WHEN we think and speak of God as Creator, it is necessary to bear in mind that we are not now in the creation which He originally formed and pronounced to be good. On the contrary, the earth as we know it, is as it has become in consequence of the fall of Adam, and since God has personally retired from it, for He could no longer be where sin has entered, except to judge it. Man himself should also be regarded morally in these two states, in which creation has just been viewed, that is to say, unfallen as Adam was when first made, and fallen as he became through his own transgression. For example, “God created man in His own image;” but “Adam begat a son in his own likeness,” and this is where our ancestry commences. God as Creator, though no longer resting in the works of His hands, (having driven out the creature Adam, and closed the gates of Eden by the flaming sword,) yet exercises a general providence over all things, so that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge. This providence is consequently universal and permanent, though, in a special sense, it marked a relation between God and mankind in the world before the flood, till the earth was filled with violence and God swept it away. It was not till after the deluge, and the confusion of tongues at Babel that active government was introduced, consequent upon the state of corruption and violence which had come to its head in the world before the flood. Definitely, the calling out of one nation from all the existing nations of the earth, was the occasion of introducing a form of government into the midst of Israel, to which people, under Moses, God as Jehovah gave statutes and laws. Finally a theocracy was established, but with that nation alone of which David and Solomon were the representative kings. The conduct of men, which was so corrupt before the flood, became the object of God’s care, and was sought to be met in His goodness in these two ways. Man, or rather the Jew, was put under law as to his morals, and under statutes and judgments as to his political relations; whilst the administrative power necessary to maintain the majesty of Jehovah was conferred on such men as Moses, Aaron, Joshua, the prophets, and lastly the kings, and these in connection with Jerusalem, the city of the great God.
Conduct, however, instead of being elevated by these means, whether in the Jews individually or the nation relatively to the rest of the world and to God, became so corrupt that finally John the Baptist was sent to preach “the baptism of repentance” to the people of Israel, and to prepare the way of the Lord. This conduct, and their national disobedience, instead of being reached by conscience upon the testimony of John, or even of the Messiah Himself, and the nation (like Nineveh of old) brought by it to confession and repentance, only became active in the expression of growing enmity against the Baptist and the Lord. This enmity also reached its zenith in the betrayment and crucifixion of Christ, against whom “the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ: for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together.” (Acts 4) Rebellion against God, treachery towards Christ, false accusation, and a thousand other forms of wickedness, found their center and their object in the rejection of the Son of God, who had been sent in love as God’s grand resource of blessing to mankind; but they said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and seize upon His inheritance.” A particular and general state of society like this plainly showed the place and power of Satan over a fallen race, and that remedial measures were all short of the great necessity. Centers of influence among the Jews, seats of learning amidst the Greeks, and other influences in the then existing world, abundantly witness that, however educated and governed, man was estranged from God in the very springs of his nature. Even Jerusalem with the visible glory to accredit her, and the nation under the immediate cultivation of Jehovah, which should have been a testimony to “the living and true God” amidst the idolatrous Gentiles, were no better than the uncircumcised nations around them. “The strong man armed (Satan) kept his palace, and his goods were in peace;” moreover he was as now “the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.” The fitting occasion presented itself, and the devil headed the world’s rebellion by putting it into the heart of Judas to betray his Lord and Master by a kiss, and for thirty pieces of silver.
