It is said that the Lord is the truth. He is “the way, the truth, and the life;” and in this character He brings out the true nature of all things in every respect. He brings out what God Himself is, and what man is, in perfection, and in sin too.
The words of the Lord here bring out what the reasonings of man really are. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” We find both in this chapter—truth in the first part of it, then the grace that came by Him; the truth as to what is in man’s heart, and the grace of God’s heart, as seen in the case of the poor Syrophenician woman. It is a great thing to have both together. God is love, that is part; but God is light. Suppose we separate them for a moment, man is unfit for God and heaven; so that it is an immense comfort that both are found together in Him.
There is nothing more striking than the two essential names of God which are thus brought together — “Love” and “Light.” The light breaks in upon our souls, and shows us what we are. If we are in the light, as He is in the light, light will only condemn us, if we have not the love with it. There is perfect light, that brings us just as we are into His presence, and then we find perfect love in Him! Our comfort is that the light does come, and reveal everything just as it stands; light makes everything manifest. Light and love being God’s very nature, you cannot separate them. If He reveals Himself as light, He reveals Himself as love; it is always the case. In all the details of a Christian’s life you must have both.
In many instances in Scripture you find the way light penetrates into the soul, and shows what man is, but always with attraction to the heart. Sometimes terror may predominate—there may be more of the light and less of the love apprehended; but the conscience must be reached—even for the Christian. He is accepted in the Beloved, and can say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psa. 139:2323Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: (Psalm 139:23)). You could not say that if there was a question of imputing sin to you. The prodigal finds that he is lost, but he is attracted to the Father— ‘I am not fit to be received, still I go.’
There is never a real work in a soul without a certain attractive power. It is the revelation of God to the soul. In the case of the poor woman of the city who was a sinner, light showed how dreadfully vile she was; still “she loved much.” The measure of light which shone into her soul is not separated from the measure of love; and while it breaks her to pieces, still it attracts her.
When the Lord brought the fish to Peter’s net (Luke 5), he knelt and said, “Depart from me.” Why, then, did he go up to Him? It was not terror; there was a sense of his sinfulness, still he is drawn to Him. “Fear not” is the answer of grace to it all.
When God is revealed to the soul there is nothing left in darkness. “The true light now shineth;” it manifests everything. If anything is not revealed now, it will have to come out at the day of judgment. But that will not do! If it is revealed now, and I am in the light as God is in the light, I am in the presence of love as much as of light. There is a perfect revelation of God. There is growth in the apprehension of it, of course; but both light and love do break in upon the soul. If conscience is not reached, all will fade away as the morning dew. On the one hand, conscience, thoroughly reached and brought into the light of God’s presence, and on the other hand, God’s love made known.
It is blessed that we are brought to God with everything brought out that we want to know. But then we must look to the cross. Jesus stood there before God, drinking the cup in grace that He had to drink for us. He was made sin for us. There we see full light shining out in judgment, and full love, not sparing His Son for us, to put the sin away. There you find the full revelation and expression of it.
In the Gospel there are two parts—one the revelation of God; the other, the work done by the Lord standing as Man for us on the cross. You find both in 2 Cor. 5:1818And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; (2 Corinthians 5:18)— “All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” He was down here reconciling the world to Himself; the world rejected Him in the character “not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Then he adds: “And hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation; now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ.” That is the second part. First, there is the revelation of God Himself, then the word of the Lord reconciling—not revealing sin—but Man standing before God in the One who drank that cup in grace to us. Here it is more the character of God, thus revealed, than the work. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” We have that righteousness.
In this chapter (Mark 7) the full truth comes out, first as to religious man—very religious man. He must not have a dirty hand. The things of this world defile. The condition of those who have this notion of cleansing comes out: the commandments are set aside by the traditions of men.
The commandments maintain in everything a positive relationship which God has established. You must have “no other gods but me,” and must “love your neighbor as yourself.” I need not go into each of them; but every relationship has been maintained in them. The summary is, “ Love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” Man has not fulfilled the law, there has been no real fulfillment of it. It is much easier to wash the hands than to wash the heart— “to bow down his head as a bulrush,” as Isaiah says (58:5). Man hides the state of his heart by all these things; it is not cleansed. “In vain do they worship me,” while “the heart is far from me.” Light comes in and searches the religiousness of man, and pronounces complete contempt for it. Religiousness is the sign of hardness of heart.
Take it from the beginning. Cain is the expression of the religiousness of the world; he was just as religious as Abel, and his sacrifice cost him more than Abel’s. Cain was tilling the ground from which he was taken. Ought he not to worship God? Of course he ought, but ought often stands for nothing, There is another question. “What hast thou done?” and “Where art thou?” are very different. We should keep the commandments, of course; but that is not the real question; the question is not if the law is right, but if I am right. It is totally different. Abel says, I am all wrong; we have been turned out of Paradise, and if God meets me I am condemned. ‘His sacrifice was a thorough confession of sin, and that he could not come in himself. He came in the way God desired, and God testified of his gifts that he was righteous. But Cain says, He turned us yesterday out of Paradise, but I can come to Him.’ That is the very thing that is so awfully wicked. Of course, people ought to worship God; but the question is, Can they come? A sinner is not fit to go to God; and I have the conviction that I cannot go; but God has shown a way of infinite grace, and Abel found it.
