Part 7

Now I am perfectly aware of the argument frequently urged, that the Lord Jesus Christ is certain to save all those for whom He shed His blood, and I am quite prepared to acknowledge that, humanly speaking, there is great apparent reason in it. But I do not believe that it is according to Scripture; and after all we must rely in all such matters on the statements of God’s word, and not on our own conclusions. I would refer you, then, to two passages which certainly seem to be conclusive on that point. The one is 1 Cor. viii. 11, ‘Through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?’ The other is 2 Pet. ii. 1, where, predicting the dangers of the latter days, the Apostle says, ‘There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.’ The first of these texts seems certainly to teach very clearly that those for whom Christ died may perish, and the other that people for whom the Lord had given the redemption price of His own most precious blood may still deny Him, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. We must not therefore be guided in such a matter by our own conclusions. The whole plan from first to last is divine. The eternal purpose is divine; the Saviour is divine; the salvation is divine; the atonement is divine, and the revelation of the great purpose must likewise be divine. We must not attempt, therefore, to cut our system square by the rule of our own opinion, but must take God’s Scripture just as it stands, and receive God’s salvation just as He has revealed it in His Word.

What, then, has He revealed? That is the question. Has He taught us that the Lord Jesus Christ shed His most precious blood for the elect alone or for all? Blessed be God! the testimony of Scripture appears as plain as the sun in heaven that the atonement was made for all, and that in consequence of that atonement the door is thrown open to every sinner upon earth. I have no time now to attempt to bring before you the multitude of passages which abound in Scripture in proof of this position. I must be content to draw your attention to only three, the first relating to the fact itself, the second to the love that led to it, and the third to the offer made in consequence of it.

The first is from 1 John, ii. 2. But before you examine it, turn for one moment to the words of the same apostle in the fifth chapter of the same epistle, and 19th verse, ‘We are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.’ That verse shows with indisputable clearness who is meant by ‘we,’ and who by ‘the world.’ By ‘we’ is meant the people of God, believers, the elect. By the world the rest of mankind, those who live and die unconverted and unsaved. And now turn to the passage in the second chapter, ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’ Surely the ‘our’ in that verse must refer to the same persons as the ‘we’ in the fifth chapter, and ‘the whole world’ in the second chapter must be the same as ‘the whole world’ in the fifth. But if so it is perfectly clear that He died not for the elect alone but for all mankind; for the whole world that lieth in wickedness.

From the second passage we learn exactly the same respecting the love that led to it. I refer to John, iii. 16. But before we refer to it let us turn to another text in explanation, viz., that most wonderful prayer of our blessed Saviour in John, xvii. 6, ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.’ You will observe in these words the clear distinction between the world and the elect. The mass of men are described as the world, while the elect are said to be given to Him out of it, set apart as a separate people, and given Him in the covenant of God. And now turn to the passage in John, iii., ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Surely we must take ‘the world’ here in the same sense as in the other passage. It is impossible to believe that by ‘the world’ he meant the elect of God given Him from out of the world, the peculiar people whom He Himself most carefully distinguishes from the world. Surely, then, we must conclude that the love which moved Him to make the atonement was a love for us all, a free love, an unmerited love, a compassionate love, a most merciful love, to every individual involved in the ruin of the fall.

We are brought to exactly the same conclusion if we look at the offer that results from it. Turn to that magnificent invitation which we find just at the conclusion of the book of life, Rev. xxii. 17, ‘And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ Now if you study that verse you find the Bride employed in proclaiming God’s invitation. Who then is meant by the Bride? Surely nothing else than the church of God’s elect; those who were chosen in Him before the world was. But how is the Bride to be employed? What is to be her work as described in this passage? Is it not to go forth in the Lord’s name, and proclaim to the perishing the free offer of His saving grace? ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.’ Would it be possible to construct a sentence which would proclaim more clearly a universal invitation? an invitation to be given by the elect to all the world?

