The Past Tense

‘‘Who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world....

“But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins” — Eph, ii. 1-5.

THE PAST TENSE
“In Time Past”

rpHE devout study of the scheme of Redemption has brought believers, in all ages, to two great conclusions — (l) the unspeakable sinfulness of man, and (2) the unutterable grace of God. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” — that is the one side. “How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” — that is the other side. These contributions to theological science are like the two mites which the widow cast into the treasury, which were “all she had, even all her living.” Looking at the past, it suggests, first, man’s condition, and secondly, God’s provision; the latter including the preparation for, and the application of. Redemption.

As in a critical case of illness and recovery, three things naturally claim attention — ( 1 ) the malignant character of the disease of Sin; (2) the discovery of the remedy in Salvation; and (3) the way in which man’s disease and the remedy are practically brought together in the wisdom and grace of God. Some matters should have special mention, either because some misconception prevails regarding them, or because they need special emphasis.

I. Man’s Past Condition.

This is divinely described as one in which he was “dead in sins” What does ‘ dead in sins ’ mean? Death is associated mainly with two things, both incident to the departure or decay of vitality: the first, utter incapacity for motion; and the second, utter insensibility to impression. The dead man is unable to move, or even to feel. Spiritual death likewise involves inability to walk with God, and insensibility even to His love. The sinner is incapable of doing what is right, and insensible alike to the threatenings and invitations, the justice and the grace of God.

The Carnal Mind But this does not forfeit responsibility, for the inability and insensibility are moral in character. There lies, beneath them, moral estrangement, hostility, enmity. Human systems of teaching often fail to give proper emphasis and proper prominence to this truth. Rom. viii. 6, 7 gives the key to the whole situation: “For to be carnally minded is death” — not is fatal, or brings death, but is death — “but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind (not is hostile, but) is enmity against God.” Such ‘ death ’ implies, not forfeits, responsibility. If to be carnally minded is death, and to be carnally minded is also enmity, death is enmity, and enmity is death. A dead man cannot hate or rebel, but a dead sinner can. It is vain, therefore, to deny responsibility; the difficulty lies in the ‘ carnal mind,’ which is enmity as well as death.

A flood of light is thrown on this subject when we notice that these two words are thus both equivalents for ‘ the carnal mind,’ “which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”; that is, it constitutes the very essence of lawlessness, so that “they that are in the flesh cannot - please God.”

Hence come some moral paradoxes and their reconciliation. We read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart; and that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Both statements are true: it was hardened by God’s act and by his own. In many like passages of Scripture God’s judicial act stands over-against man’s voluntary act. “Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed” (Acts xxviii. 26, 27). Here, again, is God judicially inflicting blindness; and, on the other hand, men closing their own eyes. These two aspects of one awful truth are never far separated in the Word of God, often found side by side through the entire Book.

As to the origin of evil, we know very little about it. It is a great mystery. There is, however, doubt whether liability to sin is not a necessary complement and condition of independence, intelligence, and free agency; it may be a necessary requisite of a voluntary moral being that his will shall be left at liberty to choose the right or the wrong. Certain it is that, of all created beings of which

The Fact of Sin we have knowledge, some have not kept their first estate of obedience and innocence, which at least shows that they were created free agents. We have to do with facts rather than philosophy, and the awful fact is universal sin — enmity to God in the carnal heart, insensibility to His love. While we stumble at such mysteries as the Trinity, there is in the nature and being of God no enigma greater than is found in the carnal heart of man — how a sinner, with death before him, with a full and free offer of salvation needing only to be accepted, will so persist in going on in a course of iniquity, that even the grace of God, instead of softening, only hardens him; how not only threatenings but invitations repel; and how sin goes on deepening in guilt and degradation, from one step of temptation, defeat, and disaster to another, until there is already a foretaste of hell in the present life — this is an inscrutable moral mystery. These are, however, awfil facts, which soon come to be real in the actual career of the sinner; and with such facts we have to deal. The fact of sin being conceded, the question is how to get rid of it, whether or not we know how to account for it.

