The Near and Heavenly Horizons
‘* Mine is an unchanging love,
Higher than the heights above,
Deeper than the depths beneath,
Free and faithful, strong as death.”
COWPER,
ISAIAH lv. 9.)
GIHE thoughts of God! We can form some conception of them through the works of his hand, whether in nature, providence, or redemption. The psalmist describes them as permanent in their endurance; as surpassing the reckoning of human arithmetic; and as being a fathomless deep. It is told of Kepler that, one night, after hours spent in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed, “I have been thinking over again the earliest thoughts of God.” But there are earlier thoughts than those impressed on nature. The love that led to the choice of man in Christ, and will culminate in the glory, is older far. Let us think more often of these thoughts of God, until we cry, ‘‘How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”
The ways of God, He made them known unto Moses; as though He could communicate a more intimate knowledge of his dealings to his favoured servant than was possible to the children of Israel, who were only made cognizant of his acts. God’s way is in the sea of mystery; his path lies through the great waters of sorrow. It was the cry of the psalmist that he should be taught His ways; it was the Divine complaint against Israel that they had not known them.
It is of these thoughts and ways that we are told that they are as much above ours as the heavens are above the earth. First, the heavens are so far above the earth, and therefore so pure. Second, they are so far, and therefore so abundant. Third, they are so far, and therefore so beneficent. And in each of these respects they are emblems of the nature and the mercy of God.
I. So FAR, AND THEREFORE SO PURE. — In the firmament of heaven there entereth nothing that worketh abomination or defiles. The miasma with its poison, the smoke belched from the chimney with its dark stain, are powerless to sully the purity of the azure. Meet emblem this of the purity of God, whose name is Holy, and who dwells in the high and holy place. The contrast between heaven and earth in this respect is the contrast between God’s thoughts and ways, and man’s. Such is evidently the teaching of this passage: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.... For My ¢houghts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens,” etc.
Of course, man could never emulate the thoughts and ways of God in their measure and movement, their infinitude, or their incomprehensible extent. This is not required; nor is it accounted a sin that we should fall short in the measure and quantity. But since we are made in the image of God, it is evidently possible that we should manifest a strong likeness to his thoughts and ways, so far at least as their gua/ity and essential nature are concerned.
The calculations of astronomers prove that there is an identity between the Divine and human mind in arithmetic and mathematics. The transcription of the work of God by the artist or sculptor proves that there is an identity in the appreciation of beauty. The perpetual tendency on the part of man to produce, whether it be a poem or a minster, proves an identity in the creative faculty. Similarly, there must be an identity in the moral and spiritual. What is true to God, is so to us. Love, purity, compassion, humility, are the same in the Divine and in the human. It is by the spectroscope of our own hearts that we are able to determine the elements that compose the being of God. The original creation of man in God’s image, and the incarnation, which showed that it was possible for God to think and act through our nature, establish beyond controversy that man can and should think God’s thoughts, and tread God’s ways. Though his home is on the earth, he is not the child of earth, but of heaven; and is called to seek, not the things below, but those above, the things of God, and eternity.
The entrance of sin into our world has altered all this. Earth’s attraction has proved too strong. The transient and visible, with their appeal to the senses, have ruptured the harmony which the Creator intended to subsist between the Divine and the human, like noble words married to celestial music. It is but too evident that the imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually, and his ways corrupt. By nature, the trend of our thinkings and activities is downward, earthly, sensual, devilish. Hence the awful disparity between the ways and thoughts of God and ours.
It is impossible, therefore, for the natural man to understand God. We can only know one another through the spirit of man which is in us. Our quick human sympathy reveals instantly, and by a flash, what no words could tell. But we must be likeminded before we can read each other. It is equally so as between ourselves and God. The natural man, whose tastes and ways are foreign to God’s, can no more receive the things of the Spirit of God, than can a savage understand the thoughts and ways of a highly-cultured, refined, and spiritual man amongst ourselves. “They are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned.”
It is impossible, also, for the natural man to please God. God’s thoughts are holiness, his ways purity; but those of the unregenerate are unholy and impure. God’s thoughts are love, his ways tenderness; but those of the unregenerate are self-centred and injurious. God’s thoughts are truth, his ways faithful; whilst those of the unregenerate are insincere and deceptive. How impossible it is, therefore, for those who are in the flesh to please God! They are not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, It is impossible, also, for the natural man to live with God for ever, unless the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Whatever the sufferings of the outer darkness may be, those of the inner chamber, to the evil and profane, would be incomparably worse. To the diseased eye, nothing is so excruciatingly painful as the floods of summer sunshine in which age and youth rejoice. And to the unholy soul, no suffering would be more awful than to be compelled to live for ever amid the blaze of God’s presence, with which it was in perpetual opposition and contrariety. If it were possible for such an one to enter the city of God, with its light above the brightness of the sun, its music, its festal crowds, its holy exercises, the olden cry would be heard exclaiming, “What have I to do with Thee, the Holy One? thy presence torments me.”
It is imperative, then, that the ways and thoughts of the wicked and unrighteous should be forsaken. They must return from By-path Meadow, and reverse the current of their thinking. The eyes that had been fixed on vanity must be lifted in the track of the ascending Lord; the feet that had almost gone over the precipice to perdition must run in the way of God’s commandments; and the will must be so put in the line of God’s will, that God may work in it that which is well pleasing in his sight, for the glory of his Holy Name. The Ascension gives us the direction, and the Holy Ghost the power, by which the new and better life shall henceforth be lived (Col. iii. 1-4). Thus the pure life of the heavens may be brought down to our earth, even as it was in the life of our Lord, who during his - earthly sojourn did not hesitate to speak of Himself as yet being in heaven (John iii. 13).
