A country lad has caught and caged a poor little forest bird, and placed it outside the cottage door. Presently his mother returns home. Her kind heart is moved at the sight of the tiny fluttering prisoner, too excited to eat even a single crumb. She walks towards the cage, but the poor bird, as it sees her approaching, is in a panic of terror. She gently opens the cage door; and says, “There! that’s what I feel about you! Your cage door is wide open. Don’t wait a moment. Use your wings and enjoy your liberty!”
And God has declared what He feels about the captive sinner. Nothing now remains in the background; nothing left for the disclosure of a future day; nothing to be further manifested in some coming dispensation. All, all that God is has been brought to light in Jesus, His beloved Son; and in Him He is declared to be on the side of ruined man―a just God and a Saviour. Oh, what rest, what liberty for the heart that enters into it!
Perhaps you will say, “But man is a poor fallen creature, the sport of his lusts and passions, a dupe of Satan, and subject to the just judgment of God for his sins. In befriending such an unworthy object, therefore, is not God practically ignoring His own righteousness, or hiding the unsullied glory of His own holiness” No, no, thank God; far otherwise. The very way in which He has declared Himself upholds and maintains every attribute on His own side, while meeting every need on ours. When Christ came to the earth two things were brought to light.
1. Every moral excellency that was in God Himself found its perfect expression in that blessed, lowly Man.
2. All that in God’s eye was lovely; all that His heart could possibly wish for in man was found in JESUS!
But how could the holy life of the Lord Jesus meet the desperate condition of a guilty sinner― of one not guilty only, but entirely estranged in heart from God? Of itself, Christ’s life, spotlessly pure as it was, could not have met man’s need. For just as a white pin adds nothing of its own whiteness to a black pin, but only makes the black one look all the blacker, so Christ’s holy life served only the more to expose man’s unblushing wickedness. Death must come in; and in the kindness of God, death has come in, Christ has died― “died for the ungodly”―and God has raised Him from the dead.
By Christ’s death sin has received God’s righteous judgment on the sinner’s behalf; and the believing sinner is justified.
By Christ’s resurrection the portals of death have been thrown wide open. All may escape. None need perish.
By Christ’s death the love of God has been perfectly expressed and the believer reconciled.
By Christ’s resurrection the power of God to release men from the grip of death has been abundantly set forth.
So that not only has God opened a way of escape for you; He has expressed His own heart in doing it. The Gospel proclaims that the “cage door” is wide open. All that you have to do, therefore, is to avail yourself of it. “Escape for thy life.” Fly to His presence with a song of praise for His great deliverance. Thousands have done so; and the writer one of the happy number. You be another.
Having tried to show what God feels about you, only one thing more is needed. Tell God what you feel about HIM; and what you feel about yourself, for slighting His kindness so long.
GEO. C.