Four Great Impossibilities: Part 2

 •  11 min. read  •  grade level: 7
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
(Continued from page 54).
WE have already had pointed out two great Impossibilities— “IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE,” and “without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God.” Let us now look at
IMPOSSIBILITY, No. 3.
Turn to Matt. 26, and let us read a solemn passage about the Lord Himself, verse 36, “Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, Oh my Father, IF IT BE POSSIBLE, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Between God, in all His unsullied holiness, and the sinner, in all his unmitigated badness, Christ has come! Jesus, the holy spotless One, has come, as sent by the Father, into this wretched world. The One upon whom heaven opened, and to whom the Father’s voice was addressed, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” He who could Himself say, “I do always those things which please him.”
The One, who from the moment He was laid in Bethlehem’s manger until He died on Calvary cross, never once did. His own will; whose life went up, without one single imperfection, as a sweet savor to His Father!
Such is the Person—Divine, yet human—who has undertaken the glorious work by which God could stoop in righteousness from the illimitable height of His glory, to the miserable depth of human degradation, and pick up, and bless, and save, and make fit for that glory the very vilest, most polluted sinner.
See Him, as the shameful, yet most glorious close of His wondrous history drew near, on the Mount of Transfiguration, encircled with the brightness of heavenly glory. Again, the well-known voice is heard, “This is my beloved Son; hear him.” But even in the midst of that bright scene, what subject lay nearest to His heart? “They spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.”
And then He descends from the dazzling splendor, and glory, and favor of that moment, to encounter all the shame, and wrath, and darkness of the Cross. But here, in the garden, on the way to it, He is at once accosted with this grand question that has been before us. How is God’s glory to be maintained, and the sinner who has outraged Him to be saved?
He retires from His disciples with a heavy heart; and oh, dear reader, just consider the solemn gravity of the question brought before the soul of the Lord Jesus at that moment.
There was a cup that night put before Him, and what did it contain?
Collect all your sins from the moment of your birth until now. Gather together all the vile things you have thought, said, and done that you would not dare to reveal to your bosom friend. Horrible sight! What do you deserve therefore? The infinite wrath of God.
The Lord is here, in presence of your sinful self and sins, and the cup is filled with the wrath of God, which you have merited. He knew what the drinking of it would entail—the absolute forsaking of God. And now He must decide the question—whether He should go from that garden straight into the glory of God., from whence He came, and escape the Cross, leaving us poor sinners to perish; or should He drink the cup, suffer the death, endure the wrath of God, and have us with Him in glory forever? How wonderful the moment! Could Jesus have gone into heaven without dying on the cross? Most assuredly.
But what then about you and me? We should have been justly damned in hell forever!
“Father,” He prays, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” If there be one way by which I can have these sinners with me in heaven, without drinking this cup, let it pass from me. But NO, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. If the sinner was to be saved in consistency with God’s holiness, righteousness, and truth, Jesus must die. He shrinks from it—shrinks from being forsaken of God. It was His perfection as man to do so. But soon the conflict is over, His love and obedience have won the day, and we hear Him say, “The cup which my Father hath given me—shall I not drink it?” and bearing His cross, He ascends the mount, and in tenderest, infinite, adorable love, dies under the judgment of God. Ever blessed be His name!
And thus the mighty distance between God and the sinner is bridged over, and the boundless river of His love is free to flow down to the lost. Atonement has been made, sin has been judged, and God’s holy character has been vindicated! Turn, then, from your miserable self-righteousness, to the agonies of the cross, and there behold the blessed work which enables God to save you the moment you fling every human crutch away, and believe in Jesus. Do not be afraid to bring all your sins into the light. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son cleanseth us from all sin.” The wrath of God has come down upon and been exhausted. by Jesus, so that there is no more wrath for you to suffer, if you are only a poor sinner that rests alone on Christ’s finished work.
Say, like the dying man in Dublin, some years ago, when asked how he could venture to meet God after His wicked life, “God is glorified about my sins in the cross of Jesus; God is satisfied, so am I.” “What?” said his unconverted friends to him, “your sins forgiven! you going to heaven that have lived such a life!” “Yes,” he calmly replied, “God is glorified, God is satisfied, so am I.”
But how has God shown His satisfaction? This brings us to
IMPOSSIBILITY No. 4.