A double problem presented itself before

Omniscience and Love, with regard to humanity. AVe are told (Eph. ii. 2-6), “Ye were dead in trespasses and sins”; and it is added, “in time past ye walked in them” — walking represents a voluntary motion; and further on, “ye were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

1. There is then both an actuality of sin, and a certain heredity of evil. We are born with a corrupt nature and tendencies; and as we develop in life, this innate disposition to elevate the sinful and selfish will above the holy and blessed will of God manifests itself in action.

2. Then there is the actuality of sin. We sin, choose to sin — we walk in evil ways. The first part of the problem of Redemption was what to do with actual sins, and the second was what to do with the inheritance of a sinful nature. In one conspicuous place this double problem is definitely treated — the fifth chapter of Romans.

For instance (Rom. v. 14), “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses” — that is, from the Creation to the giving of the Law — “even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” Notice here — (1) That death, the penalty for sin, reigned over multitudes

The Reign op Death and Life 19

that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. (2) That Adam is the figure of the Coming One. What has that typical relation to the coming Christ to do with this fact that death reisned even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression?

Look at an infant child. A few weeks or months or years pass. That child has not as yet performed any conscious responsible act. But disease and death seize upon it. It has not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, i.e. voluntarily, yet it suffers and dies. Death reigns over the child — the same penalty as over the actual sinner, even though there has been no voluntary sin.

We all feel that God in justice and love could not let such a child go to hell; yet how can that infant child go to heaven, with a sinful, corrupt nature, which would equally repel God, and be repelled by Him! Adam was the figure of the Coming One, in this respect, that, as death reigned upon thousands who had not sinned after the similitude of his transgression, so life reigns over thousands who have not believed after the similitude of his faith. If this be a true inference, then the work of the Lord Jesus Christ absolutely

embraces every child of Adam so far as only the guilt and inheritance of Adam’s transgression is concerned. But when voluntary sin has been committed by a child of Adam, voluntary faith must enter into Salvation. In so far, then, as all died only in Adam, all are made alive in Christ; but in so far as any human being sins for himself, he must believe for himself.

This part of Christ’s redeeming work is of great value, for millions who died before moral accountability are to-day in the presence of God, because Christ died for them, and by His blood cleansed their sinful nature.

This great problem our Lord God solved in infinite wisdom and love, by appointing One, the Second Man, the Last Adam, to be like Adam the Representative Head of the whole race. So He is the Propitiation not for our sins only, but for the whole world, though not in the same sense that He is the Propitiation for our sins. How wonderful that God should thus have made provision for that generic fall of the whole race in Adam, by the atoning work of Christ; and then for the specific fall of each voluntary transgressor, l)y faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Law of Heredity Never complain of the Law of Heredity, notwithstanding that by it you inherit a fallen nature from Adam, as though that were all that you inherit.

Combe, though himself an infidel, vindicates the law of heredity in his book on The Constitution of Man. He says, in substance, that no man has reason to complain against nature’s organic law, because it was designed as a channel for good, though human perversity has turned into it a current of evil.

God made the organic law of connection between parent and child for transmission of blessing: man’s sin made it to convey cursing. While we inherit tendencies to evil, a thousand good results also come to us through the same channel. Whatever excellence or virtue is in the father, transmits at least higher aptitudes to the son. To annul the Law of Heredity would therefore prevent all beneficent as well as disastrous influences of parent upon offspring. We have no cause to complain of God’s Law of Heredity; nor that, in accordance therewith, the family rather than the individual is, both in good and evil results, the unit in Scripture.

