GOD IN CHRIST

We need every view of the Gospel tending to illustrate its value and endear its preciousness. Hence is a truth calculated to produce this holy effect. Nature does not teach it; the law does not reveal it; philosophy does not inculcate it; tradition does not contain it; the Gospel only makes it known. How God is revealed in Jesus Christ; how that “two should become one, and yet remain two still, as God and man do in Christ; that He who maketh should be one with the thing which himself hath made; that He who is above all should humble himself; that He who filleth all should empty himself; that He who blesseth all should be himself a curse; that He who ruleth all should be himself a servant; that He who was the Prince of Life, and by whom all things in the world do consist, should himself be dissolved and die; that mercy and justice should meet together, and kiss each other; that the debt should be paid, and yet pardoned; that the fault should be punished, and yet remitted; that death, like Samson’s hon, should have life and sweetness in it, and be used as an instrument to destroy itself,” are evangelical truths and mysteries revealed alone in the “glorious Gospel of the blessed God.” “In nature we see him a God of power, in providence a God of wisdom, in the law a God of vengeance, but in the Gospel a God full of compassion, of overflowing love, ‘ready to pardon’; humbling himself that He might be merciful unto his enemies — that He might himself bear the punishment of those injuries which had been done unto himself; that He might beseech His own prisoners to be pardoned and reconciled again. In the creature He is a God above us; in the law He is a God against us; but in the Gospel He is Immanuel, a God with us, a God like us, a God for us.”

What strong encouragement does this subject afford to every truly-humbled, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul! God in Christ is no longer a “consuming fire,” but a God of love, of peace; a reconciled God, God in Christ holds out His hand all the day long to poor sinners. He receives all, He welcomes all; He rejects, He refuses, He casts out none. It is His glory to pardon a sinner. It is the glory of His power, it is the glory of His love, it is the glory of His wisdom, it is the glory of His grace, to take the prey from the mighty, to deliver the lawful captive, to pluck the brand from the burning, to lower the golden chain of His mercy to the greatest depth of human wretchedness and guilt, and lift the needy and place him among the princes. Behold Christ upon the cross! Every pang that he endures, every stroke that he receives, every groan that he utters, every drop of blood that he sheds, proclaims that God is love, and that He stands pledged and is ready to pardon the vilest of the vile. Justice, sheathing its sword, and retiring satisfied from the scene, leaves Mercy gloriously triumphant. And “God delighteth in mercy.” Having at such infinite cost opened a channel — even through the smitten heart of His beloved Son — through which His mercy may flow boundless and free, venture near nothing doubting. No feature of your case is discouraging, or can possibly arrest the pardon. Your age, your protracted rebellion against God, your long life of indifference to the concerns of your soul, the turpitude and number of your sins, your want of deep convictions or of stronger faith, or of worth or worthiness to recommend you to His favour, are not true impediments to your approach, are no pleas wherefore you should not draw nigh and touch the outstretched sceptre, bathe in the open fountain, put on the spotless robe, welcome the gracious pardon, and press it with gratitude and transport to your adoring heart.

In the light of this truth cultivate loving and kindly views of God. Ever view Him, ever approach Him, and ever transact your soul’s affairs with Him, in and through Jesus. He is the one Mediator between God and thy soul. God thy Father may now be leading you through deep and dark waters. His voice may sound roughly to you. His dim outline is, perhaps, all that you can see of Him. His face seems veiled and averted; yet deal with Him now in Christ, and all your hard thoughts, and trembling fears, and unbelieving doubts, shall vanish. In Jesus every perfection dissolves into grace and love. With your eye upon the cross, and looking at God through that cross, all the dark letters of His providence will in a moment become radiant with light and glory. That God who has so revealed Himself in Jesus must be love, all love, and nothing but love, even in the most dark, painful, and afflictive dealings with his beloved people.

