The words 'banished' and 'expelled' in our text are in the original the
same; and the force of the whole would be better expressed if the same
English word was employed as the equivalent of both. We should then see
more clearly than the variation of rendering in our text enables us to
see, that the being 'expelled' is no further stage which God devises
means to prevent, but that what is meant is that He provides methods by
which the banished should not be banished--that is, should be restored
to Himself.
Now, note that the language of this 'wise woman,' unconsciously to
herself, confesses that the parallel that she was trying to draw did
not go on all fours; for what she was asking the king to do was simply,
by an arbitrary act, to sweep aside law and to remit penalty. She
instinctively feels that that is not what can be done by God, and so
she says that He 'devises means' by which He can restore His banished.
That is to say, forgiveness and the obliteration of the consequences of
a man's sin, and his restoration to the blessed nearness to God, which
is life, are by no means such easy and simple matters as people
sometimes suppose them to be. The whole drift of popular thinking
to-day goes in the direction of a very superficial and easy gospel,
which merely says, 'Oh, of course, of course God forgives! Is not God
Love? Is not God our Father? What more do you want than that?' Ah! you
want a great deal more than that, my friends. Let me press upon you two
or three plain considerations. There are formidable obstacles in the
way of divine forgiveness.
If there are to be any pardon and restoration at all, they must be such
as will leave untouched the sovereign majesty of God's law, and,
untampered with, the eternal gulf between good and evil. That easygoing
gospel which says, 'God will pardon, of course!' sounds very charitable
and very catholic, but at bottom it is very cruel. For it shakes the
very foundations on which the government of God must repose. God's law
is the manifestation of God's character; and that is no flexible thing
which can be bent about at the bidding of a weak good-nature. I believe
that men are right in holding that certainly God must pardon, but I
believe that they are fatally wrong in not recognising this--that the
only kind of forgiveness which is possible for Him to bestow is one in
which there shall be no tampering with the tremendous sanctions of His
awful law; and no tendency to teach that it matters little whether a
man is good or bad. The pardon, which many of us seem to think is quite
sufficient, is a pardon that is nothing more noble than good-natured
winking at transgression. And oh! if this be all that men have to lean
on, they are leaning on a broken reed. The motto on the blue cover of
the _Edinburgh Review_, for over a hundred years now, is true: 'The
judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.' David struck a fatal
blow at the prestige of his own rule, when he weakly let his son off
from penalty. And, if it were possible to imagine such a thing, God
Himself would strike as fatal a blow at the justice and judgment which
are the foundations of His throne, if His forgiveness was such as to be
capable of being confounded with love which was too weakly indulgent to
be righteous.
Further, if there are to be forgiveness and restoration at all, they
must be such as will turn away the heart of the pardoned man from his
evil. The very story before us shows that it is not every kind of
pardon which makes a man better. The scapegrace Absalom came back
unsoftened, without one touch of gratitude to his father in his base
heart, without the least gleam of a better nature dawning upon him, and
went flaunting about the court until his viciousness culminated in his
unnatural rebellion. That is to say, there is a forgiveness which
nourishes the seeds of the crimes that it pardons. We have only to look
into our own hearts, and we have only to look at the sort of people
round us, to be very sure that, unless the forgiveness that is granted
us from the heavens has in it an element which will avert our wills and
desires from evil, the pardon will be very soon needed again, for the
evil will very soon be done again.
If there are to be forgiveness and restoration at all, they must come
in such a fashion as that there shall be no doubt whatsoever of their
reality and power. The vague kind of trust in a doubtful mercy, about
which I have been speaking, may do all very well for people that have
never probed the depths of their own hearts. Superficial notions of our
sin, which so many of us have, are contented with superficial remedies
for it. But let a man get a glimpse of his own real self, and I think
that he will wish for something a great deal more solid to grip hold
of, than nebulous talk of the kind that I have been describing. If once
we feel ourselves to be struggling in the black flood of that awful
river, we shall want a firmer hold upon the bank than is given to us by
some rootless tree or other. We must clutch something that will stand a
pull, if we are to be drawn from the muddy waters.
People say to us, 'Oh, God will forgive, of course!' Does this world
look like a place where forgiveness is such an easy thing? Is there
anything more certain than that consequences are inevitable when deeds
have been done, and 'that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also
reap' and whatsoever he brews that shall he also drink? And is it into
a grim, stern world of retribution like this that people will come,
with their smiling, sunny gospel of a matter-of-course forgiveness,
upon very easy terms of a slight penitence?
Brethren, God has to 'devise means,' which is a strong way of saying,
in analogy to the limitations of humanity, that He cannot, by an
arbitrary act of His will, pardon a sinful man. His eternal nature
forbids it. His established law forbids it. The fabric of His universe
forbids it. The good of men forbids it. The problem is insoluble by
human thought. The love of God is like some great river that pours its
waters down its channel, and is stayed by a black dam across its
course, along which it feels for any cranny through which it may pour
itself. We could never save ourselves, but
'He that might the vengeance best have took,
Found out the remedy.'
IV. And so the last word that I have to say is to note the triumphant,
divine solution of these difficulties.
The work of Jesus Christ, and the work of Jesus Christ alone, meets all
the requirements. It vindicates the majesty of law, it deepens the gulf
between righteousness and sin. Where is there such a demonstration of
the awful truth that 'the wages of sin is death' as on that Cross on
which the Son of God died for us and for all 'His banished ones'? Where
is there such a demonstration of the fixedness of the divine law as in
that death to which the Son of God submitted Himself for us all? Where
do we learn the hideousness of sin, the endless antagonism between God
and it, and the fatal consequences of it, as we learn them in the
sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour? Where do we find the misery and
desolation of banishment from God so tragically uttered as in that cry
which rent the darkness of eclipse,' My God! My God! why hast Thou
forsaken Me?'
That work of Christ's is the only way by which it is made absolutely
certain that sins forgiven shall be sins abhorred; and that a man once
restored shall cleave to his Restorer as to his Life. That work is the
only way by which a man can be absolutely certain that there is
forgiveness, in spite of all the accusations of his own conscience; in
spite of all the inexorable working out of penalties in the system of
the world which seems to contradict the fond belief; in spite of all
that a foreboding gaze tells, or ought to tell, of a judgment that is
to follow.
Brethren, God has devised a means. None else could have done so. I
beseech you, realise these facts that I have been trying to bring
before you, and the considerations that I have based upon them, so far
as they commend themselves to your hearts and consciences; and do not
be content with acquiescing in them, but act upon them. We are all
exiles from God, unless we have been 'brought nigh by the blood of
Christ.' In Him, and in Him alone, can God restore His banished ones.
In Him, and in Him alone, can we find a pardon which cleanses the
heart, and ensures the removal of the sin which it forgives. In Him,
and in Him alone, can we find, not a peradventure, not a subjective
certainty, but an external fact which proclaims that verily there is
forgiveness for us all. I pray you, dear friends, do not be content
with that half-truth, which is ever the most dangerous lie, of divine
pardon apart from Jesus Christ. Lay your sins upon His head, and your
hand in the hand of the Elder Brother, who has come to the far-off land
to seek us, and He will lead you back to the Father's house and the
Father's heart, and you will be 'no more strangers and foreigners, but
fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God.'