THE moment sin came into the world, the wrath of God came in and rested on the sinner. God's majesty was outraged, and the holiness of His nature demanded that sin should be punished. It was impossible for Him to pass over it without judgment, and the effects of that judgment upon man were the bringing in of death, by which his earthly life was cut short, his body returning to dust, his soul being ushered into eternity, to endure ages of weary waiting, until, in resurrection, he should stand before God's judgment throne, to receive sentence of eternal banishment from His presence to the place of outer darkness, there to spend an eternity of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
Man has an immortal soul, and it follows that unless his sin could be put away, and God's unchangeable holiness satisfied about it, divine wrath once upon him must abide there throughout time and an endless eternity.
And who could put sin away?
Man, the offender, was outside paradise, and without strength. God might, as indeed He did, test and try him for forty long and weary centuries, but the trial merely demonstrated the sorrowful fact of man's utter inability to deliver himself from that wrath that loomed over him, embittering his short life on earth, and threatening him with eternal woe in the dark future.
The universe might be searched, and still no creature found competent to deal with the question of sin, so as to take it clean out of the scene, clearing God's majesty from the insults put upon it, satisfying His holiness, and annulling its effects upon the sinner.
Here then are seen the respective positions of God and man. On the one hand, God—grieved, insulted, offended; pledged by His unalterable holiness to punish sin. On the other hand, man—polluted, wretched, helpless, groaning under the terrible burden of God's wrath; his prospects as to earth merely a few fleeting years of sorrow and toil; as to eternity, hell.
But GOD IS LOVE; and never before, throughout the course of eternity or time, had such an opportunity been afforded Him to display Himself as such. And what is more, it was just the occasion that He sought; yea, the opportunity which He in His omniscience had foreseen ere earth's foundations were laid.
It was in the redemption of man that God's love could be manifested, and apparently only a slight exercise of His power was needed to effect this; but GOD IS LIGHT, hence something more than power was required for man's deliverance; (atone went was needed, that wonderful work, which meets the claims of righteousness and forms the medium for the revelation of love divine.
And the wonderful Book of God, that slowly and patiently evolves the ways and purposes of God, and the history of man down to the point at which we have arrived, now reveals to us One whose dwellingplace from eternity was the Father's bosom; discloses Him who came from the realms of light and glory with that wonderful utterance, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.”
Thus Jesus, the Father's well-beloved Son, came to this earth to do that Father's will—a will that had for its object the putting away of sin, and the salvation of the sinner, but a will that could only be accomplished by the sacrifice of Himself.
And yet He came, and in His life on earth was God's faithful and true Witness. Never deviating from that path of fragrant testimony for God, He journeys on until Gethsemane is reached, where, bending before the Father in the perfection of that obedience and self-surrender that became the One charged with the mighty work of human redemption, He Himself accepts the cup of wrath the sinner should have drunk. “Father, not my will, but thine be done," He says; and passing onward to the cross, drains that bitter cup to its very dregs. He who knew no sin is made sin, and as such is subjected to the infliction of divine wrath.
Mysterious sight! the Holy One of God has taken the place of the sinner, and God's wrath falls on Him.
But He was there experiencing divine judgment in order that the lost children of the first man might be saved. The only way by which the wrath of God could be removed from them was for Christ Himself to bear it.
Heaven veiled its face at the awful sight; earth shook and trembled. The dying Son of God cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken ME?” and gave up the ghost. The blood of atonement answers the thrust of the soldier's spear. The veil of the temple is rent in twain from top to bottom by God's mighty hand. Halleluiah! The Father's will is done; atonement for sin made; God's purpose fulfilled; man's redemption accomplished.
That mystic veil, entire, had ever been the solemn witness of God's place and man's. God was inside, man outside; the sad proof, too, that no way into His presence had yet been found.
The same veil, rent, is the blessed pledge that a way has now been made; yea, that God in righteous love has Himself come out to take the sinner in.
And Jesus rose and ascended into glory; and the Holy Ghost came down to earth to remind the world of those wonderful words spoken while Jesus was yet here, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on, the Son hath everlasting life: and he that beliveth, not the Son shall not, see life: but the wrath of God abide& on him" (John 3:35, 3635The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. 36He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:35‑36)).
Thus are we brought down by successive stages to the present moment, and the light of eternal truth streams in upon, and makes manifest, the present condition of men and things.
We have seen that God's wrath abode upon Adam fallen, and that it pursued and rested on each member of his family. Now the death of Christ has not altered the fact of man being under wrath through sin. Nay, the Word of God is precise and positive in its assertion, that His wrath, abides on, every 'unbeliever alive at this 'moment on earth.
