Luke 15.
3.
IN the first parable the great fact is brought out by the Lord Jesus that you are lost, and that everything depends on Him, the Shepherd. Your share of the work is simply getting lost, that is all you can do. The Shepherd does all the rest. He finds you, at a cost to Himself that you can never know, puts you on His shoulders and gets home to glory with you, and then calls all heaven to rejoice with Him at the finding of a poor miserable thing like you. In that parable there is no place found for those fears, doubts, and feelings which have hitherto taken up so much of your attention. Feelings and fears are not peace. In order that you may have peace, the Lord Jesus presents Himself to you as the One who has done everything, first for God’s glory, and then for your need. If His work is enough for God, it must be enough for you. But the fact that Jesus is in the glory of God now, is the proof that God has accepted His work. Can you not accept then for your need what God has accepted for His glory? The moment you do, peace will take the place of fears.
But, as we have already seen, God desires that the work of grace in your heart should answer perfectly to the work of the blessed Lord Jesus on the cross, so that nothing should be able to shake your confidence any more than it can shake the Rock itself upon which you rest. This is what the Word of God calls being established in grace, and remember that from beginning to end grace is God’s work.
Now the third parable takes up this question of the work of God in the soul, and, in contrast to the first two parables where we have nothing about the fears, hopes, and feelings of the sheep or the piece of silver, gives us the fullest picture possible of the exercises of a soul away from God, and what passes in that soul on the way back, until the full place of acceptance is known. But the second parable forms a very important link between the first and third.
In order that the ground of peace might be laid, that God might be glorified where sin reigned, and that the work of the cross might be done, only one thing was needed — the death of Christ.
But in order that you might be brought into full enjoyment of the consequences of that perfect work something else was needed — the coming of the Holy Ghost. This was the immediate result of the glorifying of Jesus. When Jesus was down here the world rejected Him, but that only led to the carrying out of God’s plan of redemption, and Jesus did the whole work of redemption on the cross, entered into the glory, and sat down forever (Heb. 10:1212But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Hebrews 10:12)). The result was that the Holy Ghost came down, not to do a fresh work, nor to add to the work done on the cross, but to bear witness to the fullness of that work, and all its blessed consequences, and so to bring your heart into the full enjoyment of it. This is not the place to go into all the aspects of the work of the Holy Ghost, a full and blessed subject. But let us have these two points clear and distinct before us, because the confounding of the two is the chief cause of the uncertainty as to salvation, and all the consequent want of peace and liberty in the experience of thousands of dear Christians to-day.
The Lord Jesus is the One who has completely and forever finished the work on the cross for God’s glory and your eternal salvation.
The Holy Ghost is the One who now carries on in your heart the work needed to bring you into full enjoyment of the finished work on the cross.
This is why in the second parable the scene is changed. Instead of the Shepherd going after a sheep in the wilderness, we get a woman at work in a house. Both have the same object, to find what is lost, but the scene is changed.
First it is a woman, in order to show the way in which the Holy Ghost is present, not publicly seen of all, as the Lord Jesus was, but unseen and unknown (John 14:1717Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:17)) to the world. The Holy Ghost is acting for Christ where He has been cast out. Hence the Lord shows us a woman at work. Then the place where she works is a house. While the Lord Jesus was on earth He had no dwelling-place, and in the first parable He takes His found sheep home. But, as the consequence of redemption, God has a house on earth and the Holy Ghost inhabits it and works there (Eph. 2:2222In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)).
Perhaps you may say, “I don’t see what this has to do with my troubles and exercises.” Don’t be impatient. God’s order is, not you first, but
Christ first, doing the work that carries Him and you from the cross to the glory. Then,
The Holy Ghost, come down here to dwell in God’s house, unseen and unknown to the world, and to carry on the blessed consequence of Christ’s work. Lastly,
Your experience and the blessed result of the work of the Holy Ghost in you, bringing you to rest in the Father’s love made known to your heart fully.
That is God’s order, mark it well. It is better than man’s.
The woman’s work, then, is different from the shepherd’s, although the result is the same. She lights a candle, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently. The light shows where things are and what their state is, the sweeping stirs up a lot of dust. Neither of these operations are pleasant, but they are very necessary. The work of the Holy Ghost is to bring in the light of the Word of God upon our place and state as sinners to convict us of sin. Further, when this has been accepted and forgiveness is learned, the Holy Ghost continues to work, producing exercises of heart and discovering more fully what sin is, not only in the fruit but in the root, until God’s work in us is accomplished. Hence, if we put this parable first, or in other words, when the work of the cross is not known, these necessary exercises lead us to doubt salvation, whereas they are the blessed proofs of God’s work in us, leading us to fuller apprehension of Christ’s work for us. The very fact that the Holy Ghost is here to carry on this work is God’s own witness that Christ is glorified. Hence the Holy Ghost can only witness of the absolute perfection of the finished work of Christ. Do not let the dust of the sweeping hide this from your heart. S. H. H.