By:
Edited By Heyman Wreford
WHEN Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the law engraved on the two tables of stone, the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh to him, and he had to put a veil on his face. When he went in to God, he took the veil off.
But the Father sent the Son in perfect grace that we might live through Him, and that He might be the propitiation for our sins. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Hence there is no fear for the believer in presence of such love. Perfect love (and the love of God is perfect) casts out fear; for He who bore our sins is in His glory: and the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven bears witness, in the sin-bearer glorified on His throne, that our sins are gone and He who suffered for them is received up in glory. This attracts the heart more and more to contemplate Christ on high; and thereby is the christian spiritually transformed into the same image, before Christ comes when we shall be in a moment and forever conformed to His image even in body.
We wish no longer to be at a distance, like Israel; nor is a veil tolerable. We want and love to behold His glory in Christ’s face; for it was His love who did all and gave us all at all cost, though none so abhorred sin; and thus have we learned to abhor sin, most of all our own sins. The goodness that came down was wholly unlike man and truly divine. No sinner that drew near was too bad for Jesus to forgive and bless. But now redemption has so glorified God that He has raised up the crucified Saviour and given Him glory; that we might see in His glory the fullest proof of our sins gone, and of God’s righteousness justifying us, according to that heavenly witness to the efficacy of the cross.
Thus, instead of shrinking back through fear and an unpurged conscience, we are entitled by faith, and we in liberty and peace delight, to behold Him above, whose very glory on high testifies to His victory for us, and to our being made God’s righteousness in Him; and as He is ever before us, so is He graven on the fleshy tablets of the heart. W. K.