The Mystery of Sin.
“‘In the distant land of famine,
Craving with the swine to feed—
Oh, how bitter that awakening
To my sin, and shame, and need!
Dark and dreary all around me,
Now no more by sin beguiled,
I would go and seek toy Father,
Be a bondsman, not a child.
‘Yet a great way off He saw me,
Ran to kiss me as I came—
As I was my Father loved me,
Loved me in my sin and shame.
Then in bitter grief I told Him
Of the evil I had done,
Sinned in scorn of Him, my Father,
Was not meet to be His son.
‘But I know not if He listened,
For He spake not of my sin—
He within His house would have me,
Make me meet to enter in:
From the riches of His glory
Brought His costliest raiment forth,
Brought the ring that sealed His purpose,
Shoes to tread His golden courts.
‘Put them on me—robes of glory,
Spotless as the heavens above;
Not to meet my thoughts of fitness,
But His wondrous thoughts of love.
Then within His home He led me,
Brought me where the feast was spread,
Made me eat with Him my Father,
I, who begged for bondsman’s bread!
‘Not a suppliant at His gateway,
But a son within His home,
To the love, the joy, the singing,
To the glory I am come.
Gathered round that wondrous temple.
Filled with awe His angels see
Glory lighting up the Holiest,
In that glory Him and me.
‘There He dwells, in me rejoicing,
Love resplendent in His face―
There I dwell in Him rejoicing,
None but I can know His grace.
To that blessed inner chamber
Ground no other foot can tread―
He has brought the lost and found one,
Him who liveth and was dead.’
This the ransomed sinner’s story,
All the Father’s heart made known―
All His grace to me, the sinner,
Told by judgment on His Son.
Told by Him from depths of anguish,
All the Father’s love for me,
By the curse, the cross, the darkness,
Measuring what that love must be.”
For a time another question arose and perplexed this simple child of God. “On the one side,” she says, “I beheld the sinner, and saw that he deserved the wrath and the condemnation of God, and therefore needed an entire forgiveness. On the other side I beheld the fathomless ocean of the goodness and love of God, wherein no condemnation, no wrath could be. And how then are both to exist together?
“For it seemed to me that the loving eyes of God rested upon men who were sinful, as though sin were not.
“And I knew also that our gracious Lord, the Holy Ghost, who is the everlasting Life dwelling in our souls, guards and keeps us in His faithful love, and sheds abroad in our souls a blessed peace, and leads us into quiet resting-places, and conforms our hearts to the heart of God. So that goodness and mercy follow us, and in no other path does the Lord lead us through this changeful life here below. And I found daily in this loving God, no wrath, but an impossibility that He should be angry, or be aught else but love.
“How then can it be, that as I have been taught from my youth, and as I know in my own heart, that the condemnation of our sins is just; and that from the day that Adam sinned, till the day when we all enter into Heaven, sin besets us, and none of us are sinless.
“Yet I beheld with wonder, that the Lord our God sees no more sin upon us than if we were pure and holy as the angels in Heaven. And the thought of these two facts, so absolutely contrary the one to the other, pressed upon my reason, and troubled me unspeakably. And because of this my blindness, I had no rest in my mind from nameless fear.
“Then did I cry mightily from my innermost heart to God, and I said, ‘O Lord Jesus, Thou blessed One, how shall I be delivered from this questioning? Who will tell me and teach me what it is needful to know of that which so troubles me?’
“Then did our gracious Lord answer me, revealing to me the secret of His heart, and made me see, as it were in a picture in my mind, that which answered my questioning.”
The picture, described in words which here and there betray the imperfect teaching of those twilight days, is one which a believer now may recognize as an outline of the Gospel story so well known to his inmost heart. An outline dim and sometimes confused, but the old old story still, told to all the ages wince it was spoken by the lips of Christ; and even before those ages, told in prophecy and picture to the saints of God.
It was the picture of one in the form of a servant, clothed in a workman’s raiment—white, but torn—standing before his Lord, ready to do His will. And his Lord sat solemnly in rest and peace, and looked upon him in love and blessed gladness, and sent him forth to his labor, to do His behests. And the servant not only went, but ran, for he delighted to do the will of his Lord.
Then did it seem as though the servant had fallen in to a deep and awful pit, “and,” writes Julian, “I saw him sigh and groan, and lie in weakness and pain at the bottom of the pit. But I saw that his greatest sorrow was that he could no longer see the race of his Lord, who was yet so near him. And I saw that in him there was no sin, not a single fault for which he could be suffering thus. He was the same as when he stood before his Lord, ready to do His will with sweet delight. And I saw the eyes of his Lord; as before, bent upon him in tender love, and with yet an added love, as it were a new and marvelous love beyond the love that was at first. And it was as if the Lord spake and said, ‘Is it not reason that I reward My beloved servant for His pain and His dread, His hurt and His maim, and all His woe? And not only this, but falleth it not to Me to give Him a gift; that be better to Him, and more worshipful than His own healing should have been—or else methinketh I did Him no grace?’ And the lovely looking wherewith He looked on His servant continually, and namely, in His falling, methought it might melt our hearts for love, and break them with excess of joy. This fair looking showed of a medley which was marvelous to behold. The one was ruth and pity, the other joy and bliss. The joy and bliss passeth as far the ruth and pity as heaven is above earth: the pity was earthly, and the bliss heavenly.
