The Acceptable Year of the Lord

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that tvere in the synagogue were fastetted on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.’’”’ — Luke iv. 19-21.

EVERYTHING about this diet of worship is full of interest. The town, Nazareth, where he had been brought up, where every townsman knew the carpenter’s son by sight; the house, a synagogue, the worshipping place of a Jewish congregation; the time, the holy Sabbath; the preacher, the Son of God in our nature; the sermon, an exhibition and an offer of Christ personally as the fulfilment of prophecy, the desire of the nation, the Saviour of the world; the reception of the discourse, the fastening of all eyes on the speaker’s countenance, the opening of their ears and hearts to his word. We draw near and listen to this inspired sermon on an inspired text. Here is a greater sight than Moses saw in the wilderness of Sinai, — a phenomenon harder to be understood than a bush burning yet not consumed. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. The speaker speaks as never man spake. He was at once the preacher of salvation and the salvation that he preached — himself the sower and himself the seed.

Passing over the other features of the incident, I select one, somewhat difficult, indeed, but deeply interesting and eminently suggestive, as the ground of instruction and reproof to-day. In the prophecy, Isaiah lxi. 1-3, the word runs — “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God;” wdiereas Jesus, when he read the passage in the synagogue at Nazareth, stopped short in the middle of the sentence, announcing the year of mercy, but not naming the day of vengeance. Isaiah proclaims in one breath both the goodness and severity of God, thus presenting the divine character complete, by revealing it on both sides; but Jesus read the prophet’s testimony regarding the goodness, and then closed the book, hiding the severity under the parchment folds. He preached on one half of a clause; did he intend to conceal the harsher portion of prophecy — to cover with a veil the frowns that gather on the Father’s countenance, and permit only the smiles to shine through on men y No. He came not to destroy or mutilate the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfil. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not one jot or tittle of this word, till all be fulfilled. Let us try to find out why the omission was made, and what the omission means.

It is clear, in the first place, that Isaiah saw the justice as well as the mercy of God, and bare witness impartially of both. Looking, in the spirit of prophecy, down through the a”-es to the fulness of time, he discerned Mercy appreaching in the foreground, and Vengeance pressing hard behind. He knew and taught that there is a period during which, for every man, the door of grace is open, and a moment when that door will be shut. Such is the gospel according to Isaiah. It is not a one-sided, crippled thiner. It has two feet to stand on, and therefore it stands secure. It is able both to bear the weight of those who lean upon it, and to withstand the assaults of those who attempt to overturn it. Isaiah’s God is a just God and a Saviour.

There is a gospel not according to Isaiah, which is at present in some quarters softly creeping into favour. It is commonly called the negative theology, — a theology, as its name indicates, with a great many noes in it. It teaches that human nature, the patient, is not so radically diseased as the popular creed represents it to be: the cure does not demand so much power and wisdom as we have been taught to suppose: the sacrifice of Christ was not required as a satisfaction to divine justice, and his death on the cross had not so deep a meaning as is commonly assigned to it: the Scriptures are not all, or at least not all equally, the inspired Word of God, and the harsher portions of them must not be explained too strictly: God is not a stern Judge, but a Father; and fathcrlincss means fondness, softness. Thus, by introducing a string of negatives into the gospel, they contrive to rub its sharpest corners off, and leave a figure more like the dim, beautiful outline of the changeful clouds, on whose edges you might fall without being hurt, than the stern summits of the everlasting hills, whereon, if a man fall, he will be broken to pieces. By taking the gospel of the Scriptures, eliminating from it everything that offended their taste, they have constructed a gospel which seems beautiful in their eyes, and is smooth and agreeable to the touch; but it is not the gospel of Christ It is not coarse and loathsome, like the idols of the heathen or of Rome; it is not made of gold or. silver, wood or stone — its matter and its mould are more refined and spiritual: nevertheless it is an idol; the workman made it, therefore it is not God. Granted that this gospel is soft and seemly; what then t it will not sustain a sinner in the hour of his extremity. When you fall, and its arms are opened to receive you, you will sink through them, as through a shadow. It will not in the least degree break the fall of the lost sinner in the day of wrath.

