NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 4
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 4
Genesis 4: 3,4; Genesis 5: 21 - 24; Romans 5: 5; 8: 2
The great end of the gospel is that all the offence has been so removed by the death and resurrection of Christ, that the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. God testified of Abel’s gifts. Under the law there was the sin-offering, but also the burnt-offering. In the one the sin was taken away, but the other went up to God as a sweet savour, typical of the resurrection of Christ. Noah was safe from judgment in the ark, as Israel was safe under the shelter of the blood; but consequent on the burnt-offering Noah knew that he was in favour with God. The good tidings of God’s grace is that He can be just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; that He can receive the returning prodigal in the fulness of His love; and consequently, the first sense of the Spirit in our hearts is the love of God. The great end of grace is that God can make known His great love to us.
Many souls are hindered and delayed by trying to [p. 44] feel happy and sure of their salvation, instead of first being assured of how God is towards them because of the sacrifice of Christ. All this effort to be happy hinders and obstructs true enjoyment. The gospel is that God receives the returning sinner with the gladness of His heart. You must first know this, and everyone does know it who has received the Spirit of God, because His first work in your heart is to assure you of the love of God. Now comes our side - our enjoyment of God’s grace. When the prodigal was kissed he must own that his father was in full love to him, but he could not enjoy it until he was made fit for his father’s house. We learn from Enoch how to enjoy it: “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” - he was translated that he should not see death.
The Holy Spirit who first assures you of the heart of God, which is the gospel, is the same Holy Spirit who assures your heart that you are free of all the distance between you and God - free from the law of sin and death. While you are trying to have right feelings in yourself as to God’s grace, you will never succeed, you will never enjoy the gospel; but when you accept that the same Spirit who assures you of God’s love is the one and selfsame blessed Person who assures your heart that you are free personally of all connected with sin and death, then you “joy in God”, which is the true effect of the gospel. In John 4 our blessed Lord, in speaking to the woman of Samaria, takes up the second or the Enoch side; I suppose because, while the gospel in terms might be known, yet no one could really enjoy the grace of God but by the Spirit dwelling in him, Anyone who has in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life, will never thirst; and he will also know that he has passed out of death into life, that he is in Christ, and that in heavenly festivity he has begun to make merry. May we fully enjoy His grace!