“Then was my soul led on to a day yet to come, the day of the restitution of all things. And I saw how the Lord God rejoiced over the high and glorious rest into which He brings His servant in the fullness of His love. I saw that not only His great love, but His own honor and glory, made it needful that He should bestow a great reward upon His faithful servant. And that the fall into the dismal pit, and the darkness and sorrow, must be transformed into the highest glory, and into eternal gladness.
“Then did the Lord reveal to my heart the meaning of this picture. That the servant is none other than Christ the Son of God. And yet the servant is also Adam; that is to say, all men looked at as together one man only; and it is as though the Son said, ‘Lo, my Father, I stand before Thee in Adam’s kirtle.’ And as Adam fell into the pit of sin and judgment, so did the Lord Jesus fall into the pit of judgment (though not of sin), that He might bring forth Adam from the pit, in the person of those whom He saves, and whom He makes to be one with Himself.
“I saw that the goodness and righteousness we have is Christ our Lord, and that our weakness and blindness is from Adam. And in each one of those who are Christ’s are there these two opposites. But for them is the condemnation no more; for Christ has suffered it, having taken upon Himself our guilt and our judgment. Therefore can God our Father no more impute guilt to us, than He can impute it to His dear worthy Son Jesus Christ.
“Jesus was the servant who, before He came into the world, stood before His Father, ready to His will. His white raiment was His sinless flesh, but in suffering for our sin’s it was torn and rent; for He came at all costs to do the work of our redemption, for the glory of God His Father. And I saw that this work could not be finished short of His death, when he delivered up His Spirit into the Father’s hands; and therewith all the souls of men whom tie had redeemed from death.
“And this garment of flesh, which He took for us, was in His resurrection made new and glorious, and white, as no fuller on earth can whiten. Now standeth He no more before the Father in the form of a servant, but in His raiment of glory and of beauty, in the heavenly robes of state, with a crown upon His head radiant and beautiful.
“And it was shown to me that we are His glorious crown.
“The crown that is the joy of the Father, and the high honor of the Son, and the delight of the Holy Ghost, and the blessed joy of all the heavenly people, who behold it and worship. Thus sitteth He on the Father’s right hand; that is to say, in the highest nobleness of the Father’s joy. And now is God’s Son, the Bridegroom, in peace with His loved wife, which is the fair maiden of endless joy—and now sitteth He, very God and very Man, in His city in rest and in peace, in the gladness which His Father hath prepared for Him of endless purpose.
“And I saw that God rejoices that He is our Father. And that God the Son rejoices that He is our very Bridegroom, and that we are the bride He loveth. And Christ rejoices that we are His brethren, and Jesus rejoices that He is our Saviour. And therefore He desires that we also should rejoice, and praise Him, and thank Him, and sing to Him, and bless His holy Name forever and ever.
“We are a strange mixture whilst we live here below―a mingling of the sweet and the bitter. In us are the evil and the misery of Adam’s fall and death―and at the same time the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, dwells in us and we in Him.
“Thus did I see in the Lord sorrow and compassion for the misery of Adam—and also did I see in. Him the unspeakable glory, and the high dignity into which the children of Adam are brought through the suffering and death of the Son of God. Therefore can the Lord rejoice even over the fall of Adam, because the place of blessedness to which He raises us is higher far than the place from which Adam fell; and the riches of the glory are far greater than that which Adam lost.
“And thus we both mourn, that our sins caused our Lord’s bitter suffering; and we rejoice because of the unutterable love which His suffering unveils to our eyes. The dwelling of the ascended Christ is in the glory of God. And I verily understood that the tot,1 would have me know, that where the ascended Christ is, there is the birthplace and abiding-place of ail the souls whom He saves.
“For He is the pattern and the object; they are renewed in His image and for Him. Are we not then bound to rejoice with exceeding joy, that God dwells in us? But yet more are we bound to rejoice and be glad, that we dwell in Him. For this were we created, that we should be the holy temple wherein God abideth. And the abiding-place of our souls is the untreated God.
“It is high and heavenly knowledge to know that God dwells in us; but it is a higher and deeper knowledge to see and to know that we are created anew in Christ Jesus; and thus, being from Him and for Him, we dwell in God.
“Thus is Christ the Way, for in Him we are raised up to the place in Heaven into which He has entered. For I saw that Christ and all whom now He saves are one; and that in Himself He presents us and offers us up to God the Father. And the Father rejoices to accept the gift, and receives us into His joy, and presents us afresh as a gift of love to His Son Jesus Christ.”