II. God’s Pkovision.

Turn now to God’s provision for man’s sinful and lost condition. “By grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” God made provision not only for sins, but for sin. Reflect a moment upon the doctrine of Justiflcation (Rom. iii. 9-31). This grand passage of Scripture is the only one in which the whole truth is presented, and a wonderful disclosure it is. Paul shows that (1) condemnation is universal, over both Jew and Gentile, so that there is no hope of self-justification, for how can any condemned transgressor justify himself? Then he shows (2) that by the Law can no flesh be justified, for Law only brings the consciousness of transgression. (3) Further (ver. 21), that there is revealed a righteousness apart from the Law; (4) (ver. 22) that this righteousness is by faith in Jesus Christ — offered to all and actually put on, as a garment, by all believers; (5) (ver. 24) that Justification is presented as free — all of His grace, through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus; (6) (ver. 25) that it is through the Blood, the basis of

Justification by Faith propitiation, which includes the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. (7) Last of all, that this Justification does not complicate or implicate God with evil. He remains righteous, while imparting righteousness to the believer. Is not that a wonderful plan of salvation?

The substitution of an innocent Victim for the sinner is the basis of Justification by Faith. Some say, “Let us hear no more of the blood!” But if you take away the blood, you take away the foundation of all else. The crimson of man’s sin and the crimson of atoning blood colour and characterise every page of the Bible.

One subject we cannot avoid here, though it is very difficult, perplexing, and mysterious — the subject of Election. “For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.... Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children” (Eph. i. 4, 5).

No doubt Election is taught in Scripture. Three words are used in Ephesians — “chosen,” “predestinated,” “before-ordained.” Chosen refers to

the eternal past; Predestination to the eternal future, looking to the final destiny; Foreordination links these together, and shows the co-ordination of God’s will and man’s will in the actual process of Redemption. God’s plan for my life, and the life as actually lived, exactly match each other (chap. ii. 10). The danger is of perverting Election into Fatalism, which destroys the freedom of man’s choice; and, with that, man’s accountability and responsibility.

We should deal carefully with anything taught in the Word of God, accepting the mystery where it is inexplicable. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” It would be remarkable if, in this Book, there were no thoughts above our own.

This doctrine of Election is rather for the believer than for the unbeliever, and what was a stumbling-stone to the latter often becomes a stepping-stone to the former. Election, taught in the Word, must be consistent both with the sovereign will of God and the freedom of man; and if we cannot reconcile these two, it is because the subject is so infinitely lifted up above us.

Man is free. There are in your heart and mine seven thunders that utter their voices, such as

God’s Appeal to Choice “I am,” “I think,” “I reason,” “I love,” “I judge,” “I choose,” “I act.” And all these voices unite in affirming “I am responsible.” Moreover, God Himself directly appeals to choice: He says, “Why will ye die?” (Ezek. xviii. 31).

As the Apocalypse closes, we read: “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Thus the last great invitation in God’s Book is an appeal to the will. But — most startling of all — in Christ’s lament over Jerusalem; “How often would I have gathered thy children, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” The yearning of God and the stubborn refusal of man are here put in clear antagonism.

Often, in the same Scripture, both sides are presented. In John iii. 1-10, it would seem that man has nothing to do but wait for regeneration. But, in the latter half of that chapter, just as much emphasis is laid on the will of man as previously on the sovereign act of God.

Luke XV. contains one Parable in three parts. The first represents the Shepherd seeking the lost sheep “until He find it” — and then He carries it back.

Again, the woman searches till she finds her lost

piece of silver, which does nothing but lie there till found and restored to its place on her necklace.

Thus far one might judge that all man has to do is passively to wait for God to come after him. But in the latter part of the parable we have the complementary truth, and from this part, if alone, it might be inferred that the sinner has everything to do, and God nothing; but, putting the two together, we get the whole truth. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do.” So far from God’s working being a reason for not working, it is the very opposite. We are to work out, because God works in.

The experience of saints vindicates the doctrine of Election. Saul of Tarsus came to a knowledge of God only when met in the way by the risen Lord Jesus when driving forward in a mad career of persecution: what wonder he exalts electing grace, for where would he have been but for that grace! Tens of thousands of sinners evidently come to a knowledge of God only by the sovereign grace that seeks them out, and saves them. Most remarkable, in the history of missions, is the way in which God manifests His electing grace, in

Justification and Predestination 27

choosing, equipping, and sending forth chosen workers.

