The 'foot of the Cross' is a sacred "household word" in the family of God– rich in the Divine truths and precious in the Christian experience it is employed to express. Adopting this familiar but emphatic phrase, the author has sought in these pages to expound and illustrate, in a few instances, its tender and solemn significance. He has aimed to show how all vital, saving truth centers in, and all sanctifying and comforting blessing springs from, the Cross of Christ. The discussion of this comprehensive and sublime theme, in the present instance, is limited and faulty- as the most elaborate and finished human exposition of such a theme must necessarily be. It is but here and there he has plucked a cluster of fruit bending from this Tree of Life, or has gathered a flower, blooming in beauty and breathing in fragrance, beneath its hallowed shade. Still, if his imperfect labor shall have attracted some truth-perplexed mind, some sin-burdened conscience, some sorrow-stricken heart, some hope-despairing soul to the 'foot of the cross,' there to experience the precious blessing sought, he will not regret having presented to the Church of God even this partial and imperfect discussion of a theme which the combined intellect of heaven could not fully unfold, nor the study and contemplation of eternity utterly exhaust-the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ!
Reader! study these pages with fervent prayer to the Holy Spirit that He, through this dim medium, might unveil to you, in some degree, the glory of Christ's finished work, guide your trembling steps to the foot of the cross, give you simple faith in the Crucified, and thus bring you into a state of Perfect Peace with God through Christ.
"It is finished! -but what mortal dare
In that triumph hope to share?
Savior, to Your cross I flee;
Say, It is finished! and for me.
"Then will I sing, The cross! the cross!
And count all other gain but loss;
I'll sing the cross, and to Your tree
Cling evermore, blessed Calvary!
To the benediction of the Triune Jehovah this little volume is prayerfully commended.
"Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." John 19:25
It was a mournful yet an unspeakably precious and enviable spot around which now clustered these holy watchers! They had been to our Lord as ministering spirits in many an hour of weariness and need. With true feminine delicacy, they had followed Him, silently and meekly, in the distance, approaching His person but to receive from Him a blessing or to bestow upon Him a charity. Their love was not ostentatious, nor were their attentions officious and wearying. Gentle, yet softening as the dew- silent, yet cheering as the sunbeam, they hovered around His lone and dreary path, shedding upon it the luster and the soothing of their holy sympathy, and in seasons of sinking necessity and exhausting toil, "ministering to Him of their substance." And now that His disciples, pledged and sworn to a friendship and faithfulness unto death, had, in the dark hour of His woe, one by one all forsaken Him, these holy women drew near and took their position as sentinels at the cross, watching the descending sun of His life, as, amid suffering, darkness, and blood, it set in death. But a deeper love and a higher life than nature owns had brought them here. Christ had wrought wonders of grace for these women. They were lost, and He had found them; sinners, and He had saved them. Their sins He was now bearing, their curse He was now exhausting, their penalty of suffering He was now enduring. For them were these agonies, this soul-sorrow, this blood-shedding, and this death. And now that He was afflicted of God, tortured of man, deserted by friends, insulted by foes, lo! amid the darkness and the earthquake, the insults and the imprecations, "there stood by the cross of Jesus; His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." Honored women! envied spot! But how suggestive in its spiritual instruction is this scene! To its study let us devoutly turn.
Although eighteen hundred years have elapsed since that scene occurred, the believer in Jesus still spiritually lives it over. The cross of Christ is still the central object of attraction to the Church of God. Around it in faith and love a countless throng daily, hourly gather of Christ-believing, Christ-loving souls, finding cleansing in its blood, extracting joy from its sorrow, deriving life from its death, and beholding the brightness of glory blended with the darkness of shame.
But is this the true spiritual position and posture of every believer in Jesus? Are all the professed disciples of the Savior seeking and cultivating the religion that is drawn only from, and is cherished only by, close communion with the cross of Christ? Are we walking with God in a sense of pardoned sin, of personal acceptance, of filial communion, of holy obedience, of unreserved consecration beneath the cross? Do we delight to be here? Do we resort there that grace might be replenished, that the fruits of the Spirit might be nourished, that backslidings might be healed, that the conscience might be cleansed? Is the cross of Jesus our confessional, our laver, our crucifixion, and our boast? These are searching, solemn questions! Persuaded, as we are, that the foot of the cross is the nearest spot to Heaven, that Heaven's choicest blessings are found only there; that, beneath its warm sunshine the holy fruit of the Spirit ripens, and that under its sacred shade the sweetest repose is found; that, never is the believing soul so near to God, in such intimate fellowship with Christ, more really under the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit, as when there, we would sincerely employ every scriptural argument and put forth every persuasive motive to allure the reader to this hallowed spot, assured that, once he finds himself in believing, loving adoration at the foot of Christ's cross, he has found himself at the focus of all divine glory, and at the confluence of all spiritual blessing.
A few words of explanation in the outset. The foot of the cross! What do we mean by the words? Literally, the cross was an ancient instrument of torture among the Romans, to which only those were subjected who were considered by the state as the greatest and most ignominious malefactors. To be crucified was considered a mark of ineffable infamy and disgrace, and its death one of lingering and indescribable agony. Such was the nature, character, and instrument of our Lord's death! Jesus of Nazareth was crucified upon a tree. The Son of God, suspended between two malefactors, died the accursed death of the cross, voluntarily enduring its torture, and uncomplainingly submitting to its infamy- to such suffering and abasement could incarnate love stoop! Hence the frequent expression of the Bible, "The cross of Christ."
Symbolically, the cross of Christ represents the doctrine of the cross, and is an expression equivalent to the atonement of the Son of God, by which we, who were once at variance with God, rebels against His being, government, and truth, are now reconciled, brought into a state of at-one-ment with Jehovah. Thus, "we who some time were afar off, are made near by the blood of Christ."
But, spiritually, we understand by the expression the believer's close realization of the moral power of the cross, his fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, and the believing, lowly posture of the soul at the spot where concentrate the blessings of grace here, and where bloom the first fruits of glory hereafter.
The spiritually depressed state of the soul which this position meets, is more serious and prevalent than is generally suspected by the saints of God. There is no part of the circumference of divine truth or of Christian experience so remote from Christ the center, at which the believer may not at some period of his course find himself in his unsuspected wanderings. The planet revolving round the sun, the needle pointing to the pole, have not a stronger tendency to oscillate from the center of attraction, than the renewed soul to recede to a remote distance from Jesus. Nearness to the cross! -alas! it is the exception and not the rule. Standing by the cross! -it is the privileged position of the few and not the many. The world, in some one, or all, of its many forms of power- the creature, in its unsuspected yet insinuating influence, unbelief, in its latent yet ever-potent force, sin, in its indwelling and ever-working sway, allures the soul from the cross. And so the Christian disciple, unconscious of the spiritual declension of his heart from Christ, finds himself moving in a distant orbit, cold, and dreary, far remote from the warm, genial influence of the Sun beneath whose divine beams he was wont so joyously to bask in the days of his "first love." "And Peter followed Him afar off."
And in that distant walk, that orbit far removed from the Divine Center, that starting off to the utmost limit of departure, he had become a wandering and a blasted star forever as he was an eclipsed constellation for the moment but for the power of God that kept him, and the Savior's love that interceded for him, and the divine grace that restored him. That distance of walk led to his denial of his Lord. To what deep declension must the work of the Holy Spirit in his soul have sunk to have issued in an event in his spiritual history so appalling, and in a crime against his Savior so great! There is no security, as there is no enjoyment, of the believer in the distance of his soul from the cross. We tread enchanted ground when we walk where the sanctifying power of the cross is not recognized and felt. Jesus is not known, His cross is not recognized, His love is not felt in the walks of worldly gaiety and in the haunts of carnal pleasure.
These things are divided from the cross by a wide and ever-separating gulf. You cannot, my reader, mingle with the world and maintain at the same time spiritual nearness to the cross. The cross is the crucifier of the world, the death of sin. Beneath its awful shadow, brought to its sacred foot, the world's glory pales, sin's power is paralyzed, and Satan, the arch-tempter, recoiling from its brightness and writhing beneath its death-bruise, relinquishes his victim, and retires, defeated and dishonored, to his own place.
