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HOW WE ARE BROUGHT TO GOD

The incoming of sin into the world brought distance between God and men, a distance that man could never remove or even bridge. Job felt that when he said, “There is not an umpire between us, who should lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9: 33), the distance was so great. Man has tried in various ways to make himself comfortable away from God, and that is the situation that has continued in the world to this day, men seek to make themselves as comfortable as they can without God, to live in circumstances where God is shut out. But it is not possible, man has a conscience. That is the one thing that man gained from the fall, I do not think he had it before, certainly not in this way, but the incoming of sin gave man a conscience that he was away from God. Before sin entered into the world, the relationships between God and Adam must have been quite normal, as between the Creator and the creature. But the incoming of sin left Adam with a conscious sense that there was distance between him and God, so he hid himself. He did not do that before. I suppose Adam must have enjoyed certain communications he had with God before the fall, because it says that God brought the animals to him, to see what he would call them, and Adam gave names to the animals, and God accepted what he did. But after the fall he sought to hide himself, he sought a way of making himself comfortable in the distance that sin had brought in.

Well if man, as I have said, could never bridge it, God measured it. He measured that that distance required a sacrifice. He measured the distance that could not be removed by any man, because all in Adam’s race were sinners. If that distance was to be removed to His satisfaction it required that He Himself must act as a Saviour God. Had He acted as a Judge, as He might well have done, seeing Adam’s almost indifference to Him, all would have been lost. God measured that distance, and these measurements showed that if the distance was to be removed it required that God must act from His own side; and He has acted in the Person of His Son. How beautiful are these words, “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust”. That is how God measured the distance. There was One who was just, a sinless, perfect, holy Man, who came in to remove that distance in the sacrifice of Himself, “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins”. They could not be His own. Peter says He was just.

It is not only Peter who says that, but it was fully testified in the pathway of Jesus, testified too by that thief on the cross, he said, “this man has done nothing amiss”, Luke 23: 41. I do not know that he knew Jesus much before that, but in those few hours that he saw Jesus on the cross he said, “this man has done nothing amiss”. Oh the concentration of what he saw in the holy Saviour, there suffering on the cross, taunted by sinners! He must have seen many men in varied circumstances, but in those few hours he saw there a Man who was just. The Roman governor says, “I find no fault whatever in him”, John 18: 38. Think of Jesus in Pilate’s judgment hall and the verdict is, “I find no fault whatever in him”. Oh how carefully He was examined! What an array of accusations was railed against Him; priests, lawyers, the nations, they were all there against Christ, all there telling forth their own sad hearts as to what they thought about Christ, and the answer was, “Away with this man ... Crucify, crucify him”, Luke 23: 18, 21. The centurion, who saw Christ on the cross, says, “Truly this man was Son of God”, Mark 15: 39. Oh whatever circumstances He was placed in, He is seen to be a Man of a different character, a Man who was able yea, more than that—a Man who was willing to measure and remove the distance that sin had brought in. The hymn-writer says,

Thou didst measure then sin’s distance

(Hymn 298).

Ah, friend, how deep was that measurement, a measurement that no other could measure, it went deeper than any other man could ever measure, “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust”. The judgment that we deserved was all meted upon the head of the Just One. Again the language makes it very plain that there was only one Just, the word is in the singular; ‘the unjust’ includes the whole of humanity, we are all before God ‘unjust’, but Christ stands out in His own uniqueness, the Just. He suffered for our sins, the sins of believers, oh what a sacrifice, what a price He paid! God in the counsels of His own love saw there was no other way that the distance could be removed, save that the Just One should bear the judgment that was due to the sinner. It involved for Him the cross, where He was taunted by men, crucified by wicked hands, despised by those He came to call. It involved for Him bearing all the hatred and the ignominy that men could pour upon Him. Think of the Saviour, One who had been among them for thirty-three and a half years, there on the cross, and what did men give Him? They gave Him a crown of thorns, they gave Him vinegar to drink. They cast lots for His garments, that is what men did, may I say in the hour of His need.

There He is, the Just, not a word of condemnation, but indeed a word of blessing to that thief beside Him who spoke so beautifully about Him; He says, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”, Luke 23: 43. Among the few recorded words that Jesus spoke on the cross were these, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. What fulness was in those words! In Acts 4: 26 it says that the kings of the earth and the rulers were there, gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ, and there is that cry, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”, from the Just One; the One who was able and willing to pay the price and to measure the distance that our sins had brought upon us. Blessed be His name that He has measured it to the full. He has once suffered for sins, never needing to do it again. The price has been paid once, He has once suffered for sins.

