Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

his law, and which he has declared shall overtake the transgressor, unless an adequate atonement be provided. By such an atonement is intended one that will sustain the authority of law, and "magnify and make it honorable," in the view of an intelligent and moral universe; or, in other words, one that will answer the same end as the infliction upon the guilty, of the penalty threatened. An atonement of this character the sinner cannot make. His repentance alone will not suffice; for that has no efficacy to sustain law, and to deter others from the commission of iniquity. A government that should proclaim its law demanding perfect obedience, with repentance merely, affixed as the penalty of transgression, would betray a weakness sufficient to excite, and justly too, the contempt and derision of its subjects. Indeed, it would come but little short of inviting them to rebellion. The human government that should do this, would not be tolerated; for it would virtually say to the thief, the murderer, and to every villain, "If you violate the law you shall-repent." But where is the criminal that would not pour out floods of penitential tears, if, on terms so easy, he could escape the prison and the gallows? And who would be deterred from the perpetration of crime by simply witnessing the repentance of another, or by the assurance that he must experience the same if found guilty?

Now, as the principles of justice, not to say common sense, are every where the same, what has been stated as true of human government, must, in a higher and stricter sense, be true of the divine government. That, certainly, is not less perfect than the human in its structure and mode of administration.

Moreover, while the transgressor cannot make an adequate atonement by his repentance alone, he cannot do so by future obedience, or by works of supererogation. Such works are, in the nature of the case, impossible. No one can do more than the law requires at a given time, so that what is thus done may be set against past deficiencies. For the law demands, from the first moment of his accountable existence, the very last amount of service which his powers are capable of rendering. Its ever present demand is, "All thy heart." This is the utmost that a perfect being can render; and this actually rendered through a future existence, can only meet the demands of law, and therefore has nothing in it by which to compensate for past delinquencies. Besides, it is not the past alone that needs an atonement. The same is required for the repeated transgressions, and the continued imperfections, of the best efforts, that mark every step of a course through this world, and stand forth to view as the sad monuments of human weakness, and the necessity of God's gracious assistance. In confirmation of this view of the subject, we have the express declaration of the Scriptures, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified."

Yet the sinner is not left, in this, his utmost extremity, to perish without an effort made in his behalf. Exposed to the fearful penalty of the violated law, and without the means of deliverance within himself, the grace of God interposes and proclaims in his ears the glad tidings,-" God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Not only in these general terms, is it made known to the transgressor that salvation is by the grace of God through his Son; but, more specifically, that it is through the death of that Son whose blood was shed as an atoning sacrifice for sin. That Son himself declared that he came to give his life a ransom for many, and that his blood would be shed for many, for the remission of sins. The great Apostle taught, not only that Christ came to instruct and to furnish a perfect example, but that "he died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." And in "the new song" heard by another apostle amid the visions of Patmos, the heavenly choir sing, "Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood."

Thus the guilty soul is pointed to the death of Christ as the means, and the only effectual means of his salvation, and as furnished by the grace of God. This is true without reference to the number of his sins. It avails nothing to plead that they are few and trivial. Could it ever be shown that the doctrine, so often questioned and spurned, of man's total alienation from God, "by wicked works," is utterly without foundation in Scripture or human experience, still the admission of any guilt, of one act of rebellion, one step in company with the rebellious, and within the domains of sin, places the soul forever beyond the possibility of salvation by the deeds of the law, and creates the necessity for the provisions of Christ's atonement.

Were the sinner, therefore, to need and to receive no further aid, but of himself alone exercising repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, his salvation would be by grace; and he would have occasion to join with those who sing, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood." Yet were God to cease his gracious interpositions at this stage in the work of redemption, the guilty soul would still be lost. The atoning sacrifice of the Redeemer may, indeed, open the way for the removal of the legal barrier to his admission into heaven, but another, and of a moral nature yet remains. It is not enough that the burden of his guilt may be borne away by another and a more powerful arm than his own; it is not enough that the purchased inheritance is placed full before him, and that he is invited and urged with the most earnest entreaty to its acceptance; the sinner must have within himself a moral fitness, and a disposition to enter upon its possession and enjoyment. We are thus brought to consider,

III. The aids of the Holy Spirit.

These must be imparted to the sinner before he will arise to a new and a spiritual life; and they must be imparted that he may be upheld and guided in all the duties and circumstances of that

life.

1. He must be born of the Spirit.

On the necessity of a change in the purposes and affections, or, in other words, the heart of the sinner, before he can be admitted into the kingdom of Heaven, the Scriptures are clear and emphatic. This is evident from numerous declarations like the following: "Ye must be born again;" "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." The change required is set forth under various figures, and in various forms of expression, as "a new birth," " a new creation," "a resurrection from the dead," " the putting off the old man, and the putting on the new," and "the passing away of old things, and all things becoming new." The Scriptures teach that the necessity of this change is based on the general and total apostasy of the human race from God. The fact of such an apostasy they clearly establish in these and similar declarations; - " All have sinned;" "All have gone out of the way;" "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" "The carnal mind is enmity against God."

While insisting however, on the necessity of the change in question, before the sinner can be admitted into Heaven, the Scriptures assure him that it is demanded by his own best interests, as well as by the requirement of God; because such is the nature of Heaven that, admitted there without this change, he would find it, for him, no place of happiness.

