IT 2:11IN order to apprehend with any degree of fullness the grace of God which has appeared, and which carries with it salvation for all men, we must review the whole history of man, and God's ways with him as unfolded to us in the Scriptures.
We start with the assurance that God has given man a revelation of Himself; and this, because of God, must be perfect. If God had not given me a revelation of Himself, who by searching could find out God? Even as regards ordinary beings, beings either equal to, or lower than ourselves, we know their mind or purposes at times but very imperfectly, and often more by supposition than of certainty. If, then, of inferior beings we are at best uncertain, how much more so should we have been of God who is so infinitely above us! But God has given us a revelation of Himself. Let us, then, examine the Scriptures in order that we may have some clearness of idea of His grace which has appeared.
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It is important to see the connection and links between all the works of God. All things were made by the Son, and " without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:33All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3)). " All things were created by Him, and for Him " (Col. 1:1616For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:16)). He finished up the first creation, graduating from the earth without form and void, until He made man, and in the likeness of God made He man. Man was the last made. All was fit and beautiful from His hand, indicative in its very execution of the hand which had formed it. God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. His eye rested with satisfaction on the first creation; and man, made in His likeness and image, was set in the garden of Eden surrounded with everything to suit and satisfy his heart, as an innocent being on earth. Every arrangement there indicated the love and tender care of God for man on earth.
But man was but a creature; called, of course, to walk in dependence on his Creator. He does so until he is assailed by Satan. It was not from inherent evil that man disobeyed, but from want of guardedness to watch against temptation which an evil spirit, both skilful and powerful in agency, addressed to him. Eve is deceived; and Adam hearkens to his wife in distrusting God, on the supposition that they can take better care of themselves than God will. That is, they trust themselves more than they trust God. God's power is not denied by Satan. The aim and wickedness of his lie is to wrest from man's mind all confidence in God, and to embolden him, according to his ability, to trust himself more than God's care; or the use of His power on his behalf. It is important clearly to apprehend the nature of the fall; how it came about, and how it is traceable now. It is simply a distrusting of God. There is not in it, necessarily, a denial of His power, but a conviction which leads to action which assumes that He will not use His power on my behalf; in short, that love is not the nature of God, and hence that man should trust and use his own resources independently of God. We may easily discover this, the fruit of the fall in ourselves. It is the secret of the satisfaction which a man attaches to the possession of unlimited resources; and the dissatisfaction which he feels when deprived of any, whereas, if the heart were truly assured of the love of God, as immensely greater than any love we could have for ourselves, there could be neither the one nor the other.
Man is now fallen And here let us contemplate the state to which he has fallen! In mind embittered. against God, his present position is that of an exile from Paradise! Distrust of God and trust in his own resources are now parts of his nature, therefore the place of an exile suits him, for such a place is alone suited to an unbeliever in God; for we must remember that it is God's nature that has been denied, and that man, at the instigation of Satan, called in question the love of God, and acted independently of Him and of His word. Surely we see everywhere this nature in man to this hour. Come how it may, and whence it may, here, it is before our eyes-everywhere, and in every man. Man will not trust God; he has no confidence in Him. He seeks to acquire as much power as he can, to provide for himself, and is in enmity with God because he fears and envies the power which he cannot grasp. The mind of man is thus alienated from God: and not only this; he is under judgment,-the judgment of death, because of his sin; he walks about under the sense of an impending doom; and he is not strong enough to resist the power of Satan to do evil, nor capable in himself to escape from the condition into which the fall has plunged him. Man's real state must be seen or we shall form inadequate ideas of God's grace to him. He is at a distance from God; on his own side because of his enmity; on God's side because of his sin; and, in proportion as he is thoughtful and intelligent, he lingers on a miserable course here; more miserable than that of any other creature because of the fear of an impending judgment; and to aggravate all he is powerless to resist Satan, or to recover lost ground before God. There are these three marks of man's fall and degradation. First, he is at a distance from God; and that in a double way. What more anomalous than to see and know that man as a creature so largely endowed, should now be at a distance and of such a character; enmity on the creature's side; and on God's, holiness which finds sin an impassable barrier! Surely such a position is fearful and melancholy to a degree. But, secondly; in this state of distance, man is sensible that he is under judgment (unless he blinds his mind to the fact), for he alone, of all other creatures, lives in fearful suspense of death, of which, in proportion as he is thoughtful, he is in continual dread. And, thirdly, he is liable to be made the tool of Satan at any moment. What a state! At a distance from God,-under the judgment of death, and liable to be made still worse in moral degradation, without any power to recover himself. This is man as he now is by nature and state.
