“The entrance of thy words giveth light.” Psalm 119:130
The blessed Spirit is pleased sometimes to give some testimony concerning Jesus, to open up some passage of Scripture which speaks of Jesus, to cast a divine light before the astonished eyes, and to throw some of the blessed beams of gospel truth into our souls, whereby we see Jesus. We are brought sometimes in soul feeling to the desires of those Greeks who came up to worship at the feast, and went to Philip, saying, “Sir, we would see Jesus;” and from some apprehension of his beauty and loveliness, we pour out our soul before God, and say, “We would see Jesus.” We want to feel his love, to have our eyes anointed to behold his glory, to look upon him as crucified for us and bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, that we may have a sweet and blessed fellowship with him as our suffering Surety, and thus, by faith, enter into the length and breadth and depth and height of that love of his “that passeth knowledge.” Wherever there is a work of grace upon the soul, there will be this pining after Christ. The soul that is really taught of God can never rest satisfied short of Jesus. “There remaineth a rest to the people of God,” and they can never be satisfied short of that rest, which consists in an experimental knowledge of the Son of God, as revealed by the Holy Ghost to their souls. But before the enjoyment of this spiritual rest, there is often long delay; clouds of darkness for months and years together often envelope the mercy-seat; the cross of Christ cannot be seen; the Holy Ghost does not fulfil his covenanted office in taking of the things of Christ, and shewing them to the soul; and in the absence of these heavenly manifestations, we cannot realise our interest in the things of salvation, nor can we feel our hearts sweetly composed and settled down in the blessed assurance, that when this life shall come to a close, we shall inhabit mansions prepared for us before the foundation of the world. When “with clouds he covereth the light, and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt,” there are many doubts and fears, suspicions, surmises, and jealousies whether we are not deceived and deluded altogether. At such seasons, everything seems to be against us, and to stamp us as being nothing but nominal professors.
It is in such dark and gloomy seasons as these that “the entrance of God’s words giveth light.” For instance, some such promise as this is made sweet to the soul: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” As that promise is brought home with power to the heart, and is shed abroad with some sweetness in the soul, it draws forth and strengthens faith, and the toiling pilgrim comes to the Lord, feeling himself “weary and heavy laden,” and as he comes, he is indulged sometimes with a few sweet moments of rest. He is enabled to look out of fallen self, with all its miseries, and to look upon Jesus in his grace and beauty. He is favoured to cast himself simply, as he is, upon Jesus, and some sense of his atoning blood, dying love, and complete propitiation for sin is opened up to his heart. Faith springs up to lay hold of and embrace it, and he begins to taste the savour and sweetness and healing efficacy of a Saviour’s blood and love. Thus “the entrance of God’s words giveth light,” and he feels by the divine coming in of what God has externally revealed, that inward light is shed abroad in the recesses of his soul, and he can, in some measure, realise the power of the cross of Jesus in his heart.
Oh! the volumes of blessed truth that are couched in these few words; thrown in out of the Apostle’s full heart as if to give a moment’s vent to his love of salvation by grace! Mercy, love, and grace are all in the bosom of God toward his saints; and yet they differ from each other. But how? Mercy regards the criminal; love regards the object; grace, perhaps, is a blending of the two,—the union of mercy and love. God loves the holy unfallen angels; there is an object of love in which there is no mixture of mercy; for having never sinned, mercy they do not need. Again, God shewed no mercy to the fallen angels; there we have justice and wrath, without mercy; but in the case of the saints of God, the election of grace, we have not only mercy and love, but we have the conjoint attribute, that uniting mercy and love in one stream flows onward to the Church, as the river of the water of life; the pure crystal river of grace. Grace means, as you well know, the pure favour of God, and, as such, is sovereign, distinguishing, free, and superabounding. Every attribute of Jehovah is distinct, and yet so blended that the whole shine forth in one glorious effulgence. The rays of the sun united form one complete body of pure, bright light; but the prism or the rainbow separates these rays into distinct colours. So the attributes of God are not confused though blended, and all shine forth in one pure bright glory. But this is the peculiar character of grace, that any intermixture of worth or worthiness in the object would destroy it. For if the gospel require merit, we are damned by it as inevitably as by the law. This Luther felt when, racked and torn by the words “the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,” he cried out in the agony of his soul, “What! am I damned not only by the law, but damned by the gospel also!”