The inquiry naturally arises in this part of our subject, What are some of THE EVIDENCES OF NEARNESS TO THE CROSS? In other words, What are the true tests by which the believer may ascertain the spiritual position of his soul? Without anticipating subsequent parts of this volume, let a few words suffice to meet this inquiry.
The first we quote is, ardent love to Jesus. The cross, rugged and gory, heavy and offensive, possesses no beauty or attraction apart from Him who was nailed to its wood. That which makes Calvary the most hallowed spot to the believer, and the cross the most attractive spectacle on earth, is the wonderful Being who there poured out His soul unto death, a self-consumed victim amid the fires of His own love. "Zeal for your house will consume me." Associated with a Redeemer so divine, with a salvation so stupendous, with sufferings so unparalleled, with a death so atoning, with a heaven so glorious, with a fact so strange- the Sinless condemned, that the guilty might go free; the Blessed bearing the curse, that the accursed might bear the blessing; the Living dying, that the dead might live; the Glorious covered with shame, that the abased might be covered with glory; Christ enduring our hell, that we might enjoy His heaven- blended, we say, with transfers so strange and with blessings so precious, it is not surprising the warm and supreme attachment of the believer to Him who died upon the cross. Here, then, is a true test of your soul's nearness to the cross. Love to Jesus will sweetly attract and powerfully detain you there, in devout, adoring contemplation. To him who has no love to Christ, the cross of Christ has no attraction. A heart chilled in its affection to the Savior will wander away in quest of objects more congenial with its carnal taste. A trifle, a shadow, anything the most childish and insignificant, will win and gratify a heart upon whose affections Christ has no hold. Oh, it is astonishing what straws men will gather, and what phantoms they will chase, when the soul's center is not the cross of Jesus!
What, beloved, is the state of your heart's love to Christ? Turn not from the inquiry, shrink not from the scrutiny. The fervor of its love will be the measure of your soul's nearness to the cross. Love to Christ will bring you into frequent and close fellowship with Him in suffering; and with a heart often sequestered from the world, and cloistered amid the hallowed gloom of Gethsemane- at home with Christ in suffering- the position of your soul will be that of the holy Mary's, standing by the cross of Jesus.
Attachment to the doctrines of the cross may be regarded as a test of the believer's spiritual nearness to the Crucified. A lessening of love to the person of Jesus will invariably be followed by a lessening of love to the truth as it is in Jesus. Christ is the truth. The truth and Christ are one and indivisible. There can be no real, certainly no healthy, vigorous love to the person of Christ where there exists a latent laxity of opinion respecting the gospel of Christ. Christ and His gospel stand or fall, rise or sink together. "In vain you love Me," might the Savior say, "while you undervalue my words. My doctrine is divine, and he that rejects my words rejects Me." What, then, is your attachment to the gospel of Christ? Is it increasingly precious to your soul, sanctifying to your heart, influential in your life? Would you bid high for the truth of Jesus at any cost of personal ease and worldly advantage, and sell it not for earth's richest gem?
Do you increasingly love it because it searches, rebukes, abases you, and yet strengthens, comforts, and sanctifies you? Do you feel a growing love for those doctrines that are especially identical with, that spring from, that are found beneath, and that lead the soul to, the cross of Jesus? Thus may you test the proximity of your soul to the Crucified. Christ precious to you, oh, how precious will be the truth He taught! Purer than the purest silver, richer than the richest gold, sweeter than the sweetest honey, lovelier than the fairest gem, will be to you those doctrines, precepts, and promises which your Lord and Savior embodied in His teachings, and enjoined upon your simple faith, your fervent love, your holy walk, your zealous dissemination, and, if need be, your testimony at the martyr's stake. The doctrine of the substitutionary offering, the expiatory suffering, the atoning blood, the imputed righteousness of Christ, all based upon, and deriving their virtue, their power, and their efficacy from, the divine dignity and spotless holiness of His person, will be entwined with your increasing love and unswerving faith.
The precepts which enjoin your bearing Christ's cross, your confession of His name, your self-denying service in His cause, your crucifixion to the world, and your simple, unreserved obedience to His commands, will be to you His easy yoke and His lightsome burden. Test, then, your spiritual nearness to the cross by your ardent attachment to the doctrines of the cross. "If any man will do His will, He shall know of the doctrine." "O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." "How sweet are your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart."
Loyalty to Christ is another evidence of nearness to the cross. Disloyalty to the Savior and His truth creates an immeasurable distance between Christ and the soul. Any, the slightest, compromise with error, with the world, with sin, with the enemies of the cross, is disloyalty to the Headship, the Crown, the Person, and the Gospel of the Son of God. No proof is more unmistakable of a receding from the cross, of a distance of the heart from Jesus, then infidelity to His person, government, and truth. Peter compromised his loyalty to Christ when he followed his Master 'afar off.' He disowned and denied Jesus, forswore and renounced allegiance to his Savior, when he followed Him at a distance to the hall of judgment, and then took his place among His enemies. Let but your love to Jesus wane, your faith in His Word relax, your attachment to His cause lessen, your interest in His people decline, and you are fast becoming a disloyal subject of that Sovereign whose person you professed to love, whose truth you affirmed to believe, whose cause you swore to defend, whose fortunes and whose kingdom you avowed to follow and promote until death. Oh, be loyal to Christ! -to the glory of His person, to the divinity of His truth, to the interests of His Church, to the rights of His crown, to the honor of His name! "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
Fidelity to God will not render you less, but all the more, faithful to man. You will not be less fitted for the relations and duties of the life that now is, but all the more competent, because daily advancing in fitness for the life that is to come. Let stern, uncompromising fidelity to Christ, then, evidence the closeness of your fellowship with Him in His sufferings. Keep that impressive spectacle ever in view-the dying of the Lord Jesus in your stead- and the foe that would tamper with your loyalty to the Savior will be disarmed of his power, and, like unto the noble army of martyrs, you will "overcome him by the blood of the Lamb."
We will supply but another test of your close communion with the Crucified- the spiritual barometer of the soul. Nothing will more satisfactorily indicate your exact position in relation to the cross than the state of your spiritual life. The divine life in the soul flourishes or decays, is vigorous or sickly, in exact proportion to its proximity to the cross of Jesus. As Christ is our life, so our life must be sustained by Christ. If your Christianity is healthy; your breathings after God and holiness and heaven deep and fervent; your love to Jesus constant and intense; and you are aiming to walk after the simplicity of Christ, bringing every thought into obedience to Him, then you may safely infer that you stand spiritually, where stood literally the holy women- close by the cross of Jesus. Here alone spiritual religion flourishes. Here only the believing soul is as a well-watered garden. If, as the naturalist tells us, beneath the Up as tree all natural life expires, it may with more significance be affirmed that beneath the cross of Jesus all spiritual life lives.
"There stood by the cross of Jesus- His mother." Significant and touching words! -replete with teaching and with tenderness. Who can portray that scene? who describe the love of that Son- the sorrow of that mother? Such a Son! Such a mother! The love of Jesus was now illustrating its greatness by the vastness of its achievement- the salvation of His Church; and its tenderness in that gentle look of affection which He bent upon the woman who stood by His cross in all the depth and constancy of a mother's love.
But we turn from a scene which distances all human description, to you, my reader. It is possible that your present position bears some resemblance to this. You may be watching by the couch of a suffering, dying one, whom you deeply, tenderly love- perchance, love as a parent, yes, as a mother only can. Take your place with Mary- by the cross of Jesus. There meet and blend suffering and love, sorrow and sympathy. Standing in faith by the cross, you are near the suffering Savior, the loving Son, the sympathizing Brother born for your present grief. Jesus, in the depth and tenderness of His love, is at this moment all that He was when, in soul-travail, He cast that ineffable look of filial love and sympathy upon His anguished mother. He can enter into your circumstances, understand your grief, sustain and soothe your spirit as one only can who has partaken of the cup of woe which now trembles in your hand. Drink that cup submissive to His will, for He drank deeply of it before you, and has left the fragrance of His sympathy upon its brim. Your sorrow is not new to Christ.
