GOD has chosen three times to record in His own handwriting that which He wished man specially to notice. Once the finger of the mighty God traced the letters in the solid stone; a second time on the plaster of a king’s palace wall; a third time in the drifting sand. We hear of things written in heaven, but how solemn when God stoops to write on earth!
The Writing on Stone.
In Deuteronomy 9:10, God wrote on two tables of stone the law, “written with the finger of God.” God is holy; man is sinful, and has no righteousness of his own that will enable him to stand in the presence of a righteous God. If Israel of old wished for God’s favor, they must walk before Him in a way to obtain it. God therefore gave Israel the law, being a standard of what He required from man; so that Israel could now say — “It shall be OUR righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as He hath commanded us” (Deut. 6:25). Yes, “if.” No one but the man Christ Jesus ever attained to that, or ever could.
The law stated plainly what God expected of man, but it gave no power to carry it out. What was “ordained unto life,” man found condemned him to death, for the law forbade just the very things the natural heart of man loves to do. Ahab coveted, and then took murdered Naboth’s vineyard. You, my reader, might not commit murder; but the law says “Thou shalt not covet” (Ex. 20:17), and that hits hard at the most moral of men.
Besides, the Lord Jesus shows that carrying out the law to the letter is not enough for God’s holy eyes, who searches the heart, for Matthew 5:21-28 shows that the desire of the heart for evil is as bad as the carrying of it out.
God wrote the law in stone, a type of its unbending, enduring claims on man. For though it finds man helpless to keep it, yet it abates not one jot of its claims. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). And Rom. 8:7 states, “The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
What purpose then was served by the law? Why did God give it if man could not keep it? Well, God knew that man would ever fail to keep it, but He wanted to bless sinful man. But man will not go to God as a helpless sinner, for he thinks there is still some good left in him, though God’s Word says, “In my flesh dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18). God therefore tested man by the law, though He Himself knew what the issue would be. Israel voluntarily accepted it; and before Moses came down from the mount with the tables of stone they had already broken the first command, — had made a calf to worship, though the awful proofs of God’s presence on Sinai stared them in the face!
To think man is any good after that is folly; yet, today, thousands in ignorance put themselves under the law, and promise to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, and break their promises daily, and so put themselves practically under the curse! The grace of God meets such cases, as it did in the days of Israel’s failure. Hence the law shows men their helplessness, and is meant to make them, already lost in God’s sight, lost in their own, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19,).
Perhaps my reader is trying to do something — seeking to please God by works. Give it up, for “through this man (Christ) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38,39). A tree must have life to bear fruit, so we must have life in Christ before works (our fruit) can be acceptable to God; “and eternal life is the gift of God” (Rom. 6:23).
And note, God does not present the law today to man to be obeyed as a means of obtaining righteousness. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 10:4; see also Rom. 8:2). Grace has come in, and given a command man can obey; for God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hath ordained (Acts 17:30, 31). It is not now something for man to do. He is called upon now to believe in something done for him. God has been glorified by Christ’s death, who made peace by the blood of His cross. It is the Gospel proclaiming this fact that God now offers to man.
My reader, if you have found the law (as all must) too holy for you to carry out, you dare not be indifferent to God’s claim on you respecting the Gospel. God is not mocked, for whosoever a man soweth that shall he also reap (Gal. 6:7). We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10). Then you need a Saviour. The Gospel presents Him. It says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). You must accept Christ, or be lost forever in the lake of fire. “For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3.)
The Writing on Plaster.
In Dan. 5:5, 24-27, again God writes, this time the sentence of judgment on a guilty king. On the plaster of the palace wall, over by the candlestick, where the light enabled all to see it, a hand was seen writing, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” No need to record that on stone; — on plaster, emblem of weakness and speedy decay, that awful sentence would stand as long as needed. “That night was Belshazzar slain.”
Babylon’s mighty city has long been blotted off the face of the earth; the plaster wall, with God’s handwriting on it, long ago decayed, its dust become the sport of desert winds. But your condemnation, my reader, if still unsaved, stands recorded on the pages of God’s own Word, which shall endure forever. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
Do you pride yourself that as yet you are not so bad as that? Listen again: “He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” As a man amongst men you may be morally perfect. But if you do not accept Christ as your Saviour, you are as much lost before God as the vilest wretch in hell. Belshazzar perished that night. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:20), may be your lot. Oh, flee to Christ, while it is still called (for you) the day of salvation. Christ died the just for the unjust. God’s holy claims are all met. He can “be just,” and yet be the “justifier of him that believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). Life or death, which will you have?
The Writing on the Ground.
In John 8:3-11 we behold God writing the third time. In the One stooping, to write on the ground, we see “God manifest in flesh.” The Jews had brought a woman to Him guilty of adultery. Moses said “that such should be stoned, but what sayest Thou?” they ask. The Lord from Sinai had given that command. Can He now say contrary to His own command through Moses? He is silent; He stoops, and writes on the ground. Scoffers say it was to gain time to think. Away with such satanic insinuations, as though man, a thing of dust, could put his Creator into a dilemma! His silence! oh, what a proof, even under law, of how slow to anger God was, that judgment was ever His strange work! At last He answers the Jews. “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her.”
If stone flinging is to begin, all round must be stoned. Again He writes on the ground. Writes what? Scripture says not what He wrote, but records what He said.
Christ is seen as God delighting in mercy. Did He then wink at sin, and annul His own laws? Nay, He had come to take “the guilty culprit’s place, and suffer in his stead.” He had not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. The Jews had made Him the judge in this case. I love to think that in that capacity, whilst He had written the law in stone, He wrote possibly the sentence of death on the ground where the next gust of wind could blow it away! A sentence no man was able to execute, and the Lord, alone qualified to do so, would not. He was going to die for such as she, and thus the law would be carried out. As a man who writes on the shore may see the waves wash it all away, so what the Lord wrote was never recorded, only the gracious words of forgiveness.
The waves of God’s awful judgment soon rolled over Him, and wrung from Him the cry, “All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over ME.”
My reader, are you convicted of sin, and do you find, like this woman, there is NO escape? Have you been brought into God’s presence about it as she was? Oh, listen to the words, “Neither do I condemn thee.” Oh what a God, to take such infinite pains to draw us to Himself!
Oh what a Saviour, in such wondrous pity and grace to love us so much as to die FOR us, in order that His precious blood might cleanse away our sins and fit us for His own presence throughout eternal ages!
My reader, will you not accept this Saviour now?
S. M’C.