Surely, then, we may every one of us accept that offer, and regard the atonement as an atonement made for ourselves. You may see no evidence of your election. You may look into your own heart, and find there nothing whatever to lead you to believe that you are one of God’s chosen people. But you are not called to wait till you have discovered such evidence; and if you do wait, you may wait for ever, for it is perfectly impossible that you should ever have evidence of your election till after you have trusted in His atoning blood. But without any such evidence you may fall back on the finished substitution of the Son of God for the sinner. You may take the words of this text, ‘Being made a curse for us,’ and, whatever you are, may put it in the singular number, and say, ‘Being made a curse for me,’ yes! ‘for me, even for me.’ If, therefore, you are really anxious about the salvation of your soul, do not stop to search into your own sinful heart for evidences of your election; but fall boldly on the fact that, whether you are elected or not, Christ Jesus was your substitute. Cleave to the fact that the propitiation was for the world, that the love that moved God to it was a love to the world; and that the offer made in consequence of it is an offer to the world. Trust that. Accept that. Rest in that, and leave it to God to settle the matter of your election; for of this you may be perfectly sure that you will never enjoy any evidence of your election unto life until you have learned to trust the Lord Jesus Christ, and His perfect work without it. You must learn a lesson from that poor woman of Canaan. She was apparently quite shut out by the doctrine of election, for she was not one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the Lord Himself said to her that it was not right to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs. But she was not discouraged by the difficulty. She pleaded, ‘Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table;’ and the result was that she did not merely pick up the crumbs, but she was made partaker of the feast itself, and went to her home rejoicing in our Lord’s approval, and her daughter’s cure.

Let us all then accept the fact that in His boundless mercy He was made a curse for us. But we must bear in mind at the same time, that He does not force upon us the blessings of that substitution. If we choose to live without the substitute we may. If people are so occupied by the world that they do not care for it; or so satisfied with themselves that they do not feel the need of it; or so unmindful of the holiness of God that they cannot see the necessity of it; they are at full liberty to reject it, and have full power to live without it. But then, it is obvious they must bear their own burden, and all the weight of it. The Lord Jesus has satisfied the law as their substitute; but if they decline to accept that satisfaction, it is perfectly clear that there is nothing left for them but to satisfy it for themselves. They must blot out their own curse in their own way, and how they are going to do it I cannot tell. I know of nothing but Christ the substitute that can remove the just judgment of a broken law; and if men live and die without Him, I see no prospect for them but that they live in their sin, and die in their sin, and go down into eternity with the whole of the awful weight of unforgiven sin resting on their poor unforgiven souls. And who can say that such a sentence would be hard, or severe, or unjust? If there were no substitute provided we might possibly think the law severe. But, now that in boundless mercy God has Himself provided the substitute, who can say that it is a hard measure if the sinner is crushed under the burden which he resolves to bear?

XI. FORGIVENESS.

‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.—EPH. i. 7.

‘And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’—LUKE, xi. 4.

IN our study of the divine redemption we considered from the words of St. Paul to the Galatians the great foundation act of the whole, viz., the satisfaction made for sin by the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. We had no time then to go on to the consequent deliverance. But we do not want to have either a building without a foundation, or a foundation without a building. In other words, we do not wish either to have a superficial life of Christian experience without a solid foundation in the great work of atonement, or to be so exclusively occupied by the atonement as to forget the great practical deliverance which is in fact the completion of redeeming grace. Having laid the foundation, then, in the study of the ransom, redemption price, or satisfaction for sin, we must pass on to the great deliverance with which God follows up His work of mercy. This we will now do, if God permit, and may He Himself put forth the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, and this very day in His own grace deliver souls!

Now what is the first great gift of God in delivering souls?—the first result of the blood of atonement when applied to the salvation of the sinner? I hope that if we were all to speak we should give the same answer to the question, and that there are none amongst us who would hesitate to reply, ‘Forgiveness.’ So long as sin remains unforgiven there can be no freedom, nor any deliverance of any kind whatever. Unforgiven sin blocks the way against all hope of escape, and therefore when God invites a sinner to return He first assures him of the blotting out of sin: ‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.’ (Isa. xliv. 22.)