He can embosom Himself in a parent's grief as no other being could. He knows a mother's heart, compassionates a mother's sorrow. You may be sorrowing for a child, perhaps over his folly, his waywardness, his sin; or, you are watching by your child's couch of weakness, or the bed of suffering, or the pillow of death. Oh, is there a place more appropriate for you as a smitten parent, a mourning mother, a spirit overwhelmed with anguish, hope and fear alternately struggling in your breast, watching the languor which you cannot rouse, the sufferings you cannot relieve, the disease you cannot avert, the advancing foe you cannot arrest, the approaching wrench you cannot avert. Is there a spot where your spirit will be more calmed, your heart more comforted, your will more subdued, your soul more strengthened, your mind more sweetly responsive to the words of Jesus, "Your will be done," than beneath the cross? Close to it stand, believing, loving, clinging, until this calamity be overpast.
There grace will be given you to bear this crushing trial, strength to pass through this weary watching, love to sustain this bitter anguish, sympathy to soften and to soothe this hour of sad and final parting. Mourning, sorrowing mother! Jesus invites you to His sheltering, soothing cross, "Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment." There is nothing but love and sympathy and repose for the mourning, anguished spirit prostrate beneath the cross of Jesus. Its divine light is on you, its sacred shadow is over you, its invincible shield is around you. There Jesus speaks- "It is I; do not be afraid. I, who know a son's suffering and a mother's anguish. I, who control the winds and the waves, who stills the tempest and calm the sea. I, who have promised that my grace shall be sufficient, and that my strength shall be perfected in weakness. Approach my cross, shelter near my wounded side, get within my bleeding heart- there is love and there is room and there is rest for you there."
"Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear,
Above the tempest, soft and clear,
What still small accents greet my ear!
It is I; do not be afraid!
"It is I who led your steps aright;
It is I who gave your blind eyes sight;
It is I, your Lord, your Life, your Light.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"These raging winds, this surging sea,
Bear not a breath of wrath to thee;
That storm has all been spent on Me.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"This bitter cup fear not to drink;
I know it well- oh! do not shrink;
I tasted it over Kedron's brink.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"My eyes are watching by your bed,
My arms are underneath your head,
My blessing is around you shed.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"When on the other side your feet
Shall rest mid thousand welcomes sweet.
One well-known voice your heart shall greet!
It is I; do not be afraid!
"From out of the dazzling majesty,
Gently he'll lay His hand on thee,
Whispering, 'Beloved, do you love me?'
It is I; do not be afraid!"
Once more heed the exhortation- stand close to the cross of Jesus! It is the most accessible and precious spot this side of heaven- the most solemn and awesome one this side of eternity. It is the focus of divine love, sympathy, and power. Stand by it in suffering, in persecution, in temptation. Standby it in the brightness of prosperity and in the gloom of adversity. Shrink not from its offence, humiliation, and woe. Defend it when scorned, despised, and denied. Stand up for Jesus and the gospel of Jesus. Oh, whatever you do, or whatever you endure, be loyal to Christ's cross. Go to it in trouble, repair to it in weakness, cling to it in danger, hide beneath it when the wintry storm rushes fiercely over you. Near to the cross, you are near a Father's heart, a Savior's side. You seem to enter the gate of heaven, to stand beneath the vestibule of glory. You "come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."
Nothing but a believing proximity to the cross of Jesus brings the soul into a present fellowship with these gospel, precious, and transcendent blessings. Again, I reiterate the fact, that nothing but love will welcome your approach to the cross of Jesus- love that pardons all your sins, flows over all your unworthiness, heals all your wounds, soothes all your sorrows, and will shelter you within its blessed pavilion until earth is changed for heaven, and you lay down the warrior's sword for the victor's palm, and spring from the foot of the cross to the foot of the throne- "forever with the Lord."
"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend,
Life, and health, and peace possessing,
From the sinner's dying Friend.
"Here I'll sit forever viewing
Mercy's streams, in streams of blood;
Precious drops! my soul bedewing,
Plead and claim my peace with God.
"Truly blessed is this station,
Low before His cross to lie;
While I see divine compassion
Floating in His languid eye,
"Here it is I find my heaven,
While upon the cross I gaze
Love I much? I've more forgiven;
I'm a miracle of grace.
"Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears His feet I'll bathe,
Constant still in faith abiding;
Life deriving from His death.
"May I still enjoy this feeling,
In all need to Jesus go;
Prove His blood each day more healing,
And Himself more fully know."
"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn." -Zech. 12:10
We can only properly deal with sin as, at the same moment, we personally and closely deal with Jesus. A spiritual sight of the one object, apart from a believing sight of the other, will plunge the soul into the deepest despair. A sight of atoning blood must accompany the sight of our guilt. Seen and dealt with alone, dissociated from the Savior, it is the darkest and most appalling object that can engage human study. But God has graciously and marvelously met the case. The instrument that exhibits sin in its greatest blackness at the same moment exhibits it in its fullest pardon. A sight of sin and a sight of Jesus, as presented in the cross, is found in no other spot in the universe. Nowhere not upon earth, where its ravages are vividly and fearfully traced- not in hell, where its punishment is fully and eternally endured- is sin seen as in the light of Christ's cross. God's hatred of its nature and infliction of its penalty, as exhibited in the soul-sorrow, and bodily suffering of His beloved Son, is a demonstration unsurpassed, yes, unparalleled. Oh, how great the love of God to provide such a mirror in which to see at the same moment the enormity of sin and the completeness of its forgiveness- the Ethiopian blackness of its guilt- and the snow-white purity of its cleansing. There was but one Being in the universe who concentrated upon Himself so much sin- yet, "He knew no sin" -and in whom met so much punishment of sin, as Jesus, the Sinbearer of His Church.
What defective views and realizations have we of this truth! How shallow our sounding of its infinite depths, how faint our experience of its preciousness and power! And yet it is all and everything to us in the momentous matter of our comfort, holiness, and hope. If Jesus did not bear my transgression and curse; He did nothing for me, and I am yet in my sins. If He did, then the load is gone, the burden is annihilated, all transferred to Him, and by Him borne into eternal oblivion. I am no longer my own sin and burden bearer; my sins were all laid on Jesus, not by my hand, but by the hand of God. Since, then, Jesus has cared for my sins, my only care should be first to realize their full pardon, and then to walk so holily as not to recommit those sins which Christ bore, and for which He sorrowed in Gethsemane, bled and expired on the tree, and so crucify the Son of God afresh. Deeply interesting to the believing, spiritual mind is the theme of our present chapter. To have a sight of sin and a sight of Jesus at the same moment constitutes one of the holiest and richest pages in the history of a child of God. There are many of the Lord's people who see sin, but who do
not see Jesus at the same moment- who do not look at their sins through the medium of the cross. To look at sin through the divine holiness, as reflected in the divine law, is to look and despair, to look and die! But to look at sin through Christ- to see it in the blood that cleanses it, in the righteousness that covers it, in the love that pardons it fully, freely, and forever; oh, this is to look and hope, to look and live!
One eye upon sin, and one eye upon sin's atonement, will enable the soul to walk humbly and filially with God. One eye looking at self and one eye looking at Christ will so regulate the experience of the soul, so accurately adjust its moral compass, as to preserve the balance between presumption and despair; leading to a humble, holy, watchful walk as it regards sin on the one hand, and to an assured, happy, hopeful sense of pardon, acceptance, and glory on the other. No fact in Christian experience is more certain than this, that sin is never properly seen until Christ is known; and that Christ is never fully known, until sin is seen in its existence, guilt, and power. It is a sense of our vileness, guiltiness, and condemnation that takes us to Christ; and when we see Christ, and accept Christ, and enter into believing rest in Christ, we then have the deepest conviction of the greatness, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and at the same moment the most assured conviction of our full and eternal deliverance from its guilt, tyranny, and condemnation. This harmony of tint- the blending of light and shade- sin and Christ- forms one of the loveliest and most impressive pictures of the many which illustrate the history of the Christian's life.
