The Rainbow About the Throne

A VERY common source of error is a distorted view of the character of God. Some persons take a very one-sided view of him, and a simple attribute is taken for God himself. For example, there are some who fix their eyes alone on the divine love, and when they preach, they only exhibit a Being of infinite and unmixed compassion. There is no cloud of holy wrath against sin in their azure sky, and no place for a hell in their rose-water theology. A whole class of solemn Bible-truths they consign to the waste-basket.

Another type of theologians, with equally

distorted vision, can see only the divine

attribute of justice and holy abhorrence of

sin. When a man of this type preaches, he

75 makes his hearers listen only to the incessant thunderings of Sinai; and before their eyes he presents only a “certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation.” His half-truth becomes serious error; he may awaken sinners, but he does not make Christians. He has a Sinai, but no Calvary. To neither of these opposite types of theologians does God appear in his true and adorable attributes of infinite perfection. No such distorted view of our heavenly Father was revealed to that solitary dweller on the isle of Patmos when he beheld a great white throne and Him who sat upon it. “He that sat there was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald.” Out of the throne proceeded lightning and thunderings; yet above it hung the soft effulgence of the rainbow. Mysterious as that apocalyptic vision was, it certainly does illustrate the sublime truth that the infinite Justice of God is overarched by his infinite Mercy that crowneth its terrors as with a robe of glorious light. The 76 glory of these divine attributes is in their perfect harmony. Separated, one would become weakness, and the other would become cruelty; one would fill heaven with unrepentant rebels, and the other would consign every transgressor to a hopeless perdition. When viewed together, we ‘’behold the goodness and the severity of God;” com.- bined together, they have given birth to a scheme of Redemption that will be an object of adoring wonder while eternity endures.

The tender mercy of our heavenly Father began with the beginnings of the human race, and runs on down through all history. When our forefather committed that great primal sin of disobedience, the divine mercy rainbowed the cloud of divine displeasure by the promise of a Saviour. When the gates of Eden closed behind him, gates of Gospel mercy began to open before him. Even that physical curse, “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground,” hath in it the seed of many blessings. Without the toil to earn it, the bread would lose half its relish; 17 without the fatigues of labor, sleep would lose half its sweetness. Verily, the effects of that primal curse have been so disposed that justice has ended in loving kindness, and the sentence pronounced at the gates of Eden has gone out into multiplied blessings. That sorrow came into this world as the bitter fruit of sin is the common faith of Christendom. Yet sorrow and suffering are not unmixed evils; affliction is often the school in which the noblest characters are formed. How often we misread what may be called permitted providences! It was a terrible trial to the ancient patriarch that his favorite son Joseph was taken from him. “All these things are against me,” is the burden of his pitiful wails. While he is wailing, the caravan heaves in sight that brings to him the tidings that Joseph is alive; and he is prime minister of Egypt. What Jacob’s wicked sons “meant for evil” God had turned into a blessing. A Hebrew mother once named her boy Jabez, “because I bore him with sorrow.” Yet the child that was born in grief and given a sad name 78 grew up to be the ornament of her house, and “more honorable than his brethren.” His history was like the April showers, which begin with weeping clouds, and end in brilliant sunbursts, and in rainbows painted on the sky. Good friends, have not you and I often had rich mercies brought to us under a very dark pall? Yes, and some of our richest blessings have come to us when our righteous Father was punishing us for our sins. God chastises us in love; and the difference between a true Christian and a sham Christian is that one mourns over sins, and the other never minds it. Blessed are they that mourn — and mend! Compunction of a godly sort tends to growth in grace. There are too many dryeyed Christians in this world. There ought to be more tears of penitence over neglects of duty to our fellow-creatures, and over violations of Christ’s commandments; then they that sow in the tears of contrition would reap in the joys of pardon and increased spiritual power. Those are the tears that make rainbows. 79

Let us go back now to the point whence we started, and look at the most wondrous way in which the justice of the holy God is overarched by his sovereign mercy — and that is in the glorious scheme of Redemption, In these times I fear that the great central doctrine of the Atonement is not presented as often and as Spiritually as it ought to be. Phillips Brooks was right when he said that “the preachers who have moved and held men have always preached doctrine; no exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience.” Perhaps one reason why that eternal truth of the Atonement is not oftener preached is that pulpit-teachers do not fix their eyes enough upon the exceeding sinfulness and damnableness of sin against a righteous God. They do not listen to the “thunderings from that throne which is like a jasper and a sardine stone.” Jehovah is infinitely holy, and the “deep substrata and base of all his ethical attributes are eternal law and impartial justice.” Law is as much obligated to punish 80 transgressors as transgressors are obligated to obey law. If God should wink at sin his throne could not stand a moment.

It is only when we fix our eyes upon the crystalline purity of that throne, and listen to the thunders of the divine justice, that we can understand aright and adore aright that magnificient Rainbow of Redemption that Christ’s atoning work has thrown round about that throne. Jehovah can be just, and yet the justifier of every sinner that repents and believes on and obeys the crucified Redeemer. The atoning blood of Christ is the central fact in the gospel of grace. If we are justified, it is by faith in Jesus’s blood; if we are purified, it is because that blood cleanseth from all sin; if we ever gain admission to the shining ranks in heaven, it ig because we have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Paul gloried in pointing the eyes of all sinners to that resplendent rainbow of Redemption; it has been the theme of the Wesleys, Chalmers, the Spurgeons, the Maclarens, the Moodys, and the mightiest ministers of our 8i modern times. The man who cannot get into a holy glow in pointing the sinful and the suffering to that rainbow of atoning love, can never hold thoughtful minds under the spell of the “power from high.” Lift your eyes often, brethren, toward the great white throne, and get fresh inspiration from that bow of love that flashes like an emerald!