Especially in the matter of prayer, cultivate and cherish this kindly, soothing view of God in Christ. Without it, in this most solemn and holy of all transactions, your mental conceptions of his nature will be vague, your attempts to concentrate your thoughts on this one object will be baffled, and the spiritual character of the engagement will lessen in tone and vigour. But meeting God in Christ, with every perfection of his nature revealed and blended, you may venture near, and in this posture, and through this medium, may negotiate with him the most momentous matters. You may reason, may adduce your strong arguments, and throwing wide the door of the most hidden chamber of your heart, may confess its deepest iniquity; you may place your “secret sins in the light of his countenance”; God still can meet you in the mildest lustre of his love. Drawing near, placing your tremulous hand of faith on the head of the atoning sacrifice, there is no sin that you may not confess, no want that you may not want to make known, no mercy that you may not ask, no blessing that you may not crave, for yourself, for others, for the whole church. See! the atoning Lord is upon the mercy-seat, the golden censer waves, the fragrant cloud of the much incense ascends, and with it are “offered the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne.” Jesus is in its midst,

“Looks like a lamb that has been slain,
And wears his priesthood still.”

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and having an High-Priest over the house of God, let us draw near. “ Open all your heart to God through Christ, who has opened all his heart to you in Christ. Remember that to bring Himself in a position to converse with you, as no angel could, in the matter that now burdens and depresses you, He assumed your nature on earth, with that very sorrow and infirmity affixed to it; took it back to glory, and at this moment appears in it before the throne, your Advocate with the Father. — Then hesitate not, whatever be the nature of your petition, whatever the character of your need, to “make known your requests unto God.” Coming by simple faith in the name of Jesus, it cannot be that He should refuse you. With His eye of justice ever on the blood, and His eye of complacency ever on His Son, Himself loving you, too, with a love ineffable great, it would seem impossible that you should meet with a denial. Yield your ear to the sweet harmony of the Redeemer’s voice, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

The subject is in the highest degree soothing, comforting, and encouraging. It seems to introduce us into the very pavilion of God’s heart. There, curtained and shut in, we may repose in perfect peace. Not a single perfection can a believing mind view in Christ but it smiles upon him. Oh! to see holiness and justice, truth, and love bending their glance of sweetest and softest benignity upon a poor, trembling soul, approaching to hide itself beneath the shadow of the cross! What a truth is this! All is sunshine here. The clouds are scattered, the darkness is gone, the tempest is hushed, the sea is a calm. Justice has lost its sting, the law its terror, and the sin its power: the heart of God is open, the bosom of Jesus bleeds, the Holy Spirit draws, the Gospel invites, and now the “weary and heavy laden” may draw nigh and rush into the bosom of a reconciled God in Christ. Oh, were ever words sweeter than these, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” “He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him?”

God in Christ is the covenant God of his people. He is their God; their tender, loving, condescending, Father. They may lose for a while the sight and enjoyment of this truth, but this contravenes it not; it still remains the same, unchangeable, precious, and glorious. Nothing can rob them of it. In the tempest, let it be the anchorage of your faith; in darkness, the pole-star of your hope. Let every circumstance, — the prosperity that ensnares and the adversity that depresses, the temptation that assails and the slight that wounds, endear to your believing soul this precious thought, — “God reconciled, God at peace, God a Father in Christ, is my God for ever and ever and he will be my guide even unto death.”

If to view God in Christ is a comforting truth, it is also a most sanctifying truth. Why has God revealed himself in Jesus? To evince the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such a stupendous sacrifice could remove it consistently with the glory of the Divine nature, and the honour of the Divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. The eye averted from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, gloried in without shame, confessed without sorrow. But when Divine justice is seen, drinking the very heart’s blood of God’s only Son in order to quench its infinite thirst for satisfaction; when God in Christ is seen in his humiliation, suffering, and death, all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, how fearful a thing does it seem to sin against this holy Lord God! How base, how ungrateful, appears the act in view of love so amazing, of grace so rich, and of glory so great! Cultivate a constant, an ardent thirst for holiness. Be not discouraged, if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart’s hidden evil. The one is often a consequent of the other; but persevere. The struggle may be painful, the battle may be strong, but the result is certain, and will be a glorious victory, VICTORY, through the blood of the Lamb!

“Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!”

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