We have remarked in the preceding pages that it is only beneath the influence of Christ's cross that the graces of the Spirit in the soul of the believer find their truest and richest culture. We purpose to confirm and illustrate this truth by citing, as examples, two or three of the more distinctive graces commencing with the grace of CONTRITION. We admit that true repentance, essential to true conversion, may exist in its incipient and early stage apart from any clear, evangelical view of the cross, from any clear acceptance of Christ. Yet, as it advances and matures- for it is that divine grace that attends the child of God to his latest moment- it grows less legal and more evangelical, flows less from the harshness of the law and more from the tenderness of the gospel, less from dealing with Moses and more from looking to Christ, is less associated with the dread of hell and more entwined with the hope of heaven. Oh, there is no contrition for sin so real, so soothing, so tender, or so holy as that which is produced by a sight of the Crucified- looking at Him whom those sins once so deeply pierced. Such is the subject which will now engage the reader's devout meditation. The incident which we cite as sustaining this theory, and as illustrating this truth, doubtless, in its more remote and prophetical interpretation, refers to the final restoration of the Jews, their acceptance of Christ, their Messiah, with weeping and mourning and confession. "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn." But the fact is precisely the same, and the truth strictly analogous, that a believing sight of the crucified Redeemer- the faith of God's elect being identical in its effects, whether it be in a Jew or a Gentile- breaks the heart for sin, produces tender, holy contrition of spirit. That we are fully justified in pressing this striking prophecy into our argument, and quoting it as receiving a present and spiritual fulfilment, the words of the evangelist conclusively show. Alluding to the crucifixion of our Lord, John says, "These things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken. And, again, another scripture says, They shall look on Him whom they pierced." Thus clear is it that this splendid prediction, destined to receive in the conversion of the Jews a glorious accomplishment, possesses a present and a gospel application. Blessed are they who are its witnesses.
We have observed that repentance in its earliest form is, for the most part, legal in its origin and slavish in its nature- springing mainly from a view of the divine law, its spirituality, extent, and threatening. A clear apprehension of the divine holiness, the solemn thought of hell, the dread of condemnation- the law thus doing its own office in the soul- often reproduces the memorable inquiry of the convicted and alarmed jailer, "What must I do to be saved?" Observe, "What Must I Do? " But if repentance begins with the law, it invariably ends with the gospel. If its first and most imperfect impulse is derived from Sinai, its latest, sweetest, deepest throb is inspired by Calvary. If the poor sinner enters the sacred portal of salvation by the north gate, he emerges from the south, and finds himself wandering through the sylvan bowers of a new creation, himself a new creature in Christ Jesus. If, in a word, his first acquaintance is with Moses- the type of the law- it is but to introduce him to the acquaintance of Christ, (of whom Moses spoke,) the substance, the sweetness, the fulness of the gospel. Thus in the first dawn of repentance in the soul there may be but little, if any, of a clear apprehension of the cross of Jesus.
There is a looking at self, and at sin, and at death, and at hell, but no looking to the Crucified One, who has delivered us from it all. We repeat this statement for the encouragement of those whose sorrow for sin has not reached a more advanced and gospel stage. Although there may be much legality, slavish fear, and dread of condemnation mixed with your present feelings, yet it is not for all that the less real, nor is it less the work of the Holy Spirit. If you are truly convinced of sin, led to see the plague of your own heart, and to lay your mouth in the dust before God, a supernatural power has wrought this supernatural work in your soul, and saints and angels have beheld your repentance with acclaim. Would that every eye that traces these pages were moistened with a like sorrow for sin! How many a faithful yet discouraged minister would rejoice, how many a Christian and long-praying parent would retire to his chamber, his heart thrilling with gladness and his lips eloquent with praise! "Who is this that engages his heart to approach unto me? says the Lord." "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word."
Here, then, let me pause and inquire, Have you been brought to true and deep repentance for sin? It is the first stage of that true conversion, that spiritual change of heart, without which you cannot be saved. Every glorified saint in heaven was once a mourning sinner on earth. Each happy spirit before the throne was once a penitent suppliant beneath the cross. Are you preparing to take your place among this happy, this countless throng? We reiterate the truth, that, without true and godly repentance for sin before God, you have no scriptural, valid evidence that you are saved! I ask not whether Sinai or Calvary, the law or the gospel, has awakened it- whether it flows from a terrifying sight of hell, or a loving view of Jesus. All I ask is-Has your heart been broken and your spirit become contrite before God? Examine yourself, prove your own self by God's word, for it is your life! Repentance towards God precedes faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and while both are separate and distinct graces of the Spirit, both are indispensable to, and are blended with, the salvation of the soul.
But our object is to present the great work of contrition in a higher form, in its more evangelical character, as experienced beneath the cross, as flowing from a believing, realizing view of Jesus the Crucified. And oh, how eminently calculated is the spectacle of Christ on the cross to produce this holy emotion!
The object of sight is JESUS. "They shall look upon ME." It is the most lovely, winning, wondrous object upon which the intelligent eye ever rested. There is nothing in it terrifying or repelling, nothing to raise a thought or impart an emotion anything other than the most tender, holy and subdued. Trace the points of attraction which meet in Jesus, and marvel not that when the eye roams over them, the heart is irresistibly won, the soul is instantly dissolved, and the believer prostrates himself at the foot of the cross in the profoundest sense of his vileness before God. All loveliness, all excellence, all glory meet and center in Jesus the Crucified. He is the most wonderful, as He is the most beauteous and attractive being in the universe. All the infinite perfection of absolute Deity, all the finite excellence of impeccable humanity, concentrate in Christ. God has created beauty for man, and in man a taste for the beautiful. Every object, as it originally emanated from God, was molded and tinted with some resemblance to His own infinite perfection. "How great is His beauty!" must have been the exclamation which chimed through the bowers and glens of paradise, from the adoring lips of the unsinned and sinless creature man.
There is no sin in a love of the beautiful. The sin is in not seeing and
loving God in it. The taste to appreciate it, the capacity to enjoy it, the
heart to love and adore God in it, belonged to our original creation. The
perfection of beauty himself, man was born into a world stored and studded
with the beautiful. There was a fitness between the
house and the tenant- harmony between creation and its lord; and the most
exquisite music, in strains angels might imitate, ascended to Him who "made
everything beautiful in his season." But the destroyer came, the disturber
entered, and the beauty and the joy were marred. And yet creation still is
lovely- lovely in its varied seasons, in its countless forms, in its moral
teaching. The spring, when earth throws off its frosted incrustations, and
bursts into new-born life, bloom, and perfume, is beautiful- telling us of the
resurrection of the just, when the saints, gently awakened from their sleep,
shall spring into rejuvenescent glory, and shall
walk the earth in eternal youth, light, and love. Summer, when the glowing sun
dresses the fields and the gardens with variegated splendor, and the valleys
are covered over with corn, and the pastures are clothed with flocks, and the
little hills rejoice on every side, is beautiful- reminding us of a fruitful,
maturing Christianity beneath the rich, warm influence of the Sun of
Righteousness. Autumn, clad in mellowed radiance,
uprearing its horns of plenty, and garnering its golden sheaves amid
the joyous song of "harvest home," is beautiful- reminding us of the saints of
God ripening in grace, and grace preparing for glory. Winter, with its
winding-sheet of snow and its icebound streams, as though earth were
enshrouded for the tomb, is beautiful-reminding us that down to hoary hairs,
God will be with His people, and that the head covered with the frosts of
time, yet encircled with the crown of righteousness, will soon cease its
weariness and its aching in the silent grave. The flowers, earth's stars, are
beautiful- telling us in language all their own that God created them for no
practical purpose other than to please and charm us. The sky, dyed in the
purest azure- the image of heaven's purity; the ocean, illimitable and
sublime- the emblem of God's eternity and power; the sun, traveling in the
greatness of its strength on wings of light- the glorious symbol of Jesus; the
moon, walking in her silver attire- the expressive figure of the Christ of
God; the planets, revolving round the sun in their harmony- reminding the
believer of his divine and glorious Center- the nearness, power, and
attraction of Jesus- all these things He has made beautiful. But seen with the
Christian eye, all is beautiful, and all testifies of God. The clouds floating
in endless forms of loveliness and tint- the snowy alps that pierce them- the
lakes that mirror them from their glassy bosom- the sylvan glen, the shady
grove, the pensive dale, the meandering river, the purling stream, the birds
of gorgeous plumage and of heavenly song- all, all
is beautiful, "and only man is vile."
