Part 2

Now it is plain that everything depends on the nature and power of the person who saves us. If He be only man, then we can hope for nothing more than a man-made salvation. The salvation will not rise above the Saviour; but if He is divine, then we may rest on His divine omnipotence, and look for the power of God unto salvation. Thus the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is a matter of life and death to us. The question is whether we are to save ourselves or be saved by our God. And this is the issue which He Himself raised when He said, “I give unto them eternal life.” {18b} The statement of that passage is that He, as a Person, holds His people in His own hand, and holds them with omnipotent strength because He is divine, for He and the Father are one. There, then, is both the foundation and the keystone of our trust. We may see all kinds of difficulties; there may be confusion, perplexity, and the cry of distress in every direction, but according to His divine power God has provided a divine Saviour, and in that Saviour we may rest, for He is the Son of God.

II. A DIVINE SALVATION.

The whole plan from first to last is divine. The world is full of human plans, some of which are successful and some total failures. One man contrives one thing and one another, but God alone planned the great salvation. It was not in the power of ruined nature to restore itself, so in boundless mercy and in His own divine omnipotence He provided a plan of restoration. Thus the purpose is divine, His own eternal purpose before the world was; the mode of reconciliation is divine, the release of the sinner through the imputation of sin to the sin-bearer. The propitiation was divine, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.” {20a} The imputation of righteousness is divine, “For God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” {20b}

The work of sanctification is divine, “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification;” {20c} and the final gathering of God’s elect will be divine for “all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.” {20d}

It is most important to bear this well in mind, for it places the subject beyond the sphere of human speculation. If a man starts a new system of philosophy, or if people advocate any particular system in politics, we are perfectly at liberty to criticise it. What one man does, another man may criticise. But it is a very different thing with the salvation of God. Once admit that it is a divine plan, arranged in divine wisdom and carried out in divine power, and it is then manifestly beyond the reach of human intellect. There may be things in it which seem to us very mysterious; but what else can we expect when the infinite and divine arrangements of God are subjected to the speculations of the finite mind of man? If the whole salvation were of such a character as to present no points of difficulty to the human inquirer, we might almost doubt its divinity, and believe that as it is within the range of man’s mind, so it had its origin in man’s ingenuity. But when we see it beyond the reach of man, then we are taught by our own inability to fathom it, to regard it as a plan above ourselves, for the simple reason that it is divine.

III. DIVINE REVELATION.

But when we have acknowledged that the Saviour and the salvation are divine, there remains a further question of the utmost possible importance. It is this. In what way is this divine salvation made known to mankind? Is it known by human discovery or divine communication? Do we know it by thinking out the subject, or by receiving a revelation from God? Surely the answer to this question is obvious, that a divine salvation can only be known by a divine communication. The eternal purpose of God can only be known by divine communication from Himself. A supernatural salvation requires in the very nature of things a supernatural communication from God. Thus an Apostle describes {21} the faith, not as having been _discovered by_ the saints, but as having been _delivered to_ the saints, delivered to them, that is, in God’s own inspired Word. As God has planned a complete salvation, so He has given a complete revelation of that salvation. He has not left us to grope for it as blind men feeling for the wall; but has revealed His plan in His own word, and taught us to rest in the scripture of truth as His own revelation of His purpose of grace.

IV. THE DIVINE APPLICATION.

To many this is the most difficult of the four points mentioned at the outset. They are perfectly satisfied as to the divine Saviour, the divine salvation, and the divine revelation in the Word of God, but have found no little difficulty in the application of it to themselves. They can see the chain with its three links hanging down from heaven over their heads, but it is just out of their own reach, and as a poor dying sailor once said to me, “I see the rope, but I cannot get hold of it.” So they see the salvation, but cannot get hold of it as their own. If there are any anxious on the subject, and earnestly desiring “to get hold” on the great salvation, let them remember that what they really want is for _the Saviour to lay hold on them_, and this is what He practically does by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the peculiar office of the Holy Ghost to take of the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and apply them unto us, and without that act of His we may struggle in vain to reach the blessing. It is not enough for us to be told that God has provided a perfect Saviour, that that Saviour has made a perfect propitiation, and that by virtue of that propitiation the great salvation is offered to us as a gift. We may be assured of all that and yet live on without it, for we want in addition that which the human heart cannot find in itself, the power to receive the gift and, receiving it, to live. It is by this mighty power that those who sleep are awakened; those far off are brought nigh; the bondsmen are set free; the dead made alive, and those who are strangers and outcasts are made heirs of God through the blood of Christ.

