When all the means which God had addressed to sinners for four thousand years, had failed in enabling them to leave their sinful condition; the Son of God came down from heaven, making no demand upon sinners, but to bestow upon them eternal life! The fault was not in the means God addressed to sinners; but the fault was that sinners could not use the means, and thus leave their sinful condition. For instance; the law was holy, just, and good, but it could not deliver the sinner. It found him a sinner, and told him not to be a sinner, and discovered his helpless state. There is nothing gives a poor bankrupt a keener sense of his ruin, than to demand a debt which he has not a farthing to meet. The very demand only gives him a keener sense of his misery. Then, when the Son of God came down from heaven, He did not accuse sinners for not having life, or for not being able to get life; but that they would not come to Him that they might get it from Him. “Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life,” is His charge.
God might have swept away all sinners in righteousness, but this would have only shown that He is righteous. God is love! Nobody knew this fully but His Son—He shared the feelings of the Father’s heart. “I’ll go down,” He says, as it were, “and I’ll do Thy tell the poor prodigals there below, that there is a home and a welcome for them in My Father’s heart!” Hence, we find that when He comes, He says it is the Father’s work—not merely the sinner’s work—that He came to do. The Father’s work was to remove the obstruction that hindered the love of God flowing out. That obstruction was SIN! God’s Lamb comes from God’s side to bear the inexorable judgment of a righteous God against sin, in order that God might be enabled to tell out all His mighty love to sinners, according to its own measure! He dies; and having put away sin, He rises again and communicates life to the sinner. Be does so by speaking words, in believing which they are saved. Those who receive His words pass from death to life—those who do not receive His words, He judges by and bye; and when He does, “no man living shall be justified.”
Now, the Lord stands in one or other of these two relationships to every soul—to my reader, as his eyes scan these words. Either as a Quickener or a Judge! What a momentous question then is this. “In which of these relations does He stand to me?”
As a Quickener, He works in company with the Father. God’s rest had been broken up after He created the world by sin. He has never rested since. Sin made God a worker to put it away. Hence, the Lord says, (John 5:1717But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. (John 5:17)) “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The Father and the Son are working together to this end.
As a Judge, He is alone! “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all should honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” The Father has not been outraged and spit upon in this world-the Son has. He has not been executed as a malefactor—the Son has. Therefore all judgment has been committed to Him. In a certain sense the Father does judge; while we are here. In “the time of our sojourning here,” we are the subjects of His scrutiny and judgment. (1 Peter 1:1717And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: (1 Peter 1:17)). Final judgment he has committed to the Son. He “hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.” (John 5:2727And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. (John 5:27)). He executes this alone! Blessed to know He does not judge now; if He did, none would be saved. “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” (Psa. 143:22And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. (Psalm 143:2)). People think the Judge of quick and dead will be corrupt, when they think to be let off when that solemn, appalling, inexorable judgment comes!
God presents His Son to us as the One who gives life to poor sinners. He does not charge them with not having life, or with not being able to get it; but He did not like that they should be lost, and He sent His Son to give them life. When we receive life from him, we pass out of the condition to which His judgment applies; “from death unto life.” Those who do not receive life from Him, He judges. The two things are as distinct as possible. He visits the world as One come to give life—dies and bears the sinner’s judgment—removes the barrier that sin had made to hinder and check the love of God. Rises again and communicates life. Speaking words whereby sinners might be saved. “These things say that ye might be saved.”
Now,—you cannot know Him in both these characters—a Saviour and a Judge. If I know him as a Saviour, I have escaped the judgment. If I must know Him as a Judge, I shall never know Him as a Saviour. The time for salvation and grace will then—have passed away forever.
Here, then, is the wondrous blessedness and simplicity of grace, by which I may know with divine certainty, that I have escaped the judgment and possess the life. Not a hope of the life. I cannot, dare not hope that Christ spoke the truth. I cannot hope that He has come to die. I may, as a Christian, hope for grace every day, and for glory by and bye, but I cannot hope for life, for this would be to hope that Christ speaks the truth when He says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)).
