God has not left us in darkness as to our state, nor as to His ways in grace toward us in that state. The blessed truth of Christ's coming in love to this world, before He comes in judgment, is a testimony to our state, but also to the love of God toward us in that state; and if we neglect this testimony, we have to come before Him in judgment. “Every knee shall bow;” but there is all the difference between bowing to Him as a Savior and as a Judge. If we come to Him in grace as a Savior, we find our sins dealt with in another way than judgment. If my creditor comes to claim a debt, and I have nothing to pay, it is all over with me; but if he comes to pay it, I am clear. So we must have to do with God in one way or the other: if, as having our sins dealt with on the cross, it is putting them away; if in judgment, it is imputing them to us.
The gospel is the testimony of what God has done before the day of judgment, that man might not have to answer for his sins. It is only in Christ. For God cannot approve of iniquity—that is impossible. But it is very different to insist upon the payment of a debt, and to come and pay it. The gospel is the testimony of what Christ did as Savior before He comes as Judge; and this testimony is for us to believe.
There is the work of the Spirit of God, which gives us a sense of our sins. There is Christ's work done outside us, by which sins are remitted and forgiven to faith. There is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to give believers the knowledge of that work; for if unknown, I should be as wretched as before.
We have in this scene what the human heart is when fully brought out (for it does not always show itself). We see, too, a work in a man, and a work for a man; and then the consciousness of it wrought in his soul. God makes us know forgiveness; He has not given His Son that we should be ignorant of it. I cannot talk of walking with God, if I do not know whether He is going to condemn me, or not. Who ever heard of a criminal walking with his judge?
In looking at mankind, you will see how all were against the Lord Jesus. And why? He had healed their sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, so that Pilate could say, “Why? what evil hath he done?” I cannot call myself a Christian without saying that the world has crucified the Son of God; and the terrible fact for it is, that all His works showed Who was there. God had said, “I have yet one Son: may be they will reverence him when they see him.” But His revelation of what God is only brought out man's enmity: and now God has to say to the world, What have you done to my Son? What did He do to you? Nothing but good. Then why spit in His face, and crucify Him? If any one had done so yesterday to my mother, could I go and be “hail fellow, well met,” with him to-day? Man has done this, but when the light comes in, he confesses that he has done it, and that he cannot answer one charge in a thousand.
The world is under judgment, and assuredly will come to an end: this is owned after a fashion, and yet men go on with it, as if it were fabulous or uncertain.
The law comes to tell man what he ought to be: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;” “Thou shalt not covet.” But I know I have not loved God, and I do covet. I have broken the law through and through; and if I offend in one point, I am guilty of all. It is very simple: I tell my child not to do three things; he does not care one bit to do two of them, but he does the third, which he does care about. A man must be a monster of iniquity to have committed all the sins in the world
If you apply the law, “there is none righteous.” God however does not say this in the day of judgment; but in the day of grace He warns us. He tells us beforehand in mercy what His judgment as to us is if He were sitting on the great white throne: could it be any plainer than we have it in Rom. 3? Can a man stand up after that, and say, I am righteous? Is this the way to meet God? Is He a liar? or is man faithless?
People talk about mercy; which means they hope God will think as little about their sins as they do. A man has committed, say, ten sins, and yet he hopes to go to heaven; if he has committed eleven, he thinks that is not too much; if a hundred, he hopes still, for he has no true care for holiness. One sin shuts out from God; but the door is not shut to any, if they own their sins. If I am set to wash this table, it is not a question whether there are five spots or fifty, but can I wash it well?
But a sinner is worse still. See how man only mocks the blessed Son of God, every detail” of the scene at the cross gives us a picture of what man's heart is.
Man is never ashamed of a false religion. A Mahometan will say his prayers in the market; and if you are making a bargain with him, you may wait till he has done. A Hindu is not ashamed of the worship of his false gods. But a Christian is ashamed of Christ! And so the Lord says, “Whosoever will confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father and the holy angels.”
The chief priests, who were set to intercede for weakness, cry out for His blood. Pilate, who was to judge the guilty and protect the innocent, washes his hands of the innocent. His own disciples flee from Him. What is man?
