THE contrast between the splendor and cleanliness of a palace and the squalor and dirt of a hovel is easily realized; but what mind can conceive the comparison between the pure, unsullied home of God and this earth, sin-stricken and defiled? Yet to this world, in sovereign grace and mercy, the Son of God came.
Laying aside the magnificence proper to Him who was in the form “of God,” and veiling His Godhead glory, He came to dwell here.
The evangelists speak reverently yet lovingly of His condescension in sitting and eating with sinners; and He earned the scornful title of “Friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:1919The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children. (Matthew 11:19)). The finger of derision was pointed at Him; the lip was curled in a sneer, as it was said that “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” (Luke 15:22And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. (Luke 15:2)). Who knew better than He the moral filth of those He came to save? His eye, keen with Divine insight, alone could see the unclean heart, and He alone knew the moral distance between them and Himself, the Holy One of God. Perfect in Divine and human sensibility, the foulness of man’s state was all well known.
His was not a visit in patronizing sympathy, but He dwelt and ate and drank with the vile, (For all have sinned.)
The visitor to the slums of a city would not care to live there; yet in an infinitely greater degree was the moral defilement discernible by Jesus. And on His way to die for sinners, He dwelt amongst them and loved them. There is a filth that can be removed by water and soap, but the sin-blots on the soul, who or what can remove, save His precious blood?
It is this inward knowledge of indwelling sin that has driven men and women to all kinds of extravagant methods to remove it, but without success.
Let it, dear reader, ―if you know the plague of a sin-defiled heart and soul, ―let it drive you, under God’s good hand, to the feet of Jesus, to One who came to call sinners to repentance, the Friend of such. He can remove it. For this He died.
The picture of a sinner is given in Leviticus 13:42-4642And if there be in the bald head, or bald forehead, a white reddish sore; it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or his bald forehead. 43Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh; 44He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head. 45And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. 46All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be. (Leviticus 13:42‑46). Leprosy is a type of sin; the leper a type of a sinner. The sinner is unclean, unfit for the habitation of God, and, should he come into judgment, is perpetually to feel his isolation away from God (John 3:3636He 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 3:36)). Solemn picture! Forever alone and unclean!
But it was not only to live with or for sinners that the Son of God came; but to remove by His death all that would prevent them living eternally with Him. His power was a relief to those He healed, and His presence a blessing. But for salvation His holy life and example were of no avail to fallen man.
For the sinner to be saved from the eternal consequences of his sins, to have his moral filth removed, and be made fit for the holy presence of God, Christ must die. His death alone could atone for sin, and cleanse from sin (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)). As truly as it was necessary for the serpent of brass to be erected for the eager eye of the dying Israelite to gaze upon, so truly was it necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up (John 3:1414And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (John 3:14)).
But God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son; and the eye of faith may now perceive in the crucified Saviour a way to escape judgment.
What the heart of man was capable of is told by the evangelists; and we read that the Son of Man was “delivered into the hands of sinners” (Matt. 26:4545Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. (Matthew 26:45)). After all His miracles, and His life of love and blessing, man in cruel hatred nailed Him to a Roman gibbet, ―as a serpent, warmed and fed, turns to sting its benefactor.
But Christ Jesus came to save. Divine love, in its unchangeable devotion, is seen in Him.
Upon the cross, derided by His creatures, feeling pain and ridicule as only a perfectly human heart could, He remained steadfast, though He could have come down. But the unclean was away from God, and in His love and compassion He would go where the unclean was.
The physical darkness which shrouded the Saviour was manifest to all; but the judicial darkness into which He went is only known and fathomed by Himself and God. Forsaken of God, in those three dark hours, Divine wrath against sin fell upon Him. He exhausted it.
None but a Divine Person could sustain it, or drink the measured cup in all its bitterness―measured only by the infinite.
But this was necessary ere Christ could save. In triumphant voice He cried, “It is finished,” and took that very day into the Paradise of God a self-confessed sinner―a thief. Yet no longer a thief, no longer unclean, but spotless through his Redeemer’s atonement, the first trophy of His saving power. He was justified freely by God’s grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Can you say, dear reader, “The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me?” L. O. L.