Yet a sinner look at himself in the glass of God's holiness,
he must see his own condemnation; but by faith in Jesus he beholds
himself free from condemnation, and stands before God in Christ
as Christ Himself.
The Law was magnified by Christ, and made honourable; and therefore
God in His righteousness must magnify for ever Christ and His
members with Him.
Under the Law they laboured first, and rested after (Exod. 20:8-11);
but under the Gospel we rest first, by faith in Jesus, and then
work. The Law begins with commands and ends with blessings; but
the blessings are fruit upon lofty branches, which fallen man
can never reach: he cannot and will not climb the tree. The Gospel,
on the contrary, begins with promises; and promises give birth
to precepts. The Law demands justice; the Gospel delights in
mercy through satisfied justice. Moses blesses the law-doer;
Jesus pardons the guilty and saves the lost.
Every one who hears the Gospel has a door opened to him of escape
from the wrath to come. In the Day of Judgment men shall know
all the past. Forgetful hearers of the Gospel shall then with
gnashing of teeth remember how they once neglected so great salvation
(Heb. 2:3): their worm will never die, their fire never be quenched.
(Mark 9:44.)
No child of Adam has a right to anything from God save the wages
of sin. Justice, apart from grace in Christ's cross, must allot
to every sinner hell for his wages and portion. If the sinner
is to have eternal life, he must have it as a free gift from
God. Alas that thousands of sinners who hear the Gospel will
not have it, because they are too proud to be saved on God's
terms of pure grace!
What is it to obey the Gospel, but to believe the Gospel? Unbelief
says, "I will not receive Christ as a gift from God." Faith,
on the contrary, says, "I want Christ in His fulness; my pinching
poverty makes me glad of so rich and all-sufficient a Saviour."