Man thus estranged is not without natural religion; but his religion, whether it bears the name of Christian or Pagan, never goes beyond the idea of propitiation. His thought never rises higher than to propitiate the Divine Being. The sense, the well known sense, that He is at a distance from us, and we from Him, is fully acknowledged. This was Cain's religion: he would have propitiated God by the fruits of the earth. Man in his religion never rises higher than propitiation, and this is limited to what would suit himself were he in God's place; he measures God by himself. I need not dwell on this point, but it is well to bear in mind the idea and scope of natural religion. It acts on the presumption that God is arrayed against me in judicial wrath; and the aim is to propitiate Him by presenting to Him such things as would propitiate ourselves, if we were swayed by a like kind of judicial wrath. Abel, on the contrary, led of God, declares what was required of God, in order that He might be on terms with man,-simply and distinctly this is set forth at the very first. God required righteousness. And when I begin truly with God, it is righteousness which first engages my soul, for I am a sinner. Hence God requires a victim, not rightly chargeable with my guilt, to bear the penalty of my guilt; and which, while bearing it, presents a personal excellency. This requirement Abel in faith set forth in offering the firstling of the flock, and the fat thereof. Until the sacrifice which is here prefigured at the outset of man's history is accomplished, righteousness cannot be established, and the distance between God and the sinner, cannot be removed. That God had provided for Himself a Lamb we know; and that many a soul resting in faith in what His righteousness demanded was accepted like righteous Abel, we are also assured. But what we have previously to take into our consideration, is the varied mode and manner in which God made trial of man on the earth. Before the flood, without positive intervention; after the flood, setting man on renewed terms on the earth; separating Abraham and his posterity to walk on the earth in dependence on Himself in promise, and finally placing Israel in the land under law.
In each and all, man failed, and only disclosed, the more God dealt with him, how entirely incompetent he is to act for God, or according to His mind. Who could read the history of man as to his relations with God from Abel down, and not own man's incurable perversity and the utter hopelessness of the creature, as he is in himself, to answer to the mind of God. It may be said that man was then not so cultivated and developed as now. This may be true of him respecting his relations with his human fellows, but surely not as regards God, for never was man brought, as to his senses and understanding into such consciousness of God's nearness as He was in the temple services given to Israel. In a word, every trial made of man-as man was, and every manifestation of God which could have had influence on him, was made by God but without effect. They despised, and would none of my counsel, and now the word is, " there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God " (Rom. 3:1111There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (Romans 3:11) to 18). All are brought in guilty before God, and there is no ability or means in any wise on man's side, to repair the distance between himself and God. All is involved before the eye, as far as man is concerned in one mass of unmingled ruin and shame, a funeral pall enshrouds the whole world, the ruin is complete and fully established; and there can be no means or hope from the side of the offender to repair the terrible ruin.
Then, a new and wondrous thing is disclosed! When God " saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor, therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him." Now the Son says to the Father " I come to do thy will," " a body hast thou prepared me." The offender ought to have made amends for his offense; the reparation ought to have come from man s side; but man is proved incompetent and unable in any way to repair it. With every trial God made of him, be only grew worse, and with every dealing he only manifested greater perversity of heart, and incapacity to do right. Man is not at all the source of this new and wondrous action. The Son comes to do the Father's will, as He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." A body is prepared Him. As man had offended, and was under judgment, so the only begotten Son is manifested in the flesh. " Inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh' and blood, he likewise took part of the same." Man could do nothing from his side; the Son from God's side comes to man's side, to do the will of God. He who dwells in the Father's bosom, who only knew the depth and greatness of the heart of God, is the one to whom alone this work of declaring it could be entrusted. It is the mission of this Blessed One-to declare the Father-to do His swill. On the Son, who at first had made all things, who had presented everything from His hands in perfect beauty and excellence-on Him it devolves, now, to repair all; to make all things new; to form and set up an entirely new creation. It is an important link in this review, that the Son does not now begin with the heavens and the earth as in the first creation. He begins with man, by whom the ruin and the judgment was brought in upon all. He is the Son of God, and comes from God; the Creator, and He takes the weakest place among men. He is a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. He comes to repair,-to re-establish all according to the will of God. It is the will of God which is the guide and measure of His action; not, primarily, the need or circumstance of man. His mission is to do His will, and to finish His work, and He enters on it at the weakest point of humanity. The Creator, the Son from heaven, links Himself with man. The hosts of heaven testify of this wondrous sight (Luke 2) and proclaim " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward man." It is not that man has achieved deliverance from judgment by any stupendous action on his part; but the Son who dwells in the Father's bosom, sharing in His love, has come to do His will. He is sent of the Father, and the angels herald and celebrate this wondrous action. Man, in order to escape judgment, must find a victim not rightfully chargeable with his guilt to bear the judgment of it, and at the time of bearing it having a personal excellency. But he could find none such. On the contrary, the more God's righteous demands were pressed on him, the more wicked and perverse he was shown to be. Then it is, that from God's side, His own Son is born of a woman;-enters the world as a babe.. The weakest stage of human life is not unknown to Him, blessed be His name. The mission with which He is charged, He only could comprehend, and He only could execute. He is to declare the Father, and finish His work.