There are two questions, What you are? and What you have done? The question to Adam was, “Where art thou?” and he ran away, knowing that he was naked. He says to Cain, “What hast thou done?” There there was positive sin. The real question for souls is, Who is able to come “There is none righteous, no not one.” Are you, reader, what you ought to be nay, who is?
It is bold—audacious, coming to God when you are not righteous. But God has appointed a place where He can meet us; there is a secret consciousness in souls that they are unfit to come to Him; and man invents a way to do a great deal—gives the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul. But all this cannot purify the conscience, there is a craving after purity. Man’s thought is trying to purify himself outwardly, because he is not pure inwardly. He knows there is a claim he has not met, and cannot meet. There is incessant toil in “washing pots and cups;” there is pain and sorrow which owns the sin, but never can get free from it, and the result is, “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.”
Then He calls all the people to make it plain to them (v. 14); that it is not what enters into a man that defiles him, but what comes out. Then I get another part of the truth; the heart of man in itself is detected. You are full of religiousness; but look what comes out. Then he gives a terrible list (vv. 21, 22). All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. What about the good? Not one word from the Lord—not a single word. He had nothing to say.
You may be affectionate; you may have an amiable nature, or a cross nature, like an animal; but there is no good thing in the flesh. Man is a judged creature. It is needful to get hold of what man is. Man will set up man, but God has pronounced his judgment.
I do not deny man’s cleverness any more than his natural affection. Suppose I had invented the finest telegraph in the world, what good would that be to my soul? “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psa. 110; 54:4).
Some are affectionate, some are cross; no one denies that. But what has it to do with the state of the soul before God? The former might be a snare to a man, and draw him away from God; but it has nothing to do with his state before Him.
Take the history of man all through. When God did not deal with man in a special way, he became so bad that the flood came; then He gave the law, and man-made the golden calf. He sent prophets; they were slain. “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” Then He says, I have one Son, and when they saw Him they said, “Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.”
We are living in a world that has rejected God come in grace. The question is not what we shall be in the day of judgment, but what we are now. If you look into details, not merely man was wicked, but the first thing he does is to depart from God. It was the first thing with Adam. The first thing man has always done, when God set up anything good, was to spoil it. The last test of man was God sending His Son, and this drew out his enmity. There was lawlessness when there was no law, law-breaking when there was law, and God-hating when Christ came in grace. That is a positive history of man—it is our history, and it is better to know it. It is better that light should come in now. “In the flesh” there is “no good thing.”
But God has set forth a meeting-place with man in the cross. God has set up that as the one way by which we can meet Him. Meet Him we must. Christ is the Altar, the only meeting-place. If you do not come as a sinner, you do not come in truth, and you do not get the grace; you do not find man as he is, and you do not find God; you get a lie! Thank God that Christ is that Altar! There is the fullest grace for us, but you must come in the truth of what you are.
Thus the Lord has first ripped up all these outward religious services which do not let God into the heart. He gives a terrible list-terrible because true—of things that defile, and says all come from within. The light has thus come in, and He did not come to judge, but that they which see not might see. He came unto a world of darkness. Light will not let me say, ‘Man is a sinner.’ That is quite true; but ‘I am a sinner.’ But never till then is there light in the conscience. The thief on the cross says, “Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly.” He brings himself in, and there is truth in the inward parts.
Now all dispensations are set aside, and sovereign grace works. There are thus two parts in the Gospel: God in Christ reconciling—His manner of dealing with the world. God comes into a world of sinners, as such. Think of that—it is another way of dealing with people. Men know there is a judgment; it is a solemn truth. They think they ought to be fit for judgment, and hope to get into a condition that will suit the judgment. Christianity puts its seal on the judgment, but it is not Christianity, though it fully recognizes it. The Christian applies that judgment to everything he does every day, if he is wise.
Suppose a man owes me £1000. If I claim it, it is righteous; if I pay it, it is a different thing—in both cases I say the debt is there, but the actions are different. God does come at the judgment day and demand from man; the grace of the Gospel is opposite. Men are in their sins, and God comes in grace into the world and dies for them—wicked, defiled, just as they are. The world never receives it, never sees that God is dealing with men above their sins, instead of waiting for the judgment day, when they will be judged according to their own righteousness. It is an opposite way of dealing with the same sins.