Here the question recurs. Does not our text countenance this system of selecting from the Scriptures what is soft and easy, leaving out the features that bear hard on man y Jesus, when the Book of Isaiah was presented to him, open and marked at this place, read on till he came to “the day of vengeance of our God,” and stopped when he came to that terror. He preached on the softer clause, without so much as intimating that a harder lay

264 ‘I’lJE ACCEPTABLE YEAR.

behind. Let us look into this matter; we must at the same time make a minute inspection of the text, and a general survey of the analogy of faith.

Isaiah stood afar off, and, with an eye divinely opened for the purpose, looked down the avenue of the future, as one might stand upon a mountain far inland and look along a straight narrow estuary away to the distant sea, dimly visible on the furthest horizon. At the extremity of the vista, and distant so far in time that to him they seemed to lie within eternity, he descried two lights, one behind the other, and both approaching. To his countrymen below, not -elevated to his standpoint, and therefore not enjoying his view — to his countrymen below, who sent up at intervals the question. Watchman, what of the night? the watchman answered, I see two lights approaching from the ocean — from the eternity, coming hitherward along the channel of time, the one before the other, and both steadily advancing: the foremost is divine mercy, and the one behind it is divine wrath. That faithful witness faithfully proclaimed from his watch-tower to his countrymen both facts: first, that God’s mercy is coming, mercy infinite and free, with its blessed motto, “Whosoever will,” waving in the wind, coming foremost, nearest us; and second, that on the heels of mercy, vengeance was following close, swallowing up in everlasting doom alike the bold adversary who had despised mercy, and the indolent lingerer who had permitted it to pass.

When that witness had served his generation and fallen asleep, others were successively placed on the same watch-tower to reduplicate the same warning from age to age. To those two facts which Isaiah proclaimed bore all the prophets witness: mercy is coming first, and judgment follows. Last of all came Christ, in the fulness of time, and, exercising himself the office of a prophet, stood where Isaiah had stood, repeating Isaiah’s testimony. But now the foremost of the two lights had come up. It was abreast of the watchman. Turning to look full upon the one that had come, he sees not the one that is coming. In the lips of Jesus the testimony is not a prediction of what shall be, but a proclamation of what is. The “acceptable year of the Lord” had arrived, but the “day of vengeance of our God” had not. The mission of Christ was not to point to another, but to attract to himself. When the eyes of all that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, he said, “This day these things are fulfilled in your ears.” He meant to present himself to the people as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, and therefore he could not include the day of vengeance; for on that day that part of the prophecy was not fulfilled. He came not to condemn the world, but to save; while he sat in the synagogue, and their eyes beheld him, the day of vengeance had not come to them.

This prophecy is not of private interpretation; it was not exhausted that day in Nazareth. This word, like the Lord who uttered it, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. As the same sun shines over our heads to-day that gave light to those Nazarene citizens in their svnacToeue. the same word which fell on their ears Is spirit and life for us to-day. The acceptable year of the Lord has come. Christ is the way to the Father. The door is open, and the invitation resounds through this prison-house — “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The purpose of the Lord that day in his discourse — the purpose of the Lord in taking our nature — was to open, to be, the way unto the Father. He did not mix a little of the vengeance among the mercy, to make the mercy less sweet; he did not dash the door of vengeance in the faces of those whom he was inviting to enter through mercy into peace. This preacher did not mix the two, and so spoil both. He gives each its own place and time, but leaves each complete. He keeps the door of mercy wide open — he welcomes chief sinners in; but when that year of acceptance has run out, the day of vengeance will come.

Of that day, and of its sure, sudden approach, Jesus often and clearly warned his disciples. “Then shall he say to them on his left hand. Depart from me.” No clearer sound than this ever descended from heaven to earth; no more articulate sentence was ever uttered even by Him who spake as never man spake. Christ preached the day of vengeance, but he preached it always in the future tense. That day came not before him, and came not with him; it came after him. “Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him. Art thou the Christ, the son of the Blessed y And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting- on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mark xiv. 61, 62). His coming for judgment was a Future; his presence as Redeemer was a Now.