But now arises a question which has sometimes occasioned difficulty in thoughtful minds. A complete forgiveness is the starting-point of the Christian’s life; and accordingly this forgiveness of sin is described as a complete and present privilege, so we read, ‘In whom,’ _i.e._, in Christ the Beloved One, ‘we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’ The apostle speaks of it there as something of which we are now in the present enjoyment, for he says, ‘We have it.’ It is ours now. But yet in other passages, such as the Lord’s Prayer, the children of God are taught to ask for it with as much regularity as for their daily bread. How is it, then, that we are told to ask for that we have already? Why do we pray the Lord’s Prayer every day when we already have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins? It is a very natural question, and I cannot be surprised if persons feel the difficulty. But I believe that if we look carefully at the real work of redemption it will throw great light on the subject. We shall find if we do so that there are two kinds of forgiveness described in the word of God, the one the immediate, and the other the consequent, result of redemption. There is judicial forgiveness as the foundation, and parental forgiveness as the consequence: the two being closely connected with each other, and both resulting from redemption. Let us study them separately.

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I. Judicial forgiveness.

In order to understand judicial forgiveness we must consider the judicial condemnation of the unforgiven man, and we must carefully remember God’s offices as King, as Lawgiver, and as Judge. He is a Saviour, but He is a ruler likewise, and He rules the world in righteousness. But if we think of Him as the great executive of a perfectly righteous and holy law, acting on principles of strict and unvarying righteousness, we must see in a moment that we have all been brought under judicial condemnation, for the law condemns us all. It condemned our whole race in the person of our head and first father when Adam sinned, and the sentence of death was passed on him as the representative of man. It condemns our nature as alien and strange to God. And it condemns our lives that have abounded in action contrary to His will. I know that some people find a difficulty in the first two points, and cannot understand the condemnation of the race, or of the nature. I can appreciate their difficulty, though I am quite sure it is fully met in Scripture. But I have not time to discuss it now. But this one thing I am sure is plain; even if there were no condemnation on the race or on the nature, there is quite sufficient in the past life to bring condemnation on any soul amongst us. Even if we had not been condemned in Adam there has been quite sufficient to condemn us in ourselves. There is not one amongst us who is not guilty of that for which he knows himself to be responsible. There is not one who dare stand before God on the plea that he has never sinned, not one therefore that must not acknowledge in some form or other that he cannot be saved if the sentence of the law is to be carried out on his sin.

But if you think over it you will see that according to natural principle judicial forgiveness is impossible. Law can acquit, and law can condemn, but law cannot forgive. Law can pronounce a man innocent, and law can pass the sentence of death, but law cannot pardon the guilty. Our legal position by nature is perfectly hopeless. We have incurred a legal and just condemnation, but nature has made no provision for a legal and just forgiveness. It is the effort to overcome this insuperable difficulty that has kept thousands of conscientious heathen toiling on throughout their lives in deep religious anxiety without a ray of light to throw peace upon their path.

But the whole difficulty is met in God’s great plan of redemption, as revealed in those wonderful words, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’ The forgiveness resulting from the great act of redemption is exactly what we want, a legal and judicial remission of a legal and judicial sentence. The sentence of the law has been as fully carried out in the person of our most Blessed Redeemer as it would have been had the whole race been cast into hell for ever. The whole difficulty is removed by the principle of substitution, or satisfaction. If Christ was made a curse for us, then the curse is gone from us, and we are free. The holiness of the law is honoured, the righteousness of the lawgiver is preserved, the sentence of the judge is established, not one jot or one tittle of the law is allowed to pass; but, notwithstanding all, the man that has broken it, although he has broken it, is absolutely free. Thus, in Rom. iii. 26, we are taught that the result of propitiation is, ‘That God might be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’

Here, therefore, we have what I have termed a judicial forgiveness, a forgiveness in perfect harmony with the strict righteousness of law; a forgiveness which is, in fact, the letting forth of God’s eternal love when all legal claims are satisfied. Till that redeeming act was complete, the love was as it were pent up, and could not, in consistency with His own law, flow forth to a condemned people. But all is different now. The law itself pronounces in favour of the condemned, and the result is that God is not only faithful, but just to forgive. And to this righteous forgiveness we may apply the text, ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.’

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II. Parental Forgiveness. But when we are in the enjoyment of this judicial forgiveness it may be said, ‘If this be the case, why should we any more pray for forgiveness? Why should we say the Lord’s prayer? Are we not taught that we already have forgiveness as we have redemption through His blood? To answer this question we must mark the distinction between judicial and parental forgiveness.

