The difference, beloved, between God’s dealings in Old Testament times, and God’s dealings since the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, ought to be very simply and clearly in our minds.
He took up a people in Israel—took them up for time; volunteered, if I may use the expression, to be their God and King: made a tabernacle among them, and took a land for Himself. But man, in Old Testament times, failed entirely, while God’s purpose was to reveal Himself, and not only to reveal Himself, but to reveal Himself emphatically in a way that would tell man that he (man) was a sinner and nothing but a shiner in himself, an enemy to God in himself, found by God, and found in darkness—under the power of darkness.
Now, if we examine that question as bearing upon man, whether we take scriptural witnesses to try it by, or our own selves, as to what we were before the gospel reached our hearts, we find the same answer.
Saul of Tarsus was, I suppose we may say, one of the most remarkable men that ever lived on earth, if not the most remarkable, excepting Daniel. And his thought was that he could patronize God, and bring the energy of his character to help God in blotting the name of the Nazarene off the earth—a lie leading him—when the Lord, in gentleness, spoke to him from on high. And O what a discovery was made to his soul of the error he had been under, and the wrong estimate he had of himself!
If I put it home to you now, unless you can say you know the salvation of the Lord, and have known it from your infancy—quite possible with many—you will grant me that when you look at what you were in nature, it is not natural to the human mind (was not, and is not) to begin with God, and with God dealing in blessing with man a rebel against Himself. And even when some right thought may have got into the mind the difficulty is to take the place of saying, I am in nature prejudiced against God. What I want is reconciliation, my heart brought round to let God have the place belonging to Him, and to let Him act on the ground of His own glory, and of His own nature, and to admit that all in me, as descended from the first Adam, is ruined; that the only thing I have to give Him will just be my sins, whether of action, or of mind, or of heart, in alienation from Him.
A passage in 2 Cor. 4 gives us a very simple declaration on God’s part about that, and shows what the gospel was, as stated by the apostle himself, and what the effect was on his own heart as an illustration of the power of it. There had been gross darkness covering these Corinthians, and he uses no soft language with regard to it, and attributes it to connection with him, as it really was, who was the “god of this world,” and had blinding power over their heart and mind—their hearts estranged from God.
But before he presented the word to them God had done a great work; He had sent His Son into the world! That Son had stood in the land of Israel in the time of its desolation, when it was full of devils, lepers, sickness beyond measure, want of bread—their faces ground down by the Romans, the kingdom broken up into tetrarchies, and all the glory of God’s kingdom, as set up in the time of Solomon, frittered away. The Lord stood there with the great thought whether Israel could be reconciled. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” Was it reconciled? Were the Jews reconciled? Were the Gentiles reconciled? No; all was utterly powerless to bring about reconciliation. He was refused—went down to death—was raised again and taken to heaven, and then the wonderful work of God causes His glory that was in that Person to shine down into the heart of Saul, dispelling all the darkness, and giving him to know the unsearchableness of God’s ways.
But God had done this work in contrast to Saul in his wisdom; the Jews, in their wisdom, could not get the grasp of the mind of God, but God could find the opportunity of showing forth what a God He was. Man in utter ruins, and God then comes in to show the “exceeding riches of his grace.”
What was it which affected that in the heart of Saul, turning him into Paul? Just what is here in the end of this fifth chapter, and eighteenth verse— “He hath reconciled us to himself, and committed to us the ministry of reconciliation.”
To what extent does this need of reconciliation go? Israel thought they had got a few outside things to do; and that was all. To what extent is the need of this? I am within the compass of the truth in saying that the first thing is, there is enmity of heart against the Person of God, and dark suspicion of mind against Him. Where is the rest of your hearts, who are believers, found now, but in the thought that God has done a work for His own glory through the Person of His Son, in connection with the sin of the sinner, and that you bless Him that His thoughts are not like man’s? Where has been the difficulty with many a young Christian? Just whether their mind gives to God the place God has taken as the Reconciler. If you have done so, the first person you begin with is God, and not yourself. What of all the doubts and uncertainties of badly taught Christians? They begin with themselves, and not with God, and think God requires some little thing, and put themselves in the place of being gods.
You find God always takes the initiative place in Scripture. Take Creation—no one advised Him to do it; nobody suggested to Him to put man in Eden—it pleased Him to do it. That which the Artificer produces becomes the expression of the Artificer.
