Peace With God
“Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” He was reckoned righteous on the principle of faith. What gave character to his faith was divine—the word of God. “The word of the Lord came unto Abraham.....and he believed.” So when his faith was put to the test it was found to be divine. He offered up his only begotten, accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead. Here was simple faith, and divine. It was faith in “God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things that be not, as though they were.” He received promise of a seed innumerable as the stars of heaven when nature’s resources were at an end; he received promise of a son when he and Sarah were as good as dead, and he believed the word of the Lord. “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was reckoned to him for righteousness.” (Rom. 4)
But why was this written? Not for his sake alone, “but for us also, to whom it shall be reckoned, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead: who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.” Just here, however, there is an immense difference as to what “the word of the Lord” communicated to Abraham was, and what is presented to us by the same word. What Abraham received was a promise—something to be fulfilled by-and-by. What is presented to us is an accomplished fact. Of course Abraham’s faith rested in God, and so must ours; but with this difference, that his had to wait for fulfillment of the promise, while ours joyfully receives the word which announces the fulfillment as already accomplished. God promised, Abraham believed, and waited; now God has wrought, we believe, and rejoice.
And how blessedly God has wrought! Look at it! God spared not His Son, but gave Him up to be a sacrifice. The sacrifice has been offered, and the blood is on the mercy seat. The veil is rent, and the sinner can approach in virtue of the blood. But more, God has raised up from the dead the One who bore our sins. He delivered Him for our offenses, and in proof that our offenses have been canceled, He has raised Him for our justifying. All is accomplished. We do not await the fulfillment of a promise. We believe God’s testimony to a work which He Himself has accomplished, and accomplished for all who believe. Do you believe that Christ died for sinners? Do you believe that God raised Him again from the dead? Do these truths find a place in your heart? Be assured, then, that through Christ Jesus, you have found God as your Justifier. As truly as Christ’s death has canceled the guilt of His people, so truly His resurrection secures their justification; and “being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” If God has justified, the question of guilt cannot be raised again; it is settled forever. God says: a I will remember no more.” “ Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” (Rom. 4:7, 87Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 8Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. (Romans 4:7‑8).) “Will not impute!” What a word! Yet God has said it, that He will not impute sins to the believer, that He will not remember sins against them any more. The reason is plain. Our sins were all laid on Jesus; God laid them on Him; and He died, the Just for the unjust, to put these sins away. His blood which puts them away speaks on the mercy-seat. God sees the blood. Guilt for the believer He sees no more. He sees only the blood that put it away. With this He is satisfied. And if He is satisfied, why should not I be satisfied? Every claim of His holy nature has been met. He says, It is enough, and in proof has raised up Christ for our justification. He is just, and the Justifier. I believe in Jesus; I believe He died for me, a poor sinner. But more, I believe God gave Him for me, and laid my sins on Him when He hung on the tree, and because of my sins God brought Him down into the dust of death. What is the result? My sins are gone. God has dealt with them in righteousness in the person of my Substitute, and they are put away forever. What is the proof? How do I know? The answer is simple. God has raised up from the dead His Son Jesus Christ who bore them, and His word, tells me I am justified. Once my conscience told me God was against me because I was a sinner. Now I know God is for me. In Christ He has shown me this. In Christ I have seen Him against my sins, but for me the sinner. He has dealt with my sins in unsparing judgment, and that judgment fell on His holy Lamb; but He has dealt with me, the sinner, in absolute grace, and has set me in His own presence in Christ according to divine righteousness where sin cannot be imputed. My sins He remembers no more—imputes no more. I cannot be charged with guilt, because the blood of my Redeemer is on the mercy seat, the witness of eternal redemption. There might be redemption in Israel by the blood of goats and calves for a year; but Christ by His blood has entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. (Heb. 9) Here, blessed be His name, my guilty conscience, weary with its burden, has found rest! It is purged forever! No burden of guilt to carry any more! No more dread of eternal judgment! The cup of judgment has been drained by another. The wrath which conscience dreaded has all been spent on Him who cried, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—the God whom I have found, and whom I now know, is a Savior-God. In His unclouded favor I stand, and into His blessed face I look, and gaze in perfect peace. Heavings and tossings there may have been fearful forebodings, dread of an angry God, and of judgment to come, but now the storm is hushed, the sky is bright, and all is peace. Peace has been made through the blood of Jesus’ cross. Glorious basis! The blood of the cross answers every question that can be raised as to God’s character, and on that basis God is reconciling sinners to Himself. God was the offended and injured One, not the sinner; and the sinner is the enemy, not God. God, therefore, was the One who needed satisfaction, not the sinner; and the sinner was the one who needed to be reconciled, not God. God Himself has provided satisfaction according to the requirements of His own nature, and has found it in the blood of the Sacrifice. His own heart provided, and His own hand led to the altar, and the holy fire of His own judgment consumed. And now God is the Reconciler, It is not war that He now announces, but peace. The message the gospel contains is a message of peace from the Reconciler, of guilty men; and the word is “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Thus the