Conduct could be no longer a question as to its probable character. Men (Israel) had broken the law, and were nationally under its curse. Who could deliver them? One point of agreement had been found against Christ by Satan, the Jews and the Gentiles, all with one consent said, “Away with Him; not this man, but Barabbas.” Man was no longer merely a transgressor, but stood before God in the deeper dye of a betrayer, and murderer of the Prince of Life. What must God do in righteousness for His own Son? This is now the question before heaven, and earth, and hell! It is plain enough what Caiaphas and Pilate are doing with the elders and soldiers, but what is Christ likewise doing on the cross on behalf of these His enemies? Satan and men have one thought in common, and they have carried it out, alas! in killing the Lord. But have the Father and the Son no thought in common as to the cross? no purpose to bring out into light by which the craft of the devil and the wickedness of man is to be set aside, and that forever? Is there no “determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” which bursts in upon a benighted world, like the light of the morning, at the cross of Christ? Yes; for this same cross, which was the expression of human hatred, has become the witness of God’s love to sinners, even when confederated in such flagrant iniquity. The cross, which was the outlet of man’s enmity, is now the inlet of God’s grace; for what is Christ doing on it, and by means of it? He, though sacrificed and slain by wicked hands, “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” He has there taken the place of Substitute for the guilty, and bearing their punishment under the hand of God, cries, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” The judgment thus due to us has been borne by our Surety, and “by His stripes we are healed.” The blood of atonement is shed and accepted by God, so that He can be just, and the justifier of the ungodly who believe in Jesus. The veil of the temple is rent from the top to the bottom, and the sin which hitherto presented a barrier to God, unless He came forward to judge it in those who committed it, has been removed by the death of Him who has put sin away. Christ’s work on the cross has thus become the new ground of God’s present acting’s in unbounded grace; for He must reveal Himself to those on whose behalf Christ has suffered, according to the merit and claims of that very Christ who “was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.”
Salvation, a personal salvation for the sinner, has thus become the result of the work accomplished on the cross. It is not merely forgiveness or pardon, which leaves the man what he was, with the hope of doing something better, but ending in disappointment; on the contrary, the man is born again, born of God, not of the will of the flesh, so that if “any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away, &c., and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” The man (that is to say, the believer) is not what he was; it is not merely a question of conduct, like Moses and the law, but of his own state of being, a personal matter. A believer can therefore not only say that Christ has borne his transgressions in His own body on the tree (all that He did), but also that “He loved me, and gave Himself for me;” and this is a totally different matter―a redemption.
This redemption is not only by blood, the blood of Christ, but is established in life; “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life,” and this life is in His Son. Being one with Christ, the new Head of life―not the Adam life improved, but a new and divine life―we can, as the natural product, bring forth fruit unto God through the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us. Moreover, in the power of this new nature, as born of the Spirit, the believer overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil; and this is where true Christian conduct begins. “For me to live is Christ” is the character of a believer’s walk, the little while that he is waiting on earth for Jesus. The precious blood of Christ has put away all our sins; the sufferings and death of our Saviour have exhausted the judgment of God. This same Christ has brought in life, eternal life, and we have it in having Him; and by oneness with the Lord―where He now is in ascension glory―we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. The hope of being perfectly in the image of the Lord is before us, and of being not only like Him, but with Him, and of seeing Him as He is.
Redemption, therefore, is nothing less than our being delivered and taken out of the condition in which we personally were, as men in the flesh and children of Adam; and this redemption is into a new standing before God, in the life, and righteousness, and image of the second man, fruit of His travail and blood-shedding, and of the Father’s love. Redemption which thus changes us personally, takes us out of the sphere into which we were born, and in which we have lived below, and puts us into our proper place and home which the Lord is gone to prepare for us. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and be forever with Him. Christ, at the right hand of God, is the only real progress, and if any man knows this Christ as his Saviour, as the one who in love became the Substitute on the cross, he is pardoned, justified, and sealed now as an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. This is the only true advancement, and “there is no condemnation.”
As to all else it is in the wrong world where Christ is not, and into which the judgment of God is to be poured. In the meanwhile man walks in a vain show, battling with a thousand enemies that he knows are stronger than himself, and waiting only for the last and strongest of them, which is death. His breath is in his nostrils, and the moment it ceases all his thoughts perish. His wealth and honor cannot go with him, but he leaves them for one who comes after him; and who can tell (as Solomon says) whether it shall be a wise man or a fool? “Three score years and ten” have only brought him to a dead-lock, which, alas! has swallowed him up, and when the morning of resurrection for the unbeliever comes, and he stands before the great white throne, upon conduct―his own conduct―what can he say to God for one sin of a thousand? What can he say for refusing the voice which so often spoke to him from heaven? What can he say for refusing the blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin? A believer will never stand there; for the Lord his Saviour has borne his sins, and answered for them on the cross, by the judgment He then bore, and finally and forever put them away by the precious blood which He shed. “This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” The things that “were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Here is the only true attainment― “that I may know Him, and be found in Him;” and this is the only real progress―pressing on to the mark of our high calling which we have of God in Christ Jesus.