Now His life here is properly divided into three parts; one, before His baptism, of which I need not speak, save that it was one wholly perfect as a man in the ordinary details of life. Secondly, after His baptism, when He was the witness of God on earth, and declared what God was in His nature, where it was unknown and denied. And during this period in, the face of every opposition and accumulating force, He preserved the space around Him; and in a holy circle set forth the heart of God; in the midst of those who denied it, and were still incredulous, He manifested the nature of God so fully that the needy and wretched felt they could turn to Him in their distress. One could say, " If I but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole." And another could cry, out of the jaws of an ignominious death, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." He taught His disciples to say " Our Father," because the grace, and tenderness, and way of the heart of God was exhibited before them. And He could say, " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." God was fully owned by a man on earth; and not only fully owned, but fully declared in spite of all opposition, in all the mighty and tender lines of His love and care for man.
Now, in the third and final period of His life on earth, He is before us in quite another position. He now surrenders Himself to judgment. He offers Himself to bear the judgment clue to man; He is now the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. He is " led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." He is defenseless altogether. His hour is come; the multitude with swords and staves take Him, and lead Him away. The prince of this world had come, and had carried away Judas, and sifted Peter, but finds nothing in Him who was manifested to take away our sin; for in Him was no sin, and He came to destroy the works of the devil. In this final period, we see our blessed Lord as the victim; we see every form of evil let loose upon Him. The prince of this world, who had been kept at bay during the second period, because silenced and curbed at the beginning of His ministry, comes forth again. The Lord tells His disciples that they must no longer look to Him for succor; that they must return to their own resources (Luke 22:35-3735And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. 36Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. 37For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. (Luke 22:35‑37)). He will submit to every form of degradation and force from man, and every exercise of soul required of God. Here He especially humbled Himself. He allowed everything to bear down on Him, He screened Himself from none; the utmost which man and Satan could do is unrebuked and unavoided: He meets all without resistance or evasion; and eventually takes the cup which the Father had given, and bears the judgment of sin on the cross. There He enters into the terrible distance of a sinner under judgment from God. He bears everything, shrinks from nothing; is obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Supported by trust in God, He passes through every form and character of suffering, and bearing the judgment of sin, forsaken of God, as it is said, " all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me."
Sin is condemned in the flesh. God's Son, in the likeness of sinful, flesh, had now condemned sin in the flesh. All bore down on the Blessed One, and He is righteous in it all. He has glorified God on earth. He establishes righteousness for God. Now the veil is rent, that is to say, there is nothing now to restrain or hinder the expression of God's love to man. The love of His heart which had been already exhibited by the Son on earth, He can now make good in the soul of the prodigal child who turns to Him. Sin is now removed from the presence of God on God's side: righteousness is established; there was none on man's side. The Son manifested in the flesh here established righteousness, by rising out of the divine judgment on man. God can now be just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. It is not that man has any right to draw near; but God, on the warrant of righteousness, can deal with the sinner. This is grace! Christ has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ' He has brought in righteousness. Every barrier to the full expression of God in His heart and nature is now removed. He had required righteousness. That He had now found in His Son, and God being glorified. He is free to act. Having found in His Son all that was required, He is the justifier of every one who believes in Christ, and 'He gives eternal life and this life is in His Son. What God in His righteousness required is now effectuated, and the consequence of it is, that He gives eternal life. The deep purpose of His heart is now divulged; sin having been condemned in the flesh; judged in the cross of Christ.
