THE abode prepared by God for man must have been beyond any of our present conceptions. We know as coming from the hands of the Creator it was by him pronounced very good. There were no defects, but in the wisdom and love of God it was adapted to man in a state of innocence. It was a garden of delight, the word "Eden" meaning pleasure or delight, but above and beyond all other privileges was the intercourse that man had with his Creator. Dependence on and obedience to God should have characterized man; but when God's love and truth were maligned by the serpent, man to exalt himself sided with the devil, and became a rebel against God, and a slave of his worst foe. A bitter experience ensued, for man became possessed of a guilty conscience, and the sense of guilt filled him with fear. The fall was truly terrible, and the consequences, who can tell how far-reaching? As far as man was concerned, but for God's gracious intervention, it was irremediable. The arch-rebel had been triumphant in God's fair creation, and became possessed of material in fallen human nature to produce this present evil world, with its pursuits, its sorrows, its crimes, its wrongs, its oppressions, its pleasures, its lawlessness, its guilt.
But God for His own glory and in mercy to poor fallen man announced the glad tidings— the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, and it shall bruise his heel. Then four thousand years were allowed to run their course before the advent of this blessed Deliverer. The divine history of those forty centuries is given in God's inspired word. And what a history! A history of ever-increasing evil culminating in the crucifixion of the Lord of glory. But on God's side what long-suffering! what patient grace! Man's varied evil gave occasion to the God of all grace to display still further grace, and in the end where sin abounded grace did much more abound. The thing wherein men acted proudly, in killing the Prince of life, God was above them. Man thought evil against that Blessed One, but God meant it for good to man's salvation. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life." Yes, thank God, His Christ died for sins once, just for unjust, to bring us to God.
A very sweet example of this saving grace is recorded in Luke 23., where another paradise is spoken of, and we may be assured that, however beautiful and blessed the paradise of creation was in its pristine loveliness and blessedness, it bears no comparison to the paradise entered by the Lord Jesus after His death. We know from the apostle Paul's experience that no human language could express the blessedness and glories of the paradise of God. Truly, "only the blood washed ones go there; the ransomed and forgiven.”
The subject of this saving grace referred to, is the poor dying robber; whose career had been so exceedingly bad, that in man's judgment he was reckoned too wicked to be allowed to live, and the poor man himself owned that he was receiving his righteous due. His was truly a desperate case, but he was not beyond the reach of God's mercy. There was repentance wrought in his soul: true repentance which brought forth fruit worthy of it; for he utterly condemned himself and justified the Lord Jesus; moreover, he had faith in the Lord Jesus for salvation, and asked to be remembered when the Lord came in His Kingdom; but it was given him to hear of grace beyond all human thought, for the Lord said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." And no one ever had a more valid title to the paradise of God than that believing robber. That poor tortured body transfixed to the tree for a brief period was the earthen vessel which contained the precious treasure of a ransomed soul. Before the day had run its course the release came, and he, rescued from death and judgment, was absent from the body and in paradise, with his Lord and Saviour.
There is no question of merit in this man's case. Distinctly was all boasting excluded, and it was God's love and grace through the merit of the Saviour's blood which met fully and forever each and every need of his guilty, lost and helpless condition. Let it be remembered that all who are saved are saved in the same way, that is, it is all of grace, pure, free grace.
O my friend, be besought to come to this gracious Saviour who responded to the faith of the guilty robber, then you too shall have a place in the paradise of God. Don't forget that because of sin man was driven out of the paradise of creation, but God has come in, and by His beloved Son so wrought that man can be righteously brought into a vastly superior place to that from which man fell. Drawn by that grace—drawn by the Father to His beloved Son—you will be received by Him, as truly as He received the poor malefactor in his time of extremity, for has not Jesus said, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out"? J. A. T.