Joy in Believing

Romans v. 11. — ‘’And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”

If you vfill take the trouble to look at the aro-ument wliicli runs like a strono; thread through all tke preceding verses, you will see that our apostle goes on with a chain or series of assertions, uttered in the name of renewed persons. For example, verse 1, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; “verse 2,” We have access by faith unto this giace wherein we stand; “” we rejoice in hope of the glory of God; “verse 3,” We joy glory in tribulations also; “verse 9,” We shall be saved from wrath through him; *’ verse 10, “We shall be saved by his life.” These are glorious asseverations, containing the whole of our redemption; but before going into another division of the discourse, as he does in the 12 th verse, instituting his immortal parallel between the first Adam and the second Adam, between the ofl’ence and the grace, between condemnation and salvation, he utters a burst of satisfaction, as he surveys the goodly prospect, and thus expresses the joy of a soul which accepts Christ: “And not only so, but we also Joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the atonement.” Our margin says reconciliation, and in this sense the word atonement was doubtless employed. The same Greek word is elsewhere translated reconciliation. The joy here spoken of is that high exulting joy, when the soul is lifted up with complacency in the blessing possessed. It is the word employed to signify a proud joy, such as brooks no silence or concealment, but would fain cry aloud, clap the hands, and shout: “We exultingly rejoice and gladly glory in God.” This joy is founded on a fact here recorded, “By whom we have now received the atonement or reconciliation.” We, i. e., believers, have received the reconciliation. This is a summing up of all the bright and stupendous things contained in the foregoing verses of this chapter. All comes to this, We are reconciled, and hereupon the great joy. It is my design to draw your thoughts to this subject:

THE JOY OF THE SOUL WHICH RECEIVES THE EEcoNciLiATioN. And we shall find it best to view the experience doctrinally, and the doctrine experimentally. Then is experience safe, and zeal not without knowledge, when it is distinctly authorized by definite statements of theological truth; and then is doctrine efiicacious, savoury, and fruitful, when it enters into the emotions of the heart, the testimonies of the conscience, and the determinations of the will. You almost anticipate the division forced on us by this exposition of the words. We must consider: I. The fundamental truth, “We have received the atonement.” II. The emotion resting on it, “We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I. The FUNDAMENTAL Teuth, We have received the atonement or reconciliation. This is the corner-stone of theology, so far as regards personal salvation. To be reconciled was the great thing about which there were suspense and wonder in the universe. All the Gospel, the good news, the glad tidings, is in this one word. Reconciliation, This is the message, sent by the word of preaching to be believed, that God is reconciled; and he that believes this is saved. In all this it is implied that there was a difference or alienation. This controversy must be settled before any amity can take place between the contracting parties. The problem was, how God could be just, and yet justify the ungodly. This is a difficulty very lightly treated by those who have low thouchts of God’s holiness and justice, and consequently slight thoughts of sin, its guilt, wrath, and punishment. All this argument of Paul, and the uniform current of Scripture, go to show that there was wrath to be removed. Many deny this altogether, remove from God every thing punitive and vindicatory, and bring in the whole human race as already objects of God’s favour. But all the previous parts of this epistle represent sinners as justly exposed to the anger of the righteous