And not only so. Christ is risen, and life and incorruptibility have come to light through the gospel. Christ bore the judgment due to the first man, and having risen out of it, is in resurrection the fountain of life to every one believing in Him. He is their life. As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Death was in the one race; the eternal life that was with the Father, in the other. The first man is judged before God in the death of Christ; he is no longer an existence dealt with by God. When God deals with man from henceforth, it is on the ground that the first man has been judged in the death of Christ; and that He can give according to His heart in righteousness, and, receive to Himself the lost, in newness of the life that is in Christ Jesus, and in His likeness. So that as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. There is an entirely new man now before God, suited for Him; as the former sprang from the first Adam, so the new springs from the last Adam; risen from the dead, Lord in heaven. God will have man in an entirely new order and construction. The Son, who knows the scope and purpose of His heart has done all His will and finished His work. He is the beginning of the creation of God, and " he that cometh to Him shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Him shall never thirst." God can do His utmost for all who turn to Him. Thus the grace of God which carries with it salvation to all men has appeared. The first great thing which is established by the Gospel is the relation in which God can now place Himself to his repentant creature-man. He has laid help on one that is mighty, and He can now, without let or hindrance, disclose the deep purpose of. His love. He has by Himself secured for Himself this. He has made known His heart. God's grace is that He can now unfold all His love to those who once were lost. He can work faith in the alienated heart of man. Every hindrance has been removed by the Son of His love. His will is the measure of everything; and all His heart is open to the returning prodigal whom He had drawn to Himself. But the sphere from which this grace shines forth imparts eternal depth and greatness to it. It shines from the glory. It is communicated by light from the glory. Before righteousness was brought in, God required righteousness, as the law and the fiery mount declared. And therefore the law was the ministry of condemnation. It never repaired the distance, and was the ministration of death, but now righteousness being established, and there being full warrant for God to act according to His love, there is from the glory now a ministration of the Spirit, which is the ministration of righteousness. Righteousness being established, Christ risen, has become according to the grace of' God, the founder of a new man who lives by Him. As in the first Adam men die; so in Him all who are of Him live.
But being rejected by Israel to whom He offered Himself even after His ascension (Acts 7), He is set down at God's right hand. And it is thence that the light of the glory surrounds Paul. In that light, Jesus is revealed to Him. As Jesus was announced from the glory at His first coming to restore all things, so now is He shown forth by the light of the glory, as the One who has so established righteousness, that the glory which before would have consumed the sinner, is where He now finds a Savior and a home. The grace of God in its simple. greatness cannot be seen or known, unless we see that it is from the glory, the sphere of God's presence, where His satisfaction as to sin is fully declared, that the light of His grace reaches the sinner. The sinner may not trace to the glory the ray of light that reaches his own soul; and he loses in proportion as he does not. But the moment he knows that the ray of light concerning God's grace which has shone in on His soul, comes from the glory, then He acquires a true estimation of the riches of God's grace which the Church will throughout all ages bear testimony to (Eph. 2:77That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)). Paul is a pattern, or an outline to all here who hereafter should believe on Him to life everlasting (1 Tim. 1:1616Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. (1 Timothy 1:16)). God communicates to the soul the satisfaction of His own heart in Christ. This is the light which testifies of His grace, and this is the consummation of it; to make known to the soul the acceptance and communion in which He now places me through and in Christ. And therefore with Paul, though made known at his conversion, it was the " mark " to which he was turning his eyes and wending his way all' the days of his pilgrimage here. In whatever darkness and shame this light falls in on a soul, it rebukes and annuls the distance and enmity on man's side while assuring of the removal of the distance on God's side it comes from the glory, and has in it the expression and assurance of God's deepest, fullest love. The kiss to the prodigal was not the fatted calf, but it assured his heart to be nothing surprised at anything the father who so greeted him could confer on him.
The light from the glory announces and pronounces that all God's heart is open to me. I am introduced into a new order of existence in Christ Jesus; I find my life and home where God puts me, suited to Himself, according to the delight and satisfaction of his heart, and this is the grace of God which has appeared to all men carrying with it salvation. S.