the commandment enunciated in the Scriptures, and why is the Christian
ministry perpetually preaching it to men dead in trespasses and sins? If
the law can subdue no man's obstinate will, and can renovate no man's
corrupt heart,--if it can make nothing perfect in human character,--then,
"wherefore serveth the law?" "It was added because of
transgressions,"--says the Apostle in answer to this very question.[4] It
is preached and forced home in order to _detect_ sin, but not to remove
it; to bring men to a consciousness of the evil of their hearts, but not
to change their hearts. "For," continues the Apostle, "if there had been
a law given which could have given _life_"--which could produce a
transformation of character,--"then verily righteousness should have been
by the law," It is not because the stern and threatening commandment can
impart spiritual vitality to the sinner, but because it can produce within
him the keen vivid sense of spiritual death, that it is enunciated in the
word of God, and proclaimed from the Christian pulpit. The Divine law is
waved like a flashing sword before the eyes of man, not because it can
make him alive but, because it can slay him, that he may then be made
alive, not by the law but by the Holy Ghost,--by the Breath that cometh
from the four winds and breathes on the slain.
It is easy to see, by a moment's reflection, that, from the nature of the
case, the moral law cannot be a source of spiritual life and
sanctification to a soul that has _lost_ these. For law primarily
supposes life, supposes an obedient inclination, and therefore does not
produce it. It is not the function of any law to impart that moral force,
that right disposition of the heart, by which its command is to be
obeyed. The State, for example, enacts a law against murder, but this
mere enactment does not, and cannot, produce a benevolent disposition in
the citizens of the commonwealth, in case they are destitute of it. How
often do we hear the remark, that it is impossible to legislate either
morality or religion into the people. When the Supreme Governor first
placed man under the obligations and sovereignty of law, He created him
in His own image and likeness: endowing him with that holy heart and
right inclination which obeys the law of God with ease and delight. God
made man upright, and in this state he could and did keep the commands
of God perfectly. If, therefore, by any _subsequent action_ upon their
part, mankind have gone out of the primary relationship in which they
stood to law, and have by their _apostasy_ lost all holy sympathy with
it, and all affectionate disposition to obey it, it only remains for the
law (not to change along with them, but) to continue immutably the same
pure and righteous thing, and to say, "Obey perfectly, and thou shalt
live; disobey in a single instance, and thou shalt die."
But the text teaches us, that although the law can make no sinful man
perfect, either upon the side of justification, or of sanctification,
"the bringing in of a better _hope_" can. This hope is the evangelic
hope,--the yearning desire, and the humble trust,--to be forgiven through
the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be sanctified by the
indwelling power of the Holy Ghost. A simple, but a most powerful thing!
Does the law, in its abrupt and terrible operation in my conscience,
start out the feeling of guiltiness until I throb with anguish, and moral
fear? I hope, I trust, I ask, to be pardoned through the blood of the
Eternal Son of God my Redeemer. I will answer all these accusations
of law and conscience, by pleading what my Lord has done.
Again, does the law search me, and probe me, and elicit me, and reveal
me, until I would shrink out of the sight of God and of myself? I hope, I
trust, I ask, to be made pure as the angels, spotless as the seraphim, by
the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit. This confidence in Christ's
Person and Work is the anchor,--an anchor that was never yet wrenched
from the clefts of the Rock of Ages, and never will be through the aeons
of aeons. By this hope, which goes away from self, and goes away from the
law, to Christ's oblation and the Holy Spirit's energy, we do indeed draw
very nigh to God,--"heart to heart, spirit to spirit, life to life."
1. The unfolding of this text of Scripture shows, in the first place, the
importance of having a _distinct and discriminating conception of law,
and especially of its proper function in reference to a sinful being_.
