TOGETHER with the denial of the character of the Divine punishment of the ungodly, we usually find the denial of the utterly fallen nature of man. Evil doctrine seldom walks alone, it has its companions; and one false doctrine invariably opens the door to let in others.
God declares that man is utterly astray from Him by nature. It is not in man, by nature, even to wish to return to God. The very idea of God is distasteful to him, for “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” Yet, along with this fact, runs the delusion in man’s heart that, by doing his best, man may recover himself so as to be fit for God. Perhaps it is only such Christians as have learned the perfect favor of God towards them in Christ, who thoroughly accept the verdict of God concerning man’s utter badness. In those who have solid peace with God, absolute condemnation of self will always be found. Do we ever find absolute condemnation of self in anyone who has not solid peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? The rule is invariable that he who wishes for, but lacks, peace with God, looks in himself to discover some good thing. The weaker the faith in the work of Christ, the stronger the trust in human works. The less established the soul in Christ, the greater its regard for its own feelings and experiences.
It is in the cross of Christ alone that, by the teaching of the Spirit of God, we really learn our own badness and God’s thoughts respecting the vileness of sin. In the crucified Son of God we discover self; we see what we are; for God made Him sin for us.
The cross of Christ explains to us how God regards sin. God turned away His face from His Son when the Lord was made sin for us. He forsook Jesus. Nothing could be more terrible. It was separation from God. Our reader knows that, while God acted thus in a judicial way towards the Son of His love, it was because of the place His Son took on the sinner’s behalf. In Himself the blessed Lord was always perfect. In His adorable Person He was never anything save perfection. Yet, when He stood in the sinner’s stead, God dealt with Him in. absolute righteousness, and our Lord suffered the unutterable woe of bearing the wrath of God—of being forsaken by God. The suffering for sin by the Lord upon the cross was a reality. The punishment for sin which He endured was a reality, but faith alone enters into the reality.
Now, this agony of the Lord Jesus proves to us what we merit, shows to us what we are. The cross of Christ is the gospel looking-glass. The law shows us what we ought to be, the cross what we are. We try to do our best, and we discover that we cannot do one single thing righteously.
We believe what Christ suffered for sinners upon the cross, and we discover the righteousness of God in respect to sin.
For faith, the cross of Christ is not only the condemnation of self, it is also the grave of self-effort. For faith, it is the burying place of self. “We are dead with Christ.” For faith, it is the utter end of human nature beyond all hope of revival— “Buried with Christ.” And this hopelessness in self, and this absolute trust in what Christ has done, brings us deliverance.
Thus is linked within the soul of the Christian this apparent contradiction, No hope in self-peace with God. And both agree perfectly with each other.
Now, the utter ruin of man is never, to nature, a palatable truth. God made man in His own image, and man, in the circle of his fellow-men—educated and refined, brave and tender—may be a noble creature, but when we bring God into our thoughts, when, instead of measuring ourselves with ourselves, we consider the infinite purity and infinite holiness of God, we are constrained to cry, “What is man!” How base and evil we feel ourselves to be, when we no longer adopt a human standard, but ponder over God’s Word. But infidelity attacks the very Word of God, which explains to us what God is and what we are. By it God is degraded, God’s holiness diluted to the enfeebled quality of man’s uprightness, and God’s light darkened to the tone of man’s darkness. God is thus utterly misrepresented. The God who is our God we are not called upon to hear, but a being of man’s creation, made conformable to the requirements of the present age.
Thus the cross of Christ does not become to the hearers of these new, or rather, revived old, errors, their only hope as sinners. On the contrary, the cross of Christ becomes to such rather a pattern than the way of salvation. And we are told that God, by some means which He has not revealed to men, can save from hell hereafter such as in this life miss the benefits of the death of Christ! That, despite the plain statements of His Word, God will have mercy on those who die rejecting or neglecting the only way of salvation.
Surely such falsehoods are fresh witnesses to the utterly depraved state of man’s heart. For not only is the fallen nature of man denied, but the very provision which God has made, in grace, to meet man in his fallen state is set aside. The great reason which hinders men from receiving the benefits of Christ’s death is pride of heart, which declines to believe that man is so hopelessly ruined, so utterly apart from God, that nothing save the death of God’s own Son could meet his case.
In this day of mercy God has not only provided the way of salvation for sinners, but by His Spirit He beseeches man to be reconciled to Him. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us: we pray, 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.” (2 Cor. 5:20, 2120Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:20‑21)). Such is the attitude in which the God whom, by nature, we hate, places Himself toward us. Nothing can be more wonderful. It was the wonder of wonders that God should give His Son to die for sinners; and now, to sinners living without God, and careless as to His Son’s death for them, God even goes so far in His love as to ask them to be reconciled to Himself. This love and grace ought to break down the hardest heart.
But suppose, after all, a man dies without God, without Christ—dies unmoved by such love? That man will rise again, and will live forever. What, then, will be his eternal destiny? Reader, “be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.” Such a man has thrown away his last hope.
His nature is utterly fallen, and will ever remain so. His will was, through lifetime, at enmity to God, and will ever remain so. There will be no change in him forever and ever. The “gospel,” which “is the power of God unto salvation,” he despised and refused, and God has not “another gospel” for man. There will be no evangelists sent to the lost hereafter with “another gospel,” such delusive preaching belongs only to this brief lifetime. There will be no preaching of faith where all will be sight; yes, terribly plain sight. For then there will be no deception of heart. No denial of the utter ruin of man, no boast in good works fitting a man for God, no refusal to believe in what God says respecting the character of punishment. No, nothing but the realization of second death, which follows judgment.
For the believer, judgment precedes death, since Christ has been judged in his stead. “I am crucified with Christ,” says faith. Therefore, says the Lord, the believer “shall not come into judgment.” But be not deceived: if a man die without Christ, the word is “after this the judgment.” Not, after death a fresh chance for salvation. Not, after death a fresh change of nature and a becoming fit for God. No, but the sentence of the second death which will be passed at the Great White Throne upon all who die without life—without Christ. H. F. W.