As to the practical aspect of Election, a distinguished preacher has appropriately said, that from a practical point of view “the elect are whosoever will, and the non-elect are whosoever won’t.” Dr. Hodge used to say to his students: “All of us Calvinists when we preach, preach like Arminians, for we urge men to choose Christ; but when even Arminians pray, they pray like Calvinists, for they dwell on the wonders of the grace that bought and sought them.”

The truths of Redemption reach their climax in the lofty summits of Justification and Predestination. We imagine many a believer in perplexity over them, and appreciate such perplexities, having been harassed by them ourselves. Such doctrines being among the high things of God, it is equally hard to bring them down to the level of men, or to bring men ^ip to their level. They remind us of the Domes of the Yosemite: if a few daring adventurers scale their precipitous sides, most of us can only look up, with awe, at their sublime loftiness.

Yet there may be a practical side, from which the ascent is gradual and easy; and from which

28 The Past Tense

these grand doctrines are seen to be but corresponding halves of one greater original truth, as those Domes themselves appear to have been once united, but cleft asunder.

In hope to help, at least, to make these mysterious teachings both apprehensible and useful, we venture to take these truths as doctrines which may be put in simpler forms.

These present examples of the two main forms of difficulty which face us in Bible study: first, what it is hard for the mind to grasj); and secondly, what it is hard for the natural heart to receive. Of the first. Justification is an example; of the second. Predestination. To understand our acceptance with God on the basis of an imputed righteousness is not easy, because of the narrow limits of the mind; but to reconeile God’s electing decrees with human freedom of choice and action, is to confront not only the feebleness of the understanding, but the pride and perverseness of the heart.

How, then, shall we evade the difficulty
without avoiding the doctrines?

We may use simpler forms of words. “Justification” and “Predestination” may do for

Simpler Definitions Church Catechisms and theological treatises; but, for the average believer, the more familiar household words are needed, that they may not first of all stumble over technical terms. In the Gosjjels, in the discourses of our Saviour, we look in vain for such words as Justification, Sanctification, Predestination, Election. They are reserved for the Epistles, because the words of Jesus were meant to be our model for teaching children; for feeding babes that, having no teeth to chew with, need the pure milh of the Word, that does not demand mastication; while the Epistles were for maturer believers, who have their cutters and grinders, and have both need of, and power to digest, strong meat.

We may also substitute things for names. In the Gospels are found all the truths found in the Epistles; but in the germ only. Christ taught all these mysterious sublime doctrines, not by names, hut by things! Instead of talking of ‘justification through imputed righteousness,’ He told the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who renounced a father’s love and care, went from home, spent all, wasting his substance in the worst sins, and came home with nothing left but rags and

wretchedness; and yet, on that poor beggar, the father’s love and grace put a rohe, shoes, and even a ring. Any child can understand that; and yet here is imputed righteousness in the rohe, the alacrity of holy obedience in the shoes, and the adoption of a son and heir in the ring! (Compare the Parable of the Wedding Garment.) So, while Jesus never spoke of ‘ election ’ or ‘ predestination,’ He gives us the Parable of the Sheepfold, of which He is the Door, and of the flock, of which He is the Shepherd; and, because one of these does not put the whole truth before us. He gives us the two half-truths joined in one double parable (John x.). How exquisitely does the doctrine of electing grace wind about the mind and heart, all unconsciously, as we study this double parable! How do I get to heaven? Not through any door I make for myself; not by climbing into it over the wall by my good works, but through Him, the Door. All I have to do is to go in through an open way made for me. If that is not Election, what is? But this needs to be put more fully and forcefully. And so Jesus gives us a supplementary or complementary parable. “I am the good

Christ’s Object Lessons 31

Shepherd.” Then He expands the thought; As the good Shepherd, He gives His life for the sheep. He goes before them, calls them by name, leads them out and in; and so their safety is owing to His power and love, and all their movements are only because of His voice, which they follow! Here is predestination, vicarious sacrifice, prevenient grace, effectual calling, and holy obedience, and all traced hack to one source — the Redeemer’s love for us, which first awakened and constantly nourishes our love for Him!