And yet for man this beautiful earth was made, and for his sustenance and
enjoyment she pours forth from her bosom her hidden and inexhaustible stores
of health and loveliness.
"For me kind Nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower!
Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs." (Pope)
But higher forms of beauty engage our thoughts- the beauty of holiness as embodied in Jesus. The gospel dispensation introduces us to a new world of loveliness, and a new Being of love, wonder, and admiration, surpassing in His perfection all that earth in its pristine glory ever beheld- the Incarnate Son of God. Does love inspire, does loveliness win, do we stand in speechless awe before the image of the great, the good, the beautiful? Behold the Lamb of God- "fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely one." "The loveliest, sweetest, dearest One That eyes have seen, or angels known."
What marvellous power does the spiritual beholding of Christ in His moral beauty possess to produce in the believing heart the tender, holy sentiment of contrition! In what spiritual light can we contemplate ourselves, our righteousness and our unrighteousness? What view can we take of sin- the sin of our holy and of our unholy things, when seen in contrast with the holiness, the beauty, and the perfection of Christ- what but the most humiliating, heart-subduing, and self-abasing? Could we for a moment regard sin with indifference, could we in any one act look upon ourselves with complacency, were we more conversant with the purity, and more enamored with the loveliness, and more deeply imbued with the love of Jesus? Would not our experience be that of the evangelical Isaiah, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
Let us study more closely the Lord Jesus! It is only as by faith we see His spiritual beauty that our own pales; it is only as discoveries of His holiness are made to us by the Spirit that we cry, "Unclean! unclean!" and lay our mouth in the dust. Oh, there is nothing like a clear apprehension of the Lord Jesus to empty, humble, and prostrate us at His feet! The region of the cross is too bright not to see our sinfulness, too pure not to loathe it, and too divine not to be assured of its pardon. One beam from that focus of light, oh how excellent, nourishing, and sanctifying! One glimpse of that cross, oh how replete with life, bliss, and hope inconceivable, inexpressible! Who that has felt its magnetic power, its magic influence beneath the corrodings of guilt, the shadings of sorrow, the assaults of Satan, the weariness of the world, the accusations of self, will not testify that nearness to the cross of Jesus is nearness to the source of perfect confidence, assured peace, and unruffled quietness? This, then; is the light in which we must view sin- every sin- all sin- even the light of the Savior's glory as it gathers round His cross. And contemplating it in this light, we shall see sin as it really is- divested of its disguise, disentangled from its sophistry, dissevered from its causes; and thus seeing it in its own native and naked deformity, the heart will dissolve into deep, holy, tender contrition beneath the cross of Jesus.
But not only does a sight of Christ's beauty, but the spectacle of His sufferings contributes essentially to promote holy contrition for sin. We see suffering in the cross of Jesus in its unparalleled form. As a sufferer, Christ stood alone; like the light in which Jehovah dwells, His sufferings were unapproached and unapproachable. "He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as no man ever was. What He endured when He exclaimed, "Now is my soul sorrowful, even unto death;" -what was the bitterness of that cup of which the cry of His humanity went up to heaven, that it should pass His lips untouched, but which yet He drank and drained-what was involved in that exclamation, "My God, my God, why bast you forsaken me?" -we shall never fully know. Enough that He traveled the whole compass of sorrow, and touched each point. "Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger."
Can we, then, approach the cross, stand before this marvellous, unequaled spectacle of suffering love, and remember that all this was on our behalf? for us, the sin bearing; for us, the soul sorrow; for us, the bodily anguish; for us, the thorn-crown, the bloody sweat, the cross, the death- and not feel a holy contrition for those sins which crucified the Lord of life and glory? We feel a sense of pity for the individual who can behold human suffering with unmoved sensibility. Can we view the sickly pallor; the tremulous lip, the care-shaded brow, the tear-bedewed eye, the manly form which sorrow has bowed, or the gentle one which bereavement has mantled with its symbol of woe, unmoved? Turn to the cross of our suffering Lord. With what emotion other than the profoundest grief, with what feeling other than the deepest shame, with what thoughts other than the most self-abasing, can we sit down and watch Him there! What! no penitence, no self-humiliation, no sin-loathing, no sorrow for having wounded Jesus! The universe, as if conscious of its curse for man's sin, is in sympathy with the suffering Savior dying for man's sin. The sun is veiling, the heavens are mourning, the earth is trembling, the rocks are rending, the graves are opening, all in sympathy with a spectacle such as earth never saw and such as the universe is convulsed in seeing. And yet, how marvelously, how criminally insensible, impenitent, and cold we are! -we whose sins He was then bearing, whose curse He was then exhausting, whose death-penalty He was then suffering, who in that hour of atonement was covering our hell that He might unveil to us His heaven. Surely if sin is ever seen in its true light, if it is loathed, crucified, and forsaken, it is at the foot of Christ's cross. It is here alone it can be truly studied. We must know Christ crucified before we shall know sin crucified. To gauge in any degree the depth of our iniquities, we must in some measure gauge the depths of Christ's suffering.
There must be close, personal dealings with the cross. This may reveal the secret of the crude, imperfect views of sin which you so mournfully deplore, and the consequent absence of all spiritual vitality, joy, and hope in the soul. You have been studying sin and your own sinfulness in the light of the present feverish uneasiness and restlessness which it produces, and of the alarming consequences which it entails; and all the while you have found your feelings grow more callous, your conscience more seared, and your future painted in deeper, darker hues, and sin still maintaining its undisputed, unimpaired supremacy. But, approach the cross! Turn from the power, the tyranny, and the corrodings of sin, and view the wondrous provision the God of love has made for its pardon and its conquest. Concentrate your believing gaze upon Jesus suffering, Jesus dying for sin. Go and stand by the cross of Christ. One uplifted glance, one believing look, one dim sight of the pierced Savior- wounded, bleeding, dying for your iniquities- will revolutionize all your views and feelings respecting sin. It will appear to you as a new created thing. Its blackness, its turpitude, its results will stand out in such magnitude and color, and, at the same time, its atonement will appear so suitable, its redemption so costly, its pardon so complete, the purple flood which tides over all, and drowns all and every transgression so effectual, and He who provided it all and accomplished it all, so divine, glorious, and precious as to prostrate your soul before the cross, dissolved in penitence and love. Oh, there are no affections like those which spring from a view of Jesus crucified! No tears so precious, no feelings so true, no contrition so intense and tender as gushes from the hidden springs of the soul, touched and unsealed by the heart's believing communion with the suffering Savior! "Law and judgment do but harden, All the time they work alone; But a sense of blood-bought pardon Soon dissolves the heart of stone."
Yes! if there is anything that can dissolve that heart of stone it is Christ's atoning blood. You have been around the mount that burns with fire, draped with blackness and darkness and tempest, but your heart has felt no softening. You have traversed the round of legal duty, have been strict in every religious engagement, have been conscientious in the fulfilment of every relative obligation, and yet your soul has felt no peace. In all this you have not found Jesus. You have sought Him in splendid temples, in gorgeous worship, in costly sacrifices, in excited crowds, in the pious circles of rank and wealth and influence, and still you have not found Jesus.
