Good Cheer for Sad Hearts
‘* And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy. Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” — Matt. ix. 2.
A PICTURE, taken from life as it was passing by, and fixed on the page of that Word, “which liveth and abide th for ever.” It represents the sick lying helpless, and the physician coming to his aid. Those powers of healing which Jesus exercised were peculiarly fitted to let his compassion flow on men, and encourage men to count with confidence on his compassion. These miracles were at once outlets for love from Him, and inlets of hope to us. The cures which he wrought were mercy embodied that it might be visible even to those who had not yet attained the spiritual mind. Love incarnated in power grasps the diseased body, in order that thereby it may reach for healing the diseased soul. Jesus, in the days of his flesh, made the human body his avenue of access to the spirit. The ailment of a member became the opening at which he entered to possess and purify the man. When for his people’s sake he personally withdrew from earth, and sent the Holy Spirit down, the method of administration was changed, but the purpose and the result remained essentially the same. The ministry of reconciliation now is spirit witnessing to spirit by the word; but it seemed meet to God, in his wisdom, to give the body a more prominent place in the beginning of the gospel. Faith, in its feeble infancy, needed and got a touch of the hem of Christ’s garment as a handle and help; but through the glorious ministry of the spirit, faith may now, without any material medium, go up into that which is within the veil, and lean for life on the unseen Intercessor there.
The record of these healing works remains as a kind of alphabet or first lesson in the faith. Knowing that we think and speak as children, our Master in heaven gives lessons for beginners in his word. Children are taken, taught, touched by pictures; by pictures, accordingly, he permits and encourages the little children to come unto him.
The subject here is sin; the lessons thereon mainly two, — the first its relation to the body; the second its removal by the Lord. That unfolds the helpless condition of fallen man; and this the glorious grace of a redeeming God.
I. SiN” — its relation to the body.
Sin, we know, is a “spiritual wickedness;” its sphere of action, accordingly, is in “high places.” Mere matter, whether it lie an amorphous clod in the valley, or move as an organized living body, cannot sin. We must get up into higher regions ere we can reach either moral good or moral evil. “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit;” they who offend him offend him in spirit too. Ascending from the lower to the higher departments of creation, it is in man that we first reach a region where sin can be. In those high places where a finite but immortal spirit comes in contact with the Spirit infinite and eternal, lies the only element that is capable of sustaining either spiritual purity or spiritual wickedness; yet though sin draws its life-breath in those heavenly places, its members press the earth, and leave their marks indented deep over all its surface. Though sin lives secretly in the soul, it works terribly in the body.
As sin works outward through the body, punishment strikes the body on its way to the seat of sin. The rebound of judgment follows the blow of rebellion. Proceeding from the heart, its fountain, and passing through the outward bodily acts, sin blindly strikes against the throne of God; from that throne vengeance returns, like an echo, by the same path to the same place. The reward comes surely, quickly back on the track by which the work went out. “The wages of sin is death.” “Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
Death has a deep meaning and many issues. We cannot by our searching find it out. None of us have seen its other side. Death is like a mighty angel, with one foot standing on time, and another on eternity. This last enemy strikes the body, as a robber forces open the door of a house, in order to reach the treasure that lies within. If the soul’s life has been hid with Christ in God before that last assault, the spoiler will be disappointed of his prey. “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creaturje, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. viii. 38, 89).
Death to man is in its nature and effects different from the dissolution of other animated beings. It behoves us to walk by faith here; for if we walk by sight only, Satan will get an advantage over us, and notwithstanding our sound creed, we shall certainly stumble. The creatures whose spirits go downwards die; and man dies too whose spirit goes upward to God who gave it. Unless we recognise a difference, wide as eternity, between these two dyings, we have lost the light of faith, and are wandering in darkness.
The blood circulates in the bodies of inferior animals precisely as it does in man. The various functions of life in them, are performed by corporeal organs analogous to our own. As far as the evidence of the senses goes, there seems no essential difference between the birth or death of one animated being, and the birth or death of another. Great though the distinction be, unless we have faith, and faith in exercise, we shall miss it wholly. An eye must be opened in the soul capable of looking not only on things seen and temporal, but also on things unseen and eternal.
Death seems to have been in the world before sin, but not the death of man. Marks have been found in the crust of the earth, which prove to the satisfaction of nearly all intelligent observers, that successive races of creatures lived and died on this globe before the period assigned in the Scriptures to the creation of men. Bat the science which proclaims that living creatures died before sin began, possesses no evidence that death touched the creature who is capable of sinning, until it came as the wages of sin. Hitherto the researches of science, as far as they go, coincide with the intimations of Scripture. There is no room for vaunting on one side, or fear on another. The works and the word of God agree. Our business is to read them both aright.