That the requirement of such a change is reasonable, cannot fail to be apparent upon a moment's reflection. Who is not conscious that no king could consistently bestow upon his revolted and rebellious subjects his favor and the privileges of his kingdom until a change had taken place in their feelings towards him, and they had returned to their allegiance? And who does not know that to be perfectly happy, he must have feelings in unison with the place, the employments, and the companionship about him? Marvel not, then, that "ye must be born again!"

But the point more especially to be insisted on in this connection is, that this change must be produced by the agency of the Holy Spirit. The necessity of this agency, the Scriptures clearly exhibit. They affirm that, "Except a man be born of water and of the SPIRIT, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." This necessity of the Spirit's agency they also teach as resting on the moral certainty that sinful men will not exercise "repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," by their own unaided efforts. They represent men as the voluntary "servants of iniquity unto iniquity," as fast bound in the chains which their own hands have wrought, and will not unloose. The Scriptures abound in evidence that although the Son of God has done so much; although he became a servant that the guilty, the bondmen of sin, might "reign kings and priests unto God," and suffered and died to atone for their sins; although he calls from amid the agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary, -"Look unto me and be ye saved ;-I am the way-whosoever will, let him come, and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out;" and although he throws open wide the gates of the celestial city, and points to the "many mansions," and to "the Marriage Supper of the Lamb," and bids them, "Come, for all things are now ready," they all, with one consent, make excuse, and will not come. ward they rush in the "broad way" to ruin, while the heavens And onare gathering blackness, and seem ready to pour the billows of wrath, and thunder indignation along their endless course! And the Christian minister might well give back his commission, in despair of success, did he not see painted, as a bow of hope, on those heavens, the "Purpose" of God to renew, and sanctify, and save by the influence of his Spirit as many of the perishing as can be thus saved, consistently with the best interests kingdom. For there is not the slightest evidence in the Scripof his moral tures, or in the history of the church, or in that of individual Christians, to warrant the conclusion that a single sinner ever became, or ever would become, a arts of moral suasion, by all the efforts of human wisdom, without " penitent believer," by all the the aid and influences of the Holy Spirit. In vain, without these, may a Paul plant, and an Apollos water. But the opposite conclusion is established, not only by those passages already cited to prove the necessity of the Spirit's influence, but by those addressed to Christians, and those descriptive of their character, as persons "born of the Spirit;" and, also, by the uniform and united testimony borne to this very point, by those whose lives correspond, in any good degree to the Scriptural standard of Christian character. They declare that, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." The language of each is,

"Grace taught my roving feet
To tread the heavenly road;"

and, with an emphasis, he exclaims, "By the grace of God I am

what I am."

But the salvation of the sinner is not secured even with this measure of grace. For,

2. He must receive the upholding and guiding influence of the Spirit through life.

Though sought by grace when an alien and a wanderer from God, justified in Christ for past guilt, and set as a way Zionward, the believer, left to his own strength in the moral pilgrim on his wilderness through which he is to pass, and exposed to the dangers that meet him at every step, would never reach the "Promised Land," and the city of the living God. Evidence of this is furnished by the Scriptures, and by Christian experience. In the former, Christians are represented, not only as those "whose

path shineth more and more to the perfect day," and who will be finally victorious over sin, but as those who are liable to fall and perish, and who will at last " come off conquerors only through the upholding and guiding influences of the Holy Spirit. They are addressed as those "who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." They are spoken of as those who are led by the Spirit; "For as many as (implying that all others are not) are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." They are exhorted, also, to walk in the Spirit, - " If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." The experience of Christians, in all ages, has taught them their dependence upon the Spirit. The prayer of every devout heart has been, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me; uphold me with thy free Spirit." Indeed, not to dwell at length upon this point, it may be safely affirmed that none who read attentively the Word of God, can fail to see that,

"Saints by the power of God are kept
Till his salvation come."

In this discourse, the aim has not been so much to establish, by full and formal proof, the several points considered, as, assuming, to some extent at least, their truth as individual propositions, to show that in their combination, they constitute a scheme of salvation that has grace in its conception, grace in every step of its execution, and grace in its consummation. And by grace, is intended more than mere goodness. Grace is unmerited favor, and differs from goodness, inasmuch as it always implies guilt in its recipient. Goodness gave man existence, and placed him amid all things pronounced by their Maker "very good." Grace first appeared when man was spared a moment after his first transgression. It was as the dawning of a day of hope upon a fallen and benighted world. When the "Sun of righteousness arose with healing in his wings," that dawn increased to perfect day. When the Holy Spirit was given that this Sun might not rise in vain, that day of hope brightened into eternal radiance.

In conclusion, and in connection with the subject to which attention has been directed, we are naturally led to remark in respect to the glory which the scheme of salvation by grace is so eminently fitted to reflect upon the character of its Divine Author; and in respect to the gratitude and praise which He should and will receive from the redeemed,

1. The glory which it reflects upon its Author.

The glory of God is manifest in all his works, and in every aspect of his character of which the mind can form a conception. We conceive of him as a Being who, not only "weigheth the mountains in a balance, and taketh up the isles as a very little thing," and who created from nothing the world on which we dwell, and all things therein, but as the Being who spake the word, and there sprung into existence that vast assemblage of resplendent

« AnteriorContinuar »