BUT, as the result of that death, the Holy Ghost, for nearly nineteen centuries, has made the wonderful announcement to mankind that whosoever believeth on the Son is at once delivered from the wrath, and receives everlasting life.
Christ has come in between the sinner and God, that by the shedding of His own precious blood of atonement He might bring together the twain, and God's answer to that glorious work is His offer to eternally deliver from wrath all who believe on the Son.
Reader, have you got everlasting life? or is the wrath of God still abiding on you?
What an exchange I "Everlasting life," in lieu of the "wrath of God." Do you inquire how you are to obtain this? The Spirit answers, “Through believing on the Son.”
Is it strange to you that God's wrath is removed from the sinner, and everlasting life gained by him the moment he believes in Jesus?
Ah! have you not heard that the Father loveth the Son? The heartless world might see no beauty in Jesus of Nazareth, and in its haste to rid itself of His presence might hurry Him to the cross; but the Father loves the Son, and has given expression to that love by causing the sinner's acceptance, deliverance, and eternal blessing to depend exclusively upon that Son's atoning work, by making it the sole way and medium to the Father's presence.
God's word to man is now no longer “He that keepeth my holy laws shall live," but "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” Your works of righteousness and goodness, your piety and religiousness, your endeavors and resolves, are as nothing to the Father who loves the Son, and has given all things into His hands. He is the only Saviour, and can only be found, and His salvation obtained, through faith. "Ile that believeth, on the Son HATH everlasting life." You may possess every known virtue, your reputation may be spotlessly perfect, and your attention to religious duties most scrupulous, but for all that, unless you have the Son you have not life, but are still a poor lost child of Adam, with the wrath of God abiding on you. Remember, "He that hath the Son HATH LIFE, and he that hath not the Son of God HATH NOT LIFE" (1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12)).
Do you desire to add anything to that, dear reader? Then you must live and die with that wrath abiding on you. Are you content to come to Jesus as a poor, heavy-laden, helpless sinner, resting simply on the value of His blood? Then the wrath shall at once be removed, and you shall dwell with God's beloved through God's eternal day.
But the world is full of careless ones led captive by the devil, and willingly ignorant of their terrible destiny, and I now address myself to such, while in love to their perishing souls, and that their blood may not be upon my hands, I inquire,—Is it nothing to you that the wrath of God is this moment abiding Mb you? Is it a matter of no concern to you that, whether awake or asleep, whether eating or drinking, in gay mood or sorrowful, that wrath HAS BEEN, and is abiding. Yea, and will, if you die unsaved, Forever abide on you!
Satan may make the world pleasant and attractive, and lead you to count on a long term of existence in it, but that does not alter the terrible fact that the wrath of God abides on you.
You may be young and amiable, talented and beautiful, your company courted, and your virtues esteemed, but none of this can affect the solemn truth that the wrath of God abides on you.
You may scoff and sneer, and call these truths old fashioned ideas, and inconvenient, but for all that, there, on the page of eternal truth, is inscribed the terrible record, that the wrath of God abides on YOU.
Yes, on you, young men and maidens on you, fathers and mothers; on you of the hoary head; on each and every one of you, who are yet in your sins.
Business may occupy one, pleasure another, the cares of a family others, but there, naked and terrible on the page of holy writ, is revealed the awful truth, that the wrath of God abides on all who have not believed on the Son.
And if you persist in rejecting that Son, you will die with that wrath upon you; you will wake up in eternity with it still abiding on you; you will find it eternal in its duration, unendurable in its effects, you will experience no alleviation of its torment; the everlasting ages will roll on in endless succession, but the wrath of God will still abide upon your lost soul, with all its resistless, quenchless, accumulated force.
Sinner! surely your heart grows faint at the terrible thought. Oh, while there is yet time, I implore you, as you love your soul, to give heed to that Spirit of grace who still pleads with thee, pointing you for refuge from this fearful wrath to Jesus the Saviour, once at Calvary, now in glory. Hark, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands; HE THAT BELIEVETH ON THE SON HATH EVERLASTING LIFE.”
Oh! accept the gracious invitation, and come this moment to that Son. God is offering thee the blessed fruits of that death—salvation from the consequences of your sin, for Jesus has suffered that you might never suffer.
Have you accepted it, my reader? I warn you that there is not a moment to be lost, for listen, the Spirit proceeds—God grant His solemn words may not be prophetic of your doom—" He that believeth not the Son SHALL NOT SEE LIFE, BITT THE WRATH OF GOD ABIDETH ON HIM." W. H. S.