The world, which was at first without form and void, was by a lengthened process, and many successive operations, made ready at last for man. The head .of a long ascending series of animated beings was reached at last. There the Creator paused and said, Let us make man in our own image. Thus man became a living soul, although he was allied to inferior creatures in the material and structure of his bodily organization. When God formed an immortal being as the climax of his creation, he did not make man’s material part a paradox in nature. He made it according to the analogy of his other works, and the most perfect of them all.
Man, having been made in God’s image immortal and spiritual, was not subject to dissolution by the laws of nature like the beasts that perish. He was separated from them not in degree of excellence merely, but in the essence of his nature. He was not the brother of the brute, but the son of God. Holy man was by creation beyond the reach of death. Death came upon him, not as the law of his nature, but as the wages of his sin. Rebellion against God threw down this second generation of his sons as it had thrown down the first. Man fell by sin as angels had already fallen. Partaking of the nature of the angels in his immortal spirit, and of the nature of the brutes in his material body, he became liable to both the deaths, — to the separation of the soul from God, and the dissolution of the body in the dust.
But although by his body man participates in the death of inferior creatures, his soul cannot die. Annihilation is not the punishment of man’s sin; the creation of another race is not the compensation provided for his Maker’s loss.
The method of divine mercy is to raise up the fallen, to purify the polluted, to reconcile the alienated, to quicken again the dead. All the mansions of the Father’s house shall one day ring again with the voice of gladness, and when angel elder brothers, coming in from their appointed labour, shall inquire the reason of the mirth, they shall get for answer from the glad Father’s lips, as he points to regenerated and reconciled man, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.” To restore the lost, to revive the dead, is the design of the gospel, is the end of the Lord. This is Christ’s errand to the earth, and his occupation now in heaven.
Here is one of that high-born but now prostrate family; here is one of God’s grandest temples lying in ruins, and God manifest in the flesh coming to that temple with intent to restore. “They brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy. Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” Disease was there, the forerunner and symptom of the body’s death. So far the man and his friends plainly saw; but Jesus looked through
R these outer effects to the inner cause. He sees not only the paralysis on the man’s body, but also the sin in the man’s soul. This physician goes at a glance to the root of the disease. In his view the palsy that stiffens the patient’s limbs is neither the first nor the last of the case; it is only the middle part that is here exposed to view. Jesus, though as man he stands on earth, as God lives in eternity. There, beyond our reach, he sees the beginning and the ending of the patient’s ailment. Sin is the well in which it springs, and perdition the sea to which it is flowing. When he looks on disease, he sees its beginning and its ending: his work is to cut short its course, ere it issue in the second death. He looks upward and downward: he will not confine his view to these symptoms which appear in the body, and pertain to time. To prevent the final issue, he removes the first cause. Permitting his lips to follow the purpose of his heart, he makes no mention of the paralysis, but pronounces pardon of the sin.
By passing over the obvious disease, and speaking of only the unseen sin, he shows clearly what his mission is not, and what it is. He came not to deliver the body from the temporal consequences of sin, but the man from its power here, and its presence hereafter. In as far as sin causes the dissolution of the body, it is left incurable; for its deeper issues a remedy is provided in the gospel of Christ. Although in this and other cases Jesus put forth his power to heal disease and lengthen the term of life in the body, he made it plain from first to last that this portion of sin’s wages even redeemed sinners must yet receive. He does not by an exercise of omnipotence ward off death from the bodies of them that believe, but in love and wisdom infinite he turns the curse into a blessing. The enemy who comes with intent to destroy the captive is not stopped and turned at a distance: he is permitted to break open the prison door, and then his hand is stayed. After that, death has no more that he can do upon the redeemed. The Lord had need of some servant of strength sufiicient to break those iron bars asunder, and he served himself to this extent of the old destroyer. In the first instance, he takes no note of that death which was carrying its approaches over the patient’s body, preparatory to the final stroke. Silently he intimates that this messenger must sooner or later do his work. Christ’s mission is not to perpetuate this life, but to lead all his people through the gate of death into the life eternal. His word, accordingly, is not, Thy body shall not die, but, Thy sins are forgiven.
11. Sin — its removal by the Lord. In the text and its surrounding context we shall find a series of distinct yet connected intimations regarding the Physician and his method of cure.
I. It is by a free pardon that sin is removed and its eternal consequences averted. This is the remedy which the Saviour has provided for the disease of sin. There is no other cure. All other methods either aggravate the ailment or deceive the patient by healing slightly the superficial wound, while the death poison still remains in the blood. “Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven,” and no other man is really blessed, whatever his profession or his hope may be.