But at length, by some power, invisible and inexplicable, gently and persuasively moving upon your mind, you have been led into another, more shaded and sequestered path- you have sought Jesus at the cross, in poverty and desertion, in humiliation and sorrow, in suffering, blood, and death, and lo! you have found just the Savior that you needed, the peace you craved, the joy for which you longed, the hope for which you sighed; and now, beneath the cross of Jesus, you are prostrate, a rebel won, a soul penitent, a sinner saved! Oh, one moment's believing, close contact with the cross will do more to break the heart for sin, deepen the conviction of its exceeding sinfulness, and disenthrall the soul from all its bondage and its fears, bringing it into a sense of pardon and acceptance and assured hope, than a lifetime of the most rigid legal duties that ever riveted their iron chain upon the soul.
But it is the spectacle, not so much of Christ's personal beauty and suffering, as of His suffering love, that most deeply moves the heart! The picture of love sacrificing itself, courting death itself in its most terrific form, for an object unworthy of its affection, would seem sufficient to melt the marble to sensibility. The sight of mere suffering has a tendency in some minds rather to petrify than to soften the feelings, so entirely has sin impaired the finest and noblest parts of our nature. But when in faith we look upon Him whom by our sins we have pierced, we behold, not suffering only, but suffering love- love the divinest and most ancient, love the most tender and strong, love the most self-sacrificing the dying love of Jesus! Nothing provides a clue to the marvels of Christ's history but love. Love was the inciting cause of all, the moving spring of all, the rational solution of all the wondrous events that traced the life of our blessed Lord. Oh, how He loved! The love of Christ! -it passes knowledge. Lying at the cross where Incarnate Love was transfixed, where it sorrowed, bled, and died, the soul dissolves into tenderness and contrition. He who writes the history of the cross, writes the history of love- the only record of love that shall be preserved in the archives of eternity. This is the love upon which the pierced Savior invites us to look. To look at the Incarnate God is to look upon Incarnate Love.
Bring your soul, my reader, beneath the focus of the cross, and you have concentrated upon it the burning rays of incarnate love- and self-abasement, holy penitence, and sweet affection will be the blessed result. Who can stand unmoved before the sight and look and words of love- that love sacrificing itself for us? Such is the love of Jesus! Often as its history has been traced, its story told, its pains and sorrows and death portrayed, yet, when shed abroad afresh in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, when we approach the cross and attain a clearer view of its reality, a deeper sense of its depth and tenderness, a more vivid realization of its marvellous sacrifice, a more spiritual apprehension of the wondrous redemption it has wrought, the full salvation it has finished, the free pardon, the perfect peace, and the unspeakable joy it inspires, the hell it has sealed and the heaven it has opened, oh, can we look upon Him whom our sins, past, present and future so deeply pierced, and not mourn?
We thus reach an important part of our subject- the LOOKING upon Him whom we have pierced. "They shall look upon Me." There must be a believing, spiritual apprehension of Christ, or sin cannot properly be seen, or seen only to plunge the observer into the depths of despair. The mere presentation of the cross to the natural eye will awaken no emotion, other than natural ones. That which is natural can only produce what is natural. Nature can never rise above itself- it invariably finds its own level. Thus, in a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, there may in minds of deep natural sensibility, be emotion, the spectacle may affect the observer to tears- but it is nature only. Those who are accustomed to foreign travel may often have stood amid the deep religious gloom of the gorgeous cathedral, and have observed the ghostly form of the pious devotee of papal superstition slowly and solemnly gliding along its shaded cloisters, and then falling prostrate before the picture of a dead Christ, in apparently the profoundest emotion. Beyond this the 'religion of feeling' cannot go.
My reader, beware of mistaking nature for grace; the emotions of a stirred sensibility, for the tears of a broken and a contrite heart. The eye that looks upon Christ, and upon sin through Christ, is the eye of faith, that marvellous telescope of the renewed soul which beholds the invisible, sees the unseen, peers into eternity, and makes future things present realities. This it is that dissolves the heart into holy, tender contrition. Such a sight of Him whom we have pierced will smite the rock, and the streams of godly grief will flow. One simple, believing, close look at the cross will more quickly and effectually subdue the heart for sin, give a deeper sight of its sinfulness, and inspire the soul with a stronger confidence in the forgiving love of God, than all the thunders that rolled and the lightnings that flashed around the brow of Sinai.
You who have some legal apprehension of sin, who see your depravity, feel your condemnation, dread the judgment- you who have been laboring for acceptance with God, oh receive the message of the gospel! -look believingly to the cross, gaze upon Him whom your sins pierced, and you shall realize the marvellous effects in your soul of one believing look of faith, one drop of atoning blood, one beam of forgiving love, transforming the sepulchral darkness of your soul into the meridian light of God's salvation. Oh most significant words- "They shall look upon ME!" They shall turn from Moses, and from the law, and from their sacrifices, and from all their sins and transgressions, and one object shall attract and fix their believing gaze- "ME whom they have pierced."
The EFFECT of this believing look at sin through Christ, and at Christ as putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, we are yet to consider. Our remarks must be brief. We read, "And they shall mourn for Him, as one that mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." The following are some of the distinctive features of that deep contrition for sin which springs from a view of this glorious sacrifice. It is evangelical in its nature, as opposed to the legal. It is an emotion in alliance with the gospel and not the law. It is from Christ- it is produced by Christ- it is full of Christ. It is a flower that blooms beneath the cross. A sight of atoning blood- a sense of pardoned sin- the streams of dying love as they flow from the cross gliding into the soul; in a word, a full, clear, simple sight of Jesus as saving sinners, sinners the vilest, sinners the oldest, sinners the chief, sinners who have not one plea springing from themselves but the greatness and the number and the turpitude of their transgressions- will fill the soul with gospel mourning.
It is holy in its nature, in opposition to the sorrow of the world. It is emphatically and preeminently godly sorrow. The most holy posture of the soul is at the foot of the cross. There all the feelings and thoughts which possess it, are produced by, and are in sympathy with, the most extraordinary display of holiness the intelligent creation ever beheld- the Son of God dying for our sins! Holy, then, is the nature and holy the fruits of that contrition for sin which dissolves the heart before the spectacle of Jesus crucified. Never is sin more vividly seen, or so deeply felt, never is self so profoundly loathed, or so entirely forsaken, as when the believing soul is enshrined within the pierced side of Christ.
"Then beneath the cross adoring,
Sin does like itself appear;
When the wounds of Christ exploring,
I can read my pardon there."
It is intense. The deepest feeling of which the human soul is capable is experienced beneath the cross of Christ. Our Lord has selected from the world of imagery the most expressive and touching simile to illustrate this-a parent's grief for his first-born! To behold the heir of the family and the inheritor of the estate, the tall cedar, the strong and beautiful staff, smitten to the earth, borne to an early tomb, is sorrow intense indeed! Is there a sorrow that surpasses it in intensity? There is! Deep and keener far that sorrow which overwhelms the soul prostrate in view of Jesus upon the cross. The one sorrow touches but the natural, the other stirs to the lowest depth the spiritual affections of the soul. In the one, the religious element has no place, in the other, there is the deepest sense of sin against the holy Lord God. How conclusive of this the Scripture specimens of godly sorrow for sin. "Wash me throughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." "Pardon my iniquity, O Lord, for it is great." Trace the remarkable workings of this intense godly sorrow in the repentant Corinthians. "Behold this self-same thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yes, what cleansing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge!" Truly, "they shall mourn and be in bitterness, as one that mourns for his first-born."
It is the harbinger of joy. The sight of sin and the sight of Christ at the same moment constitutes an element of the deepest, purest joy. The tears of godly sorrow are the seeds of holy joy. He that goes forth weeping, bearing this precious seed, shall doubtless return again with joy. Weeping beneath the cross may endure for a night, but the joy of the Lord will assuredly dawn with the dawn of morning. The gloom that drapes the soul, weeping at the cross, shall dissolve into light, unclouded and serene. The joy of knowing that God is reconciled in Christ Jesus, that sin is pardoned, that peace is possessed, that heaven is secure, oh, it is a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Henceforth, O believer, the cross shall, like the glorious sun, illumine your path through this region of sin and sorrow with its growing luster, until it lead you up to the realms of perfect day.
