EXTRACTS
That is the first word the Lord Jesus said in His preaching according to Mark. The Lord stands up and says, “The time is fulfilled ... repent and believe in the glad tidings”. It is not simply believe it, but believe in it; that is, take it on, and search it out, and see how much there is in it. If you believe in it, you will find that you love the truth more and more. A lover of truth is a person who looks into the great gospel epistle, Romans; it is the truth set out in the most orderly way to meet the conscience and heart of a repentant sinner, and every page of it induces love of the truth.
You say, That is exactly what I want, that fits me, and I love it. The gospel implies the truth about myself, and the truth about God. And what is the truth about myself? Romans points out in a most convincing way the truth about man. The first chapter is the human race—the whole human race is under review, and the chapter shows, too, what it was from the outset. The second chapter is the Greek and the Jew, and the third chapter is that all are brought in guilty before God. Guilty! It is like a court; God being infinitely fair, it says in the psalm, “Jehovah looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God”, and He did not find any, so that all are brought in guilty.
Do you love the truth? If you are an honest man or woman you do. We accept it as the divine judgment about ourselves, and we say we are utterly hopeless without redemption, and so God introduces redemption, and how beautiful it is in the end of chapter 3. He says the righteousness of God is revealed on the principle of faith, and he speaks of “the redemption which is in Christ Jesus ... that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”, Romans 3: 24–26. Do you not love that truth? Is there anyone here that does not love the truth? The day is shortly coming when men will believe a lie; a lie will be sent and they will believe it. It is a question of the love of the truth now, and I appeal to you as to the truth. And so these Ninevites all acknowledged the truth; the sackcloth was there and they all wore it; that is the garment to wear in drawing near to God. It is the garment that faith loves, it is repentance towards God; you hold nothing back.
J. Taylor (Vol. 99, pp.273, 274)
In a word, then, His humanity was perfect, all subject to God, all in immediate answer to His will, and the expression of it, and so necessarily in harmony. The hand that struck the chord found all in tune—all answered to the mind of Him whose thoughts of grace and holiness, of goodness, yet of judgment of evil, whose fulness of blessing in goodness were sounds of sweetness to every weary ear, and found in Christ their only expression. Every element, every faculty in His humanity, responded to the impulse which the divine will gave to it, and then ceased in a tranquillity in which self had no place. Such was Christ in human nature. While firm where need demanded, meekness was what essentially characterised Him as to contrast with others, because He was in the presence of God, His God, and all that in the midst of evil. His voice was not heard in the street, for joy can break forth in louder strains when all shall echo, “Praise his name, his glory”.
J. N. Darby (‘Synopsis’ Vol. 1, p.118)
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