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THE EFFECT OF GRACE

The effect of grace is to lead the soul into the love of God ‘that love with us may be made perfect’. The effect of law was to judge with severity any departure of soul from God, or any one who had in any measure turned aside from following His will. And this is what we are naturally still ready to allow in thought when things come in to cloud the soul. But grace ever works by love, and the object of this love is not to condemn, but to show us the point of departure or that which may have caused distance, in view of recovery. It enables us to detect and free ourselves from that which hinders the soul in order that we may be fully blessed. Hence the apostle says, “ye are not under law but under grace”. Grace is that which conducts us to glory, not only as is generally thought when at the end of life down here, but it leads us to glory now outside the natural scene we live in. It brings us into the apprehension of the unclouded joy of the scene in which Christ now dwells who is our life, and where it is our privilege to behold Him with unveiled face. Thus grace is our side of it, so to speak, and glory more properly God’s, and to which He ^[p. 261] brings us. The two main points in these scriptures are deliverance and confidence. Deliverance from all fear that clouds the soul, and confidence in God and His perfect love. The last thing that often hangs about a saint who may be delivered from other things, is the fear of death. He cannot meet it when in full health and strength without shrinking from the sight of it. Depend upon it this disquietude is the result of not perfectly apprehending the love of God to which we are brought, and in which He would have us dwell. But the one with whom ‘love is made perfect’ has all fear in this respect cast out, for he can recognise that which merely conducts us into the actual sunshine of love. This is how love works in delivering us from such fear. Then in verse 14 of chapter 5 we have the confidence in God when on the line of His will where all intelligent christians are brought, and here we ask and receive, being instructed in that will. And this perfect will of God is ever ordered and carried out by the sovereignty of divine love, which is the blessed background of all God’s dealings with us, and where He calls our hearts to rest. Thus we are led by grace to glory both now and at the end of the journey, we are delivered from all fear, and have full confidence in asking from God in the line of His will, because ‘love with us is made perfect’. “We have known and believed the love God hath to us”.
1898.

1 Peter 1:3-9 The disciples could but little enter into what it was to be in the presence of death when the Lord took the last Supper with them. They had been accustomed to sight and sense and knew what it was to touch the Lord in a human sense. Their hands had handled Him, and their eyes looked upon Him. But all was to ^[p. 262] be changed through death. There was to be a complete dissolution of everything connected with sight and sense, and they were to know and love Him after a completely new order, all of the old order forever passed away. If they had known Christ after the flesh, they were henceforth to know Him thus no more. It is after the new order that we love Him whom we have not seen, and believing in we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We have been introduced into a sphere where sight and sense have no part, and where by faith we know Him after a heavenly order. Every attribute of God has been reconciled to His nature by the death of the cross, and He has before Him now One who can satisfy His heart and ours. The two main points with which the Lord now occupies Himself with regard to His own are discipline and sympathy. Discipline means ‘the nurture and admonition of the Lord’, or that through which He effects His purpose and our blessing in us. We are dealt with or disciplined to effect what was effected in Peter when that which is the root of failure is reached and judged by us. It is of great moment for us to recognise and accept this discipline in which is infinite gain. The Lord could say to Peter, “I have prayed for thee” and how much this meant! The bodies of the saints are in great measure that upon which the Lord works out His discipline, as well as other ways down here. At His appearing every power of evil will be scattered, but it is now at this present time that we are kept by His faithful dealing for that which will be found to be to His praise, and honour, and glory when He appears. Meanwhile it is love unfailing and unweary which serves us to this end, and in the discipline He gives us to know His sympathy, that our hearts may be led into the confidence of love.
1898.

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