THE GOSPEL
THE GOSPEL
The gospel is the good tidings of God’s grace to man.
Every believer in Christ receives this grace. The measure and scope of it is only known to God, and springs entirely and absolutely from Him. Doubtless it covers our need, but our need is not the measure of it. The measure is only in any degree grasped as the purpose of His heart is apprehended. He sends His Son, who comes to do His will, and thus He is enabled in righteousness to set forth the full volume of His grace.
Now there are two parts in the work of Christ. One is that He died for our sins. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood ... that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”, Romans 3: 25, 26. “And by him all that believe are justified from all things”, Acts 13: 39. “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin”, Romans 4: 7, 8. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”, Romans 5: 1. Not only are sins forgiven, but righteousness is imputed. “The [p. 44] law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”, Romans 8: 2. I am “accepted in the beloved”, Ephesians 1: 6. I am placed before the eye and heart of God through the sacrifice, perfected for ever, so that He can say, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”, Hebrews 10: 17. And “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world”, 1 John 4: 17. It does not say that the believer will never sin again, but it is distinct that Christ’s death and resurrection place the believer for ever justified to the eye and heart of God. Then there is no more offering for sin. This is the first part of the work of Christ.
The other part is that He baptises with the Holy Spirit. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”, Romans 8: 9. He has not only cleared me of everything that offended against God, but He sets me up again in the very spot where I was deplorably ruined and undone, in quite a new way, in a style and power entirely new.
“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”, John 4: 14.
This the Lord announces to the woman of Samaria, who, ruined and abandoned here, had nothing at all. He proposes in His infinite grace to set her up again in the spot, in the very city, where she had spent all that she had naturally, and was now reduced to the lowest moral point; to set her up in new, unknown, and inexhaustible resources, not from without or outside of her, but from within.
Who can estimate or measure the magnificence of the portion now offered for her acceptance! “Never thirst ... shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. The Lord arrests her heart by the [p. 45] suitability and grandeur of His gift. Before she understands it she values it, and therefore responds, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw”. She has not yet learnt that her sins are forgiven, and this must come first. Hence the Lord now addresses her conscience. The blood must be on us before the oil can be put on.
But lest one should think that this wondrous gift is only when one is utterly reduced like the woman of Samaria, we read in John 7: 37, 38, that in the very hour of harvest, the joy celebrating the flow of earthly blessings, He challenges every heart present by the invitation, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”. He can surpass to the heart the greatest concentration of earthly blessings. He can prove Himself better than the best, in the very noontide a light above the brightness of the sun — truly the brightest thing in the brightest day here, because the Spirit comes to us here from Him in glory. So, instead of seeking contribution from outside, we contribute, because of His gift, rivers of living water. We have in ourselves enough and to spare.
Now this latter part of Christ’s work is rarely insisted on in this day, but while the fulness and freeness of forgiveness is largely preached, there is a limitation of the truth in not equally declaring and insisting on this, the other part of His work. There is not the true and effective testimony to His grace as there was with the lame man, who, having received new strength, was walking, and leaping, and praising God. There is, because of this limitation, an unsoundness in the teaching, and the lack is apparent in truly converted souls. There is not now the lame man walking, and leaping, and praising God, or the palsied man carrying his bed; the people [p. 46] running together, greatly wondering and glorifying God, or declaring, “We never saw it on this fashion”.
If the gospel is not truly and fully presented, there can be no right apprehension of the church. Souls are safe, but they are not here for Christ.