There is no case too hopeless for the Lord’s salvation. There are many who have been so utterly unsuccessful in their efforts to rise that they begin to think there is something peculiar in themselves which makes them an exception to the general offer of life and pardon. And there are others who are longing for the salvation of some stubborn, unbroken heart, but who have sought so long and so hopelessly that they almost begin to despair. Now whether your anxiety be for yourself or others, remember the divinity of the great salvation. If the whole is divine, why should it not be sufficient? You say you are dead, but cannot the divine power raise the dead? You say your sins are too great for pardon, but is not the divine propitiation sufficient for them all? You say you cannot produce even a good prayer, but does not the divine revelation assure you that the salvation is a free gift even for those who have nothing?

Give up, then, all thought of working yourself up to salvation, for that is a mere human process, and is certain to fail, but throw yourself _before you are saved_ right away on the Saviour for His great gift of salvation. Remember that the whole thing from first to last is divine, and, because it is divine, as a little child trust it without the slightest qualification, trust the promise, accept the gift, and may God grant that you may be able to use as your own the words of the text, “According as His divine power hath given unto me all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who hath called _me_ to glory and virtue.”

FEELINGS

“Love, joy, peace.”—GAL. v. 22.

FEELINGS clearly have their place in the things of God. Our Christianity is based on principles, but still it calls forth the feelings. Now there are two great extremes into which we are apt to fall with reference to Christian feeling.

There are some whose religion seems to consist in feeling only. They look for warm, bright emotions, they bring everything to the standard of their feelings, and if they feel as they wish to do they are satisfied. Their hearts are warmed by the things of God, and many a cold, phlegmatic theologian would be a different being if he could but catch something of their feeling.

But still we must put in a caution, for feelings, however bright, are not to be trusted unless they rise out of principle and end in practice. If you have feeling only—a feeling not based on solid acquaintance with Scriptural truth, it will rise like a bubble, and look as beautiful in its colours, but it will burst as easily as the bubble does, and even at its best estate can never bear the slightest pressure. Here, then, is one extreme—the religion of feeling, of emotion, of impression, taking the place of the religion of conviction, of principle, of faith.

But there is another extreme: I mean the religion without feeling. Some seem to think all emotion, or warmth, or fervour is enthusiasm, and settle down satisfied with a cold reception of Christian truth. They may be quite correct in their creed, and may really believe all the great truths of the Gospel, but their system is to give no expression to Christian emotion, and this has a wonderful power of chilling all around them.

We must not rest satisfied with an unfeeling consent to Christian truth. We want to feel as well as to know, and to have the heart really warmed by the tender love of our gracious Saviour. But here I suspect that I shall be met by a great difficulty on the part of many of you, for this feeling is exactly that which many cannot find. You can understand, but you cannot feel. Your great trouble is, that there is such a dreadful apathy over your whole soul that nothing seems to rouse it. If this is the case consider—

I. THE FEELINGS, HOWEVER WARM, CAN NEVER JUSTIFY, AND THE WANT OF FEELING DOES NOT PREVENT JUSTIFICATION.

I have known persons who have long since given up all idea of being justified by _works_, who still have a secret clinging to some idea of being justified by _feelings_. If they could but feel more—more love, more repentance, more warmth—then they think they could trust Christ for their acceptance. They have learned, they think, to trust Him if they have the feelings, but they would not venture to do so without them.

Now, before they can be happy in Christ they will have to go a step deeper, and learn to trust Him when they have not the feelings as well as when they have. They must remember that our justification is entirely dependent on His atonement and His righteousness, and so it is His free gift, freely given to those that are dead in sin. Now a dead man has no feelings. If, therefore, we wait for our justification until we have the feelings we must wait till we are alive. But the language of Scripture is, “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” {26} Your only hope, therefore, is to trust Him as you are, without waiting till you are one atom warmer than you are at this present moment. With your heart as cold as you now feel it to be, you must throw yourself at once before His feet, and cry, “Lord, save me, I perish.”