Very much is gained when we understand precisely what the moral law, as
taught in the Scriptures, and written in our consciences, can do, and
cannot do, towards our salvation. It can do nothing positively and
efficiently. It cannot extinguish a particle of our guilt, and it cannot
purge away a particle of our corruption. Its operation is wholly negative
and preparatory. It is merely a schoolmaster to conduct us to Christ. And
the more definitely this truth and fact is fixed in our minds, the more
intelligently shall we proceed in our use of law and conscience.
2. In the second place, the unfolding of this text shows the importance
of _using the law faithfully and fearlessly within its own limits; and in
accordance with its proper function_. It is frequently asked what the
sinner shall do in the work of salvation. The answer is nigh thee, in thy
mouth, and in thy heart. Be continually applying the law of God to your
personal character and conduct. Keep an active and a searching conscience
within your sinful soul. Use the high, broad, and strict commandment of
God as an instrumentality by which all ease, and all indifference, in sin
shall be banished from the breast. Employ all this apparatus of torture,
as perhaps it may seem to you in some sorrowful hours, and break up that
moral drowze and lethargy which is ruining so many souls. And then cease
this work, the instant you have experimentally found out that the law
reaches a limit beyond which it cannot go,--that it forgives none of the
sins which it detects, produces no change in the heart whose vileness it
reveals, and makes no lost sinner perfect again. Having used the law
legitimately, for purposes of illumination and conviction merely, leave
it forever as a source of justification and sanctification, and seek
these in Christ's atonement, and the Holy Spirit's gracious operation in
the heart. Then sin shall not have dominion over you; for you shall not
be under law, but under grace. After that _faith_ is come, ye are no
longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are then the children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus.[5]
How simple are the terms of salvation! But then they presuppose this
work of the law,--this guilt-smitten conscience, and this wearying sense
of bondage to sin. It is easy for a _thirsty_ soul to drink down the
draught of cold water. Nothing is simpler, nothing is more grateful to
the sensations. But suppose that the soul is satiated, and is not a
thirsty one. Then, nothing is more forced and repelling than this same
draught. So is it with the provisions of the gospel. Do we feel ourselves
to be guilty beings; do we hunger, and do we thirst for the expiation of
our sins? Then the blood of Christ is drink indeed, and his flesh is
meat with emphasis. But are we at ease and self-contented? Then nothing
is more distasteful than the terms of salvation. Christ is a root out of
dry ground. And so long as we remain in this unfeeling and torpid state,
salvation is an utter impossibility. The seed of the gospel cannot
germinate and grow upon a rock.
[Footnote 1: Rom. vii. 9-12.]
[Footnote 2: 1 Cor. xv. 56.]
[Footnote 3: SCHILLER: Der Kampf.]
[Footnote 4: Galatians iii. 19.]
[Footnote 5: Galatians iii. 25, 26.]
SELF-SCRUTINY IN GOD'S PRESENCE.
ISAIAH, i. 11.--"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord;
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
These words were at first addressed to the Church of God. The prophet
Isaiah begins his prophecy, by calling upon the heavens and the earth to
witness the exceeding sinfulness of God's chosen people. "Hear, O
heavens, and give ear O earth: for the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not
know, my people doth not consider." Such ingratitude and sin as this, he
naturally supposes would shock the very heavens and earth.
Then follows a most vehement and terrible rebuke. The elect people of God
are called "Sodom," and "Gomorrah." "Hear the word of the Lord ye rulers
of Sodom: give ear unto the law of our God ye people of Gomorrah. Why
should ye be stricken, any more? ye will revolt more and more." This
outflow of holy displeasure would prepare us to expect an everlasting
reprobacy of the rebellious and unfaithful Church, but it is strangely
followed by the most yearning and melting entreaty ever addressed by the
Most High to the creatures of His footstool: "Come now, and let us reason
together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
These words have, however, a wider application; and while the unfaithful
children of God ought to ponder them long and well, it is of equal
importance that "the aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" should
reflect upon them, and see their general application to all
transgressors, so long as they are under the Gospel dispensation. Let us,
then, consider two of the plain lessons taught, in these words of the
prophet, to every unpardoned man.