If two men are hung together, when did you ever hear of one insulting the other, unless he had brought him into the trouble? But when it comes to Christ, even they railed at Him. The human heart is enmity against God. The moment they have the opportunity, they all trample upon Him. Thank God, He was there in grace; but it shows what our hearts are. We all know some are criminal and vicious, and some are not. But the prodigal son was as truly a sinner when he crossed his father's threshold, as when he was eating the husks; and that is where we all are.
Do you not like to do your own will? Do you not see it in your children? You find it even in them. And this is what sin is. The law condemns it, but it condemns me too: do not fancy that it only condemns the sins. It says, “Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” It does not save but curses.
The law only shows what we ought to be, but does not tell us what we are. If I apply a right rule to a person who has cheated me, what does it do? It condemns him. The law does not give life nor help, but only a measure of what a child of Adam ought to be. God tells us what we are, and He tells us before the day of judgment comes, that we may lay it to heart, and find His remedy. When Christ came, He put His sanction upon all that, for it was His own law; but He came in quite the opposite way. The law claimed the debt: Christ paid it, and this is grace! “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” God came into the world because we were sinners. He did not stay in heaven and say, You behave well, and all will be well; but He came down, because we were all wrong, to save sinners.
Who put it into God's heart to give His Son? Did you? Did the world? Why, it was in God's own heart to do it! He so loved the world, that He gave His Son. I can trust God's heart more than I can trust my own. For there is no inconsistency in His heart: He is not double-minded; and I know His thoughts of mercy concerning me and you.
But more than that: Christ died for us. Why should I go to pull a person out of a ditch, if he is not in it? Why did He taste death? Because we were under death. Why, take the cup of wrath? Because we were under judgment. What was all His sorrow about? My sins. Oh! I say, what unutterable love His, and what a sinner I must be! It gives honesty of heart, not excusing ourselves, like Adam—hiding our sins if we can, and, if not, excusing them.
If a friend comes to pay my debts, do I not take care to bring up every farthing I owe? The effect of God's love is to give honesty of heart. I believe His love; I am glad to tell Him everything, or rather to know that He knows beyond all that I can tell Him. He has come to clear us completely; and this produces honesty, instead of concealment.
God is light and love, and He must be both wherever He comes. If He comes in light, and shows me where I am, He comes in love to forgive.
Look at the poor woman who was a sinner. There was one heart in the world she could trust, and this was God's heart. Did she hide her sins? No; she came weeping and confounded about them, but she trusted the Lord; she trusted the love that brought the light to her. The great man of the house said, This man is not a prophet. He was so dark, as to have God in his house, and could not find it out: the poor woman did.
Take Peter in the ship. He goes up to Christ, and says, Depart from me. What did he go to Him for, then? He was drawn to Him by the sense of what He was, and, when there at His knees, felt he was not fit to be there. But Jesus said, Fear not.
Again, look at the converted robber. There was the Spirit's work in him, and the Lord's work for him. What does he say? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; it is the sense of what God is. He says to his fellow, “Dost thou not fear God?” Then he confesses his sins; he owns he is suffering justly. God's light had reached his soul.
We have been saying the world is wicked; and so it is; but when the light comes, I confess that I am wicked. An honest conscience owns its sins; “we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our sins.” But he adds “This man hath done nothing amiss.” How did he know this? He had never been with Christ; he was taught of God; he could guarantee that Christ never did a wrong thing. Do your hearts pass their word for it that He never could? Has He been sufficiently revealed to your hearts for this?
Then he says to the Lord, “Remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.” He was dying the death of the gibbet. The sign that God had come into the world was a babe lying in a manger; and He ended on the cross, all the way through having not where to lay His head. What faith in this poor thief! No matter, if all the world was against Him, He was a king, all the same; and he says to Him crucified, You will come in your kingdom.
What was he thinking of? He was in an agony of pain on the cross, but he does not say, “Save thyself and us.” He owned Jesus to be the King, but does not ask Him to spare him one bit of pain—only, “Remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.”
How could he—he that was a robber—have such confidence in Him? Because what the light and love always do is to give confidence. What to one that was a robber, who had just owned he was suffering justly? Can you trust Him like that man, honestly confessing your sins, but confiding in God's heart when you own them? Do you trust Christ's heart? If you do not, you do not know Him, for above all He is trustworthy, and for any one.
