God does not love men because of what they are, therefore He does not
cease to love them because of what they are. His love to the sons of
men is not drawn out by their goodness, their morality, their
obedience, but it wells up from the depths of His own heart, because
'it is His nature and property,' and if I may so say, He cannot help
loving. You do not need to pump up that great affection by any
machinery of obedience and of merits; it rises like the water in an
Artesian well, of its own impulse, with ebullient power from the
central heat, and spreads its great streams everywhere. And
therefore, though our sin may awfully disturb our relations with God,
and may hurt and harm us in a hundred ways, there is one thing it
cannot do, it cannot stop Him from loving us. It cannot dam back His
great love, which flows out for ever towards all His creatures, and
laves them all in its gentle, strong flood, from which nothing can
draw them away. 'In Him we live, and move, and have our being,' and
to live in Him, whatever else it may mean--and it means a great deal
more--is most certainly to live in His love. A man can as soon pass
out of the atmosphere in which he breathes as he can pass out of the
love of God. We can no more travel beyond that great over-arching
firmament of everlasting love which spans all the universe than a
star set in the blue heavens can transcend the liquid arch and get
beyond its range. 'There is no difference' in the fact that all men,
unthankful and evil as they are, are grasped and held in the love of
God.
But there _is_ a difference. Sin cannot dam God's love back, but sin
has a terrible power in reference to the love of God. Two things it
can do. It can make us incapable of receiving the highest blessings
of that love. There are many mercies which God pours 'upon the
unthankful and the evil.' These are His least gifts; His highest and
best cannot be given to the unthankful and the evil. They would if
they could, but they cannot, because they cannot be received by them.
You can shut the shutters against the light; you can close the vase
against the stream. You cannot prevent its shining, you cannot
prevent its flowing, but you can prevent yourself from receiving its
loftiest and best blessings.
And another awful power that my sin has in reference to God's love
is, that it can modify the form which God's love takes in its
dealings with me. We may force Him to do 'His work,' 'His strange
work,' as Isaiah calls it, and to punish when He would fain only
succour and comfort and bless. Just as a fog in the sky does not
touch the sun, but turns it to our eyes into a fiery ball, red and
lurid, so the mist of my sin coming between me and God, may, to my
apprehension and to my capacity of reception, solemnly make different
that great love of His. But yet there is no difference in the fact of
God's love to us.
III. Thirdly, there is no difference in the purpose and power of
Christ's Cross for us all.
'He died for all.' The area over which the purpose and the power of
Christ's death extend is precisely conterminous with the area over
which the power of sin extends. It cannot be--blessed be God!--that
the raven Sin shall fly further than the dove with the olive branch
in its mouth. It cannot be that the disease shall go wider than the
cure. And so, dear friends, I have to come to you now with this
message. No matter what a man is, how far he has gone, how sinful he
has been, how long he has stayed away from the sweetness and grace of
that great sacrifice on the Cross, that death was for him. The power
of Christ's sacrifice makes possible the forgiveness of all the sins
of all the world, past, present, and to come. The worth of that
sacrifice, which was made by the willing surrender of the Incarnate
Son of God to the death of the Cross, is sufficient for the ransom
price of all the sins of all men.
Nor is it only the power of the Cross which is all embracing, but its
purpose also. In the very hour of Christ's death, there stood, clear
and distinct, before His divine omniscience, each man, woman, and
child of the race. And for them all, grasping them all in the
tenderness of His sympathy and in the clearness of His knowledge, in
the design of His sufferings for them all, He died, so that every
human being may lay his hand on the head of the sacrifice, and _know_
'his guilt was there,' and may say, with as triumphant and
appropriating faith as Paul did, 'He loved _me_,' and in that hour of
agony and love 'gave Himself for _me_.'
To go back to a metaphor already employed, the prisoners are gathered
together in the prison, not that they may be slain, but 'God hath
included them all,' shut them all up, 'that He might have mercy upon
all.' And so, as it was in the days of Christ's life upon earth, so
is it now, and so will it be for ever. All the crowd may come to Him,
and whosoever comes 'is made whole of whatsoever disease he had.'
There are no incurables nor outcasts. 'There is no difference.'
IV. Lastly, there is no difference in the way which we must take for
salvation. The only thing that unites men to Jesus Christ is faith.
You must trust Him, you must trust the power of His sacrifice, you
must trust the might of His living love. You must trust Him with a
trust which is self-distrust. You must trust Him out and out. The
people with whom Paul is fighting, in this chapter, were quite
willing to admit that faith was the thing that made Christians, but
they wanted to tack on something besides. They wanted to tack on the
rites of Judaism and obedience to the moral law. And ever since men
have been going on in that erroneous rut. Sometimes it has been that
people have sought to add a little of their own morality; sometimes
to add ceremonies and sacraments. Sometimes it has been one thing and
sometimes it has been another; but there are not two ways to the
Cross of Christ, and to the salvation which He gives. There is only
one road, and all sorts of men have to come by it. You cannot lean
half upon Christ and half upon yourselves, like the timid cripple
that is not quite sure of the support of the friendly arm. You cannot
eke out the robe with which He will clothe you with a little bit of
stuff of your own weaving. It is an insult to a host to offer to pay
for entertainment. The Gospel feast that Christ provides is not a
social meal to which every guest brings a dish. Our part is simple
reception, we have to bring empty hands if we would receive the
blessing.
We must put away superficial differences. The Gospel is for the
world, therefore the act by which we receive it must be one which all
men can perform, not one which only some can do. Not wisdom, nor
righteousness, but faith joins us to Christ. And, therefore, people
who fancy themselves wise or righteous are offended that 'special
terms' are not made with them. They would prefer to have a private
portion for themselves. It grates against the pride of the
aristocratic class, whether it be aristocratic by culture--and that
is the most aristocratic of all--or by position, or anything else--it
grates against their pride to be told: 'You have to go in by that
same door that the beggar is going in at'; and 'there is no
difference.' Therefore, the very width of the doorway, that is wide
enough for all the world, gets to be thought narrowness, and becomes
a hindrance to our entering. As Naaman's servant put a common-sense
question to him, so may I to you. 'If the prophet had bid thee do
some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?' Ay! that you
would! 'How much more when He says "Wash and be clean!"' There is
only one way of getting dirt off, and that is by water. There is only
one way of getting sin off, and that is by the blood of Jesus Christ.
There is only one way of having that blood applied to your heart, and
that is trusting Him. 'The common salvation' becomes ours when we
exercise 'the common faith.' 'There is no difference' in our sins.
Thank God! 'there is no difference' in the fact that He grasps us
with His love. There is no difference in the fact that Jesus Christ
has died for us all. Let there be no difference in our faith, or
there will be a difference, deep as the difference between Heaven and
Hell; the difference between them that believe and them that believe
not, which will darken and widen into the difference between them
that are saved and them that perish.