I. The text represents God as saying to the transgressor of his law,
"Come and let us reason _together_." The first lesson to be learned,
consequently, is the duty of examining our moral character and conduct,
_along with God_.
When a responsible being has made a wrong use of his powers, nothing is
more reasonable than that he should call himself to account for this
abuse. Nothing, certainly, is more necessary. There can be no amendment
for the future, until the past has been cared for. But that this
examination may be both thorough and profitable, it must be made _in
company with the Searcher of hearts_.
For there are always two beings who are concerned with sin; the being who
commits it, and the Being against whom it is committed. We sin, indeed,
against ourselves; against our own conscience, and against our own best
interest. But we sin in a yet higher, and more terrible sense, against
Another than ourselves, compared with whose majesty all of our faculties
and interests, both in time and eternity, are altogether nothing and
vanity. It is not enough, therefore, to refer our sin to the law written
on the heart, and there stop. We must ultimately pass beyond conscience
itself, to God, and say, "Against _Thee_ have I sinned." It is not the
highest expression of the religious feeling, when we say, "How can I do
this great wickedness, and sin against my conscience?" He alone has
reached the summit of vision who looks beyond all finite limits,
however wide and distant, beyond all finite faculties however noble and
elevated, and says, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against
God?"
Whenever, therefore, an examination is made into the nature of moral evil
as it exists in the individual heart, both parties concerned should share
in the examination. The soul, as it looks within, should invite the
scrutiny of God also, and as fast as it makes discoveries of its
transgression and corruption should realize that the Holy One sees also.
Such a joint examination as this produces a very keen and clear sense of
the evil and guilt of sin. Conscience indeed makes cowards of us all, but
when the eye of God is felt to be upon us, it smites us to the ground.
"When _Thou_ with rebukes,"--says the Psalmist,--"dost correct man for
his iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth." One
great reason why the feeling which the moralist has towards sin is so
tame and languid, when compared with the holy abhorrence of the
regenerate mind, lies in the fact that he has not contemplated human
depravity in company with a sin-hating Jehovah. At the very utmost, he
has been shut up merely with a moral sense which he has insulated from
its dread ground and support,--the personal character and holy emotions
of God. What wonder is it, then, that this finite faculty should lose
much of its temper and severity, and though still condemning sin (for it
must do this, if it does anything), fails to do it with that spiritual
energy which characterizes the conscience when God is felt to be
co-present and co-operating. So it is, in other provinces. We feel the
guilt of an evil action more sharply, when we know that a fellow-man
saw us commit it, than when we know that no one but ourselves is
cognizant of the deed. The flush of shame often rises into our face, upon
learning accidentally that a fellow-being was looking at us, when we did
the wrong action without any blush. How much more criminal, then, do we
feel, when distinctly aware that the pure and holy God knows our
transgression. How much clearer is our perception of the nature of moral
evil, when we investigate it along with Him whose eyes are a flame of
fire.
It is, consequently, a very solemn moment, when the human spirit and the
Eternal Mind are reasoning together about the inward sinfulness. When
the soul is shut up along with the Holy One of Israel, there are great
searchings of heart. Man is honest and anxious at such a time. His usual
thoughtlessness and torpidity upon the subject of religion leaves him,
and he becomes a serious and deeply-interested creature. Would that the
multitudes who listen so languidly to the statements of the pulpit, upon
these themes of sin and guilt, might be closeted with the Everlasting
Judge, in silence and in solemn reflection. You who have for years been
told of sin, but are, perhaps, still as indifferent regarding it as if
there were no stain, upon the conscience,--would that you might enter
into an examination of yourself, alone with your Maker. Then would you
become as serious, and as anxious, as you will be in that moment when you
shall be informed that the last hour of your life upon earth has come.