This pure, free, unadulterated grace is the joy of every soul that is able to receive it; for it comes as a blessed cordial when sinking and swooning under a sight and sense of the deserved wrath of God. When, then, the pure gospel of the grace of God comes as a cordial from the Most High, it lifts up his drooping head, revives his sinking soul, and pours oil and wine into his bleeding wounds. By this grace we are justified, pardoned, accepted, sanctified, and saved with an everlasting salvation. Oh! glad tidings to perishing sinners! Oh! blessed news to those who are sinking under a sense of guilt and misery, in whom the law of God is discharging its awful curse! When we get a view by faith, and a sweet taste of the pure grace of God, what a balm, what a cordial, what a sweet reviving draught it is. It is this which makes us prize so highly, and exalt so gladly the free grace of God; because it is so pure, so free, and so superabounding over all the aboundings of sin, guilt, filth, and folly. It never can be laid down too clearly, it never can be too much insisted on that “by grace,” and grace alone, “ye are saved.” If free grace has reached your soul, it has saved your soul; if free grace has come into your heart, it has blessed you with an everlasting salvation, and you will live to prove it, when your happy soul joins the throng of the blessed. If anything can lift up a drooping sinner, restore a backslider, break a hard, or soften a stony heart; draw forth songs of praise, and tears of contrition; produce repentance and godly sorrow for sin; a humble mind and a tender conscience; it is a sweet experience of the superabounding grace of God. Can we then exalt it too much? Can we prize it too highly? Can we cleave to it too closely? No; in proportion as we feel our ruin and misery, we shall cleave to it with every desire of our soul; for it is all our salvation, as it is all our desire.
“My people are bent to backsliding from me.” Hosea 6:7
What an awful error it is to deny backsliding! What ignorance it manifests of a man’s own heart! How it stamps a man as a perverter of truth, and one that trifles with sin and the displeasure of the Most High! Who that knows himself and the idolatry of his fallen nature, dares deny that he backslides perpetually in heart, lip, or life? Can any of us deny that we have backslidden from our first love? backslidden from simplicity and godly sincerity, backslidden from reverence and godly fear, backslidden from spirituality and heavenly-mindedness, backslidden from the breathings of affection and pouring forth of the heart into the bosom of the Lord? And if we have not been suffered to backslide into open sin, if the Lord has kept us, and not suffered us to be cast clown into the mire, yet have we not committed that twofold evil which the Lord charges upon his people: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13)?
And what do we reap from backsliding? do we reap pleasure, comfort, or peace? do we reap the smiles of God, or the solemn testimony of the Spirit in the conscience? No. If conscience speaks in your bosom, what does it say? That every departure from the Lord has brought grief and trouble; that so far from justifying yourself in your sin, you have been ready almost to weep tears of blood, that you have so wickedly departed from the Lord. It has been our mercy that the Lord has not given us up to hardness of heart and searedness of conscience, that we have not been allowed to say with Israel of old, “I am innocent, I have not sinned” (Jer. 2:35); but that he has “led us with weeping and with supplications.” Have not some of us (I am sure I have for one) been obliged “to go and weep,” and tell the Lord a piteous tale of backsliding; how we have departed from his fear, and sinned basely against him; how unwilling we have been to take his yoke upon us, and walk in his precepts? Have we not been forced to tell him that we have been disobedient and stubborn, filthy and vile, and has he not, in some faint measure, led us “to turn our faces Zionward,” to turn our back upon all false ministers, upon all idol shepherds, upon all the strength and wisdom and righteousness and will of the creature, and given to us some simplicity, uprightness, and integrity of heart and conscience, whereby we have turned our face Zionward, looking for a blessing to come out of Zion, looking for grace, looking for glory? “I will make thee sick in smiting thee,” says the Lord (Micah 6:13), alluding to the feeling of sickness produced by a wound, (“I am made sick,” 1 Kings 22:34, margin.) And have not these wounds in our conscience made us, in our