In Christ God has 'put away all His wrath, and turned Himself from the
fierceness of His anger.' And He was in Christ, reconciling the world
to Himself. It is a one-sided warfare that men wage with Him, and when
we abandon our opposition to Him, the war is ended. We might say that
God, clasped by faith and trusted in and loved, is the asylum from God
opposed and feared. His moral nature must be against evil, but faith
unites us to Jesus, and, by union with Him, we receive the germ of a
nature which has no affinity with evil, and which God wholly delights
in and loves. To those who live by the life, and growingly bear the
image of His Son, the divine Nature turns a face all bright and
favouring, and His moral and physical attributes are all enlisted on
their side. The fortress looks grim to outsiders gazing up at its
strong walls and frowning battlements, but to dwellers within, these
give security, and in its inmost centre is a garden, with flowers and a
springing fountain, whither the noise of fighting never penetrates. We
have but to cease to be against Him, and to grasp the facts of His love
as revealed in the Cross of Christ, the sacrifice who taketh away the
sin of the world, and we are at peace with God. Being at peace with
Him, the discords of our natures warring against themselves are attuned
into harmony, and we are at peace within. And when God and we are at
one, and we are at one with ourselves, then all things will be on our
side, and will work together for good. To such a man the ancient
promise will be fulfilled: 'Thou shalt be in league with the stones of
the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.'