God's ways are not as our ways, nor God's thoughts as our thoughts! How entirely is this seen in the Gospel of the grace of God as we have it. The very highest and brightest glory of God made at once to shine out just where man's failure gives occasion to God to show Himself more brightly than He could in the fields of creation or of providence. The highest glory of God and the ruin of the creature in himself- both shown by one work and in one person.
I do not find Christians established, as they should be, in grace. I do not find Christians understanding, as they should do, themselves discovered and saved in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
I am but a poor sinner in myself, but I do desire that those that are the Lord's should, with me, know more of what the blessedness of being hidden in God's light, in Christ in God, is. I would say a few words hereon, according to what I have in conscience myself found to be true before God.
There is a Man in Heaven. There is a Man—the seed of the woman-the Son of Man-upon the throne of God—even He is there who was rejected and murdered here below—Jesus Christ. In Him the Lamb that was slain, but is alive again for evermore, God finds there is the perfect expression of all His own glory.
To know that that Jesus whom we crucified is at the right hand of God, made Lord and Christ,—if our knowledge goes no further—cannot give peace. It discovers to us the contrast between us and God. We, down here on earth, murdered Him. Who that knows Him, but what will say, " I should have done it, had I been there and been left to myself." God raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. We and God stand in contrast in our actings towards Christ. This is all true—and it is well to be taught it, well to have the 'conscience plowed up by it. But, let it be remarked that, Such conviction of conscience is a judgment which, however just, supposes man to be standing upon the ground of what HE HIMSELF is as a rebellious creature before God. He measures what he has done;—he sees what God has done: and his sentence is, " I act in contrast to God, and the consequence must be, that He, acting in power according to what I am, I am ruined."
Righteousness, apart from mercy and grace, is in question, on God's part; and works on, our own parts, works which never can in us be perfect; we are unlike what Christ was—we acted otherwise towards Him than we should have done—God would have had us receive Him whom we murdered:-and now God has shown Himself opposed to what we did, and has raised Him from the dead.
So entirely is this judgment formed upon the assumed ground that we are to be treated as we deserve, perhaps, even with the thought that other ground for us to stand upon than that of our own doings there is none, that often when the heart has been warmed towards the Lord in His beauty and loveliness by grace, and the light thus breaks in, the very fact of God having raised from the dead, and given glory to Him whom our sins crucified is felt to be our utter ruin. This is, as we shall see, not true, according to God and His grace, and His acting in giving us light; but is still most true as to what we deserve, if we are to be treated according to our deserts as men, as inhabitants of the earth, as parts of the human race, as according to what we, in principle, are as such-and according to what we should have done if we had been in Jerusalem when Christ was crucified, and had been left to ourselves. It is most true, if we are to be treated as we deserve: that is, if we stand upon our own responsibility for blessing as individuals, or as parts of the human race.
It is just here, when occupied with Jesus Christ raised from the dead and gone into Heaven, that the soul (however, through grace, attracted towards and appreciating His beauty) learns the contrast between itself and God. But there is another lesson it has to learn, and that is, not the contrast between man's actings towards Christ and God's—but the contrast between God's estimate of Christ Himself and His work and man's. Conscience, man's conscience, can see how it is guilty, and Christ is vindicated; but it has to learn how God 'makes that Christ the center of a new system, and that new system one in which ruined sinners, who have no standing from their own merits and deserts, find a present and a perfect rest, because this Jesus Christ is reckoned of God worthy to be the Savior of the lost. Such a thought clearly changes everything. The question no longer is, what am I to expect if treated according to my deserts? What shall I, who murdered God's Son on earth, find at His hand standing upon the ground of my own responsibility and obedience? But is it indeed true, that God delights to save the lost, and counts His Son worthy to be the Savior of the lost, and that the work accomplished contains perfect salvation in it? Yes, this is the question, not what do I deserve? But what does God say that He delights to do for lost sinners, as showing out the deserts and worthiness of Christ. The whole ground is changed. God takes the place in my conscience, which "I" had; and "Christ Jesus in Heaven " takes the place which my deservings held.
I believe the power of the blood, and the worth of the righteousness, are not so much in question now,—that they have been studied and learned-and that the failure rather is just where conscience is in question. I shall not, therefore, speak of them, of how nothing but the fact that Christ bore the full judgment upon the cross due to me, to my sin and to my sins, ever could set me free from guilt; of how nothing but the fact that, being an integral member through the spirit of that body of which Christ is the Head, God looks upon me as He looks upon His Son, and loves me as He loves Him, could suffice to give full liberty of conscience, heart and spirit in God's presence. Believing that the hitch- to conscience—rather lies elsewhere, I would say a few words on How do I know that the work done is done for me, that it is mine.
Now conscience enlightened by the word pleads (when hard beset, 'too' by Satan, the world and the flesh), " there is the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." I cannot say He is not there. I cannot say but that all divine glory is there. How came I to know it? It was not by superior wisdom, or by innate skill. No, "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts." God brought the light into me—God made me see the Gospel—and not only does he thus arrogate to Himself the in-shining of the light to my soul, but also he gives double weight to the statement, by explaining the solemn fact of the darkness of the many.
"If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is in the image of God, should shine unto them."
Now, here I get something more than conscience reasoning about a Christ seen before it-something more even than renewed affections finding repose in the Lamb slain alive again for evermore-something more than the effect of pungent despair saying, amid accusations from Satan, in the sense of its low estate, and stand in a vapor that rises from within-The Lord Jesus, and not I, is Judge of quick and dead; the Lord Jesus, and not Satan, is the Judge; " Thou, Lord Jesus, shalt answer for me." For we have the plain word of God laying g it down to faith, that as God caused the light first to shine in creation, so the light of grace shined into us by His power.
You cannot know Christ and not be quickened by Him, for He is a quickening Spirit. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Have I that light of Him who was " life, light, and love in one." And how shall I separate in Him the light and love (which I see) from the eternal life. I never find a man can do it in God's presence, nor in the presence of God's word.
Here, then, is my rest. I cannot say Christ is not the glory of God. I cannot say I know him not—it would be a lie. His light shines in its lovely beauty.
Well (God says), where it shines there is life-eternal life.