THERE cannot be anything more blessed than to know the great reality of the love of God; but to know it in all its greatness we must first learn His righteousness. That is to say, we must learn it in God’s way, and in God’s words.
John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) is a blessed revelation of divine love, and has been used for blessing to a vast number of anxious souls; but before that, comes the serpent of brass, a type of God’s beloved Son. “made sin for us,” and made sin by the very God who found in Him His perfect delight.
If every claim of a holy God was to be met so that His love might come out in all its blessed fullness to poor lost sinners, He who “knew no sin” must be made a sin-offering. And thus the cross of Christ is the measure of divine righteousness and divine love. The love of the Son of God to His Father and to the sinner was seen there, in that He took the place of death and judgment, that every claim of God’s righteousness might be met, and the power of death, that abiding proof of God being dishonored by the man He had created, might be forever broken. He, the Son, could take both from His God and His Father. “Thou hast brought Me,” He says, “into the dust of death” (Ps. 22:15). “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:1111Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11)). I have often said to anxious souls, “Build all your hopes on the righteousness of God, and then you can enjoy His love.”
Let me give a simple illustration of my meaning. Suppose I owed a large sum of money to someone, and had not one penny to meet the debt. A friend meets me one day and says, “Why don’t you come to Mr. So-and-so’s house? He is the kindest man in the world and delights to use his ample means to show hospitality and love to all who come there.” “Ah,” I answer, “there is nothing I should like better than to go there, for I hear on all sides how good he is; but I owe him a thousand pounds, and have not a penny to pay it; and if I see him coming I get out of the way as fast as I can.” But one day my friend meets me and says, “I have some good news for you; your debt is paid, every farthing of it, and here is the receipt, and a warm invitation to you to come to the house and enjoy the hospitality of your late creditor. You will find what a kind man he is.” “Well,” I say, “I can go now, for I know that he is such a righteous man he will never ask me for one farthing of that debt again. But how can I go in these old clothes? ―and I have not a penny in my pocket to get myself another suit, or to live on in the future.” “Oh,” says my friend, “he has thought of all that, and has sent you an order on his banker that all his resources are to be at your disposal; and you know they are well-nigh inexhaustible, and the more you draw on them the better pleased he will be.”
Dear reader, this is but a very feeble illustration of the infinite greatness of the grace of the God who “spared not His own Son” that He might have you and me in His own house―the “Father’s house”―for the delight and satisfaction of His own heart forever. Grace that seeks; grace that finds; grace that keeps; grace that teaches (Titus 2:1212Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; (Titus 2:12)); grace that saves (Eph. 2:88For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)); and grace that reigns “through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:2020Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Romans 5:20)) is what He offers now. Yes, it is all by Him, “Jesus Christ our Lord.” He Himself has met and satisfied every claim of a holy God against sin, and has glorified God in doing so. If you are a believer, if you have owned your bankrupt condition before God and pleaded the precious blood of Christ as your only hope, not only is it true that He, God’s Son, has “borne your sins in His own body on the tree,” but also that (to apply the type of the brazen serpent) “He who knew no sin has been made sin” for you. That is to say, that in the death of Christ not only has the fruit (your sins) been forever removed, but the root also (yourself as a sinner) from under the eye of God; for not only did His Son give Himself for your sins (Gal. 1:44Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:4)), but in the language of faith you can surely say, “Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)). What a blessed exchange! Christ instead of your sins, and instead of sinful self before God. All gone, sins and self, and Christ instead You stand before God, dear Christian reader, in all His acceptance. And just as in the type of the poor bitten Israelite who looked and lived, so now the look of faith goes right up to the glory of God. The One who was once in death and judgment, that your sins and yourself might be forever removed from under the eye of God, is there, and not now on the cross. His holy claims having been forever met, He has glorified the blessed Man who glorified Him on the earth and finished the work given Him to do. And what was that work? Not only that He might save poor sinners from the eternal judgment of their sins, but that He might recover for God in His own blessed Person the man He lost in the Garden of Eden: that He might in His great love, and in all the value of His work on the cross, bring “many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:1010For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10)). This was what the heart of God had been looking for from the moment that sin and death dishonored Him, and the very man He had created for His own glory was lost to Him. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:1717But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. (John 5:17)) tells the story of unbounded, unwearying grace and love; and the answer to that blessed work of Father and Son is that God can righteously have in glory one who, as a poor lost sinner, finds rest in that finished work.
Dear reader, on what are you building your hope of salvation? On the righteousness of God?
What kept out the messenger of death on that terrible night in Egypt when the blood of the slain lamb was God’s way of deliverance? Was it mercy? No. Was it love? No. It was righteousness, and righteousness only; for where the blood of the lamb, that blessed type of the precious blood of Christ, met the eye of God, He could not in righteousness enter to slay the firstborn―He must “pass over.” He had said He would― “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Ex. 12:1313And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:13)).
Oh, how blessed it is, and what perfect peace it gives, to build on the righteousness of God, and then to learn more of the greatness of His love; to live in the warmth and sunshine of that love, and to know what it is to be “accepted in the Beloved”! (Eph. 1:66To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6)). May you and I, dear reader, learn more of this day by day, and live more in the power of it as witnesses of it to others, till we find ourselves in all the fullness of it in His presence in glory. A. P. G.