to an anxious soul? It does not unfold the plan of salvation, nor expound the truths of the Gospel! No, but it speaks of Christ; it turns the eye and the mind on Him; and this is where the soul finds relief. Self-occupation, in all its forms, is misery; Christ-contemplation is joy and peace. “They looked unto him and were lightened” (Psa. 34:55They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. (Psalm 34:5)); or, as dear M’Cheyne used to say, “When I look around I am distracted; when I look within I am miserable; but when I look above I am happy.” A true and most blessed fact.
Well, if Proverbs 8 does not present such a foundation for soul-rest as we find, for instance, in Romans 8, yet it places Christ (in the form of Wisdom) brightly before us. It presents Him, in His own proper eternity, planning and executing creation in concert with God, just as we read in Genesis 1:2626And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26), “God said, Let us make man”―the blessed Godhead co-operating in this mighty work. Then Jesus could say, “I was there”! What a wonderful statement when we think of the depths of humiliation into which He came.
He who once sat wearied at the well of Sychar, and asked for a draft of its water, was, at the same time, He who, in view of the stretching of the heavens, and the founding of the earth, could truly say, “I was there”!
He combines in His own person infinite power and infinite grace; and whether in the exercise of the one, or the display of the other, it is always the same Wonderful Person. The Word of God may point Him out to us, in self-surrender under judgment for our sins on Calvary, or simply “speaking,” in the omnipotence of creatorial power, and “it stood fast”; but in each case, so widely different, it is the self-same Jesus. He who could say, in reference to creation, “I was there,” can say exactly the same as to the atoning work of Calvary. Man had nothing to do in creation, nor has he ought to do in atonement, save, indeed, committing the sins that formed the occasion for it. Both are the work of God―the one a work of power, the other of pure and absolute grace. We never placed a finger, or added a touch, to the work of creation; neither did we ask God to work in the grace that freely sent His Son, our blessed and willing Saviour.
And thus, as the glory of the Lord Jesus, “the wisdom of God,” was presented in the reading of Proverbs 8 to our friend, it pleased the Spirit of God to engage his mind with the all-sufficiency of Christ, and that in such a full and mighty way that the difficulties and anxieties of his busy, weary years were ended there then and forever. Yes, years of fruitless toil gave place to present and abiding satisfaction; and futile works, that had peace for their impossible object, made way for that divine and blessed peace from which works flow as the simple and sure effect. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” J. W. S.