At the close of 4000 years, Jehovah's last resource to awaken, if possible, any latent good in man, was then disclosed. God in love and lowly grace entered the world. As man He wept with men, as Jehovah He healed disease, as Emmanuel He dwelt with us, as Messiah He would accomplish the predicted glory of Israel. The heart of God was brought down to man; His love to their misery. The defilement of Samaria was rebuked by the light (John 4.), but the sinner like her guilty sister of the eighth of John, found herself hidden in the bosom of Jesus. Love rose in holy triumph over the need and misery of man. The land of Emmanuel from one end of it to the other was trod by the feet of the Son of God, and filled with the living witnesses of His grace. O the heart of God has throbbed in this wretched world! No love like His I Intolerant of evil, withering in exposure of pharisaical hypocrisy, terrible in rebuke to the determinedly self-righteous. But a love most patient and unchangeable amidst insult, rejection and sorrow. Heart-broken sinners (Matt. 11:28) and wearied saints (verse 29) found rest in His arms and heart. There was one heart the sons of men could trust, and so the bosom of Jesus has become the pillow for many a weary head and the rest of many an aching heart.
Now does the vine yield its fruit to the Son of God's delight (Matt. 21.) I Let us see; they trampled upon the law, they killed the prophets, and now that God's bosom has given out its treasure, they spit upon His face and pierce His brow with thorn. God turned man out of paradise, and now man turns God in flesh out of His own world. The righteous John they would not have, and bartered his life away for a dance (Mark 6.) Love personified in Jesus was utterly rejected and Himself sold for the price of a slave-thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 24:14-16), the resources of grace are exhausted. God manifest in flesh has walked in divine goodness, and tabernacled amongst men, and the result is that man will not have God at all. He would rather hug his chains and live in his misery, than have a deliverer, if that Savior be God. Man is proved to be the bitter, determined enemy of God.
What then is the value of Adamic responsibility before God I Has the tree of responsibility, first planted in paradise 4000 years before the cross, borne the fruit of life and righteousness I If, beloved reader, you are on that ground—I do not say you are unsafe, nay, you are lost. Man is not going down, he has gone. "Condemned already," and this is exactly the point where the gospel meets you. The disciplinary dealings and probationary trials of man are all over, and the only thing that can now avail for God and for eternity is redemption and a new nature. "Ye must be born anew.”