Judge. Vain are all attempts to show that the only reconciliation needed was the reconciliation of the human soul to God. The Scriptures most clearly and repeatedly show that God must be reconciled to us. We are to be brought near by an expiatory work, a sacrifice, a vicarious obedience, a propitiation, or what is summarily named an atonement. Whatever may be the precise rendering of the word here, we must admit that all reconciliation grows out of atonement. And as this is true in respect of the nature of God, and the demands of his law, so it is strikingly true of the soul’s experience. Conscience is a stern and mighty vindicator of the claims of divine justice. Working in all men, but most mightily in those who have Christian light, Conscience assures the sinner that he is lost. The law of commandments is applied to the heart and life. ISTow the inward nature testifies, that as surely as God is true and righteous, he must punish the sinner. And the only legitimate way of arriving at any pacification is by receiving the atonement. The text speaks of our receiving reconciliation through the Lord Jesus, “by whom we have now received the atonement.” By him, because lie is himself the reconciler, the propitiation, the surety, intervening between God and the sinner, bridging over the gulf, slaying the enmity, nailing it to his Cross, and so making peace. By him again, because, subjectively, as a matter of experience, we receive the reconciliation thi’ough Jesus Christ. It is from his hand we receive our succour. His mouth speaks our admission to favour. His Spirit seals the reconciling truth on the heart. So likewise, we are said to receive the reconciliation in two senses. First, we have now, since the death of Jesus, received a gift of salvation in offer. Now, but never before, there is a full and open manifestation of a way of life. This is the “Kedemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith, in his blood, to declare his righteousness.” ii. 24, 25. The closing verses of the context gleam with the effulgent radiance of this truth of free salvation. “The free gift is of many offences unto justification; the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life; by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is that Cross of Christ in which Paul gloried. God is reconciled by the blood of the Cross. His anger is turned away from all who lelieve. This offer of salvation, tendered to us as a truth, we now have knowledge of. But secondly he would say, We now by faith accept this offer, and are safe, “by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Here we plunge at once into saving experience. This is a matter which none can understand but he who makes trial of it. On this point, precisely, hinges oui’ salvation. By faith, or believing, we receive the reconciliation. It is faith which makes the atonement ours. This most simple acquiescence of the soul, in the great truth that “God is in Christ Jesus reconcilinc: the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,” unites the believer to Jesus and gives him a share in the reconciliation. He receives the atonement.

Generally this most free and immediate of all acts is preceded by severe struggles. The convinced sinner sees mountains of hinderance now received the atonement.” By him, because lie is himself the reconciler, the propitiation, the surety, intervening between God and the sinner, bridging over the gulf, slaying the enmity, nailing it to his Cross, and so making peace. By him again, because, subjectively, as a matter of experience, we receive the reconciliation through Jesus Christ. It is from his hand we receive our succour. His mouth speaks our admission to favour. His Spirit seals the reconciling truth on the heart. So likewise, we are said to receive the reconciliation in two senses. First, we have now, since the death of Jesus, received a gift of salvation in offer. Now, but never before, there is a full and open manifestation of a way of life. This is the “Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith, in his blood, to declare his righteousness.” ii. 24, 25. The closing verses of the context gleam with the effulgent radiance of this truth of free salvation. “The free gift is of many offences unto justification; the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life; by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign tlirougli righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is that Cross of Christ in which Paul gloried. God is reconciled by the blood of the Cross. His anger is turned away from all who believe. This offer of salvation, tendered to us as a truth, we now have knowledge of. But secondly he would say, We now by faith accept this offer, and are safe, “by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Here we plunge at once into saving experience. This is a matter which none can understand but he who makes trial of it. On this point, precisely, hinges om’ salvation. By faith, or believing, we receive the reconciliation. It is faith which makes the atonement ours. This most simple acquiescence of the soul, in the great truth that “God is in Christ Jesus reconcilino; the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,” unites the believer to Jesus and gives him a share in the reconciliation. He receives the atonement.

