Accepted in Christ
“To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted IN the Beloved: in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” — E ph. i. 6, 7.
But now, IN Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far oflf are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” — Eph. ii. 13.
|N this — the most deeply experimental of St. Paul’s Epistles, how often do our eyes rest on the replica of his great motto! Let us enter by the gateway thus surmounted by the familiar words, and examine one or two of the sacred treasures within.
I. Note the covenant relationship — “accepted in the Beloved” It is only under a new phraseology what we have already found him describing as “the new creature in Christ Jesus” The soul, unlovable in itself, made lovable “in the Beloved” — “the Altogether lovely One” (Sol. Song v. 16). “Fair as the moon” (Sol. Song vi. 10), is one out of many figurative descriptions of the Church in its corporate capacity;
ACCEPTED IN CHRIST. 16i
and what is true of the Church collectively, is equally true of each individual member of it.
Let us look a little more particularly at this significant symbol, as illustrative of the present topic. Whence does the moon in the heavens derive her brightness? That brightness is not inherent. On the contrary, astronomers tell us, our silvery satellite is in itself a hideous distorted mass of extinct volcanoes, from which all life and glory have departed; — a haunt of chaos and darkness, — airless, cloudless, tenantless. Whence, then, is the light derived which enables it to shine like a pendent lamp in God’s midnight Sanctuary — a vestal fire in the Holy of holies of His material Temple? As is well known, it is all from the sun. The lesser light is bathed in the glory of the sovereign orb. Without that sun the moon would be no more than a black spot in creation.
What a picture of the believer by nature! — His heart a chaos; the home of spiritual gloom and desolation, ploughed and furrowed with the traces of sin’s volcanic fires. But the Sun of Righteousness has arisen; the darkness is past; and the transfigured soul shines in His reflected glories. In a word, that soul is, “IN Christ,” a new world, “a new creation.” The summons has been given — “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee” (Isa. Ix. i). In Christ, and in Christ alone, the emblematic description is verified — “fair as the moon.”
The more special reference, however, in the first of our verses, seems rather to be to another favourite emblem of St. Paul’s: one which forms a distinctive feature in the same sacred allegory from which the lunar symbol just spoken of, is taken. “I am black, but comely,” is the portraiture there given of the Bride (Sol. Song i. 5). Comely, beautiful, glorious, through the comeliness and glory of Another. This same figure the Apostle more fully expands in the close of the Epistle. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish” (Eph. v. 25-27). “Oh, how wonderful,” to quote the simple but perspicuous comment of a practical writer on the Epistle, — “Oh, how wonderful the union between the Lord Jesus Christ and those who believe on His name. As a husband is responsible for all the debts of his wife, Jesus is responsible for the sins of His people, and pays the mighty debt of every poor sinner that depends upon Him. As the wife is lifted up, and taken even from the meanest rank in the world, and if the husband is on a throne, she is lifted up to the rank of her husband: — so Jesus takes the sinner out of the depths of guilt and sin, clothes him with His own righteousness, and will never leave him nor forsake him, until He raises him up to sit upon His own throne. ‘He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that He may set him with princes, even with the princes of His people ‘” (Ps. cxiii. 7, 8). “Accepted in the Beloved,” the believer’s name becomes Hephzibah, “The Lord delighteth in thee” (Is. lxii. 4).
II. Our thoughts in the above texts are not only directed to the blessed mystical relationship — “accepted in Christ,” but to the procuring cause of that acceptance. “In whom we have Redemption through His blood.” “But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ”^ (Eph. ii. 1 3)
The expression in the first of our verses is even stronger in the original — “In whom we have the (rrjv) Redemption.” Moreover, the word Redemption invariably implies ’ ransom by payment.’ The bleating of sacrificial offerings began outside the gates of Eden; — they were heard on the heights of Ararat: — still more under the Levitical economy did these expiatory sacrifices proclaim each day, and almost each hour of the day, the great truth — “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” That whole typical economy would be an enigma: — it would resolve itself into a wasteful
1 M’Ghee on Ephesians in loc.
‘Let us note the precise expressions “In whom,” “In Christ Jesus.” Kot as some who give the ungrammatical rendering of Aid — * through whom ’ or on account of whom.” But ()^v Si) “in “; by virtue of living union with Christ.
dwoXirrpuais. See Eadie on Ephesians, pp. 37, 38.
expenditure of life, an unwarrantable redundancy of animal suffering, had it not been for its anti-typical meaning, — the significant prefiguration of an All-perfect Sacrifice. Regarded by themselves, the wounds and cries of these expiring victims are a strange anomaly in the government of a gracious and righteous Lawgiver. Why torrents of innocent blood thus staining holy altars? But, accept the theory of sin’s penal consequences (the necessity of expiation by vicarious suffering, through the death of the adorable Surety), and all is explained. Christ becoming the Sponsor for His people: — “made sin for us: (2 Cor. v. 21). Salvation procured by the substitution and atonement of a spotless Offering,” the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; — “The Son of Man, who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a RANSOM for many” (Matt. xx. 2 8). If any there be (and many such there are in these times) who cavil at this article of our faith, and pronounce it a theology * unworthy of God ‘: — it is for us to accept these and other cognate truths, with all their deep and profound mystery, as revealed verities: — resting satisfied with the asserted ‘obligation’ (a moral obligation arising out of the very nature and character of the Supreme), and which is thus enunciated in the Great * Epistle of Sacrifice ’ — “It became Him, of whom are all things, and by whom are all things ... to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings” (Heb. ii. i o). Antagonistic to reason we allow; yet it is this very doctrine, humbly and reverentially received, which has imparted comfort and peace to God’s people in every age. Hear the testimony, among a thousand such, of one whose name is in all the churches: “Never,” says Dr. Chalmers, “does light and peace so fill my heart, as -when, like a little child, I take up the lesson that God hath laid on His own Son the iniquity of us all.”