II. SO FAR, AND THEREFORE SO ABUNDANT. — Measure the height of the heavens above the earth; attach yourself to some angel-aeronaut, and let him pilot you through their ample spaces to the confines of our system, where Neptune and Uranus burn with brilliant glory; then across the dark, silent gulf which intervenes between them and the nearest fixed star — a space so great that, supposing our sun were represented by a “Be will Abundantly Pardon.” 201
two-foot globe, it would be equivalent to the distance between our shores and Australia. From that distant point you might pass on to worlds so inconceivably distant, that though their light has been travelling towards us for millenniums, it has never yet reached our world. Thence you might pass to the margin of the ocean of space, where the waves of ether break in music on their shores. Such are the heavens. In truth, they are higher than the earth; and in precisely the same proportion is the abundance of God’s pardon beyond the furthest reach of our imaginings. “He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher,” etc. ‘This is the thought which the apostle expands in one of the most glowing passages on the page of revelation (Rom. v. 12-21). His point is, that whatever was done by sin, and through sin, must be paralleled and outdone by the grace of God. If death came to all men through the trespass of a sinner, of course grace must come to them all through the person and work of the one glorious and unfallen Man, Jesus Christ. If it was possible for death to get such a foothold through one act of selfishness as to reign, it must be equally possible for eternal life to reign through the matchless act of self-denial which shines from the cross. If sin reigned in death, much more must grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life. He goes so far as to say that God gave the law that the full virulence and violence of sin might be discovered. It was as though He gave carte blanche to sin to do its worst. At the cross, where the dispensation of law culminated, there was an apocalypse, an unveiling, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Only God before that had known what sin really was in its essence and possibilities: from that moment the dark secret was revealed to the universe. But if sin, like the dark waters of the Deluge, covered earth’s highest mountains, grace in its abundant provisions was as much above it as the heavens were above the floods when they were at their worst.
There is no parallel between our forgiveness and God’s. We must not measure his by ours. We say we would forgive if there were more adequate contrition, more complete confession; or we would forgive if the sin were not so wilful and unprovoked; or we will forgive, but we cannot forget. Our forgiveness is not ready, and we are often cautious and chilly towards those who have offended us, but to whom we have become reconciled. With such memories as these, is it wonderful that we cannot realize the completeness of God’s forgiveness, nor the full meaning of his assurance that He will remember our sins no more? Leave your miserable standards behind, whether of your own forgiveness, or of those of others: they positively will not help you here; your fathoming lines are utterly useless; your estimates futile. Measure the height of yonder heavens above the earth; and then begin to compute the abundance of God’s pardon to those who return to Him, with words of confession on their lips, and true penitence in their hearts.:
The prodigal thinks at the very most that he can only expect a stinted pardon, and a servant’s fare. That is because his notions of forgiveness range no higher. But the father runs, falls on his neck, kisses him, clothes him with the most sumptuous dress, and seats him at the table with the most royal provision. That is the difference between man’s notions of pardon and Christ’s.
When God forgives, He ceases to remember; He blots out iniquities as a cloud, and sins as a thick cloud; He does not treat us simply as pardoned criminals, but takes us to his heart as beloved sons; He imputes to us a perfect righteousness; He treats us as though we were credited with the perfect loveliness of the Best-Beloved; He transforms the sad consequences of our sins into blessings, so that as we return from the far country, the mountains break forth into song, the trees of the wood clap their hands; instead of the thorn comes up the fir tree, and instead of the briar the myrtle tree; and these transformations become everlasting memorials of what God’s love can do for the repentant sinner. This surely is as much above man’s
notions of forgiveness as the heavens are high above the earth.
III. SO FAR, AND THEREFORE SO BENEFICENT. — -Because the heavens are so far above the earth, they are able to collect in their ample bosom the moisture of the earth. The clouds, like barges, bear their precious cargo of rain and snow over the parched earth, to drop the one in fertilising streams, and the other as a warm mantle on the upturned furrows. Thus, because the heavens are higher than the earth, the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
The very greatness of God is an obligation. Just because He dwells in the ample pavilion of heaven, He is under a moral indebtedness to help us in our low and fallen estate. The possession of power among all right-minded men constitutes an irresistible argument for the relief of sorrow and distress; how much more with the Infinite One, who is Love! If Paul held himself as debtor to all men, how much more God!
And how graciously and generously He has met the demand! His word distils as the tender dew, and is pure and warmthgiving as the snow. Who can tell-the number, or pricelessness, or glory of his gifts in Jesus Christ?
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
The one question for us all to answer is our response to these descending influences from the heart of God. We read, that land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and beareth thorns and thistles, is nigh unto a curse, and its end is to be burned. Have we thus recompensed the grace of God, which has fallen on our souls? Alas for us, if we have! yet even now they may be changed to myrtles and fir trees. Happy are they who bring forth herbs meet for Him for whose sake they have been tilled. Who can this be, save Jesus Christ our Lord, whose inheritance we are, and who has expended on us the bloody sweat of his brow, the labour and patience of long
years.