Generally this most free and immediate of all acts is preceded by severe struggles. The convinced sinner sees mountains of hinderance between liiiu and Christ. A hundred things must be done before he can be reconciled. At length, conquered, and with pride and self-righteousness humbled, and all activity in the way of effort slain, he gives all up, repudiates all his own strivings, desists from self-preparation, and receives the atonement. IS[ow, what is it that he receives? He receives the wonderful tidings that God is now reconciled to him, freely, fully, and forever. There are those to whom this is long incredible, too simple to be worth any thing, too good to be true. Their sins are so great that the breach between them and God is infinite. They must be washed before they can venture near the fountain. They must be melted before they come to the fire. They must have good feelings, which are the beginnings of salvation, before they come to the Saviour. These are all different ways of reconciling themselves; these are all hinderances in the way of receiving the reconciliation. He who receives it receives all at once and all for nothing. He communicates nothing, brings nothing in his hand, offers nothing. Of what avail are his tears, his relentings, his reforms, his earnestness, his compunctions, his soft feelings? Will lie add these straws and rags as a makeweiglit in God’s awful scale of justice to the golden talents of Christ’s righteousness? Will the beggar lying at the gate refuse to enter in till he has offered some of his shreds in pawn for the admission? Will the sinful soul hold back when the eye of Jesus sparkles with love, and both his hands are stretched out with the completed and all-perfect reconciliation? ISTo! The first real light of grace shot into the chinks of the prison house compel the sinking despondent one to receive the reconciliation; and the comprehensive word means the entire pacification between God and man, of which what is theologically called the Atonement is the basis. By Jesus he receives the reconciliation. From Jesus he receives it. Nay, it is Jesus himself that he receives, and this is faith. In that moment he is united. He is a child of God. John i. 12: “But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”

IT. The emotions founded on it: “We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ J’^ It cannot be necessary to repeat that this joy ensues upon receiving the reconciliation. Worldly j)eople have a great deal of joy, and look U23on a Christian life as joyless. But their joy has some capital defects, in the view of a rational and immortal being: it is variable, uncertain, short lived, mixed, impure, and dangerous. Self-deceived and worldly professors, who have a name to live while they are dead, experience no joy. They are generally uneasy and self-condemned; an evil conscience, never yet touched by the great reconciliation, forbids the spreading of the wings in religious rapture. The awakened unbeliever has no joy, because he has no reconciliation. He has heard the sound of the coming storm, as he paces the sands over which the gathering tide angrily rises. He looks out from his desolate coast, seaward, upon a waste of waters on whose edge he has been long a traveller, but whose low murmur of wrath he never heeded before. He has been anxiously looking to the beetling wall of precipice which overhangs him and forbids escape from the rising flood; but the long black parapet of cliff betrays no path, no step, no fissure. He has not been able to scale it by. any self-relying efforts, such as personal amendment, humiliation, devotion, penitence. That bulwark is impregnable. But what is this suddenly apparent in the relentless rock? An open door! An inviting friend! A helping arm! It is the atonement of Christ. It is the peacemaking of his blood and righteousness. It is proffered reconciliation. And he receives it! He accepts it! He abandons forever his methods and appliances of selfrescue. He believes, is justified by faith, and has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “And not only so,” says Paul in the name of true Christians, “but we joy!” Yes, joy has now revisited the human soul; and it is this which we must more particularly contemplate. 1. It is a joy specifically refeiTed to this one persuasion; joy hecaU’Sd ofheing reconciled or brought to peace with God, after having lain long under his displeasure. “We have received the reconciliation.” It is God who properly receives the Atonement; it is we who receive the reconciliation. And hereupon there is joy. Heaven is

2C)8 JOY IN BELIEVING.

no longer hostile. The feud caused by sin is made uy. The fear of a punishment, which was all the greater because it was just, is taken away. This is included in the reconciliation. See 2 Cor. v. 18. The embassadors of the kingdom carried this message to you, if you ever heard the Gospel; theirs was “the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing then- trespasses unto them.” And when Paul, at the head of these embassadors, beseeches thus for Christ, as though God did beseech you by them, saying, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God,” mark the ground and argument which he subjoins: “For he hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Cor. v. 21. Matter of indifference to the “whole,” who need not a physician, but of life or death to one under the law. How a true, and a holy, and a just God could admit him to the bosom of love, he did not see. The Babel tower of works, and frames, and feelings by which he would fain have reached heaven, has tumbled about him in confusion. Behold all obstacles swept away by the mighty arm of God, who takes the whole work into his .own hands. “Salvation is of the Lord.” That which you could not do he hath done. He does not require your preparations, amendments, convictions, moods of grief, submissions; these are no parts of your justification. God sweej)s them away, as you would a house of cards on your carpet, to replace them by the glorious finished work of Christ, and as you receive the atonement, you rejoice.