message runs. Blessed message to every one who knows himself a lost sinner and bows to the truth of God. Believing, we are justified; and “being justified by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Enemies afar off we were, but now reconciled and brought nigh. He who has done this is the One who gave His Son for us, and who by the blood of Jesus has cleared us of every charge, and justified us in righteousness. The distance gone, the enmity abolished, we are in the presence of Him who is Love; and this in divine righteousness. God’s own presence fills the scene. His peace, His love, eternal and divine, are shed on all around. Blessed scene! Reader, are you in it? If not, why not? God, whom you offended, has provided the satisfaction you could not make, and now He stoops to beseech. His call from the mercy seat is, “Be ye reconciled.” Do you refuse? Are you resolved on warfare? Does the message of peace find no response in your heart? Is your puny arm still raised against God? Well, you shall meet Him by-and-by, not in peace, but in judgment, Poor worm of the dust, “Prepare to meet thy God,” prepare for war with thy Creator. Alas! alas! poor blinded mortal! One look from His holy eye in that day will pierce you through and through! Oh! let me beseech you now by the mercies of God, by His infinite love and grace, by His patience and long-suffering, by the agony and bloody sweat, by the cross and passion, of His dear Son, be ye reconciled to God! Dear reader, the issues are eternal, eternal either in joy or sorrow, in heaven or hell. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
But do you say, “As a lost sinner, I know I have no hope of salvation except through Christ, but somehow I do not get this peace you speak of?” Well, why do you not get it? Perhaps you think you have some condition to fulfill; or perhaps you are trying to get it by feeling it. This is all wrong. There is no meritorious condition to fulfill, and it is not gotten by feeling. Do you believe that God has found satisfaction in the sacrifice of Christ? Do you believe that God raised Him up from the dead? You say, “Yes.” Well, how do you know? By fulfilling some condition? Or because you feel it? You say, “No, but because God’s word declares it.” Well, God’s word also declares that, on believing on Him who raised up Jesus from the dead, you are justified? How do you know, then, that you are justified? By feeling it? Certainly not; you cannot feel it, but you know it because God’s word declares it. Well, God’s word also declares that “being justified by faith we have peace with God,” and you know it simply because God’s word declares it. Faith receives the word of God, and there it rests with divine assurance, and the peace which the gospel announces fills the soul, And now let me lead you back to a little company that followed the Lord Jesus during His ministry in the flesh. Foolish they were, and slow to take in their Master’s thoughts, and words, and ways. Nor is it otherwise with man still. Well, Jesus set His face to go up to Jerusalem the last time; the cross is in His thoughts, and He speaks of this to them, but they understand not; and while He is on the way to that, they are thinking about the best place in the kingdom. He passes on with fixed purpose. Nothing can turn Him aside. In Gethsemane all the horrors of the cross are pressed upon His soul, and in His agony of prayer He sweats as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. The disciples all go fast asleep. A band of soldiers come to take Him, and He gives Himself into their hands. The disciples all run away. He goes to the cross, and dies, and is buried. All their hopes are buried with Him. Early in the morning, the first day of the week, the sepulcher is found empty. Angels announce His resurrection. He appears to Mary, to Peter, and to others. The news is spread abroad among the disciples, and all are filled with wonder. Up to this point all is darkness. They understand not the strange things that happened. You wonder, perhaps, at their stupidity. But such is man. Light and love had begun to shine in the Person of the Lord Jesus, yet He was straitened up to the time of the cross. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” The pent-up ocean of divine love could break forth, and flow unhindered only through the cross. It is in Jesus Christ, through the cross, that God has given the full revelation of Himself—Light and Love—to man. In the cross sin was judged, and God was glorified, and after the cross the darkness broke. If the earthly hopes of that little band were all blasted by the death of Christ, it was only that brighter hopes might soon dawn. If His resurrection was at first a cause of wonder to them, it was indeed life out of death to them, and the bringing in of a hope that cannot die. Let us follow them a little further. In the evening of the resurrection day they are all gathered together in an upper room, with bolted doors, and as one and another tell what they have seen and heard, He appears in the midst of them. And now, as all eyes are turned upon Him, He greets them with these blessed words—words never uttered before, and now uttered as the fruit of His blood shedding on the cross—“peace be unto you.” And then (oh wondrous grace!) to confirm His words He shows them “His hands and his side.” Out of those hands, and out of that side, had flowed the blood by which He had made peace; and having made peace, He announces it as theirs, as soon as He is risen from the dead. Was ever anything more sweet and blessed than such grace as this on the part of the Lord Jesus in telling out the love of God to those He had drawn around Himself? Weak, foolish, halting, doubting, understanding nothing aright, what pains He took to lead them into the enjoyment of that peace which was the fruit of His blood shedding on the cross! “Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.”
And now, doubting one, put yourself in that little company in that upper room. Fix your eyes on Jesus in the midst, and listen to His assuring words, as He says to all around, “Peace be unto you.” His word to all such is the same now; and those hands and that side tell the same blessed story of peace to all who believe. Jesus has made peace, and now preaches it. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord; and there is gladness still for those who believe His blessed word. Oh! what gladness! Gladness in the presence of God, in a cloudless scene of light and love, where grace reigns through righteousness, and where divine love delights in those brought nigh through the blood of Jesus.
Α. Η. R.