In the beginning of John 5, we have a case which illustrates this blessed life-giving work of the Son. A poor paralytic lay for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda, waiting for strength to use the means which were there-the healing virtues of the waters. Jesus came to this poor man—not looking for strength in him. The remedy lay beside him, but he had no strength to avail himself of its healing power. The remedy was of no use, because he had no strength to avail himself of it. Like the law—if sinners could have used it—well. But sin had deprived them of righteousness, which it demanded, and of strength to use it. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3)). The Law could only condemn the sinner. Grace comes in; God sends His Son a sacrifice for sin, and condemns the sin, and delivers the sinner!
Jesus comes to this poor man and says, “Wilt thou be made whole?” Not, “Have you strength?” but “Have you the desire?” It was not asking him to do anything; but, “Have you the desire to be made whole by another?” Now he had the desire; and even this is a great mercy. Many a sinner if asked had he the desire, really has no desire to be saved. There is no moral connection between them and heaven. If they were asked, would they go to heaven today? they would answer, No! The way they would like to go to heaven would be, to go to the good place in preference to the bad place when they die; but not now. No, they would stay out of it as long as they can, that is the way they would go. Heaven is an atmosphere in which they are not at home. There is no desire in such for change. They are morally paralyzed!
With this poor man there was the desire, and the Lord comes to him, and makes him feel his impotency—brings out the fact that to will was present with him; although, how to perform that which is good, he found not. “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming another steppeth down before me.” It was not, “Sir, I am not able to get in;” but, “Sir, I have no man to put me in.”
Now, there are many who look for strength in themselves to lay hold of Christ’s work. They know his work is perfect, and the very thing they need, but they are searching within themselves for power to apply it to themselves. Searching if they have got the right kind of faith; or looking to feel it. They must learn that the work of Christ applies to the ungodly state of a sinner, and when he has no strength to avail himself of it. God applies the work of Christ to us when we are without strength. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom. 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)).
We find a soul in this state in Rom. 7. There is the desire for deliverance there; and that desire is perfect misery. It is not a desire to go to heaven— “to depart and to be with Christ” but to be delivered from a body of sin and death. It passes through very deep exercises and discoveries. Useful ones too; till it learns, not only that there is no good in it, or even a hope of good; a much deeper thing than to learn, “I have sinned;” but a great deal of evil; and that it never can either deliver itself, or lay hold of Christ’s work for deliverance. It discovers, at length, that it must have a deliverer-some one to pull it out of the mire. Suppose I am floundering in a deep ditch, every plunge putting me deeper, and some one comes and pulls me out; that is not pulling myself out, or saving myself. It is all the difference in the world between my working my own way out of a sinful condition, up to God; and God coming down to deliver me! This is what Christ has done!
Are there those whom I address who hare a desire for change? The desire is present misery; yet it is a mercy the desire is there; they are not morally paralyzed—dead.
If so, it is of God, and a real mercy. If you want to work for deliverance, it won’t do. You would thus turn Christ out of a Saviour into a Judge. If I want to work, I deny Him as a Saviour; but if I have learned that He has come to work for me—to give life to the dead—to save the lost—I have passed from death to life!
If I have life from Him, I have learned Him as a Saviour, and He wont judge what He has done. To be sure, I must be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. But, how do I go there? Why, as the Judge Himself. He has come and fetched mo there, so that I have “boldness in the day of judgment.”
Fellow sinners—In what way do you know Him? As a Quickener or a Judge? Be assured of this, that you must know Him one way or other; you are without excuse. If you have received His words you have life— “you hath he quickened who were dead.” “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” It has been applied to your souls now, and will be to your mortal bodies, by and bye. “Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” There is no confusion here. There is a life resurrection and a judgment resurrection.
Have you then received His words? If so, you have escaped the judgment. He does not judge His own quickening work in you—you have “passed from death unto life!”
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