Some measure of joy there will necessarily be whenever any soul accepts pardon and peace. The contrary is as inconceivable as that a murderer under the gallows should receive sudden pardon without emotion. The degree of joy is nowhere stated nor prescribed. It might be a rapture almost to burst the clay integuments; it often is a gentle acquiescent glow of infant recognition. Nothing more recalls the fresh innocent delights of childhood, than the convert’s love of espousals. But the quantity of joy is indeterminate. Let no man rashly acquit or condemn himself on any such uncommanded criterion. The constancy of this early joy may not be Tinbroken. The sun may rise and enter clouds. The sun may shine dubiously, and we may not discern his radiant disk. But he is there, and sometimes he breaks forth. Our joy in any good is proportional to om previous desire of it and the present value set on it. Hence, where convictions of sin have been very bitter, the delight of pardon is most remarkable. Our joy in any piece of good news is proportional to our belief of it. How often must I recall to you the maxim that faith is faith, however weak; and where there is faith there is reconciliation, just as where there is breath there is life. But just as an infant which barely breathes, though certainly living, has no conscious pleasure, so the new convert who barely believes has no conscious safety. Yet is he safe. Greater faith is to be desired. If you have not believed enough, or believed aright, go not back, O sinner, over yom track of error; believe again, believe again! Look out of self, far away from home, to the work which ended at Calvary, to the righteousness summed up in the Cross and Passion, and receive the Atonement! The more bright this vision the clearer your joy.

You cannot trust in Christ’s work too much. He who by salvation means deliverance from sin, cannot for salvation too soon and too heavily lean and roll his whole weight on the arm of Emmanuel. And when you accept a fiee iansom thus offered, you cannot joy too strongly. 2. The rejoicing of a new-born soul is characterized as joy ill the Lord our Saviour; “we joy... through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This differs very much from certain doubtful if not counterfeit conversions, in which there is high rapture, but without any views of Christ as the reconciler. We have had painful interviews with such persons. From defective theology, from training under a ministry which undervalues doctrine, from ignorance of the evangelic method, they have emerged into a sort of Christless peace. They first had trouble and next had peace. But out of trouble unto peace they have come without any special thought of Christ or Atonement. They have climbed the wall, and did not enter the celestial gate. “I [says Jesus] am the Way, the TiTith, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” No man can rejoice too strongly in Christ’s willingness to receive him. If without waiting for any feelings, you now, on that sj)ot, credit what I say, viz., that Christ will take you, here, and reconcile you to the Father, then rejoice, for heaven rejoices! You do well, you cannot do better. But if your joy is in looking back to the efforts you have made, to the repentings you have produced, to the submissions you have effected, to the new course you have entered on, and if this is all, if no Sun of Righteousness beams in your heavens, then I exhort you to do what you have left undone: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved; accept the reconciliation, and thou shalt legitimately rejoice. All true Christians’ joy, whether at first believing or at the moment of dying, is “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 3. Yet the convert’’ s joy is in God: “Not only so, but we also joy in God.” There is no contradiction or inconsistency. Not to say that Christ is God, our rejoicing through Christ or on account of Christ, is in a hioh and peculiar sense joying in God. This is the creature’s return to its chief good. Unfallen spirits rejoice always in God, as did Adam and Eve in Eden. Fallen spirits have naturally no joy in