To shut our eyes and refuse to see the worst in ourselves is the part of a fool, although a great multitude adopt it. To plunge into business and pleasure, making the two succeed each other so closely that there shall be no opening left between them for the inroad of uncomfortable conviction, is not a safe method of treating the case. To forget the sin that is in us will not turn away God’s anger from us in the great and terrible day. Neither is it safe to represent our sins as small in comparison with those which others commit: *’ They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth ‘’ (2 Cor. X. 12, 18). The Judge will not decide by our measurement, but by his own. To cover the sin which lies on the conscience with a layer of earnest efforts to do right will not take the sin away: the underlying sin will assimilate all the dead works that may be heaped upon it, and the result will be a greater mass of sin. There is no solid eround for comfort in the thouoht, that where all are defaulters one may escape in the throng. The Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not nor is weary. He works by law, both in punishing and rewarding. You may as well think that because there are many rain-drops in the bursting thunder-cloud some may be overlooked, and escape the necessity of falling to the gi’ound. All are under law, and their law is to fall by their own weight. The sinful are under law, and their law is that sin is its own avenger. Yet another unsafe method is sometimes tried: it is to let by-gones be by-gones, and begin a new score, in the hope that though the old is evil the new will be good. The new will be no better than the old; and although it were, the old sin unforgiven will be the seed of the second death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Not any — not all of these appliances will avail. When the patient has spent all he had on these physicians, he finds, as the only result, that his disease has eaten more deeply in, and spread more widely out. To cure a soul of sin one thing is needful, and that one is enough; sin must be forgiven. The cure which we need, and which Christ gives, is an absolute and entire removal of the guilt, so that the forgiven shall be in God’s judgment now, and in his presence at last, the same as if he had never sinned. You may have observed that provision is made in nature corresponding to the appetites of living creatures, and that the appetites of living creatures correspond to the provision made in nature for their supply. Thirst and water are reciprocally counterparts: so are hunger and food. In the new creation the desire and its gratification fit as finely. “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thine iniquity; ‘’ behold the provision of the covenant — the bread from heaven that drops in the desert!” Pai’don mine iniquity, for it is great;’’ behold the appetite wherewith God’s Israel craves the provided food! That which the Father delights to bestow, and the returning prodigal pants to receive, is pardon. Pardon, accordingly, the Mediator gets from God and gives to the man. At once discerning and supplying the cardinal necessity of the case, the Physician said to the paralytic, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,”
2. The Saviour to whom this needy man was brought has ‘power to forgive sins. This is a peculiar kind of power. It belongs to Christ in virtue of his finished work as his people’s substitute. We do not say that, apart from the satisfaction of the substitute, God cannot forgive sin, simply because we cannot by searching find out God; but apart from that satisfaction God does not forgive sin. The power to forgive is not the essential omnipotence of deity, but the acquired right of Him who bore the law’s curse, and offered to the law a perfect righteousness in our nature and in our stead. It is “Christ crucified” that “is the power of God” for the pardon of sin. While he hung upon the cross they cast in his teeth the taunt, “He saved others, himself he cannot save.” True, although the speakers knew not the meaning of their own words. Because he had become security for his people he could not save himself. Even He could not save both himself and them from the wrath which sin deserves. He bare it that we might be set free. There and thereby our Redeemer acquired the power to forgive sin.
3. Christ has power to forgive on earth. The word limits the position, not of the Forgiver, but of the forgiven. He forgave while he walked with men on earth, and when he was dying for them on the cross: he forgives now upon the throne of his glory. Either in earth or in heaven he can give pardon; but only on earth can we receive, it. Now is the day of salvation; and this is its place. While we are on this earth, and in the body, Christ has power to forgive our sin, and he is willing. He will cast out none who come. But when a sinner passes unpardoned out of time into eternity, even Jesus has not power to forgive him then and there. Well may the Scriptures ask, ‘’ How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? “He who without repentance runs out his day of grace, and goes in his guilt through the gates of death to the throne of judgment, puts it out of his own power to obtain, and out of the Redeemer’s power to bestow, forgiveness. ‘’ Depart from me” is the only answer which the knocker who knocks too late will ever hear.
4. The Son of r)ian hath power to forgive. Here is great consolation; the power lies in our Brother’s hands. He who wept with a sister sorrowing, and for a great city’s sin, possesses the prerogative of pardon, and wields it now. To him hath God given authority to extend pardon now, and to execute judgment at last, “because he is the Son of man.” It is in virtue of his human nature that the merit of his sacrifice and risj-hteousness can become ours. It is not enough that Christ is God; that alone would have availed us nothing. He who is eternal God became man. By his union with us in the same nature all the treasures of the Godhead become the fountain of our supply. His manhood brought his saving power within the reach of man.