measure, sick of the world, sick of the professing church, sick of hypocrites, sick of whitewashed Pharisees, sick of carnal professors, sick of our backslidings, sick of all but the word of God revealed with power, sick of all but the blood and love of the Redeemer, of all teachings but the teachings of the Holy Ghost, of all company but the company of the children of God? Can you say thus much? that you have turned your back upon everything but Christ, and him crucified? that you have turned away from all doctrines but those which centre in the blood of the Lamb? that you have turned away from universal charity and general philanthropy, as substituted for the power of vital godliness, (though you would desire to love and serve your fellow men as men,) and that your spiritual affections are toward God and his people? And has there been in your soul any such feeling as Ruth had when she said, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God?” Any sweet response in your bosom to the voice of the Lord, “My son, give me thine heart?” “Take it, Lord, with all that I have and am!” Any casting yourself at the foot of the cross, and there entreating the Lord of life and glory to speak peace to your soul?
“They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick” Matthew 9:12
A physician is useless without a case; and the deeper the case, the wiser and better physician we need. Thus a guilty conscience is a case for atoning blood, a wounded spirit for healing balm, a filthy garment for a justifying robe, a drowning wretch for an Almighty hand, a criminal on the gallows for a full pardon, an incurable disease for a heavenly physician, and a sinner sinking into hell for a Saviour stooping down from heaven. A man with a real case must have a real salvation. He is no longer to be cheated, deluded, and tricked with pretences, as a nervous patient is sometimes cured with bread pills; but he must have a real remedy as having a real disease. Christ in the Bible, Christ sitting as an unknown Saviour in the heavens, Christ afar off, unmanifested and unrevealed, is no Christ to him. “Near, near; let him come near; in my heart, in my soul, revealed in me, manifested unto me, formed within me-this, this is the Christ I want. O for one drop of his atoning blood, one smile of his blessed countenance, one testimony of his love, one gleam of his justifying righteousness!” And thus when this divine Redeemer appears in his garments stained with blood, the sinking soul hails his approach, the fowls of the mountains take flight, the beasts of the earth slink off to their dens, the dreary stump pushes forth its shoots, and the voice sounds forth from the inmost depths of the soul, “This is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
“And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” 1 Corinthians 3:23
“Christ is God’s.” These are remarkable words, and need to be carefully and reverently opened up. The fulness of the mystery is beyond our grasp. Still, we may attempt to look at it in faith and godly fear. How, then, is Christ God’s? First, he is God’s Son—not a Son by covenant or by office; in other words, not a nominal, but a true and proper Son—a Son by nature, by his eternal mode of subsistence as a Person in the Godhead. “This is my beloved Son” was twice proclaimed by God the Father with an audible voice from heaven. Second, but he is also God’s servant. “Behold my servant whom I uphold” (Isaiah 42:1). “It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob” (Isaiah 49:6), and this he was as Messiah. But because he is by office God’s servant, he is not less by nature God’s Son. Here, however, he is spoken of as the God-man Mediator, the Son of the Father in truth and love, the great High Priest over the house of God; and especially what he is as viewed in union with the Church, the Bridegroom with the bride, the Vine with the branches, the Shepherd with the sheep, the living foundation with the living stones built into and upon it. Christ, therefore, in our text is said to be God’s not only as the only-begotten Son of God, but as “the Head of the body, the Church” (Col. 1:18); for, says the Apostle, “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Ephes. 5:30). Christ, then, is God’s, with all those that belong to him—he as much as they, they as much as he. Look, then, at these glorious truths. “Ye are Christ’s” because by donation, purchase, and possession ye are members of his body. “Christ is God’s” as Son, as servant, as Mediator, as Head of the Church. Then ye too are God’s, because ye are Christ’s; for the members are one with their covenant Head.
“Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.” 1 Corinthians 3:22
“Life,” says the Apostle, is “yours.” But how can this be? In two ways. Life present and life future, both are the Christian’s, according to the words, “Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” But life present is natural and spiritual. In three senses, therefore, is life the portion of Christ’s people; life natural, life spiritual, life eternal. Life natural is theirs, for they alone can truly enjoy it. What is natural life if it hang by a thread over an awful eternity? How soon spent and gone, and how soon death and judgment close the scene. But the Christian’s very natural life is his season for faith and prayer, the seedtime of an immortal harvest. Most men are life’s slave, but he is life’s master; to most, life is but an opportunity of evil, but to him an opportunity of good. Spiritual life is peculiarly his, for he alone possesses it. Natural men share with him natural life; but he alone enjoys spiritual life. This life is his because Christ is his. Christ is his life, and because Christ lives, he lives also. And then there is life eternal, which commencing now in life spiritual is transplanted above to bloom in immortality.
And then, more wondrous still, “death,” that last enemy, that king of terrors, who makes the strongest tremble, and the stoutest heart quake; that, too, is yours, if ye are Christ’s. Death is not your enemy if you are Christ’s, but your friend. He may indeed in the dim and distant prospect seem to come in the guise of an enemy; you may dread the thought of his approach, and may even sink down with fear how it may be with you in that solemn hour. But if you are Christ’s, death is yours as well as life, for he has abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light. Death then cannot harm you, because Christ died for you. Death will merely cause your poor body to drop into the ground, whilst it will open to your soul the everlasting doors through which the King of glory, the Lord mighty in battle, entered as your forerunner when he went to prepare a place for you.
“These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.” Psalm 104:27
The “meat” which God’s children long after, is to have “the truth as it is in Jesus,” in its various branches, revealed with power to their heart. Not merely to see a certain truth in God’s word; that is like a hungry beggar looking at savoury provision through a window, from which he is barred out; such a sight whets his appetite rather than satisfies it. The meat that God’s people are longing after, and the only thing which can assuage their spiritual hunger, is “the truth as it is in Jesus” manifested, revealed, discovered, and applied with power to their souls; dew, unction, savour, sweetness, life, light, liberty accompanying the word, so that truth falls as heavenly manna into their hearts. It is not sufficient that the Holy Ghost should create the appetite, but he must overshadow the soul with his divine influences, breathe abroad a heavenly savour, and fill it with some sensations of his presence, with some meltings of heart at the feet of Christ, with some drawing forth of affection to God; and thus communicate an inward reception of the truth, and an enjoyment of its sweetness and savour.
“Thou givest them.” It is not to be taken out of the Bible, because it may be read; not to be caught up, as the minister throws it forth, because it may be heard; not to be got out of books; but to be bestowed by the holy hand of Jehovah himself, and received in the posture of a penitent, in the attitude of a suppliant, a sinner prostrate at the foot of the cross, without anything in self but wounds, condemnation, and guilt.