God gives us striking examples that they may strike us. All are not robbers, but it is really the same ruin by sin for us all. Have your hearts had Christ so revealed to them, that, honest in your conscience before God, you trust God, when you know what you are? See the poor woman trusting Christ with all her sins before her. That is not so easy always; for if our sins are before us, we reason, and wonder how God will receive us. Are you wondering how God will receive you? Then you have not met Him yet, or you would know how. When the prodigal came to his father, he said nothing about, Make me as one of thy hired servants. And why not? Because his father was on his neck, kissing him as a son.
The robber owns his sins, but trusts Him. Then we hear the Lord's answer, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Now is the Son of man glorified, for to-day shalt thou be there with Me.
The poor robber was bearing the punishment of his sins from man; but who was bearing it from God? The One who hung beside him. “He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” When I have confidence in Christ, I can and must go to God; for I find Christ on the way; and what is He doing there? Judging me? No; bearing all my sins. There is that blessed One, whom I have been despising all my days, and I believe that He has taken my sins and borne my burden. Yes, He has taken them all, and I shall not bear them. Trust Him, no matter how bad you are: if you cannot trust yourself or any man, trust Him.
If He has won my heart to this confidence, I find that He who is going to be Judge has already died for my sins. How then can He impute them to me? Supposing, of course, that I have owned and confessed my sins, and am coming to God about them, I find the wonderful truth that Christ has been bearing them, and that God has dealt with them, having laid them upon Christ. If I look beforehand to the day of judgment, I see in the Judge the Man who bore all my sins. How then can I dread Him? I find that God, because of my sins, has given His Son to bear them all into a wasteland, not inhabited.
The work for me is totally finished, but it is not finished in me. I ought to grow more like Him every day; but the work for me as regards my guilt is finished; and if it is not perfectly finished, when is it to be? He cannot die again, cannot suffer again, cannot drink that dreadful cup again. He suffered once, and cannot again. That cup made Him sweat great drops of blood in only thinking about what it was to be made a curse for us; and He will not drink it over again. He is set down because the work is done.
How little men thought they were sending the poor robber straight to paradise, when they sent to break his legs!
But now, about knowing it, for that is the important point, the Lord told him he was to be with Him that day. Was he, or was he not, to believe it?
It happened to him, but it was written for us. If I come to Christ, I know He has finished the atoning work, and has blotted out my sins. The work was done once for all, and through the grace of God brought to me. Knowing no other name under heaven whereby I can be saved, I am told the Lord Jesus has blotted out the sins for all that believe, and I know it! He has gone back into the glory, because He has finished the work. The Holy Ghost brings it home to our hearts, and He says Christ has finished the work. As in Rom. 4, “He died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification.” His resurrection is the proof that God has accepted the work. If Christ be not raised, ye are yet in your sins; but if raised, He has borne them, and I who believe am not in them.
What part had we in the cross, that is to say, in bringing it about? Nothing but our sins, and the hatred that killed Christ. Such is all men do! And this is what humbles us, and makes us dependent on the grace of God—we say, my sins brought Him there; but God, instead of putting me away, put them away.
Why is the gospel preached? Is it that we should know it, or that we should not? Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross; and how careful God is to show us this, that we may be happy! Defiled, I am cleansed; guilty, I am justified. Do you say, but I have offended God dreadfully? So you have, but there is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared. God has nothing against faith: Christ has borne all for the believer. He took the fruit of my sins, and I receive the fruit of His work. If we come thus to God, the very Christ who put our sins away is the very Judge before whom we shall appear. How do believers come before the judgment-seat? “Sown in dishonor, raised in glory.” He comes, and receives me to Himself; and this is the way I get to the judgment-seat. How can the believer fear, if, when he sees his Judge, he is like Him?
What opened the Samaritan's heart in John 4? Not speaking about the living water, but “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” Her heart was opened by her conscience being reached. “If thou knewest the gift of God.” He gives, and does not impute. If you knew Who it was that came so low as to be dependent on a woman like you for a drink of water, you would have confidence in Him. And so would you, if you knew why the Son of God came down to a manger and a cross; you would have confidence in Him.
And that is what God is doing in Christ—winning back the confidence of man's heart, when he cannot trust Him because of his sins. The love of God came into the world when men were in their sins. There was love enough in Christ to give Himself.
Do you believe that love? If so, there is the plain statement, “By him all that believe are justified from all things.” He did not bear half, and leave me to perish by the other half. Accordingly when I come to Him, I find that instead of meeting me in the way of judgment, He has met me in the day of grace.