Consider, then, the position into which every believer is brought through redemption and judicial forgiveness. According to verse 6, we are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ accepted, _i.e._, in Christ Jesus the Beloved One. And according to Gal. iv. 5, we are made, by virtue of that redemption, children of God, for Christ was sent forth ‘to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.’ If, then, we be in Christ Jesus, what is our position? The curse which fell on the whole race through Adam is gone, and we shall soon rise from the dead into new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The condemnation of our sinful and ruined nature as well as of all the sin of all our past lives is forgiven for ever; and much more than that, for, the barriers being all broken down, we are accepted in the Beloved and ‘the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.’

What, then, is the consequence of this new position? And what does it involve? Nothing less than a parental and filial union. In Christ Jesus you have a Father who loves you, a Father whom you love; a Father who cares for you, and on whose care you may confidently trust; a Father who speaks to your soul by His Spirit, and who admits you into close and confidential intimacy with Himself. Now it is perfectly clear, that as you pass through life, it will be the joy of your heart to please that loving Father. The more you love Him, the more you will rejoice to please Him, and He gives you the assurance that your efforts, defective though they be, do please Him, for we are told not to forget to do good, and to communicate, ‘for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’ (Heb. xiii. 16.) But, on the other hand, you may grieve Him. I can never forget the tender love of my dearest mother, or how fondly I loved her in return. I have the greatest satisfaction also in the recollection of her pleasure as she witnessed my boyish efforts to carry out her wishes and those of my father. But I can look back to more than fifty years ago and remember one or two sad days in which I pained her. Oh, dear children! never pain your mother, for the thought may remain with you long after she is in the grave, long after the time when you can no more throw your arms round her neck, and ask her forgiveness for what you have said or done to grieve her. Now it is just the same with our Heavenly Father. We may love Him, truly love Him, love Him without a doubt. Moreover, we may please Him, please Him well in all things, and bring to His service that offering of the whole man with which he is well pleased. But we may also grieve Him, and I fear we often do. The free forgiveness through redeeming blood has not removed, eradicated, or laid to rest the old sinful human nature. Thus St. Paul tells us to ‘grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption,’ Eph. iv. 30; and he shows us how we may do so, viz., by corrupt communication, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking and malice. Do you think that a bad temper does not grieve Him, or unkind conversation, or pride of heart, or wandering thoughts in prayer, or any of the thousand things that may rise before the conscience of those who are not satisfied with a superficial Christian life? But if this be the case what do we want,—want day by day as we pass through life? Surely the parental forgiveness, the loving forgiveness of a loving Father, watching in love over His loving child, and with a Father’s love, and a Father’s authority, accepting the acknowledgment of sin, and day by day freely forgiving it. This perfectly explains the use of the Lord’s prayer by the children of God. We come to Him in that prayer as our Father, and because He is our Father we ask Him as a Father to forgive us our sins. This does not supersede the judicial forgiveness, but is the consequence of it. Nor does it set aside redemption, for it is on redemption that the whole sonship depends. There is nothing independent of that most precious blood of Christ. It is through that blood of His that the curse is removed, and the judicial forgiveness granted; through that blood of His that we receive the adoption of sons, and are brought into the sacred relationship of children in a Father’s family. It is through that blood of His that we are preserved in that relationship, and stand before the Father in a covenant union with the Son of God Himself. But resting on this power of the atoning blood, there is a great deal besides judicial forgiveness. If you be asking now the way of life, and anxious that all the sins of all your life may be blotted out, that so you may be saved from the condemnation of the law; then your only hope must be in the plenteous redemption wrought out for you on the cross when the Son of God redeemed you from the curse, being made a curse for you. And, thanks be to God! that is sufficient, for it has broken down every barrier, and set the way of life wide open before the chief of sinners. But if you have been saved from that condemnation, so that now you ‘have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins:’ you have also a great deal more, for you have besides it and resting on it, the unspeakable blessedness of a Father’s love. You may daily fall back on the satisfaction of the law, and in consequence of that satisfaction, like loving children may cry, ‘Abba, Father,’ and claim a Father’s forbearance and a Father’s tenderness, a Father’s provision, and a Father’s forgiveness. It is this parental love that is the joy of our hearts when we kneel together round our Father’s table, this parental forgiveness for which we pray when we say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven, forgive us our trespasses.’