The covenant endures for ever; the door stands open all the course of time. Every generation enjoys its own day of grace; but after each generation the night cometh. Behind mercy, vengeance comes, as night sweeps round the globe in the wake of day, and winter in the wake of summer. Upon every person and every place the night cometh, in which no man can work; but every person and every place enjoy a day before the night comes on; a day in which all needful work may be done — should be done. A winter overtakes every land; but every land enjoys its summer and its autumn, so that all the willing and wakeful might sow and reap. Those who sow in spring and reap in harvest need not fear the approaching winter. He who spread out the beautiful broad day, and kept encroaching darkness off till all its hours had run — he who gave to the world the wider expanse of summer, and kept the winter at bay till the fruits of the earth were gathered — has set open, and kept open, the door of mercy, and neither man nor angel can shut it before the time. The sea cannot close and cover the path until Israel have passed over. But when all God’s people have gotten grace, and all the world have gotten the offer of it, the restraining hand is withdrawn. Then vengeance comes — then the door is shut.

Here, then, is the lesson for ourselves. A space filled with mercy lies before us; a heaven filled with love like sunlight is shining over us. But this, like the day or the summer, will soon come to an end. Observe how light and darkness follow each other on the surface of the earth. While we slept last night in the darkness, in China there was light; and in China at this moment the darkness has quenched the day, while our sun is still shining. They enjoyed their day, but are now in darkness; we enjoy the day now, but the night will overtake us soon. Thus the time of mercy and the time of vengeance follow each other along the generations of men. Behold, now is our accepted time; behold, now is our day of salvation. On us the light of love is shining; but the Sun that sheds it will soon set on us, to rise on those that come after us. If we turn a deaf ear to the Saviour’s cry until his day is done, when the night cometh that cry will never again be heard. Our place is like Lot’s, when, hurried by the angel’s hand, he was fleeing to the mountain, hearing already the flames of judgment crackling behind him on the plain. It is not a mixture of mercy and anger that we must meet, and pass through. The God wath whom we have to do has not for us just as much tenderness as will suffice to make his anorer tolerable, and just as much anger as will suffice to take all the enjoyment out of his mercy. The testimony of Christ when he came to reveal the Father is not Yea, yea, and Nay, nay. His mercy in Christ is free, full, infinite, with no admixture of vengeance in it: his vengeance for all on whom it falls is omnipotent and enduring. There Is nozv no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; and there will be tJieii no favour for them who are not. Day is very bright, and night is very gloomy; life is very lively, and death is very dead. Each is perfect according to its kind; each stands alone and separate from the other. Both are very sure — sure as the day and the night. One thing at a time for every sinner of the human race, and no commingling or confusion of the two. While Jesus presents himself to us according to the Scriptures, as he did to the congregation at Nazareth, it is the acceptable year of the Lord; when he withdraws himself, or puts us out of his sight, it is the day of vengeance. The absence of the sun is night; no other operation is necessary to bring it on. When a soul, or a world, has no longer a Saviour within reach, then and thereby the day of vengeance has fully come.

In the bold and sublime imagery of Ezekiel, the man clothed with linen, which had a writer’s ink-horn by his side, represents our merciful High Priest and Mediator. He enters and goes through Jerusalem first alone, the men with the destroying weapons in their hands being meanwhile kept standing at a distance as onlookers. The messenger of mercy goes through the city, and sets “a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye in after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity,” &c. (Ezek. ix. 4, 5.) Ah! God has said, “Vengeance is mine;” and here he has sent it to execute his purpose. As long as the linenclothed man was walking about Jerusalem, inviting its multitudes and marking his own, it was the acceptable year of the Lord; but on his withdrawal, without hesitation and without interval, the day of vengeance came on. Christ is the sun of our firmament: in his presence there is no darkness, in his absence there is no light.