This is teaching not by names, but by things, a method always most successful with children. Here lies the power of object lessons, blackboard lessons, visible forms of illustration. We turn the ears into eyes, and the eyes into ears. We make a double impression by sight and by sound. Instead of taxing immature intellectual faculties by abstruse mysteries, we do not even make any heavy draught on the imagination; the form of presentation is so familiar, so vivid, that it becomes almost visible; and so it was that our Lord, teaching not by names but by things, “revealed these things even unto babes!”

The substance of these grand truths must he got hold qfhj every believer before he can give them simple, practical form for others. Let him, like the cattle which chew the cud in order to give milk, master the doctrine, that he may know how to present the thing without the name.

Justification means “making just.” It is a legal term, and refers to man’s position before the law of God. He is not only a sinner, and so under condemnation; but has a sinful nature, which prompts him continually to new acts of sin, so that the more law he has the more light he has, and so the greater sin. As every man has sinned and come short of duty, the law has its grip upon him; and even if he could henceforth perfectly obey, there is need of something to bridge over his past sin. On any ground, therefore, there must be an atonement. If he conies before the law at all, without bearing its curse, some one else must bear his guilt, and he himself must bear before the law a merit not his own. He is bankrupt; another must pay his debt. He is naked; another must clothe him. He is a felon; another must be his surety. This is Justification — standing before God with my debt paid, my nakedness clothed.

Election and my guilt borne by another. Man’s gospel is, ^‘Do!” God’s gospel is, ‘‘Done!” Boasting is excluded. I have only to believe; this is my only work, the work of faith, which is my bond of union with the Justifier — to take Jesus as Saviour, to put on Christ, to accept the white robe of His perfect righteousness, which is “unto all and upon all that believe.”

Election is practically this; My salvation is due, first of all, to God’s choice of me, not to my choice of God. I do, indeed, choose Him, but because He first chose me. My love, my coming to Him, my yearning toward Him, are all to be traced to His love, His coming to me, His yearning toward me. Otherwise, salvation would hang on man and not on God, and would imply a merit on man’s part that would dispute the claims of grace.

The consistent view presented in the Word of God, throughout, is this: God has a plan, born in His own heart, borne out by His own providence and grace. And in our salvation, all from first to last is to be traced to Him. This plan is perfect and all - embracing. It takes in my repentance, faith, justification, sanctification, glorification. He begins the work without my knowledge and

co-operation; He carries it on with my knowledge and co-operation. I come to see His plan, to recognise its perfect beauty and benevolence; I, by faith, come into that plan, as a planet wheels into its predestined orbit; and begin in holy obedience to revolve about God, held in my place by the centripetal force of His grace and love, that alone could prevent the centrifugal force of my old sinful nature from making me again a wandering star.

When once brought within that plan by my own consent, all things work together for my good. There can be no confusion or collision with any other interest, for every other being has his orbit also, and it cannot cross mine. Even eccentric orbits only appear so, because the universal plan is not, from our limited point of view, clearly apprehended by us. Every part of the work done in me is linked to every other, and all are but parts of a work done for me by my Redeemer. As Leighton says: “Effectual calling is inseparably tied to this eternal foreknowledge or election on the one side, and to salvation on the other; these two links of the chain are up in heaven, in God’s own hand; but this middle one is

The Whole Plan, God’s let down to earth into the hearts of His children, and they, laying hold of it, have sure hold on the other two, for no power can sever them.”

Both predestination and justification are thus the two branches from one grand stock — God’s eternal plan of grace. In the work of our salvation, the first thought and the whole plan were His; His the first drawing, the first approach, the first calling; His the first loving, yearning, seeking: before I was even the subject, I was the object of divine grace. And before God made these first advances to me. He meant to; and as there was no new thought or intent in the unchangeable God, that previous purpose was an eternal one. So that, to admit, as all true disciples do, that justification is all of grace, and that God, in the whole work of saving souls, makes the first approach, is to be compelled logically to admit that from all eternity He purposed such gracious and unmerited advances to the sinner — which is Election!