Another effect of this "reasoning together" with God, respecting our
character and conduct, is to render our views _discriminating_. The
action of the mind is not only intense, it is also intelligent. Strange
as it may sound, it is yet a fact, that a review of our past lives
conducted under the eye of God, and with a recognition of His presence
and oversight, serves to deliver the mind from confusion and panic, and
to fill it with a calm and rational fear. This is of great value. For,
when a man begins to be excited upon the subject of religion,--it may be
for the first time, in his unreflecting and heedless life,--he is
oftentimes terribly excited. He is now brought _suddenly_ into the midst
of the most solemn things. That sin of his, the enormity of which he had
never seen before, now reveals itself in a most frightful form, and he
feels as the murderer does who wakes in the morning and begins to realize
that he has killed a man. That holy Being, of whose holiness he had no
proper conception, now rises dim and awful before his half-opened inward
eye, and he trembles like the pagan before the unknown God whom he
ignorantly worships. That eternity, which he had heard spoken of with
total indifference, now flashes penal flames in his face. Taken and held
in this state of mind, the transgressor is confusedly as well as terribly
awakened, and he needs first of all to have this experience clarified,
and know precisely for what he is trembling, and why. This panic and
consternation must depart, and a calm intelligent anxiety must take its
place. But this cannot be, unless the mind turns towards God, and invites
His searching scrutiny, and His aid in the search after sin. So long as
we shrink away from our Judge, and in upon ourselves, in these hours of
conviction,--so long as we deal only with the workings of our own minds,
and do not look up and "reason together" with God,--we take the most
direct method of producing a blind, an obscure, and a selfish agony. We
work ourselves, more and more, into a mere phrenzy of excitement. Some of
the most wretched and fanatical experience in the history of the Church
is traceable to a solitary self-brooding, in which, after the sense of
sin had been awakened, the soul did not discuss the matter with God.
For the character and attributes of God, when clearly seen, repress all
fright, and produce that peculiar species of fear which is tranquil
because it is deep. Though the soul, in such an hour, is conscious that
God is a fearful object of sight for a transgressor, yet it continues to
gaze at Him with an eager straining eye. And in so doing, the superficial
tremor and panic of its first awakening to the subject of religion passes
off, and gives place to an intenser moral feeling, the calmness of which
is like the stillness of fascination. Nothing has a finer effect upon a
company of awakened minds, than to cause the being and attributes of God,
in all their majesty and purity, to rise like an orb within their
horizon; and the individual can do nothing more proper, or more salutary,
when once his sin begins to disquiet him, and the inward perturbation
commences, than to collect and steady himself, in an act of reflection
upon that very Being who _abhors_ sin. Let no man, in the hour of
conviction and moral fear, attempt to run away from the Divine holiness.
On the contrary, let him rush forward and throw himself down prostrate
before that Dread Presence, and plead the merits of the Son of God,
before it. He that finds his life shall lose it; but he that loses his
life shall find it. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it remains a single unproductive corn of wheat; but if it _die_, it
germinates and brings forth much fruit. He who does not avoid a contact
between the sin of his soul and the holiness of his God, but on the
contrary seeks to have these two things come together, that each may be
understood in its own intrinsic nature and quality, takes the only safe
course. He finds that, as he knows God more distinctly, he knows himself
more distinctly; and though as yet he can see nothing but displeasure in
that holy countenance, he is possessed of a well-defined experience. He
knows that he is wrong, and his Maker is right; that he is wicked, and
that God is holy. He perceives these two fundamental facts with a
simplicity, and a certainty, that admits of no debate. The confusion and
obscurity of his mind, and particularly the queryings whether these
things are so, whether God is so very holy and man is so very sinful,
begin to disappear, like a fog when disparted and scattered by sunrise.
Objects are seen in their true proportions and meanings; right and wrong,
the carnal mind and the spiritual mind, heaven and hell,--all the great
contraries that pertain to the subject of religion,--are distinctly
understood, and thus the first step is taken towards a better state of
things in the soul.