Let no man fondly imagine that vengeance will not come because Christ did not on this occasion proclaim it He came to preach mercy: mercy, if he had not brought it, would not have come. But vengeance! — when Christ departs, vengeance is. His coming is mercy; his going, wrath. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink” (John vii. 37). Here is love, and love only, preached by Jesus. But is there no vengeance because he did not then and there declare it y Ah! wherefore that cry y Why should he, who is the well-beloved of the Father, and the heir of all things, cry as if his heart were breaking while he published peace.’’ Because he knows that they who neglect this salvation cannot escape. It is because he knows the terrors of the Lord that he cries so vehemently to persuade men. The High Priest has come to the front while the armies of Israel halt on the bank of the overflowing Jordan. The High Priest has stepped into the water: the waters,^ as soon as they felt his touch, have stood up like a heap above, and fallen away to the salt sea below. As long as he stands in the middle of the river’s bed, a dry path lies open for the thousands of Israel to pass over. When he goes away, without any proclamation or flourish of trumpets, the flood silently, swiftly sweeps along its bed again, overwhelming every wretched straggler who allowed his opportunity to pass. After him, the slayers slay. Fallen angels, who never got a day of grace, and unbelieving men, who have neglected it, will be left without when the door is shut.

Those who confide in God’s mercy have good cause to cherish the remembrance of his terrible righteousness; for the Father’s love loses half its sweetness when the children begin to entertain the conception that he is incapable of anger. How shall I love and praise him for his tenderness if he has nothing else, and is nothing else .-*

“Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord.” When y When they had experienced for themselves his redeeming love, and seen his vengeance surging over the path that they had lately trodden. If the fleeing Hebrews and the pursuing Egyptians had both passed through the sea with equal safety, no hymn of praise to God would have awakened that day the echoes of the wilderness. Mercy would not be sweet, would not be mercy, if vengeance did not follow in its wake. Mercy is tasteless as the white of an ^gg until it is salted with the fire of righteousness. With this fire Christ our sacrifice was salted when he bore transgression and made an end of sin.

If you were a feeble fugitive running for your life. r//£ ACCEPTABLE YEAR.

■hile an enemy — dreaded wild beast, or more dreaded man — in close pursuit, was gaining on your steps, what would you best like to see stretching athwart the plain before you? A high frowning wall? No. What, then? An open door. But an open door cannot be unless there is a frowning wall. A wall, with a door in it open: this, and this only, is salvation to the trembling fugitive.

All things in God’s covenant and in his providence work together for good to his people. His anger apprehended, conspires with other forces to make me hide in his love; and the love in which I hide tastes more sweetly when I hear the echoes of a vengeance that is past, still grumbling through the distant sky. “I will sing of mercy and of judgment,” said one who well understood both. But if there were no judgment, there would be no song about mercy; there would be no mercy to sing about.

The time of acceptance is called a “year;” the time of vengeance, a “day.” The door may stand long open, but it does not take a long time to shut it. Alas! the experience of living men is all on one side; and we are slow to learn, where we have no experience to guide us. We have for many years seen the door open: it has never yet been shut in our face, and we scarcely believe, with a real, efTective belief, that it will ever be shut. If it shuts on us, and shuts us out, we shall then know what shutting the door means. But the lesson will be learned too late. To teach this difficult but necessary lesson, and to teach it in time, the Lord for once partially withdrew the veil, and revealed a glimpse of the unseen world in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. When the rich man lifted up his eyes in torment, he at last believed in the shutting of the door — believed and trembled. I think, if some who now carelessly count that to-morrow shall be as this day, had been with me in some of the steps of my experience as a minister, they would have gotten the needful lesson burned into their minds as if branded in by a hot iron. The eager request for more days that I have heard, uttered in broken fragments, by husky groans, when the breath of life was failing — more days to remedy the error of a lost life — uttered in an agony of earnestness, yet uttered in vain, might teach us as effectually to occupy the present as if one should rise from the dead to undertake the task.

“What thou doest, do quickly,” said Jesus to the betrayer. The same word he speaks to the truster — “quickly!” If any one should still cling to the old fond expectation — Jesus will not be so hard-hearted as to shut the door; I answer, Jesus will not be so hard-hearted as to leave it open. He is pledged to his own to shut them in — pledged to admit nothing that defileth. If there were no vengeance on those who are without, there could be no love to those who are within.