In fact, true disciples, when they forget sectarian lines, often find themselves holding to, and standing on, common ground. Of this let the familiar story of Wesley and Simeon be our simple illustration in closing this part of our theme.

AN ARMINIAN AND A CALVINIST MAY AGREE.

The following conversation between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Simeon is related by Dr. Dealtry in his sermon on the occasion of the death of the latter:

“Pray, sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?”

“Yes,” said the veteran Wesley, “I do indeed.” “And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything that you can do, and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?”

“Yes, solely through Christ.”

“But, sir, supposing you were first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?”

“No; I must be saved by Christ from first to last.”

“Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?”

“No.”

“No Hope but in Him”

“What, then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?”

“Yes, altogether.”

“And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?”

“Yes, I have no hope but in Him.”

“Then, sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final ‘perseverance; it is, in substance, all that I hold, and as I hold it.”

The Working out of the Plan of
Redemption.

The application of the plan of redemption is as wonderful, in its way, as the plan itself; and corresponds to the compounding and applying of the remedies as discovered and prescribed by the physician. Much study and experience must precede such actual application of a sovereign remedy to the critical case of the patient. And, somewhat so, after God had from

Eternity formed in His own mind the perfect plan of human salvation and Redemption, this plan had to be put into practical operation, and brought to practical maturity in actual history. Several important elements or particulars are embraced in this process: —

I. First, THE GREAT MeSSIANIC PROMISE (Gen. iii. 15), the substance of which was that there should be born, of the woman, a Seed that should come into conflict with the serpent, and destroy him by a crushing blow upon his head, while, at the same time, he was permitted to wound the heel of his Victor. This initial promise, which finds indefinite expansion in subsequent Messianic prophecy, was the great primary prophecy and promise of a saving Mediator.

This promise must be kept alive in the minds and hearts of a sinful race, and God used four great methods to ensure this result:

1. Tradition. — When, as yet, there were no written documents, oral tradition transmitted this representative promise from father to son, confirmed by every case of parental trust upon this divine assurance. The great age of the patriarchs enabled them by tradition to come into personal contact

The Promise op the Messiah with future centuries. There were but ten generations between Adam and Noah, and the extreme age to which Adam, for instance, attained enabled him to be the instructor of children and great-grandchildren to many generations.

Adam lived to see Lamech fifty-six years old, and to within one hundred and twenty-six years of Noah’s birth! Seth survived to within fourteen years of Noah; and Methuselah lived to the very year of the Flood. Adam could therefore teach Lamech, and Lamech, Noah; and thus there were only two steps in tradition, between Creation and the Flood!

2. Theophany, or divine manifestation in visible form. — Jehovah, from time to time, appeared in person to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other patriarchs. These theophanies mark another great stage in the transmission and development of the promise of redemption. Every theophany seems to have either expanded a previous promise or added something to it, or both, very notably in the case of Abraham. In all God’s recorded appearances to the father of the faithful, each new manifestation was accompanied by a new stage of revelation. Thus Tradition and

Tlieopliany served to supply the lack of recorded prophecy.

3. The great object-lesson of the Tahernacle marks a third stage, with its ritual, ceremonial, priesthood, vestments, and all that pertained to the sacrifices, fasts, and festivals. The description of this building, the only one that God ever designed (the Temple being but an enlarged and modified Tabernacle), fills more space in the Scriptures than any other single subject; in some cases occupying whole books. There must have been a divine reason in this, which is not far to seek. It was designed typically and pictorially to set forth the great leading truths of redemption, both as to the various aspects of the work of Christ, and of the believer’s experience. This, again, helped to supply the lack of documents, which slowly accumulated from the time of Moses to that of Malachi.

