If you will turn to the two psalms for a moment, and look at the last
clauses of the two fourth verses, you will see how that thought is
brought out. In the former psalm we read, 'The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion': in the latter we find, 'he' (the upright man) 'is
gracious and full of compassion, and righteous.'
I need not trouble you with any remarks about certain difficulties that
lie in the rendering of that latter verse. Suffice it to say that they
are such as to make more emphatic the intentional resemblance between
the godly as there described, and God as described in the previous one.
Of both it is said 'gracious and full of compassion.'
Now that great truth of which I have been speaking, the divine
righteousness, is like white Alpine snow, sublime, but cold, awful and
repellent, when taken by itself. Our hearts need something more than a
righteous God if we are ever to worship and draw near. Just as the white
snow on the high peak needs to be flushed with the roseate hue of the
morning before it can become tender, and create longings, so the
righteousness of the great white Throne has to be tinged with the ruddy
heart-hue of gracious compassion if men are to be moved to adore and to
love. Each enhances the other. 'What God hath joined together,' in
Himself, 'let not man put asunder'; nor talk about the stern Deity of
the Old Testament, and pit Him against the compassionate Father of the
New. He is righteous, but the proclaimers of His righteousness in old
days never forgot to blend with the righteousness the mercy; and the
combination heightens the lustre of both attributes.
The same combination is absolutely needful in the copy, as is
emphatically set forth in our text by the addition of 'and righteous,'
in the case of the man. For whilst with God the tyro attributes do lie,
side by side, in perfect harmony, in us men there is always danger that
the one shall trench upon the territory of the other, and that he who
has cultivated the habit of looking upon sorrows and sins with
compassion and tenderness shall somewhat lose the power of looking at
them with righteousness. So our text, in regard to man, proclaims more
emphatically than it needs to do in regard to the perfect God, that ever
his highest beauty of compassion must be wedded to righteousness, and
ever his truest strength of righteousness must be softened with
compassion.
But beyond that, note how, wherever there is the loving and childlike
contemplation of God, there will be an analogy in our compassion, to His
perfectness. We are transformed by beholding. The sun strikes a poor
little pane of glass in a cottage miles away, and it flashes with some
likeness of the sun and casts a light across the plain. The man whose
face is turned Godwards will have beauty pass into his face, and all
that look upon him will see 'as it had been the countenance of an
angel.'
If we have, in any real and deep measure, received mercy we shall
reflect mercy. Remember the parable of the unmerciful debtor. The
servant that cast himself at his lord's feet, and got the acquittal of
his debt, and went out and gripped his fellow-servant by the throat,
leaving the marks of his fingernails on his windpipe, with his 'Pay me
that thou owest!' had all the pardon cancelled, and all the debt laid
upon his shoulders again. If we owe all our hope and peace to a
forgiving God, how can we make anything else the law of our lives than
that, having received mercy, we should show mercy? The test of your
being a forgiven man is your forgivingness. There is no getting away
from that plain principle, which modifies the declaration of the freedom
of God's full pardon.
But I would have you notice, further, as a very remarkable illustration
of this correspondence between the gracious and compassionate Lord and
His servant, that in the verses which follow respectively the two about
which I am now speaking, the same idea is wrought out in another shape.
In the psalm dealing with the divine character and works we read,
immediately after the declaration that He is 'gracious and full of
compassion,' this--'He hath given meat to them that fear Him'; and the
corresponding clause in the second of our psalms is followed by this--to
translate accurately--'It is well with the man who showeth favour and
lendeth.' So man's open-handedness in regard to money is put down side
by side with God's open-handedness in regard to giving meat unto them
that fear Him. And again, in the ninth verse of each psalm, we have the
same thought set forth in another fashion. 'He sent redemption unto His
people,' says the one; 'He hath dispersed, He hath given to the poor,'
says the other. That is to say, our paltry giving may be paralleled with
the unspeakable gifts which God has bestowed, if they come from a love
which is like His. It does not matter though they are so small and His
are so great; there is a resemblance. The tiniest crystal may be like
the hugest. God gives to us the possession of things in order that we
may enjoy the luxury, which is one of the elements in the blessedness of
the blessed God, who is blessed because He is the giving God, the luxury
of giving. Poor though our bestowments must be, they are not unlike His.
The little burn amongst the heather carves its tiny bed, and impels its
baby ripples by the same laws which roll the waters of the Amazon, and
every fall that it makes over a shelf of rock a foot high is a miniature
Niagara.
III. So, lastly, we have still another point, not so much of resemblance
as of correspondence, in the firmness of God's utterances and of the
godly heart.
In the first of our two psalms we read, in the seventh verse, 'All His
commandments are _sure_.' In the second we read, in the corresponding
verse, 'his heart is _fixed_, trusting in the Lord.' The former psalm
goes on, 'His commandments _stand fast_ for ever and ever; and the next
psalm, in the corresponding verse, says 'his heart is _established_,'
the original employing the same word in both cases, which in our version
is rendered, in the one place, 'stand fast,' and in the other
'established.' So that the Psalmist is thinking of a correspondence
between the stability of God's utterances and the stability of the heart
that clasps them in faith.
His commandments are not only precepts which enjoin duty. All which God
says is law, whether it be directly in the nature of guiding precept, or
whether it be in the nature of revealing truth, or whether it be in the
nature of promise. It is sure, reliable, utterly trustworthy. We may be
certain that it will direct us aright, that it will reveal to us
absolute truth, that it will hold forth no flattering and false
promises. And it is 'established.' The one fixed point amidst the whirl
of things is the uttered will of God.
Therefore, the heart that builds there builds safely. And there should
be a correspondence, whether there is or no, between the faithfulness of
the Speaker and the faith of the hearer. A man who is doubtful about the
solidity of the parapet which keeps him from toppling over into the
abyss will lean gingerly upon it, until he has found out that it is
firm. The man that knows how strong is the stay on which he rests ought
to lean hard upon it. Lean hard upon God, put all your weight upon Him.
You cannot put too much, you cannot lean too hard. The harder the
better; the better He is pleased, and the more He breathes support and
strength into us. And, brethren! if thus we build an established faith
on that sure foundation, and match the unchangeableness of God in Christ
with the constancy of our faith in Him, then, 'He that believeth shall
never make haste,' and as my psalm says, 'He shall not be afraid of evil
tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.'
The upshot of the whole matter is--we cannot work out for ourselves a
righteousness that will satisfy our own consciences, nor secure for
ourselves a strength that will give peace to our hearts, and stability
to our lives, by any other means than by cleaving fast to God revealed
in Jesus Christ.
We have borne the image of the earthly long enough; let us open our
hearts to God in Christ. Let us yield ourselves to Him; let us gaze upon
Him with fixed eyes of love, and labour to make our own what He bestows
upon us. Thus living near Him, we shall be bathed in His light, and show
forth something of His beauty. Godliness is God-likeness. It is of no
use to say that we are God's children if we have none of the family
likeness. 'If ye were Abraham's sons ye would do the works of Abraham,'
said Christ to the Jews. If we are God's sons we shall do the works of
God. 'Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect;' be
ye merciful as your Father is merciful. And if thus we here, dwelling
with Christ, are being conformed to the image of His Son, we shall one
day 'be satisfied' when we 'awake in His likeness.'