Page images
PDF
EPUB

of God, that he became the Author of salvation to all them that believe. The suffering which he came under was, as it were, but the putting of that will to proof; and the well-pleasing in the sight of God was the enduring of the fiery proof, and the continual declaration of, "Yet not my will, but thine be done." Hence it is, that, in the Gospel of John, the Lord's whole discourse is but as it were one acknowledgment of his Father's will, and obedience to his Father's commandment; or, as it is written in that same Psalm (verses 9, 10), “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation." And, brethren, it is by the will of God that we are sanctified still, as St. Paul reasoneth, and as St. John confirmeth: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 11-13.)

I consider it, therefore, to be rather a low view of the Redeemer's work, to contemplate it so much in the sense of acute bodily suffering, or to enlarge upon it under the idea of a price or bargain, which is a carnal similitude, suitable and proper to the former carnal dispensation, and which should, as much as possible, be taken away for the more spiritual idea of our sanctification by the full and perfect obedience which Christ rendered unto the will of God;

thereby purchasing back, and procuring for as many as believe in him, their justification and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, which is their conformity to the will of God, and reliance on his eternal purpose. For whosoever is brought into conformity with the will of God is thereby included in his purpose. It was a great act of power in the Son-a demonstration of his almighty power, to take up flesh and strengthen it against all the powers of hell-to take up flesh and purify it against all the powers of sin and corruption. But no one will say it was impossible, for it hath been accomplished and no one will say that there was any violation of the principles of eternal holiness and justice, for the Son to do what was within his power, or for the Father to suffer him to do it. With respect to the communication of the gift to others, we do not now entreat: at present we are considering only of the purchase of the gift; and this, as hath been said, was by his obedience and perfect fulfilment of God's most holy law, which had been offended by our first parents and by all their posterity. And it was the offended law, or, in other words, God's unalterable immitigable holiness, which perpetuated the punishment. If any one of Adam's children could have stood up and kept the law, he would, in virtue of his own innocency, have lived in it, and known neither suffering nor death. The man, Christ Jesus, did this, and, in virtue of his work, now liveth, it being impossible that he should be holden of death. By which life of obedience, the law stood honoured: it was proved to be holy, it was proved to be just, it was proved to be good; and it was satisfied. I may say the holiness of God's

law was never manifested upon the earth till now, because it was never kept. In the idea, it was holy; but never in the reality, till Christ said, "Father I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." The justice of the law might well be doubted, and its cruelty believed, at least its disproportion to human conditions: forasmuch as every man had smarted and suffered under it, and no one been able to attain unto the keeping of it. It might have been supposed the law of a tyrannical, or arbitrary, or even a malicious being, inasmuch as it had punished all and acquitted none. This was a great, a very great apparent stigma, which the perfect obedience of Christ in human flesh removed, proving unequivocally that it was made for flesh, and would have blessed humanity, had its gracious intention and adaptation not been crossed and prevented by the fall of our first parents, and the consequent apostacy of the will of man, and its alienation from every thing which is holy, and just, and good; for the goodness of the law, that is, its kindness and bountifulness, and fruits of blessedness, were all contradicted by the fact of such long and universal misery as had been upon the earth. The Divine purpose in creating human nature, and putting it under his holy, just, and good law, seemed to be wholly frustrated; the very end of creation seemed defeated; there was no glory of God redounding from it, but glory to the enemy of God: the world had gone into chaos; and the great achievement was, out of the chaos to bring something more perfect than before. To justify the ancient consitution of law and government under which the world was established at first; to re

trieve, to do more than retrieve, the honour of the Creator,-to make it glorious. This was the first end for which Christ gave himself to become man from the foundation of the world. To this agreeth the reasoning of the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans: "Do we then make void. the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (xiv. 31.) "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (viii. 4.) "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (x. 4.) "For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Gal. iii. 10.) "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (iv. 4, 5.)

Thus far, then, it is manifest, that when the Son of God said unto the Father from all eternity, "Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea thy law is within my heart;" his object was, as is immediately added, to preach God's righteousness in the great congregation, to declare his faithfulness and salvation: and there can be no doubt that the holiness of God was illustrated by the Son of man, before the great congregation, as it never had been before. That the ends of creation were wondrously manifested, and the darkness, and gross darkness, began to be cleared away. This is done, however, as yet only to the great congre

gation; that is, to the elect church; the rest of the world remaining as dark almost as before. But in the fulness of the time, the manifestation shall be enlarged to all the inhabitants of the earth, and, in the end, unto all the creatures of God who are now looking upon the progress of its accomplishment. Thus much for the justification of God's holiness for which the incarnation of his Son was the appointed way. But much yet remaineth to be said with respect to the demonstration of his grace in the forgiveness and salvation of the sinner.

PART II.

BESIDES this origin or principle of the Incarnation, the justification of his holiness and goodness in the creation of man, which satan had succeeded in obscuring, there is another; the declaration of God's grace and mercy in the salvation of sinners, whereby he could be just, and the justifier of the ungodly. Not only had satan's work to be undone, but out of it the defeat of satan was to be brought, and the final extirpation of his power of evil. He had withstood God's work in the creation of man; and for so doing the Lord purposed to undo him. To make this more complete also, it is to be done by means of man; and to this end Christ became man, and submitted himself to the very condition of a sinner. He became sin for us who knew no sin. I say, Christ came into the condition of a sinner; and that too, I may say, of the chief of sinners; not having where to hide his head while he lived, and in his most ignominious death of the cross deemed less honourable than

« PreviousContinue »