When man had sinned, and the Deluge changed the face of the physical earth, who originated the thought of the rainbow, and that He would pledge Himself? Oh! what a reason! “Because man was a desperate sinner” —that there would be no Second Deluge, but that he would give fruitful seasons! What a reason! God chose to do what was right in His own eyes! and thus He chooses to send rain on the just and on the unjust! Look at all the vast control exercised by God that man attributes to chance. Who is governing everything? Who is the One who removes kings? Who put up Nebuchadnezzar and removed him, and settled the dynasties, in Daniel? Without Him not one sparrow falls to the ground; the hairs of the heads of His people are numbered; there is a specialty of government connected with everything. Why? Because He is God; and the ways of God to all, will be seen to be to His own praise and glory.
Ah! but, says man, this question of salvation. Well, what about this question? I can more easily create another earth and another heaven than touch the question of the salvation of my ruined soul, ruined body, and ruined mind.
Set to work and create a new heaven; form a covenant with it, and rule it all to perfection, and then I will come and see what you will do as to salvation!
Nebuchadnezzar, a poor maniac taken from kingly power, turned out and wandering like a beast, was a feeble picture of what man is, whose heart has got away from God.
Go back to Eden and see how the works stand out. Adam is giving the credit to himself of being able to match God. “Adam, where art thou?” said the voice in the cool of the evening. Where was Adam? Hiding himself under a bush. Is that your answer to the God that knows everything? Is that your hiding-place? Why, God is under the bush too! What was that which hung about poor Adam in that day?” He had made himself an apron, but not one that God thought a good one—not one—of God’s ordering. God did make him a coat afterward.
Oh, the utter delusion sin brings in! Putting God down as nobody; man’s back turned to Him, giving himself credit as a creature—there was the enmity of Adam against God. Enmity? Yes. The thought of God was, nothing good could come from any save Himself. He did not care how largely He gave; no creature mind can measure the expression of His love.
The serpent’s suggestion was, God is niggardly! He kept from them the knowledge of good and evil, for it would be their destruction. Was that out of niggardliness of heart? Nay. He gave His only Son! That is one answer, and that Son gave Himself for us; there is another. There is no narrowness in God.
Till the soul has said we must begin with God, we do not know what He has done.
When Paul came to press this same reconciliation on man, he shows that God will not accredit the ways of man. His thought is to bring man, who had been a rebel, close to Him in glory, with a conscience unsullied in the brightness of the light of that glory. This must be God’s doing. What was the point of Paul’s argument with these Corinthians? What was the base of it all? Why the most stupendous thing which put God in a light that makes everybody that knows Him admit that they had no idea at all of the sort of person God is; for “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might become God’s righteousness in him.”
There are two statements then; one as to what God has done. The other, the object with which He has done it. What does the human mind think of that statement? I have had to meet the infidel mind, and find the feelings of human nature cannot account for that statement. Where is justice in the statement that One who was sinless and knew no sin should be made a sin-bearer-where? In that description you give of Him bearing sin, how is it possible to transfer from one to another the judgment?
How do I meet that question, beloved friends? Simply thus—He has said, “My thoughts are not as your thoughts!” You do not like, poor sinner, to have nothing to give Me but your sins. You would give Me some of your substance—a little toil—but to give your sinful self as something entirely lost, you do not like. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” You do not believe that I would take such a thing as that. It is the only thing I can take, stamping reality on Myself and on you. You are a sinner, and are ruined, and if you give yourself to Me as a sinner, I am not ruined, and 1 have got resources. If you can blend your ruin with My glory you will find resources in Me by which I can fully meet your need! Would a poor prisoner in the dock call in question the justice of a free pardon? The justice, whatever it may be, when the royal prerogative of mercy is exercised. Do not talk about justice.
The mind of a simple Christian that knows God as the God of truth accepts it, and His word is, “Let God be true and every man a liar.” I will just go in on this, that I am not competent to form one idea of what He can do or what He cannot. He has said it and He will make it good, if He has not done so already!
Ah! but He has made it good— “the cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it,” tells me this. Did He drink the bitter portion as due to Himself? God forbid a thought so foolish; the One who did drink the cup was perfect, and His perfection was never so bright as on the cross with the light of God’s countenance hidden from Him. Whose sins did He bear? Would the believer give it to the Jews, and say He bore their sins? Faith says they are mine; and if there had not been a single one on earth to be reconciled, turned, and brought to God to have all their sins blotted out except myself, He must have died for me or I could not be saved.
The apostle looks at that in all simplicity. It discovered to him just where the ruin was stamped on all connected with him, and brought him to see that God was God, and when He acts He acts according to His own character. He knows no one can touch this question but Himself. The sinner acts in his character and thinks he can do something. God acts in His character.
