WHO that has come to years of reflection, would like to see all the things that ever he or she did manifested in the light? Not one of us, not even the most upright, would be likely to desire such a thing — the most self-satisfied person would shrink from such a revelation.
It is rare to find a man ready to own as much as the well-known writer Mark Twain, who said in a letter that appeared in the weekly edition of the Times of 20th May 1899, with reference to a book he proposed to have printed after his death: “A man cannot tell the whole truth about himself even if convinced that what he writes will never be seen by others. I have personally satisfied myself of that, and have got others to test it also. You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it; you are too much ashamed; it is too disgusting. For that reason I confine myself to drawing the portraits of others.”
As the apostle Paul said when quoting a heathen poet, “This witness is true;” and we venture to quote the words of this well-known man, in a connection which he little suspected they would be used, because we believe it fairly expresses what a man knows himself to be in his inmost soul, whatever his outward appearance may be.
My reader probably knows that the words printed at the top of this page fell from the lips of the woman of Samaria (John 4), and they are not the result of looking at her life’s history written by her own hand, but the effect of being in the presence of Christ — the Truth. It is morally certain that none of us would dare write all the truth about ourselves, were we even to attempt it. He who says he would not object to another seeing all the things that ever he did, simply shows that he has never been honest with himself; but “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all”; and as surely as we live, so surely shall we have to face all the things that ever we did in one of two places — either in the presence of God in grace, or in the presence of God in judgment. What? —all the things! Yes! all. O God! what an unmasking that will be! If it is too disgusting to look at my private self, as I may know it, what will it be to look at it in the light of God, whose throne is the habitation of justice and judgment?
But what does this mean about facing all the things that ever we did before God in grace? That is just where the Samaritan was when in the presence of the Lord Jesus at Sychar’s well. Why does she say, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet”? Because her conscience was reached by the light, and she evidently felt where she was, when she said, “When Messias cometh, He will tell us all things.” She goes to her neighbors and townsfolk with that remarkable invitation, “Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did;” because she was unmasked, and consciously searched through and through in the presence of God.
That very One who was there, the Messias, the Christ of God, was on His way to the cross to make atonement for sin. In perfect grace and in fullest accord with the heart of God He was seeking sinners; necessarily bringing to light their state of sinfulness and ruin, not to condemn them, but to save and bless, in order that that black and awful category — this disgusting sight of all I have done, and said, and thought — should never come before God in judgment, to meet at His righteous hands their due reward, because they have been blotted out by the precious blood of Christ, that cleanseth from all sin. Look at this, dear reader—
Do you see how these things equal one another, so to speak?
“Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” says God, speaking from the mercy-seat, whereon is “the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.” Such is God’s way of expunging “all things that ever I did” from those infallible records — the books that shall be opened at the great white throne. They have met their judgment in the cross of Christ, and through faith in Him my soul is no longer afflicted with the haunting dread that I shall have to look at them in the light of God’s judgment-seat. They have been looked at, confessed, and judged, in the presence of perfect love, which provided a means of effectually and righteously delivering me from their guilt and power; and this is the portion of all that believe!
What a different story this is to the natural thought of our hearts, that God requires us to be something, or to do something, in order to merit His forgiveness and grace. Well might the Lord Jesus say, “If thou knewest the gift of God” —He Himself that gift of divine love, the only begotten Son whom God gave that we should not perish but have eternal life.
T. R.