Let no man, then, fear to invite the scrutiny of God, in connection with
his own scrutiny of himself. He who deals only with the sense of duty,
and the operations of his own mind, will find that these themselves
become more dim and indistinct, so long as the process of examination is
not conducted in this joint manner; so long as the mind refuses to accept
the Divine proposition, "Come now, and let us reason _together_." He, on
the other hand, who endeavors to obtain a clear view of the Being against
whom he has sinned, and to feel the full power of His holy eye as well as
of His holy law, will find that his sensations and experiences are
gaining a wonderful distinctness and intensity that will speedily bring
the entire matter to an issue.
II. For then, by the blessing of God, he learns the second lesson taught
in the text: viz., that _there is forgiveness with God_. Though, in this
process of joint examination, your sins be found to be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they be discovered to be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool.
If there were no forgiveness of sins, if mercy were not a manifested
attribute of God, all self-examination, and especially all this conjoint
divine scrutiny, would be a pure torment and a pure gratuity. It is
wretchedness to know that we are guilty sinners, but it is the endless
torment to know that there is no forgiveness, either here or hereafter.
Convince a man that he will never be pardoned, and you shut him up with
the spirits in prison. Compel him to examine himself under the eye of his
God, while at the same time he has no hope of mercy,--and there would be
nothing _unjust_ in this,--and you distress him with the keenest and most
living torment of which a rational spirit is capable. Well and natural
was it, that the earliest creed of the Christian Church emphasized the
doctrine of the Divine Pity; and in all ages the Apostolic Symbol has
called upon the guilt-stricken human soul to cry, "I believe in the
forgiveness of sins."
We have the amplest assurance in the whole written Revelation of God,
_but nowhere else_, that "there is forgiveness with Him, that He may be
feared." "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy;" and
only with such an assurance as this from His own lips, could we summon
courage to look into our character and conduct, and invite God to do the
same. But the text is an exceedingly explicit assertion of this great
truth. The very same Being who invites us to reason with Him, and canvass
the subject of our criminality, in the very same breath, if we may so
speak, assures us that He will forgive all that is found in this
examination. And upon _such_ terms, cannot the criminal well afford to
examine into his crime? He has a promise beforehand, that if he will but
scrutinize and confess his sin it shall be forgiven. God would have been
simply and strictly just, had He said to him: "Go down into the depths of
thy transgressing spirit, see how wicked thou hast been and still art,
and know that in my righteous severity I will never pardon thee, world
without end." But instead of this, He says: "Go down into the depths of
thy heart, see the transgression and the corruption all along the line of
the examination, confess it into my ear, and I will make the scarlet and
crimson guilt white in the blood of my own Son." These declarations of
Holy Writ, which are a direct verbal statement from the lips of God, and
which specify distinctly what He will do and will not do in the matter of
sin, teach us that however deeply our souls shall be found to be stained,
the Divine pity outruns and exceeds the crime. "For as the heavens are
high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him.
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how
shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Here upon earth,
there is no wickedness that surpasses the pardoning love of God in
Christ. The words which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of the remorseful,
but _impenitent_, Danish king are strictly true:
"What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence?"[1]
Anywhere this side of the other world, and at any moment this side of the
grave, a sinner, _if penitent_ (but penitence is not always at his
control), may obtain forgiveness for all his sins, through Christ's blood
of atonement. He must not hope for mercy in the future world, if he
neglects it here. There are no acts of pardon passed in the day of
judgment. The utterance of Christ in _that_ day is not the utterance,
"Thy sins are forgiven thee," but, "Come ye blessed," or "Depart ye
cursed." So long, and only so long, as there is life there is hope, and
however great may be the conscious criminality of a man while he is under
the economy of Redemption, and before he is summoned to render up his
last account, let him not despair but hope in Divine grace.