But what was wanting in connection with this question of sin-bearing? Someone who could take and bear all the wrath that God would think right should be borne. Where could such be found? But One has done it. “He made him who knew no sin”—not merely Him who did no sin—but who knew no sin, and was holy, harmless, undefiled; He made Him the sin-bearer on the cross.
I do not receive a thing because reason can raise me to the level of it, but I receive it as the revelation of what God did, and as the exposition of His glory and of His thoughts of me as a sinner, and of what sin was in His presence. Is it not right when we look at that, that the mind should see and the heart understand that the human mind never could have had an idea of what sin was after that fashion? If I look upon Him as man, God was well pleased with Him. When I see Him forsaken all the time He was the sin-bearer, I get the measure of what sin is in God’s sight that nothing else could give me an idea of.
If I look at the wicked, the miseries of heart of those not reconciled, ever learning in hell what sin is, and yet never having learned it—at the judgment to come—and I know what it is to tremble at the thought of eternal fire—when I turn round to the cross I find there God manifest in the flesh, the One who is to be the Judge of quick and dead, taking the place of drinking the cup of wrath, and the light of God’s countenance hidden from Him, and hear Him say, “It is finished,” the burden has been borne; it is finished, my heart has rest there!
Now turn to the second thing—a wonderful thing— “that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” What do you understand by Paul being the righteousness of God in Christ, of these Corinthians being the righteousness of God, of myself and every believer now being the righteousness of God in Christ? Just the contrast between God’s action towards the Son of His love when on the cross, and His conduct to a poor sinner that draws near to God.
God gave to His Son to drink the cup of wrath that mercy’s path might be opened by Him without any compromise, that you in Jerusalem who have dipped your hands in His blood, that everyone who believes in Him may receive forgiveness of sins. His name is a pass for you out of enmity into God’s favor, and into a welcome which it belongs to God to give.
The question is of being reconciled to God. Oh! to have that brought before one simply. Is God to have His own place? He has taken a place and will keep it, and I cannot help it; then let me give it to Him. Will God humble me, stain my pride? Yes, many a high-minded character has refused to go to Him through the blood of Christ, as did. To go through the blood of another stains the pride of one’s heart. It is a dire necessity. But it is better to go to heaven through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, than to hell without it! Better bow and to go to heaven, where God will give you all His delights, than to hell, where all is misery and anguish.
Neither does the grace stop without working in the heart something of astonishment and wonder that God’s Son could come when we were without strength—come to seek the lost—those whom He could turn to His glory. Even the judgment of sin shows out His character. Is that the character of the Son of God, sending His word first to Jerusalem, where He was murdered? He never got more glory at a moment than at Pentecost, where mercy was shown to so m any.
The heart surely says, well, I will go after Him. Then you must give up self! That Lord Jesus Christ who left the throne for me—who died for me. He is the Master I choose, the One to whom I go.
Let me call your attention to reconciliation. Paul saw the judgment-seat of Christ—not the great white throne where. the wicked will stand—and the question comes out, what is it to the Christian? A question of blessedness. We pass into the family of God, where judgment is exercised. Would I not like to have God’s judgment exercised upon me now? Is His love such that He will point out to His child what is inconsistent? Would you not like it? Would you like to have nothing more to say to Christ after He saves you until you meet Him in Glory? Or would you like to have Him to keep company with you all through the wilderness? Paul looked for his whole life to pass between Him and the Master. Was there any disturbance to his soul? Not the least. In my little course on earth there are truths and difficulties which I cannot read; surely I should like to have the thoughts of the Lord as to them.
Now turn to the eleventh verse. Are you made manifest as to what you were by nature and what you are now? Paul says he had been so. What is my estimate of myself as to what I am in nature? —Awful! But blessed be His name, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ— “crucified together, dead together, buried together,” is what faith bows to as God’s grace in connection with everything of the old thing.
Come now to this verse— “If any man be in Christ (he is) a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all things are of God, who path reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”-a new creation! “Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” (Eph. 2:1010For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10).) Could the heart that is of this new creation, and so connected with Christ, not make manifest this new creation?
One sweet thing more— “All things are of God.” Directly the heart has known that God has made him of that new creation there is intelligence to read God’s will in everything; a bright light shining behind the sorrows and the difficulties—all are of Him! Ah! if all the children of God knew the power of God in that. If “all things” are of Him, then what is apart from Him? Can you take up any trial and say, “There is no sweetness here?” No, all things are of Him!
I feel anxious to get the souls I address to that point, to see what their understanding of God is—the glory of God, and the ways of God, expressed in this little sentence, “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”
I ask you to let this question go home to conscience and soul at the present; time. Are you living in the power of what God has done for His own glory, finding that you are reconciled to Him in His glary, by that marvelous expression of grace?