See Acts 2:2323Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: (Acts 2:23). “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God hath raised up, having loosed the rains of death because IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE that he should be holden of it.”
Here is the grand truth of resurrection following upon the truth of His death. As it was IMPOSSIBLE for the Lord Jesus to escape the cross if sin was to be atoned for, so was it IMPOSSIBLE that He should remain in the tomb now that sin has been perfectly expiated.
If you want to know the value of the cross in God’s eyes, you will never know it except in resurrection. Do you ask whether you may be perfectly sure that God is satisfied with the blood of Jesus as having made complete atonement for your sins? Behold the man that bore them at the right hand of the majesty on high! And how did He get there? God raised Him from the dead. Who put the pains of death upon Him? God. Who “loosed the pains of death” from Him? The same G. And why? Because God’s holy nature was satisfied—yea, glorified by the death of Jesus on the cross for sin—and therefore “it was NOT POSSIBLE” that the grave should hold. Him. My reader, it would have been an act of unrighteousness— I speak with reverence—it would have been an act of unrighteousness on the part of God if He had left Jesus in the tomb after He had fully atoned for sin! Impossible that He should remain there, and now the prayer of the Lord Jesus, who glorified the Father upon the earth, and finished the work which He gave Him to do, is answered— “Glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was;” and we look up to heaven to behold that “visage that was marred more than any man’s” radiant with the glory of God, the proof that God is satisfied, and that you and I who believe are saved. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as having made full and complete atonement to God for your sins, YOU ARE SAVED. You have not to feel that you are saved, you have to believe it. You could not feel it until you know upon the authority of God’s Word that you have eternal life.
I said I would return to that 6th of Hebrews at the close, just to show how this statement “It is impossible for God to lie” comes in in its own connection.
1st. We have seen how impossible it is for God to come down to man’s level.
2nd. How impossible it is for man to reach up to God’s.
3rd. How impossible it was for the Lord Jesus to escape death, if God and man were to be brought together again.
4th. How impossible it was for God to leave that blessed One in death when atonement for sin had been made.
And now in conclusion, let us see how blessedly this 6th of Hebrews confirms it all for our souls. God comes in by His Word, and His oath to make good to you and me the results of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ—so that we may be delivered from every doubt and fear, and know what true settled peace with God really means.
God makes a promise to Abraham and afterwards He swears by Himself to its accomplishment (compare Gen. 15 with Gen. 22) — “wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability (unchangeableness) of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath—that by two immutable things (God’s word and God’s oath) in which IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.”
When Abraham was given the promise that his seed should be as the stars of heaven—what did he do? Did he try to feel it? Did he look into himself for some experience, or happy feelings to give him assurance of it? No. “He considered not his own body now dead, nor yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb—he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief—but was strong in faith giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform” (Rom. 4). Abraham had absolutely nothing but the word of God to assure him of his blessing. He relied upon the veracity of God! And, my reader, you have nothing less do you want anything more? Had Abraham “considered his own body,” his feelings, his experience, his walk, he would most assuredly have concluded that such a thing could never be. Now, my friend, cease considering your own heart or your feelings. All is gloomy in that direction. There is no solid resting-ground in self, nothing but shifting sands, but “consider Him” —look off unto Jesus at God’s right hand, who is there, because He has put away the believer’s sins, and stake your soul’s security upon the most reliable of all things—God’s blessed Word. “Verily, verily, I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
“Oh,” you say, “I do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour.” Then you have everlasting life, God says so, and IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE—and the simple question is whether you are going to make God a LIAR. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son—and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life, is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Now mark the next verse: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”
From this it must be apparent that the way you are to KNOW that you HAVE eternal life, is not by feelings, but by believing the things that are written. And so our passage in Heb. 6 says, “That by two immutable things in which it was IMPOSSIBLE for God to lie, we might have STRONG CONSOLATION who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus.” Could we have a better haven of rest? and could we obtain a firmer anchorage? Faith rests upon the word of God and gets strong consolation from it, and hope both sure and. steadfast casts its anchor inside the veil, and looks out for the return of the coming One to take us where He has Himself gone before.
“Hope has dropped her anchor, found her rest
In the calm sure haven of His breast;
Love esteems it heaven to Abide
At His side.”
Then, dear believer, yield yourself into His loving hands, and believe that in doing so you are giving true delight to the heart of God.
J. C. T.