4. Historical and ‘prophetical records — the ‘ books,’ so called, of the Old Testament — gradually gathering together, until they formed a great body of teaching, in part predictive, and in part preceptive, but all having a relation more or less direct to the unfolding of redemption.

The Promise Fulfilled II. The first great stage in fulfilment followed. There were four or five hundred years of prophetic silence, between Malachi and Matthew. Then was reached in the advent of Christ the second great method by which the plan of redemption was to be expanded, hist07’ically, into its actual completeness. This was the personal coming of the pn’omised Seed of the woman, the first great stage in the fulfilment of this primitive promise; and, strangely enough. He was peculiarly, and in a unique sense, the woman’s Seed, born of the woman, but not begotten of the man. He was the God-Man — not God in man, nor man in God, but God and man mysteriously united, so that perfect humanity was inseparably wedded to perfect divinity. Four things, again, were peculiar to this new stage of development:

1. The words of Christ, who, as the last great prophet, was the full final mouthpiece for the declaration of the will of God (see Heb. i. 1, 2), and who “spake as never man spake,” even by the concession and confession of His enemies.

2. The works of Christ, such as man had never wrought — miraculous works covering the whole

range of miracles, all forms of human disease, and

even death itself; embracing the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and the dominant forces of the whole material creation — showing that the whole universe of mind and matter was obviously under His complete control.

3. The matchless life of Christ, absolutely fulfilling the righteousness of the law, vindicating the moral government of God, and leaving us an example that we should follow His steps — who did no sin, and in whose mouth no guile was found: a life so beautiful that it has never since even been approached by the best of human lives, but stands apart by an immeasurable distance.

4. His vicarious death on the cross, vindicating a broken law, and expiating human sin on the principle of representation and substitution. The death of Christ, in the Word of God, includes His resurrection, as the proof that His death was effective as the remedy for human sin.

III. The Holy Spirit the Interpreter. The next great step was the hestowment of the Holy Sppirit on the day of Pentecost. This was not only another great step, but it was a progress-Pentecost and the Church 43

ive step, needful to secure and crown all that had gone before. The advent of the Spirit was in effect the illumination and interpretation not only of all the records of prophecy, but of all the lessons of the Tabernacle. He confirmed all that was good, and corrected all that was false, in tradition, and interpreted the theophanies of the Old Testament, adding much additional light to all that had already been given, so that Pentecost became as the noonday in comparison to the dawn. It is the peculiarity of every great gift of God, that it includes all that has gone before, and adds something beside. So in the case of the Pentecostal Spirit; He was the Inspirer and Interpreter of the written Word, and He testified to and glorified the Christ.

IV. The fourth great method of developing the primitive promise was the organisation op the Church, and its historical conduct under the SUPERVISION OF THE SPIRIT, as outlined in the Acts of the Apostles. This was a very important step and stage in the development of the plan of redemption, for it supplied a body of experimental witnesses, who, having believed and trusted, and having received the forgiveness of sins, and having

known the sealing and sanctifying power of the blood, the truth, and the Spirit, became God’s living witnesses in the world and to the world, of the realities and possibilities of salvation. Thus it was proven that the plan was not a mere plan — a dream — vague, unsatisfactory, and ethereal — but something that could be reduced to actual, living practice, and prove itself to be all that God had promised.

Had not the Church decayed in piety, embracing errors of doctrine and of practice, and so resisting and grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching His light, this testimony might have continued in increasing power through all the subsequent ages. But though this form of human witness to God has suffered such degeneration, the grand divine testimony found in the Word, the Christ, and the Spirit, remains unimpaired and unimpeachable.

Unique Features of Christianity.

We now turn, in conclusion, to call attention to some of the unique features of the whole Christian system, which distinguish it not only as such, but differentiate it from all other so-called systems

Christianity Unique of religious faith. These unique features also are mainly four: The Gospel represents God as —

1. Seeking men.

2. Reconciling men.

3. Loving men.

4. Saving men.

That is to say, all the steps in the salvation are taken by God, first of all. The utmost that man could do was to respond to divine approaches. No other religion has ever conceived of God as taking the initial steps. Instead of God seeking man, man has been taught to seek God, often very vaguely and ineffectually striving to placate an offended Deity by various offerings, sacrifices, self-denials, pilgrimages, and penances.