Closely connected with this suggestion is another, namely this—

II. IF YOU WANT TO BE MADE TO FEEL, YOU MUST LOSE NO TIME IN GOING NEAR TO A FATHER’S THRONE.

You will never feel warm while you stand shivering outside the city. You must go inside, even while you are cold, and there have your heart warmed by the Lord Himself. Remember that the great heart-warming subject is the tender love of God as displayed in Christ Jesus. If the love of Christ does not make you feel, nothing else will. Do not, therefore, stand afar off gazing on your own coldness, but turn at once to the Cross of Christ. Study Him in the garden bowed down under the heavy burden of sin; study Him on the cross forsaken even of the Father, and remember that all that was borne for you, even for you. Remember there was a personal connection between Him and you in the whole of that great transaction, and so abide, as it were, gazing on the Lord Jesus, on His life, on His meekness, on His burden, on His cry. Pray God that you may realize your part in the whole matter. Confess before Him your own cold, dead, lifeless condition. Trust Him, as He died for you, to save you from it; and so you may hope that, though you feel so cold as you approach Him, you may experience something of His love when you gaze on Him, and know something even of His joy when you go on your way justified through His grace.

III. REMEMBER WELL THAT FEELING IS THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THAT YOU CANNOT WORK YOURSELF UP TO IT.

It is very clearly the work of the Holy Spirit to call forth feeling. He does not act on the head only, but on the heart also. He opens the understanding, but His great office is to make His people feel what they already know. Thus of the nine fruits of the Spirit {27a} the first three are all emotions. Their seat is neither in the head nor in the practice, but they are all feelings of the heart, “Love, joy, peace.” They all lead to practice, and all are founded on principle, but all three are sacred emotions implanted there by the Holy Ghost Himself.

If, therefore, your cold, unfeeling heart is a real sorrow to you; if the trouble of your heart is that your sins trouble you so little, and that you feel so coldly towards that Blessed Saviour who has felt for you so deeply, rest not content, but throw yourself before God that the Spirit of grace and of supplication may enable you to look upon Him whom you have pierced, that He may take of the things of Jesus and show them unto you; that He may call forth in your soul His own fruits of love, joy, and peace, and that so He may answer you the Apostle’s prayer—“The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” {27b}

A PEACEFUL DEATH-BED

“Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word:

“For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”—ST. LUKE ii. 29, 30.

OUR thoughts are often directed to the blessed prospect of our Lord’s return, and there cannot be a doubt that His personal coming is the crowning hope of the Church of God. At the same time, it is most important for us to be, if I may so express it, familiar with the thought of the present heaven. The youngest amongst us may be cut down at any moment, and the old amongst us must be convinced that our time is short, and that our places must soon be filled by others. We ought, therefore, to know where we are going, and what it is that awaits us when “the earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved.” {28a}

The words of our text, so often chanted in our churches, express a sentiment to which, I fear, many who chant them are entire strangers, for they express the peaceful readiness with which Simeon was looking forward to his death. It had been “revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” {28b} He had, therefore, spent his latter days waiting and watching for the promised Christ, and at length, when the Child was presented in the Temple, he saw in that Child the Messiah for whom he had been waiting, and then it was that, his hope being fulfilled, he could bless God and say, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.”

There are three subjects suggested by his words.

I. THE VIEW WHICH IS HERE GIVEN OF DEATH.

He does not speak of it as annihilation, destruction, or stupefaction, but as a departure or removal from one place to another. If a person were to depart from this place and go elsewhere, he would simply change his home. Until he departs his home is here, but when he departs his home is elsewhere.

Is it not exactly the same when the spirit departs from its present home and removes to the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? In this case, as in an earthly removal, departure implies the continuance of life. Thus I rejoice in the many passages in which death is spoken of as a departure. It was clearly the idea in the mind of St. Paul, as when he said, “having a desire to depart,” {29a} and again, “The time of my departure is at hand.” {29b} When those we love are in far distant lands we see them not, but they are there; our eyes cannot behold them, nor our ears hear their pleasant voices, for they are far away, but that does not lead us to doubt either their life, their intelligence, or their affection. Just so it is with those that are gone. We no longer hear the voice, or look on the loved countenance, but we are fully persuaded that, as spirits, they are living elsewhere, that separation is not destruction, and that removal does not involve the diminution of the intelligent powers of the living mind.

But if death is thus a departure, where is the place to which the spirit goes? Over this point there is a veil thrown in Scripture. If we were to know all about it there would be nothing in the knowledge to affect our practical conduct, so there is no knowledge given. Nor do we require it, for one thing is told us, and that one thing is enough. If assured of that one thing we want no more. What, then, is that one thing so clearly revealed to us in God’s holy Word? Where shall we find an account of it? Let us turn to the language of the Apostle Paul: “I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.” {30a} He knew, therefore, that in his departure he should depart to be with Christ, in the conscious enjoyment of His perceptible and never-ceasing love.

II. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH THE BELIEVER MAY DIE.

This is described in the words of Simeon, “Let thy servant depart in peace.” Simeon could look forward to his dying hour in a tranquil spirit of calm, resting peace. How often is there care on the heart of the dying believer. A father may be leaving his wife and family, who have been dependent on him for support; or a mother her children, with the strong conviction that there is no substitute for a mother’s love. Let no one suppose that there is no trial of faith in such a separation, and that it is not, in many cases, very hard to trust. But in Christ Jesus there may be peace even in such a parting, and the dying mother, if she knows her Saviour, may trust her all into His loving hands, and say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.” {30b} She has committed her children into His care. They are her deposit with God, and she may be at perfect peace in the assurance that, though _she_ is departing, _He_ is remaining, and will remain a faithful Saviour till every one of those dear children is presented safe before His throne.

Let no one suppose that it is not a very solemn thing to die, to be suddenly cut off from everything of which we have ever had any experience, and to launch out alone into an invisible world. It cannot, therefore, be an easy thing to die in peace. But, thanks be to God, we believe that the departing spirit passes at once into the loving presence of our Redeemer, and why should there not be peace? I believe it is the forgetfulness of this personal entrance into the personal presence of a personal Saviour that sometimes seems to darken the dying hour. People forget those few words, “Thou art with me,” {31a} and then they are afraid. But when we rest on those words, and combine them with our assured hope, knowing that He is now with us invisibly, and that we are going to be with Him visibly, then we shall be able to say, as Simeon did, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.”

III. THE GREAT FOUNDATION OF SIMEON’S PEACEFUL TRUST.

His eyes had seen the salvation of God. What he had really seen was the promised Messiah, that is, the Lord’s Christ. The little child was the promised Saviour, and to him the Saviour was salvation. The Person and the Gift were so bound together that they were as one. He could not know the Person without the Gift, or enjoy the Gift except through the Person. Thus our Lord, more than thirty years afterwards, spoke of Himself as “the Salvation,” {31b} when He said, as He entered into the house of Zacchæus, “This day is salvation come to this house.” Simeon had what we cannot have, something material that he could handle and look upon. His hand could handle and his eye could see the little child; and there cannot be a doubt that there is in the human mind a craving after something visible, tangible, and material. But we have nothing of the kind; we cannot hold our salvation in our hands. Neither do we want it there. It is safer in the hands of our Lord Himself. But though we cannot say, “Mine _eyes_ have seen,” we can say, thanks be to God, “Mine _heart_ hath seen,” and we can understand the words, “Whom having not seen, ye love.” {32a} There is exactly the same union in that passage between the Saviour and the salvation. Receiving Him we receive salvation, and beholding Him with the eye of faith we behold, as it were, our names written in the Book of Life.

To behold the Saviour is a very personal matter. It is not merely to behold Him like a monument on a distant hill, which we can admire, but never enter; or as a harbour of refuge which we cannot reach. It must not be with us as it was with Balaam when he said, “I shall behold Him, but not nigh,” {32b} for the invitation to us is to draw near, and our privilege is in our inmost soul to pour out our heart before Him, as before One who knows all its secrets, and through His own most precious blood has blotted out all its guilt. This has thrown a gleam of sacred light into many a death-chamber. May God grant that it may be the same with each of us. Let none of us rest until we can say, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,” till we not merely know that there is a Saviour, but can rest assured that He has saved us, and has made us—even us—heirs of God and joint-heirs with Himself in His kingdom.

A PEACEFUL LIFE

“To me to live is Christ.”—PHIL. i. 21.

WE have studied the subject of a peaceful death-bed and I hope we learned how to die. Let us now turn our thoughts to a peaceful life and endeavour to learn how to live. The two things are bound fast together.

Let us study what St. Paul meant when he said, “To me to live is Christ.” When there is any one object, for which, and in which, a person lives, it is not an uncommon thing to say it is his life. To a certain extent this explains the expression, “To me to live is Christ,” for the Lord Jesus Christ was the one absorbing object of St. Paul’s whole life. He thought of Him; he leaned on Him; he trusted in Him; he loved Him, and he lived for Him. He could not do without Him. If we look at the subject more in detail we find three things very clearly taught us in Scripture. Our life is hidden _with_ Him, dependent _on_ Him, and devoted _to_ Him.

HIDDEN WITH HIM