Now, if we are to have part with Him, it must be in anticipation of the judgment, finding Him as perfect light and perfect love revealed; that is what Christianity is—God showing them another way of dealing with them contrary to judging them; and that is saving them! You see how it was with this poor woman. We read that “He could not be hid.” She had no title to promise whatever; religiousness was first set aside; all pretension to righteousness was set aside. She was a Canaanite, of the cursed race— “Cursed be Canaan.” They were people under a curse-that is, opposite to a promise. The Lord, in order to test her heart, dealt with her on this ground— “Let the children first be filled” — “to the Jew first.” He seemed hard, but it was to bring her to her true place-what God always does. You may try and spare souls. It will not do; you must get them in the truth before God, in order that grace may have its full place in their souls.
“It is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it unto the dogs.” She owns all this, and answered, “Yes, Lord.” Would you all say “yes” if the Lord called you a “dog”? —in common language it means “a cur.” He puts her on the right ground, where simple grace could meet her. ‘I know I am one of these Canaanites; it is true I have not a word to say for myself; ‘ but she had a word to say for God! The Pharisees justify themselves, and God condemns them; the publicans and harlots justify God, and God justifies them. She says, “Yes, Lord but even for a cur you can show this goodness.” She seeks something at His hands, above the curses and all.
The moment the soul is brought to this, it has real knowledge of God and of itself: that is what we want. Truth must be there—must break down outward religiousness. It is more distressing when I learn the evil of my nature, than seeing all the sins that have gone by. I have no righteousness, I have no promises, but I have God, I have Christ revealed in love in a world to which He came because men were sinners! The blessed Lord never said, “Come unto me,” until He had come into the world where sinners were.
The whole life of Christ was an expression of perfect light, and holiness, and love; so that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. The convicted sinner finds himself in the presence of One who has perfect love to him.
Have you ever said, “Yes, Lord,” when the Lord has pronounced that you have no righteousness—no anything? Have you acknowledged that it is so, and that you have not a word to say, but that you trust the perfect love that brought Him into the world? The soul has to be brought to the same point—that it is perfectly worthless, but only to find a title in God’s heart, and be brought to the consciousness that there is none in its own.
The heart of God meets the broken heart of the sinner, and the broken heart meets the heart of God. When the heart of man really meets the heart of God, it is a wonderful thing. The world occupies men; the things of the world occupy them; we excuse ourselves; there is no meeting God there. The moment I am brought down, through grace, and have the consciousness there is no good in me at all, then I find I am in the presence of Christ: I find One in whom there is nothing but good is my Saviour! The thought of what God is towards me, takes the place of what I am towards God. This could not be in righteousness but through the cross.
I speak of the heart meeting God now without any righteousness of its own, without promises; in the presence of God, just as I am; in the presence of perfect love that cannot deny itself, that stopped at nothing to make it good, but was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Then we learn to trust God perfectly in His perfect love, the work—Christ does it Himself alone; and I find God Himself—God justifies me, meets me exactly where I was, with the fullest conviction of sin in His presence, but with the knowledge that He cannot deny Himself, and that He loves!
I have only one word to add. We are bought with a price—we are not our own. In consequence of this perfect salvation, this finished work, I am no longer my own at all. Whatever I do, I should do all “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” It is a new place to which I am brought by divine righteousness. I am brought to God Himself, into the full light and favor of God. The Christian is set in this world to be what Christ was. He that saith lie abideth in him ought to walk even as he walked, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in my mortal body.
If you call yourselves Christians, and I suppose most of you do, you are “the epistle of Christ” That is the place where God has put you; it is not “you ought to be,” but you are. You are to express the life of Christ in a world that rejected Christ. The effect of bringing you to God is that you are perfectly purged. He sends you back to witness what is of God. Blessed place! There is the responsibility, not of a man, but now of a child of God, heir and joint-heir with Christ. That is where you are, beloved friends. All responsibility flows from the place man is in; all know this in human things. The Christian’s responsibility is founded upon and measured by the thing he is already. Christ’s precious blood has saved you. The blood was put on the right ear, the right hand, and the right foot of him who was to be cleansed (Lev. 14:1414And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot: (Leviticus 14:14)). Nothing that does not suit the blood is to come into your head, or into your hand, or to be seen in your walk. There is responsibility flowing from the place the blood has brought you into.
We are in the presence of God as “dear children”—that is what you are; now act like your Father. Light and love are taken as the standard of life for a Christian. “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” You that name the name of Christ, is that the way you are walking? Is Christ your motive for everything you do? It is not a rule of this or that; now I have to please my Father. Is Christ the motive for everything you do in your house, your dress, your ways, your life? In all the things that constitute your everyday life, is Christ your motive, and nothing less?
The Lord give you to believe His perfect love in redeeming you, perfecting forever those that are sanctified. In a world where He has been rejected, He leaves us to be the expression of Christ. It is infinite blessing to us, but requiring watchfulness and care—Christ the constant motive of everything we do.