1. The GosjJel alone represents God as seeking man, without any regard to man’s moral condition or spiritual alienation; and, in fact, as seeking man not when in his best condition, but when in his worst state of spiritual want and woe. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

2. God is represented as reconciling man to Himself, and it is noticeable that, although in many of our hymns, and prayers, and addresses we

refer to God as being reconciled, the Bible never makes this statement. It rather represents God as never having been alienated. The alienation has been solely on the side of man. There has been no change in the attitude of God — the same God of holiness, and righteousness, love, compassion; man wandering from Him; but God yearning over man in all his wanderings, as illustrated in the latter part of Luke xv. — the story of the ‘ Prodigal Son.’

This is a very important distinction, and derives its importance from the fact that it utterly delivers us from all thought of having to do anything to bring God into a favourable attitude toward us — a reconciled position. If He has never been alienated from man, then there is nothing for man to do but for him to turn toward God, and he will find God’s face already and always toward him.

3. God is represented as loving man. This is a new conception, not found in any heathen philosophy. Love is of two sorts — the love of complacence, which depends upon attractive qualities in the object; and the love of benevolence, which depends solely upon the

Salvation a Gift loving nature of him that loves, and has therefore no reference whatever to attractive qualities in the object, but is rather inspired to intenser activity by the determination to develop in the most unlovely that which shall prove to be lovable. God’s love to man is not in consequence of man’s virtues, but rather in spite of his vices, seeking to meet his awful destitution, and supply his desperate need. It is the love of One who, while He hates the sin, loves the sinner. This again is a wholly unique feature of the Christian system.

4. God is represented as saving man, not primarily with man’s co-operation, but solely by His own blessed activity and grace. This is not a salvation that man secures by anything that he does. It is a gift, and all he can do is to accept what is a gift freely offered by God to all, irrespectively of their deserts, and as freely offered to the worst as to the best.

These are the four great unique features of the Christian system, but others almost as unique are the natural and necessary outcome and concomitants of these. For instance, what is called by Isaiah “Abundant Pardon” — pardon so rich and free and

inexliaustibl6 in its patience, that it is never weary of forgiving, and which demands nothing on the part of the recipient but penitence. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. Iv. 7). It is a pardon that not only forgives, but cancels the debt and destroys even its record, so that the sins and iniquities forgiven are remembered no more.

There is included also justification without works, a new doctrine, unknown to any other system. This justification is more than pardon. It implies absolute reinstatement in the favour of God, as though one had never sinned; and the marvel is not only that this justification is without works, but it is forfeited by all attempts to obtain it on the ground of personal merit.

Sanctification Included.

Sanctification also is included, and again without works. It is dependent upon nothing that the sinner does. He must simply entrust himself to

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the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and be content to have God in him meet and overcome foes with which he is unable to cope.

Scarcely less wonderful is it that all these divine mysteries, so profound and so unspeakable, are yet in practical application so simple that they are not beyond the reach of the humblest little child. All that are capable of sinning, that have enough intellect, and intelligence, and will to be responsible for action, are equally capable of faith; so that, while the Bible is full of grandeur and ineffable sublimity, so that even the angels themselves vainly desire to look into and penetrate the mysteries of God, there are no mysteries in duty.

Salvation is thus put within the reach of every sinner. All this constrains us to exclaim, with the Apostle Paul: “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or, being His counsellor, hath taught Him?” “For of Him, and through Him,

and to Him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever” — “q/Him,” as a source; “through Him,” as a channel; “to Him,” as the final ocean into which all empties. God is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the whole method of

salvation. There is no room either for human works or for human glory, no disputing or dividing the honour with God, no room for boasting. We can only glorify the infinite grace that saves.