God. Hence, as love of happiness abides, they long and lust for happiness in idols. The deejD consciousness of being unreconciled to God keeps the soul shy of him in sullen alienation. This inward dull pain from subdued conviction of wrath makes the sinner shun God. This accounts for your having no Bible: you are afraid of it. This accounts for your using no prayer: prayer looks God in the face. Dissociated from God, the soul comes to shrink from the divine idea itself. Bad becomes worse, and distrust shows itself as enmity. Ah! my brethren, we have now travelled very far from joy in God. We have only to carry out this line towards infinity to reach eternity of sinful alienation. What a life from the dead, when the sinner looks up and sees in God a reconciled Father, when the prodigal feels the warm tears of one falling upon his neck and kissing him, when the rebel receives the Atonement! ‘Now the precious theme is God the Saviour. I cannot refrain from saying, in borrowed language: “To feel as if you were in the company of God, to have delight in this feeling, to triumph in God as you would in a treasure that had come into your possession, to dwell upon him in fancy and with fondness, just as one friend dwells in pleasing remembrance on another, to reach the ecstasies of devotion and find that the minutes spent in communion with the heavenly and unseen Witness are far the sweetest and the sunniest of your earthly pilgrimage, to have a sense of God all the day long, and that sense of him in every way so delicious as to make the creature seem vain and tasteless in the comparison, to have his candle shining in your heart, and a secret beatitude in him of which other men have no comprehension, to bear about with you that cheerful trust in him, and that cherished regard to him, which children do to a father whose love they rejoice in, and of whose good will they are most thoroughly assured, to prize the peaceful Sabbaths nd the sacred retirements when your soul can wing its contemplation towards his sanctuary and there behold new glories of his character at the very time that you can exult in confidence before him, — thus to be affected towards God, and thus to glory and be glad in him, is certainly not a common attainment; and yet we do not see how any tnie saint, any genuine disciple, can be altogether a stranger to it.”* Of this quotation, mark the qualifying phrase at the end — no genuine disciple is altogether without it. Yet the stream of joy may be like the brook Kedron, very shallow, and dry most of the year. The reality of conversion must not be judged by the amount of the joy. Indeed, the mind had better be turned away from considering joy as an evidence, to considering Christ as the source of joy. Come boldly to God in Jesus Christ, as already reconciled by the blood of his Cross. He that was your enemy has become your friend. The high model may never be reached; and in your present infantile experience you may never be wafted so high; but look high! Establish it as the law of progress forever, that your joy is to be all in God. Even the Old Testament reveals such exercises. “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord.” “Oh! magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name tosether.” “I will rejoice in the Lord, I mil joy in the God of my salvation.” “I will go unto the altar of God, of God my exceeding joy.” 4. This great exult-

* Cbalin. Pwom. in loc.

io yy ‘fy i yours. To you, also, is offered the reconciliation. To every hearer of the Gospel, in all the universe, who believes, this redeniytion is made over. Are you doubtful whether some of the steps you have taken are right or not? Here is a step which is always right. It is always right to believe. It is always sinful not to believe. No delay is lawful with a sovereign. The king’s business requireth haste. It can never be wrong to accept what God offers: it can never be safe to put off accepting it. Now, that which God offers is reconciliation. The atonement propitiation was offered to God, and was accepted of him. Justice is satisfied with every one who believes. As the result of this atonement, God offers to you entire pardon, peace, and life. What shall you do? Receive the reconciliation. Receive the atonement. Receive the Cross. Receive the Righteousness. ‘Receive the Lord Jesus! Is it done? Then he is yours. The espousal is accomplished. The iniquity is pardoned, and the sin covered. That believing has made you Christ’s. You are one with him. His substituted acts and sufferings go for yours. His rigliteoiisness is your righteousness, his Father is your Father, and his God your God. I seem to hear the new song from your mouth. Is. xii.: ^’ Behold! God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song, he also is become my salvation. O Lord! I will praise thee. Then thou wast angry with me; thine anger is turned away and thou comfortedst me.” The voice of God’s truth to delaying seekers is, Ye will not come unto me, that ye may have reconciliation. Lo! it is here, it is complete. Take of the water of life, take of the blood of expiation, freely. The Lamb of vision lies on the altar before the heavenly throne, still bleeding as from recent death. God accepts the amends. Sinner, why should not you? Add not to your other sins the destructive sin of unbelief, for if it be final, you perish. But “be ye reconciled to God.”