These scriptures bring before us in a most striking manner the contrast between the ministry of law and that of grace. Jeremiah was continually confronted, in his service, with false prophets, who contradicted his message, and denied that he was sent of the Lord. This was his perpetual difficulty, and one which he felt most of all, because of the state of heart which they thereby displayed. He accordingly says, “My heart within me is broken because of the prophets.” Moreover, he says, “All my bones shake.” And let the reader carefully note that it was because he thought of the coming judgment. He thus proceeds, “I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the Lord, and because of the words of His holiness. For the land is full of adulterers both prophet and priest are profane,” &c. He mourned over their condition, and he saw no escape for them, because of Jehovah and the words of His holiness. In other words, under a ministry of law the message he had to proclaim for these sinners was necessarily one of unmitigated judgment. (See vv. 12-40) Turning now to the apostle Paul, we shall see that he also has the influence of the holiness of God upon his soul. “We must all appear,” he says, “before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” And what is the effect upon him of the prospect of standing face to face with God’s holiness? (for that will be the standard of that judgment-seat). For himself, as for other believers, he knew that there would be there no question of sin or guilt; for by the one offering of Christ he and they alike had been perfected forever as to the conscience. But he also knew that there were those who were ignorant, through unbelief, of the efficacy of the blood of Christ. It is of them he thinks, as he remembers, even as Jeremiah did, how utterly unable they were to stand such a test. But instead of denouncing judgment, as the prophet did according to his dispensation, he writes as being in the day of grace— “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” The prospect of the application of holiness in the judgment of sinners in the future becomes an urgent motive in his soul for the proclamation of grace, for busying himself with that blessed “ministry of reconciliation” with which he had been entrusted. He sought thus to persuade men, as he cried, now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us: we pray (men) in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” God is perfect in all His ways; but we can praise Him that our lot has fallen upon this accepted time, and this day of salvation.