III. We have noted, in the first of our motto- verses, the promring cause of our union with Christ. But the same verse enables us to go a step yet higher. It gives us what may be called the impelling cause: — the great “motive power” in Redemption, — “according to the riches of His grace.” On that cross there is engraven, in imperishable lettering, the eternal love and grace of the Father.
There was nothing in the believer to deserve such a ransom, and ransom price. No * foreseen excellence ’ to recommend to the Divine favour. If “IN Christ” be the legend and superscription on the gateway of the spiritual temple, — Grace is the word inscribed on its every stone, and shaft, and lintel, and buttress, — even to “the top-stone” (Zech. iv. 7).
And as grace is the impelling cause on the part of God, so, we may add, is His imparted grace the propelling power in the heart and life and progress of His people. It is He who vouchsafes to them pardoning grace, sanctifying grace, sustaining grace, comforting grace, dying grace; grace, till grace is needed no more, and is merged in glory. “It is the Grace of God,” as one, who knew it well, expresses it, “which can enable the lame, the halt, the maimed, the blind to go through the land and possess it” (Evans). Of, and by themselves, God’s people could never reach that possession. “These,” says Christ (to repeat a well-known passage), “are IN the world,” tempted and tossed, weak and vacillating. If nothing but their own fragile roots to grapple with, they would succumb to the first hurricane. But, speaking of Himself by the lips of one of the later prophets — “I am like a green” (evergreen) “fir-tree; from Me” (in Me) “is thy fruit found” (Hosea xiv. 8). “In Me.” We may say regarding the Jehovah of the New Testament, what Bishop Eeynolds says of the Jehovah of the Old, when He revealed His name to Moses as the Great I AM: — “He puts His hand to a blank, to enable His people to write under it what they will that may be for their good.” “In WTiom:” — “in the Beloved” — we have pardon, peace, joy, pity, sympathy, help, comfort, everlasting salvation. Ours in life — ours in death — ours through eternity! As the Great High Priest within the veil, and by virtue of His people’s union with Him, He is the Dispenser of these heavenly blessings. “Jesus Christ,” says an old divine, “is the Lord-Treasurer of heaven and earth; as Joseph in Egypt. If any one would have corn, they must go to Joseph for it; He was the rock that Moses must stand on, that the glory of God’s goodness might pass before Him.” “I say not unto you,” is a remarkable utterance in His own valedictory discourse, “that I shall pray the Father for you” (John xvi. 26). As if He said, * He sees you in Me. He beholds your names written on My golden breastplate.’ It is enough. An alternative rendering of the Psalmist’s words may be taken and employed by the believer in their highest reference to the Great Intercessor: — “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me” (or, “carries me on His heart “).
We may only further add, that this union, the result of grace and love on the part of the Eternal Father and the Eternal Son, is sealed on the one hand by the Holy Ghost: — “In whom “(Christ) also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. i. 13). On the other, it is ratified on the part of the believer by faith. To use the words of Besser, “Faith, in Paul’s sense of it, is the Christbetrothed-soul’s wedding-ring; the preciousness of which lies, not in the holding of it, but in Him that is held by it, viz.^ m Jesus Christ.” It was the peculiar aspect and attitude of faith as set forth by St. Paul — “through faith in His blood,” — “Redemption through His blood,” — which brought him so near in loving fellowship with Christ. We know that, in one sense, personal communion with Jesus had not been enjoyed by him as in the case of the other Apostles
Nehemiah Adams.
He had never seen His Lord save in vision. But there is a contact, closer and more real than discernment by the outer senses. Though his eye had not rested on the awful scenes of Calvary, he could say with a refined spiritual apprehension — “Jesus Christ is evidently set forth.” “I am crucified with Christ.” “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” By faith he saw the blood sprinkling of the true Paschal Lamb; as if gazing on the Divine Victim “Christ our Passover sacrificed for us” ( i Cor. v. 7).
It is the same with all who, in any lowly measure, tread in the footsteps of the Great Apostle, and are heirs to that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the “confidence” of things not seen. “Accepted in the Beloved” is faith’s assurance now. “In whom we have Redemption through His blood,” faith’s note of triumph. And when these glorious espousals shall be consummated on the Bridal-day of the Church triumphant, that same redemption-note of earth will be continued as the everlasting “Epithalamium” — the song of Infinite love, the song of Eternity — “Thoio wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood!”