The Jews were not accustomed to that, their offerings were repeated year after year. Certain hardness crept into the very service that they were engaged in, but He has once suffered for sins. Why did it not need to be repeated? Why, if these offerings with the blood of the bullocks in Leviticus 16 had to be repeated year after year, did Jesus not have to suffer again? Because He was just, His offering of Himself has satisfied God for time and for eternity. He has once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust. How much He suffered and bore in those three hours of darkness on the cross when He was forsaken by God. Then He died, His blood was shed and He lay in the grave. What it meant too for Him as He anticipated being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, Matt 12: 40. His holy soul shrank from all that it involved. He alone knew the price that had to be paid if the distance was to be removed, and He came to pay that price. He came to suffer as it says, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”.

He did not only come to relieve you of your guilt. He did not only come to shed His blood that you may be able, as I trust you all can tonight, to point by faith to that atoning blood and say, This made my peace with God, but He suffered as Peter says, “that he might bring us to God”. Do you know something about that, being brought to God? God is looking for you coming. Christ having paid the price, “that he might bring us to God”. The relationship that sin had spoiled and distorted has been more than restored in the work of Jesus. It involved that He rose from among the dead. It involved, not only that Jesus died and was buried, but that He was raised, because it is as raised that He would bring us to God. The work that He did would meet our guilt, but in rising from the dead He becomes the Firstborn, the great Leader of a heavenly race, “that he might bring us to God”. The believer is brought back in a way and into a relationship that Adam never knew. Far greater than all that was there in man in innocence, man is brought back to God, justified in the power of the blood of Jesus. What a Saviour! What a work has been done once to bring us to God! It says we have been “justified in the power of his blood”, Rom 5: 9. Oh what power! what power in the work He has done that He is able to bring us to God.

The Samaritan in Luke 10 did not leave that man with just the oil and wine poured in, but it says that he brought him to the inn. The gospel never leaves you where it finds you. All the converts in Luke’s gospel were brought into a circle of wonderful blessing. In these two outstanding gospel incidents in Luke, he leaves them, first in the inn and then in the house. The gospel does not leave you on that Jericho road, left to your own devices saying, Well that is the slate cleared, go on now and do not let it happen again. That is not the gospel. No, the gospel says that he “came up to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine”; the man was made whole. The effects and ravages of sin were all met in the oil and wine, but then it says that he put him on his own beast and took him to the inn. He brings you to God. He brings you into a circle where there are others, who are telling forth the glory of the grace of God. He brought him to the inn, a provisional place. It was not the final resting place, but he brought him into a circle, I think, where grace was known, where he was loved. You think of that inn, what a place it would be. This man would have a wonderful story to tell. People speak about giving their testimonies; it is right in this sense. Think of how he would tell, that in the hour of his greatest despair, “a certain Samaritan journeying came to him”. He did not ask a question. Official persons, such as the priest and levite, like asking questions; they maybe said, Well it serves him right, it is only the due reward of his deeds; but the Samaritan never asked a question, he just poured in the oil, poured in the wine, put him on his own beast and brought him to the inn. Friend, have you known something of the grace of God, that not only met your needs and your liabilities and all your questions, but brought you to a place where there is divine care. It says that he placed him in the care of the innkeeper, somebody that he knew well, someone who was able to appreciate the circumstances, and had resources to meet the provisional time. As I have said, the inn was a provisional thing, but it was there as long as it was needed. He says in effect, take care of him until I come again.

The son, in Luke 15, was a man who had known something of the gospel, he had known something of the father’s house, and he had turned his back on it. He had known brighter days, to put it in other words, and he began again to see the emptiness of all that was outside of what divine love had arranged and prepared, and he comes to his father. He comes into this area of divine provision. It is like a soul who has known something perhaps, in brighter days, of the love of Christ, but the joy of it has been lost, has been beclouded by the pressures of circumstances and the waywardness and wilfulness of the flesh. But here he comes back into the area of divine blessing, and what does he find? He finds the father’s attitude towards him is still the same. He tries to meet the distance on his own terms, but what he finds is the father’s love there in all its fulness, and he hears these words, “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet”. The father’s heart was longing to have him in the house.

As I say, Christ has paid the price, He has made the way clear, He has made every provision to bring us to God. May we not be satisfied with less, beloved. Is it not due to the God who has spent so much? Is it not due to Christ, who has once suffered for sins the just for the unjust, that we allow the fulness of grace to fill our hearts and find our place in the area that divine love has provided? That is certainly not the world. Christ has not suffered that we may go back into circumstances such as this young man went back into, of a far country, where men were living in their own lusts and wills. Christ’s work was to bring us to God, to bring us into the area that divine love has prepared. This man would never go out again. May the gospel in its fulness, wealth and charm, lay hold of all who hear it, so that they would not be satisfied, would not be restful, until they come to where love and grace would lead us, to find our place in the Father’s love, to praise His Name for time and eternity, for Christ’s Name’s sake.

WALTON-ON-THE-NAZE

27^th June 1993

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