But there is a due season: “Thou givest them their meat in due season.” There are many living souls, who are hungering after divine blessings, but the “due season” has not come. “The times and the seasons the Father hath put in his own power.” You are not yet fit for it; the Lord has to bring you lower; you will have to travel through darker paths, to pass through sorer exercises. There is a “due season” for the manifestation of gospel blessings; there is a fitting time, which the Searcher of hearts knows. And that Searcher of hearts knows that many of the true Church of God are at this present time in that state, that he will not manifest to them his greatest and richest blessings. There is a “due season,” in which they are revealed and manifested to the soul; and that season will be as suitable to all its wants, as it will be most glorious to God. That “due season” will most probably be when the soul will least expect to receive it. The promise having been so long delayed, it seems as though it would never come; the blessing having been so long withheld, it appears as though the Lord would never bestow it; having denied his countenance so long, it seems as though he had drawn a black cloud over the throne, and through that cloud the rays of the sun would never shine. But it is a “due season;” it will surely come; “though the vision tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” There is a “set time to favour Zion,” and when that set time arrives, the Lord will build up Zion and appear in his glory, for “he will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”
“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” 1 John 5:20
When the Lord Jesus is pleased in some solemn hour to reveal himself to our soul, when he graciously condescends to take the veil from off our heart that we may behold his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, when he kindly favours us with some manifestation and discovery of himself as the Son of God, the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his Person, then we know that the Son of God is come. How do you know that the sun rose this morning? By the light which rose with it. So we may say, spiritually, “How do you know that the Son of God is come?” By the Sun of righteousness arising upon you with healing in his wings and the shining light which he diffuses in your heart. So the Lord speaks to Zion: “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” That is the way in which the darkness is dispersed; for he adds, “Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” Did not our blessed Lord say, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness?” And has he not promised, “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life?” Now as God is light, when he is pleased to shine into the soul, we walk in the light as he is in the light, and then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. This is the best, this is the surest, this is the safest way to know that the Son of God is come.
We know also that the Son of God is come by his presence; by his power put forth on our behalf; by the answers which he gives to prayer; by the way in which he appears in dark and gloomy hours, making crooked things straight and rough places plain, discovering himself to us as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, shewing unto us that in him there is rest and peace, solid, abiding happiness, and in no other. He thus draws and fixes our eyes upon himself, where he sits at the right hand of the Father in the fulness of his grace, glory, and majesty. Thus we know that the Son of God is come. Every prayer, every petition, every sigh and cry, every longing look that you cast up to him, and every word of his grace, every sweet promise, every glimpse or glance of the King in his beauty, which you receive out of his fulness, are all so many testimonies that the Son of God is come, and that you know that he is come.
“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20
There are three kinds of righteousness, or at least three kinds of righteousness which bear that name. There is inherent righteousness, of which we have none. There is imputed righteousness, which is all our justification. And there is imparted righteousness, when God the Spirit makes us new creatures, and raises up in the heart that “new man, which after God” (that is, “after the image of God”) “is created in righteousness and true holiness.” When the Lord, therefore, said, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven,” he did not mean only an external righteousness wrought out by his obedience to the law for them, but an internal righteousness wrought out by the Holy Spirit in them. Thus we read of the inward as well as the outward apparel of the Church, “The King’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold.” Two kinds of righteousness belong to the Queen; her imputed righteousness is her outward robe, “the clothing of wrought gold;” but imparted righteousness is her inward adorning, which makes her “all-glorious within.” This inward glory is the new man in the heart, with all his gifts and graces, what Peter calls “the divine nature,” “Christ in the heart, the hope of glory.”
The Lord has given an absolute promise that “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” And no less absolute is the addition, and as it were divine corollary to that promise, “To him shall men come.” And who gives them will and power to come? The Father himself, according to the Lord’s own words, “No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” But will the Father draw all the chosen vessels of mercy to Jesus? Surely he will; for the Lord adds, “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (John 6:45). Every act of faith whereby you look to Jesus is a coming. Every beam and ray of hope in his blood and righteousness is a coming. Every sigh, groan, or tear; every contrite feeling, every breathing desire of a broken heart, all are a coming. So that though you may not be able to realise as fully as you could wish an interest in the former part of the promise, “Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength;” yet there is wrought in your soul by a divine power that secret coming whereby you have a manifested interest in the second part of it, “Even to him shall men come.” We cannot come until we are drawn. “Draw me,” says the bride, “we will run after thee” (Song Sol. 1:4). “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” When we are drawn, then we come, and cannot but come. It is good to come. Even those who have received must be ever coming. We get nothing but by coming. Our daily life, as one of faith and hope, is a life of coming. Our continual prayer is a continual coming. For the language of the Church still is, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Thus must we be ever coming that we may be ever receiving; and so everything that makes us come has in it a real or an implied blessing. Nor will you come in vain, be you who or what you may. “For him that cometh to me,” the blessed Lord himself has said, “I will in no wise cast out.”