5. Christ the Saviour, in coming to a sinful, suffering man, desires not only that he should be safe hereafter, but also happy now. “Son, be of good cheer,” was the great Physician’s first salutation. Read the mind of Jesus in his own words and acts; do not receive the distorted pictures which lie in an evil heart of unbelief. Perhaps no specific wile of the devil is more extensively successful than that which represents the company of Christ to be, although needful to the dying, a dreary, melancholy endurance through the course of life. The secret unconfessed apprehension is, that while without earnest personal religion one cannot die safely, with it one cannot hope to lead a cheerful life. No feeling regarding religion is more widely prevalent, yet none is more false. At first he came unto his own, and his own received him not; and still men misinterpret the heart of Jesus. Draw near, ye who think religion a burden which it is necessary but hard to bear, — who think the moment a man begins to keep company with Christ he may bid farewell to cheerfulness, and lay his account with a life of gloom, — draw near and behold this great sight! Himself the Man of sorrows, he knows the sorrows that are in men. He approaches the pale, spiritless, trembling paralytic, and his foremost word is. Courage!
Here is a strange coincidence. On this point, surely, the world and the world’s Saviour are already at one. Good cheer! Christ and those who have no part in Christ agree in that desire. He who has all power in heaven and in earth expressly desires for us the very thing which we all ardently desire for ourselves; shall we not, therefore, all certainly attain it? Not necessarily; there are many methods of pursuing happiness — only one of overtaking it.
Every man has his own way of seeking good cheer. Money, lands, learning, fame, food and drink, company by night or day, amusement, politics, war, and many more, have each its own admirers. But must a man abandon the use of all that now affords him good cheer the moment he becomes a Christian? No, brother; Christ our Saviour has a tender human heart. He rejoiced with them that rejoiced, and wept with them that wept. He reclined with friends and relatives at a marriage feast, and stood with sisters beside their brother’s grave, his heart in either case in unison with his company, — rejoicing in that place, sorrowing in this. He takes no pleasure in depriving his creatures of any enjoyment. He gives them all good, and gives it that it may be enjoyed. But he occupies a higher stand-point than we, and commands a wider view. There was plenty of good cheer in Jerusalem when Jesus with his disciples was for the last time approaching it by the way of Bethany and Betliphage. The throng within the city were eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, when he looked down upon them from the hill, and wept. Underneath their merriment he saw unforgiven sin, and over it the charged thunder- cloud of judgment. He could not join in their joy, because he saw that its flickering thorn-flame would soon be quenched in wrath. He wept while they laughed, not because he was against good cheer, but because he was for it.
In like manner that same Jesus looks down upon this city to-day, and sees its multitudes seeking good cheer each in his own way; but he sees beneath and beyond the mirth of fools. He sees sin on the conscience of the man, and its wages written in the book of God. His desire is that we should have good cheer, not in the revelry of a night, but through life, in the hour of departure, and when the earth and sea shall give up their dead!
In a fertile valley of northern Italy, within the Sardinian territory, on a certain sunny day of spring, groups of country people are gathering, — the young for active sport, and the old for the pleasure of looking on. A troop of horsemen bearing their own king’s well-known colours, sweep swiftly across the plain, hurry off the whole multitude, and shut them up within the gloomy grey walls of a neighbouring fortress. Why should their sport be spoilt so rudely, and that, too, by their own friends? A cruel enemy was approaching like a flood, and their own watchful prince carried off his defenceless subjects to a place of safety.
In our nature and for us, Jesus has gone into the heavens. From that height he sees us down in this low place. He takes no delight in the mirth of a thoughtless multitude, while a sea of endless sorrow, held off for a time by long-suffering Omnipotence, threatens every moment to close and cover them. He loves us too truly and too deeply to let us laugh away our day of mercy with sin unpardoned lying on our souls. To heal the sorrows of a human heart, and open there a spring of unfailing joy, one thing, in our Redeemer’s view, is needful, but one is enough. It is the pardon of sin. The Captain of our salvation would first carry us into the refuge, and permit us to be jojrful then.
The charge, openly or covertly made against religion, that it is a disturber of the peace, is in one sense true. Christ’s witnesses, representing their benignant Lord, confess frankly that his presence in the heart damps the joy of unrenewed, unforgiven man. He came not to send peace to these, but a sword; and his way is to plunge it into their joints and marrow. He spares not for their crying. But, brother, when you fall and faint, look up and see the face of Jesus bending over you; a divine compassion is beaming through. He has sought and found you, whoever you are, on whose ear this word falls to-day. He has closed with you in the same way as if there were not another sinner in the world needing his compassion. By this word now he holds you, and compels you to listen and look. Here is his offer now made to you. He desires to make you cheerful, and his way of making men cheerful is to forgive their sins. Close with his method, and he will make the result good.
But here is a man whose heart still murmurs, Religion should not make people sad. Laying aside all figures and forms, — making the word bare that through God’s gracious help it may go in, I repeat, — He who is at enmity with God should not he cheerful. Pardon, PARDON is the way to peace.