THERE is, in John 3, a two-fold aspect of Christ presented to us, as the object of faith; through which we do not perish, but have everlasting life. As Son of man, He must be lifted up; as only-begotten Son of God, He is given by the infinite love of God.
Many souls stop at the first, the Son of man's meeting the necessity in which men stood as sinners before God, and do not look on to that infinite love of God which gave His only-begotten Son-the love which provided the needed Lamb, the true source of all this work of grace, which stamps on it its true character and effect, and without which it could not be.
Hence such souls have not true peace and liberty with God. Practically for them the love is only in Christ, and God remains a just and unbending Judge. They do not really know Him, the God of love, our Savior.
Others, alas! will make of it fatal error; false as to their own state and God's holiness; with no true or adequate sense of sin, they reject all true propitiation. The "must be lifted up " has no moral place for them, nothing that the conscience, with a true sense of sin, needs.
The former has one great defect of the Reformation, the other comes of modern infidelity, for such it really is. Alas! that defect of the Reformation, as a system of doctrine, is the habitual state of many sincere souls now. But it is sad. Righteousness may reign for them with hope; but it is not grace reigning through righteousness. I repeat, God is not known in His nature of love, nor indeed the present completeness of redemption.
The statement of John 3 begins with the need of man in view of what God is, as indeed it must be, but it gives as the source and result of it for the soul, its measure too in grace, that which was in the heart of God towards a ruined world. As in Heb. 10, to give us boldness to enter into the holiest, the origin is, " Lo! I come, to do thy will;" " by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." The offering was the means, but He was accomplishing the will of God in grace, and by the exercise of the same grace in which He came to do it; for " hereby know we love, that he laid down his life for us." So in Rom. 10, " God commends his love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It is summed up in the full saying; grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
We cannot present too simply the value of Christ's blood, and redemption and forgiveness through it, to the awakened sinner whom that love may have drawn to feel. His need; for by need, and because of need, the sinner must come-it is his only place before God. The love of God, and even His love announced in forgiveness through the work of Christ, may, through the power of the Holy Ghost, awaken the sense of need; still having the forgiveness is another thing. That love, brought home to the soul through grace, produces confidence, rest, peace; but it does produce confidence. Hence we come into the light. God is light and God is love.
Christ in the world was the light of the world, and He was there in divine love. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. When God reveals Himself He must be both light and love. The love draws and produces confidence, as with the woman in the city who was a sinner, the prodigal; Peter in the boat. The light shows us our sinfulness. We are before God according to the truth of what He is, and the truth of what we are. But the atonement does more than show this; it meets, and is the answer to our case when known. It is the ground through faith, of forgiveness and peace, (See Luke 7:47,5047Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. (Luke 7:47)
50And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:50).) Christ could anticipate His work, and the child of wisdom go in peace. The law may by grace reach the conscience and make us feel our guilt, but it does not reveal God in love. But that love has done what was needed for our sinful state-" Hereby perceive we love, because be laid down his life for us;" " who was delivered for our offenses;" "died for our sins according to the scriptures;" is " the propitiation for our sins;" " set forth as a mercy-seat
through faith in his blood;" which " cleanses us from all sin;" " with his stripes we are healed." 1 might multiply passages; I only now cite these, that the simple basis of the gospel in divine love on the one side, and on the other the work that love has brought to purge our sins, and withal our consciences, so that we may be in peace before a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity, may be simply and fully before us.
We must come as sinners to God, because we are sinners; and we can only come in virtue of that which, while it is the fruit of God's love, meets according to His holy nature the sins we are guilty of. But then, while it is true that our sins are removed far from us, who believe through grace, as they were carried into a land not inhabited by the scapegoat in Israel, yet we have only an imperfect view of the matter in seeing our sins put away. On the great day of atonement the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it, just as it was sprinkled on the, lintel and two door-posts to meet God's eye; " When I see the blood," He says, " I will pass over."
It was in view of the sin of Israel, but as presented to God, that the goat whose blood was shed on the great day of atonement, was called " Jehovah's lot." The blood was carried within; so it was with the bullock, and with the bullock it was exclusively this. The testimony was there, blessed be God, that as dwelling on the earth our sins have been carried of where none shall find them; but what characterized the day, was putting the blood on the mercy-seat-presenting it to God. On this day only, too, it was done. In the case of the sin of the congregation, or of the high priest, it was sprinkled on the altar outside the veil; but on the great day of atonement alone on the mercy-seat within. Now, though the sinner must come as guilty, and because of his need, and can come rightly in no other way, as the poor prodigal, and so many other actual cases, yet this does not reach to the full character of propitiation, or atonement, though in fact involving it; the divine glory and nature are in question.
In coming, we come by our need and wants: but if we have passed in through the veil, we can contemplate the work of Christ in peace, as viewed in connection with God's nature, though on our part referring to sin. The sins, thus, were carried away on the scapegoat, but what God is, was specially in view in the blood carried within the veil. The sins were totally and forever taken off the believers, and never found; but there was much more in that which did it, and much more even for us. God's character and nature were met in the atonement, and through this we have boldness to enter into the holiest. This distinction appears in the ordinary sacrifices. They were offered on the brazen altar, and the blood sprinkled there. Man's responsibility was the measure of what was required. His case was met as to guilt; but if he was to come to God-into His presence, he must be fit for the holiness of that presence.
Christ has not only borne our sins, but He has perfectly glorified God on the cross, and the veil is rent, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest. The blood, therefore, of the bullock or of the goat, which was Jehovah's lot, was brought into the holiest. The other goat was the people's lot; this Jehovah's. He was dishonored by sin; and Christ the Holy One was made sin for us, was before God according to what God was in His holy and righteous nature.
" Now," says the Lord, " is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him;" and man entered into the holiest, into heaven itself. Having glorified God in the very place of sin, as made it before God, He enters into that glory on high. Love to God His Father, and absolute obedience at all costs was perfected, when He stood as sin before God. All that God is was glorified here, and here only. His Majesty -it became Him to maintain His glory in the moral universe, and thus in bringing many sons to glory, that. He should make the Captain of our salvation, perfect through suffering-and His truth were made good; perfect righteous judgment against sin, yet perfect love to the sinner. Had God cut off man for sin, there was no love; had He simply forgiven and passed over all sins, there would have been no righteousness. People might have sinned on without its being any matter. There would have been no moral government. Man must have stayed away from God, and misery and allowed sin have had their fling; or he must have been admitted into God's presence in sin, and sin been allowed there; man incapable withal of enjoying God, and as sensible of good and evil, more miserable than ever. J. N. D.
(To be continued, the Lord willing.)