O God! to life's last and latest hour let me be a weeper at the cross! Precious Savior! in view of my sins and my sinfulness- in view of the awful solemnities of eternity, what can I do but cling to Your cross? And when death, of whom You, O Christ, are the plague, dissolves the silver cord and sets my spirit free, take me to the place where Your own soft hand shall wipe my tears, and turn my present and momentary sorrow for sin into the future and eternal joy of perfect holiness! Lord, for that blissful hour my longing spirit pants!
"When shall I be at rest? my trembling heart
Grows weary of its burden, sickening still
With hope deferred. Oh! that it were Your will
To loose my bonds, and take me where You are
"When shall I be at rest? my eyes grow dim
With straining through the gloom, I scarce can see
The way-marks that my Savior made for me;
Oh, that it were morn, and I were safe with Him
"When shall I be at rest? Hand over hand
I grasp, and climb an ever steeper hill,
A rougher path. Oh! that it were Your will
My tired feet might tread the Promised Land.
"Oh that I were at rest! a thousand fears
Come thronging over me lest I fail at last.
Oh that I were safe, all toil and danger past,
And Your own hand might wipe away my tears.
"Oh that I were at rest, like some I love,
Whose last fond looks drew half my life away;
Seeming to plead that either they might stay
ith me on earth, or I with them above.
But why these murmurs? You did never shrink
From any toil or weariness for me,
Not even from that last deep agony;
Shall I beneath my little trials sink?
No, Lord, for whom I am indeed at rest.
One taste of that deep bliss will quite efface
The sternest memories of my earthly race,
Save but to swell the sense of being blest.
Then lay on me whatever cross I need
o bring me there. I know You can not be
Unkind, unfaithful, or untrue to me!
Shall I not toil for You, when You for me did bleed."
"God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood." Romans 3:25
"Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." Romans 3:25
"For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us." Romans 3:25
If there be a grace of the Christian, a divine principle wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit of God, that has its source in Christ, is by Christ sustained and strengthened, it is the grace, the principle of faith. The faith of God's elect- the faith that justifies, sanctifies, and saves-is pre-eminently a divine plant, having its root and nourishment in a crucified Savior. And all professed faith that is not thus engrafted upon the cross of Christ, that has not Christ Jesus for its author, sustainer, and finisher, is a spurious, dead, notional faith, that never will, because it never can, bring its possessor within the realms of glory.
In the further prosecution of our subject, illustrating the graces of the Christian, as clustered around and engrafted upon the cross of Christ, we bend our thoughts to the consideration of this precious grace, the faith of the true believer, showing that it has directly and exclusively to do with a crucified Redeemer. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood."
The first view which will engage briefly our attention is the OBJECT OF FAITH'S TRUST- CHRIST JESUS OUR PROPITIATION. The very idea of faith, which, in other words, is simple trust or credence, implies an object in every respect worthy of its confidence. There are things in nature and beings in the world in which we repose confidence only to be betrayed. We cherish human hopes but to see them crushed and die; worldly expectations but to prove the illusory phantoms of imagination. But in the great matter of our salvation it is of infinite moment that the object in which our souls trust for a blessed futurity should be worthy of our implicit and solemn confidence. If, when the shadows of eternity are darkening around you, it be found that the object upon which your faith has been reposing- perchance your legal obedience or your religious duties- betrays you at a moment when more than ever you will need the peace and joy and hope which true faith in Jesus inspires, what a fearful discovery to find that you have placed confidence for salvation in an object which, when most you needed its supports and succourings, woefully and utterly fails you! We hasten, then, to place before you, my reader, the one exclusive object on which saving faith exclusively reposes- it is Christ Jesus our propitiation.
Now, with regard to this PROPITIATION, there are three points of light in which we would briefly present it. The first is the idea of satisfaction. Christ Jesus, our propitiation, has given a satisfaction to the claims, demands, and requirements of God's moral government, upon the divine basis of which the most hell-deserving sinner, repenting and believing, may be eternally saved. Need we argue the necessity of such a propitiation? There must be a satisfaction made to the righteous government of God, because we have sinned against Him. We have cast off God. We have rebelled against Him. We have trampled upon the glory of His name. We have done outrage to His love and rendered ourselves obnoxious to His righteous displeasure. Now, before God can take a step in restoring us to His divine favor, and in reinstating us among His people, there must be such an equivalent satisfaction made to His moral government, as shall vindicate His righteousness, satisfy His justice, illustrate and guard His holiness
There are two ways by which many endeavor either to avoid the force of this truth, or entirely to ignore it. The first is, by denying any necessity of a satisfaction to God's government, in order that a sinner may be saved. The individual who wraps himself up in the attribute of Divine mercy at the expense of every other perfection of God, denies this truth, that God's justice demands satisfaction, that His moral government requires a vindication before He could be merciful or gracious to the sinner. He, in effect, says, "I expect to be saved without this satisfaction of which you speak."
Then, there are others who deny this truth by presenting a satisfaction of their own. All who have not simple faith in the propitiation of the Lord Jesus Christ are endeavoring to provide a satisfaction of human invention. "They, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." The Papal Church is fruitful of these human satisfactions, nor are they lacking outside its pale.
But we come to the great truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is our propitiation; in other words, He is our satisfaction. Oh, what a marvellous and precious truth is this! Christ has given all the satisfaction that the divine government required. He has vindicated God's honor, has satisfied His justice, and has upheld His truth by the offering of Himself in our stead, by the shedding of His most precious blood for our sins, by bringing in a new and everlasting righteousness for our justification; and now, on the ground of his satisfaction, God can be propitious, pardoning our sin and accepting our person. "I am perfectly satisfied," says Justice. "I demand no more," responds the Law. And thus, through the one offering of Christ as our satisfaction, God is glorified and the sinner is saved.
The second idea suggested in the doctrine of Christ our propitiation is covering. Literally, it means the covering of the mercy-seat, from above which God would hold converse with His people. Now, Christ is our propitiation. In other words, he is our covering. He covers our transgressions and hides our sins from the eye of God's justice and the eye of His law. Christ's imputed righteousness, which is "unto all and upon all those who believe," thus becomes the clothing, or the covering of the saints. ''Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered."
Another idea involved in propitiation is reconciliation. Christ has reconciled us unto God by His blood. He has brought us into a state of friendship with Jehovah, into a state of oneness with the Father. The atonement, as we have intimated, literally means at-a-one-ment. The work of Christ annihilates the enmity and brings us into a state of peace with the righteous and Holy One. Mistake not this reconciliation, beloved. Some seem to suppose that Christ's sacrifice procured the love of God- that the Father loved us because the Son died for us- yes, died to inspire that love? But this is an egregious fallacy. What Christ did was to remove the obstruction in the way of God's love. There were insuperable obstructions- obstructions which all the angels in heaven never could remove. Christ undertook their removal. The everlasting love of God towards His Church panted to be free, struggled for an outlet. Christ came into the world to open a channel through which it might flow down freely to poor sinners. He honored and magnified the law by His obedience, gave to justice its full requirement, by His sufferings vindicated the righteousness of God's government, and so divine love gushed forth to man. Thus, Christ stood in the breach, spanned the mighty gulf between God and the soul, bridged the chasm with the cross, and now, through His pierced and bleeding heart, God's everlasting love flows uninterruptedly, freely, to poor, guilty sinners; and those who accept in faith his propitiation; are in a state of reconciliation with God. Oh, blessed reconciliation!
Reconciliation in any form is delightsome. To see disturbed friendship restored, alienated affections won back, a rebellious child replaced in a parent's love, is a spectacle that moves to its depths the most callous sensibility. But oh, transcendent spectacle that moves all heaven- God and man at peace through Christ Jesus! "All things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ." "And you, that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight." All now is peace between God and the Christ-believing sinner. The enmity is removed, the controversy has ceased, harmony is restored, friendship exists, and God and man once more are reconciled and at peace.
