THE UNIVERSE
[p. 273] THE UNIVERSE
In the Psalms we often get great conceptions although written long ago. When you look back a few thousand years, as in the Psalms, it is astonishing what you find there; there are great conceptions. You do not get much originality in this day, there is not really a great advance on the conceptions of Psalm 19. It is evident from Psalm 36 that there was in the psalmist the conception of a moral universe. We have a physical universe and that serves to shew the moral universe. In the material universe there is completeness; and in the moral universe too you find completeness. In the Psalms you get a certain amount of vagueness, but now there is definiteness in Christ. In verse 9 you get the beautiful expression, “With thee is the fountain of life” — that is with Christ — it is the effect and consequence of what He has wrought.
Instead of being empty and dissatisfied, the believer understands what it is to get the fountain of life. Where Christ is not known there is no life morally. Where He is not known there is more acquaintance with death really than life. Such things as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life savour of death and not of life. Then again they are in darkness; darkness has blinded their eyes, but how beautiful are the words, “With thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light”.
Now with regard to the universe, verses 5 and 6 put these things together, you have the mountains, the deep, and man too; the heavens are of all importance to us, for in them He has set the sun. The earth is really governed from heaven, because the sun is there; we are dependent on the clouds. We get moisture distilled and clouds and then rain. Then as regards the earth there are mountains, all is not flat or level; then there are man and beast. Completeness is seen here, God preserves man and beast. The heavens, clouds, mountains, deeps, man and [p. 274] beast, all these are the material universe, and it is a grand conception on the part of the psalmist, and he lived when people were not very lettered as they are today — it was a rude time, we should say.
But now I want to bring before you a moral universe; this is seen in the terms, mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, judgments. It is a question of principles, and what lies hid in the background is mercy. Then you get faithfulness; there are engagements to which God has committed Himself. The righteousness of God stands firm, immovable, stable. His judgments are a great deep, they are unsearchable, and yet God may be pleased to reveal them. These are the great principles of the moral universe.
Then I want to shew how things touch us; if they do not touch us we have not entered upon them at all. Every part of that moral universe has come into view for us in Christ. Happily for us mountains are stable, though you hear of earthquakes or eruptions; yet, speaking generally, mountains are stable, the physical universe is settled and witnesses to the goodness of God. So it is also as regards the moral universe, mercy or loving-kindness, faithfulness, righteousness and judgments — all these things are stable.
Look now at Titus 3; God’s judgments are really the first thing for us, though coming last in the two verses in the psalm. We have to link His “judgments” with the kindness and love of God in Titus. When God took up Abraham, no one knew what He was going to do. So with Israel; He put Israel into Canaan and they brought idolatry in, and so were carried captive to Babylon. What is God going to do? He brings back a remnant that Christ may be presented to them; He is presented to them and they crucify Him; then Christ is raised again from the dead and goes to the right hand of God, so as to be light to the gentiles — these are the judgments of God.
The result of the judgments of God is that there is light to the gentiles (see Acts 13: 46, 47): “It was [p. 275] necessary ... lo, we turn to the Gentiles ... I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth”. These verses shew out, “Thy judgments are a great deep”. There was the accomplishment of God’s promise to Abraham: “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”. Christ is become light to the gentiles to make God known, and salvation, that is, deliverance from all that is unsuited to God.
In the gospel all is so beautifully moral; you know God’s mind toward man, and you are emancipated from all that is contrary to Him. To believe on Christ is to know what is suited to God and to be delivered from all that is unsuited to Him. In Romans 11: 15, 21 you get a thought of the judgments of God, and in verse 33 you get that His judgments are unsearchable, they are a great deep. It is the greatest grace of God that He should make Himself known, but then He would also deliver us from everything unsuited to Him.
Then we come to the point of God’s righteousness: it is like the great mountains, the thought in that is stability, it is stable because it is set forth in redemption. Death and the curse lay on man, and it was within God’s rights to discharge what lay upon man. The righteousness of God has been asserted in the death of Christ and it is immovable, and every man may come under the cover of redemption; it is available for every man. It means forgiveness of sins; God has availed Himself of His right to take up and discharge what lay upon man: it is the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, it is the immutable foundation of redemption and it is available for all, as in Romans 3, “unto all”.
You look up to the clouds and consider the faithfulness of God; He will vindicate His faithfulness to Israel. “The deliverer shall come out of Zion”, it is said, and again: “They shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 24); and “then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven”, the witness and expression of the faithfulness of God to His promises.
[p. 276] His mercy is hid behind His providences — it is in the heavens, as the hymn says:
‘Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face’.
God has brought mercy into full display in the moral universe which I desire to bring before you; all is established in Christ. Righteousness is established in the Sun of righteousness. Christ is the expression of the mercy of God and He is hid in the heavens.
Christ is really the name that God has to set before man. Philip preached Christ to them in Acts 8. Paul had nothing to preach but Christ. “I have set thee” — that is Christ. If Christ is not light to you, you are taken up with the frivolities of the world; the people of the world just go in for frivolity, but light in Christ gives moral weight. I can recall the bondage in which I was, bondage of sin and lust, till the mercy of God came in to bring me into the knowledge of Himself and of deliverance from all that is contrary to Him. The deliverance for us spiritually is quite as great as the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh. It is possible to know with absolute certainty what the mind of God is toward us, and it is possible to be delivered from all that is unsuited to Him. Christ is that light to us and salvation to the ends of the earth.
There is no living water to be found elsewhere but in Christ, so let him that is athirst come — let him take the water of life freely, that is, without money and without price! Christ came to bring in light and life, “by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved”. “I am come that they might have life”. With Him is the fountain of life. Every man has a title to Christ, but it is equally true that Christ has a title to every man. Believe on Him, you are entitled to Him, and you get light and life in Him.