One would have thought, after Adam had been turned out of paradise for transgression, that that would have been sufficient warning, but his firstborn became a murderer. We would have supposed that the flood which swept off the workers of iniquity would have repressed, for a time at least, by the terror of judgment, the outbreak of sin, but immediately afterward we find Noah getting drunk and Ham dishonoring his father. The devouring fire of Sinai, which made even Moses fear and quake, seemed sufficient to subdue the rebel heart and make it bow beneath God's hand, but the golden calf was the awful evidence that the heart of man was "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Again in Canaan a part of the world was tried to the utmost to be cultivated, but it would not do. A bad tree producing bad fruit was the only type by which God could set Israel forth (see Isa. 5). He might dig about it and fertilize it, but after all these efforts it could only bring forth more bad fruit. At last He said, "I have yet one son, perhaps they will reverence My son," but man preferred having the world for himself, and so crucified Jesus. Looking to His cross, Christ said, "Now is the judgment of this world." John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31).
At the crucifixion of Jesus, the veil was rent, and the holiest opened; what God was within the veil then shone out in all its fullness. When grace reveals this to me, I get confidence. I see God as holy and expecting holiness-true. But the peace of God is in knowing what He is to us, and not what we are to Him. He knows all the evil of our hearts. Nothing can be worse than the rejection of Jesus-man's hatred is shown out there, and God's love to the full. The wretched soldier (who, in the cowardly impotence of the consciousness that he could with impunity insult the meek and lowly Jesus, pierced His side with a spear) let out, in that disgraceful act, the water and the blood which was able to cleanse even such as he. Here God's heart was revealed-what He is to the sinner; and this is our salvation.