OM 8:31-39{IN the ward of a city hospital lay a young man, whose emaciated form and pallidly-worn face spoke of days and months of suffering. Yet there was a peaceful, quiet, calm expression in the features of this child of pain. As the hour of release drew near-for death was evidently at hand-the question was put, What about your peace? Without the slightest hesitation, the answer came from the lips that were soon to be hushed in the silence of death, “Oh, sir, I have got peace; sure God is for me." It often struck me since how significant was such testimony from one who did not seem to have the least joy-indeed, he often said that perpetual suffering left him bereft of everything but his peace. It is a grand point, dear reader, to have the feet on such ground. “God is for me"-and, indeed, where redemption is fully underneath the soul, what other conclusion can we arrive at? It is the grand conclusion of the doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans.
“If [or since] God be for us, who can be against us?" What do I see in God's giving His Son? I see God for me. What do I see in God's forsaking Christ? (Why hast Thou forsaken Me?) I see God for me. What do I hear in that cry, “My God, my God"? I hear the words-God is for me; and how plainly I see it and hear it in Him, who went down into the judgment, endured the whole of divine wrath against sin, rose again, the Head of a new creation, and announces that peace which He had made in His cross, in those words, " Peace be unto you." It is a wonderful rest to the heart to find out after all our natural misgivings, after all Satan's lies, God is for us; it is a tower of strength which is invincible; it is a fortress which never yet was taken. "God for us." Reader, do you hesitate about it? Do you question it? Listen to how God Himself pleads the truth of it with you: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all"-it is a simple, undeniable, convincing fact. " He spared not his own Son." Do you remember the scene of Gen. 22, where the faith of Abraham is tested, and rises to the claims and demands of God? Do you remember how every word expressing the demand of God upon him, must have penetrated to the quick the soul of the Father? "Take now thy son," not only so, but "thine only son Isaac," and not only so, "but whom thou lovest." As if God had said, I ask you to break the tenderest link, the dearest tie and bond you have, destroy your connection with the promise (in Isaac shall thy seed be called). And do you remember what the testimony of God from heaven was concerning the faith that rose triumphant above everything to God Himself? “Now I know," says God, "thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." And, reader, has not that same God put like words into your mouth? For standing on the resurrection side of the cross, with death, judgment, and hell behind you, gazing by faith on Him who once hung bearing the judgment on that cross, on Him who there, by His death, not only established divine righteousness, but also the ground of relationship with His Father, now our Father-I say do not these words spring up from the moved depths of your soul: now I know God is for me, seeing He has not withheld His Son, His only Son, from me? W. T. T.