Now, this satisfaction which Christ has made to God, is faith's confidence. Is it, my reader, the ground upon which your professed faith reposes, or is it some phantom of your own? Are you building your hope of heaven upon the divine atonement of which we have been treating, or upon an obedience wrought by yourself? I ask you as one having upon you the sentence of death, as an accountable being, a being possessed of a solemn immortality, where is your professed faith resting in reference to the salvation of your soul? If it is not resting on Christ's righteousness as the covering of your soul, you are not in a state of reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus, and it will go hard with you when summoned to meet your God. You will appear before Him without the wedding-garment.
We are now conducted to the consideration of THE MATERIAL OF FAITH'S NOURISHMENT. Here the great truth of faith's vital nourishment is brought out- the atoning blood of Christ. "Through faith in His blood." Now, in what sense is atoning blood the support and sustenance of that faith which sanctifies and saves the soul?
In the first place, faith is nourished by accepting all the blessings which flow from Christ's atoning blood- the blessings which result from the sacrifice of Christ are many, vast, and glorious. The pardon of all your sins- complete and free justification- adoption into the family of God-peace and friendship with God- hope that makes not ashamed- filial fellowship and communion with the Invisible- holy motives, added to filial obedience-submission to God's will in all His various dispensations-these untold blessings flow to us through the channel of the atoning blood of Christ. That blood of Christ, beloved, was so divine in its efficacy, a thing so transcendently precious to God, so unspeakably costly, that it freely purchased and eternally secured every blessing that we can be the recipients of in this vale of tears. Now we return again to the truth, that our faith is fed and nourished by its simple, unquestioning reception of all the blessings which flow to the believer through the atoning blood of Christ. Do not put away from you any of these blessings. Be careful how you reason, "I put in a plea for this blessing, or a plea for that, but I dare not put in a plea for all." What is this but robbing your own soul? Oh, trifle not with the atoning blood of Christ! It has secured all the blessings of the new covenant, and you have an individual inalienable right to all the costly blessings of that covenant. And if your simple faith will receive all the good things which the blood of Christ has purchased and secured, you crown faith with its brightest diadem. The moment you begin to hesitate and question your title to any of these blessings, the divine principle of faith becomes impaired; but when it lays its hand upon the Magna Charta of redemption, when it takes the whole string of precious pearls and says, "They are each and all mine;" when it lays its hand upon the everlasting covenant, and fully believes that all its fulness is yours, and that you are Christ's, you will find that, as your faith grasps these precious truths, it will strengthen and grow with the grasp.
Faith is also nourished by the vitalizing influence of the atoning blood of Christ. Your faith has a spiritual and deathless vitality. According to the physical law of our material structure, the life is in the blood. What a grand truth does this illustrate in regard to the essential power of the atoning blood of Christ! My reader, our souls' spiritual vitality is in the blood of Jesus. One drop of that precious blood applied by the Holy Spirit to the soul of a poor, penitent sinner, vitalizes that soul with spiritual life. Now, your faith, dealing closely and habitually with the blood of Christ, realizing its personal application, accepting the blessings it has purchased and sealed, you will find that, as it thus deals with the cross it will be nourished, strengthened, and fruitful- its root being fed and kept alive by the atonement of the crucified Savior.
Faith is nourished, too, by the changeless efficacy of the atoning blood of Christ. The blood of Christ has a perpetual and deathless efficacy. In nature there are some remedial things which in time lose their curative influence in disease; and so the physician is perpetually compelled to change his recipe. My reader, it is the glory of a child of God that the atoning blood of Jesus is that divine remedy that never loses its efficacy; its virtues never decay, its sovereign power never changes. Come to this sacred recipe when and how you may, you shall find that faith, simply dealing with it, brings peace and assurance, comfort and hope, to the heart. Come to that blood with fresh accumulations of guilt, new failures, new surprisals, new falls, yet mourning over and confessing your sin, with your mouth in the dust, you shall find that, washing in it, His blood is as powerful, as healing, as precious as ever- and thus the blood nourishes and strengthens faith.
Dear reader, the blood shall never lose its sovereign, sanctifying and saving virtue. In heaven, at this very moment, it is pleading for the saints. The grand argument of our Great High Priest in glory is the blood He shed on earth. "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." As an Intercessor, He could only enter heaven with blood- that blood His own. Through no other door, and with no other plea, can we follow Him to glory. While the atoning blood of Jesus is pleading for us in heaven, we must plead it upon earth. The plea is one and the same- the plea of the Advocate and the plea of the client, the Savior and the sinner- the blood of Jesus. Having liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, hesitate not to draw near and claim all the costly and precious things His blood has fully purchased, and His grace freely bestows.
We will only add that faith is fed and strengthened by constant exercise with the blood of Jesus. You will find this in your experience unmistakably the case. If you hesitate in repairing constantly to the blood, if you walk remote from the fountain, and for days, and weeks, and months trifle with a guilt-stained conscience, sin unconfessed at the foot of the cross, the heart unquieted by a present application of the blood, you will inevitably find your faith become weaker and weaker, until at length you shall begin to doubt whether you have any real faith in Christ at all. And we would earnestly, solemnly inquire if, while you are without the enjoyment of peace with God, and a comfortable assurance that your sins are pardoned, and that your person is accepted in the Beloved, may it not be traced to this as the primary cause- your remote distance from the blood? You have not been washing constantly in the fountain, and consequently you have lost its immediate and hallowed effect. But, returning to the blood perpetually, bathing in the cleansing fount constantly, your faith will become stronger and stronger, your peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thus the more you deal with the blood of Christ, the stronger will be your faith in, and the closer your communion with, the Crucified One.
We have to advert, before we close this chapter, to THE DIVINE WARRANT FOR THE CONFIDENCE OF FAITH. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." If GOD has devised and revealed the plan of saving sinners, we may be well satisfied that it meets all the requirements of His own glory, and is in all respects suitable for us. "Whom God has set forth." This, beloved, is your divine warrant.
In the first place, this divine expedient of propitiation meets all the requirements of God's own glory. God has declared, in effect, that He has confided the interests both of His glory and His Church with Christ- that Jesus having fully atoned for sin in His own person, God is now prepared to be propitious, merciful, and gracious to all who believe in His name. Consequently, you have, my reader, no reason for one moment to suppose that, if you venture your soul, guilty and sinful as it is, upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that you are contravening God's glory. Oh, no! it will be to God's greatest honor and glory that you do now believe the record He has given of His Son; and that, believing that record, you accept the free grace and salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and walk holily and happily as one, all whose sins are pardoned, and whose person is fully accepted through Jesus Christ the Beloved.
This divine warrant also sets forth God's love. What is the grand perfection of God that shines the most resplendent in the redemption of man? It is not justice, awful though it is; not holiness, beautiful though it is; not truth, immutable though it is. What, then, is it? Oh, it is love! If there is one perfection that shines out more luminously and transcendently than another, it is this. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Read these words thoughtfully and devoutly. Do they affirm- "In this was manifested the justice of God, that He gave His onlybegotten Son?" or, "In this was manifested the righteousness of God, in that He made him a propitiation for our sins?" or, "In this was manifested the wrath of God, in that He punished Christ for our transgressions?" Oh, no! but, "in this was manifested the LOVE of God." Here, beloved, is the warrant for your faith to believe in the Lord Jesus, for your trusting in Him, for committing your immortal interests into His hands, and for rolling the burden of your guilt upon the Savior. God loved you, and gave His Son to die for you, and you have his warrant now to believe in the Lord Jesus that you may be saved. With such a divine warrant to accept Christ, will you, can you hesitate? The Holy Spirit having convinced you of sin, may He open your eye to see it all laid by God upon Christ, and then enable you to believe in the Lord Jesus, to the salvation of your soul.
Then, there is the Word of God as the warrant for your simple faith in the propitiation of Christ. His own Word has declared that, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The promises and invitations with which the gospel so richly and freely abounds, are your warrant to come to Jesus; and God will never countervail His blessed Word. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one promise of pardoning mercy to a poor sinner shall fail. Oh, come to Jesus, then, on the credit of His Word.