THE DISTANCE FROM GOD BECAUSE OF SIN. THE NEARNESS TO HIM THROUGH GRACE
[p. 300] THE DISTANCE FROM GOD BECAUSE OF SIN. THE NEARNESS TO HIM THROUGH GRACE
Genesis 3: 24; Matthew 27: 50, 51
The first sense of an awakened soul is the holiness of God, and rightly so. Some go on as if they were insensible of it. You see the inexorable nature of it in the first verse I have read. The man was driven out of the garden of Eden, and not only driven out, but God placed “Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way”, so that he should not get back. Sin is abhorrent to the holy God; this is the first sense the sinner has of God: hence he shrinks from God. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; the body must go in judgment. If you have a true sense of the holiness of God, you are conscious that the man under the judgment of God can not face God. Hence the first truth to insist on is God’s holiness. When God on mount Sinai gave the law to Israel, it was a ministration of death. “And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.... And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake”. The nearer God comes the more distressed man is. This sense of God’s holiness I greatly desire that you should have. If this sense were deeper in each of our souls, we should better understand grace. Sin has caused the greatest distance between God and man; grace has brought the believer in Christ into the greatest nearness to Him. You must be conscious of the greatness of the distance; if you do not understand the greatness of the distance, you will never understand the greatness of the grace. Many do not understand the greatness of the grace, because they do not understand the greatness of the distance.
[p. 301] In Genesis 3: 24 we see God could not allow man to return to the garden of Eden; and, as we have seen, when God drew near to Israel with a demand, the reflection of His glory in Moses’ face made the people afraid to come nigh him. They could not bear the sight of the glory. It gave them a sense of God’s holiness. You are awakened when you have a sense of God’s holiness, you may be some time awakened before you are relieved; still you are awakened when you have a sense of God - that He is a holy God. This is really light; that is light which doth make manifest. But “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil”; they do not want the light. Any one here who has come from darkness, and has been brought to God, will admit that there was a time when he did not like to hear about God; he felt it would spoil his pleasure, interfere with his own pursuits. It was not that you were occupied with something very bad, but you were alienated from God, and you did not want to return to Him.
The first thing, then, is the holiness of God. It is necessary for the soul to have a sense of the holiness of God, that God cannot bear sin; it is not merely sins, but that where sin is, it must be set aside in judgment. Hence in the type (Leviticus 6: 30) we read, “No sin-offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire”. It was burnt without the camp. The blood was carried in, which showed that death had taken place, but the carcase was burnt without the camp; it must be removed from God’s eye in judgment. I am trying to impress you with a sense of the holiness of God.
Next, I come to man’s side; he is alienated from God by wicked works. So complete is the departure that there is no fear of God before his eyes. You speak to an unconverted man about God, and instead [p. 302] of being pleased he will avoid you the next time he meets you, though you were trying to lead him into the greatest blessing. If you had spoken to him about a fortune in this world, how eagerly he would have listened; but because you have told him the gospel, how God can “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”, he will avoid you unless God has worked in his soul. Thank God, He does work; but I am speaking of man naturally. “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not”. Our blessed Lord was “the light of the world”, and even the Pharisees, though they had brought to Him a transgressor, could not endure the light of His presence when it probed them, but they “went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last”. They would not stay in the light; the transgressor stayed and obtained the good of the light. Man’s entire unwillingness to do with God is the second obstacle. You cannot give credit to a man for conversion - turning to God. The holiness of God is inexorable, and man’s mind is enmity against God.
The next thing is, that there must be a complete removal of the man under judgment; this the sin-offering under the law typified. I hope you apprehend, first, the holiness of God, that He cannot behold iniquity, that the tree as well as the fruit must go; and the next thing I want you to accept is that man naturally hates the light. Hence my third point is that the man under the judgment of God must go in judgment. You will be much helped when you see this. Of course a man must be converted before he can accept it; but it is of the deepest importance. We read, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”.
Now I turn to the New Testament to set before you the grace of God. The One who removes the distance between God and man must be altogether according to God’s satisfaction. The distance is the penalty [p. 303] of death, but this cannot be removed unless the judgment has been borne. No amount of good works could remove it, nor the imputation of righteousness:
the man under judgment must be removed in judgment from the eye of the holy God, and a Man who fully pleased God has been raised up from death, the judgment on man. This is my fourth point. Now God Himself has done it; God laid help upon One that is mighty: His own arm brought salvation: and so we read in Scripture that our blessed Lord said, “Lo, I come ... to do thy will, O God”. Now see the One who comes, One born of a woman, born under the law; He comes and He removes the judgment, He bears in His own Person the judgment which rested upon man. But before He removed the judgment from the eye of God, He was in private life the One of whom God could testify, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; and in His public service on the earth: “This is my beloved Son: hear him”.
We read in Matthew 27: 50: “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost”. He is dead; the perfect One, the holy One of God is dead. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again”. He laid it down, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”. See now the greatness of God’s grace. You see, I trust, that sin is a terrible thing; that man who sinned must go in judgment: man, the child of Adam, could not bear the judgment, he could not rise out of it; hence it must be borne by One able to rise out of it. As we read, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead”. Again, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil”. Here (Matthew 27: 50) He dies; it is the fulfilment [p. 304] of Psalm 22. He takes the sinner’s place - He who knew no sin; He is the victim not chargeable with man’s offence, bearing the judgment of the offence, and at the time of bearing it proving His personal excellency. The fat was obtained through death. You see this blessed One has come and given Himself; He was the sacrifice for sins; He dies, and as we read in another place: “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”. Do you take in that wonderful statement? The Son of God was glorified in raising Lazarus; but “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”. Under the sinner’s judgment, at the most distant spot, drinking the bitter cup, He unswervingly maintained everything due to God. I remember saying many years ago to a dear man of God, It was a wonderful thing that the Lord was thinking of us at that moment. His reply was, He was not thinking of you at all, He was thinking of God. Much of the feeble sense of salvation in souls arises from the fact that they are exclusively occupied with their own relief, instead of inquiring whether God, whom they have offended, has been relieved. Have you settled with God? is the first question. Is your conscience settled? will come afterwards.
In Exodus 12 and Romans 3 you see how God, who has been offended, is relieved of the offence. He has found One who has removed all the judgment that lay upon man, and not only so, but who glorified Him in the removal of it; the Son has come and became Man, and He died to bear the judgment that rested on man. God now testifies of His complete satisfaction. “The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom”, from the inside. The testimony is that the distance between God and man has been removed on God’s side. Man is at a distance from God, but God through Christ has removed the distance from His own side, and now He can be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. Do you give Him credit for removing the distance from His own side? Thank God, I trust that there are many in this room who can speak of the blessedness of the day when the light shone into their souls that God had removed the distance, and that from His own side it had been removed to His satisfaction and glory by His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence there is an approach to God which before could not be known, the greatest nearness. The veil of the temple was rent; most significant to a Jew. I dare say a pious Jew, when he heard what had happened would say, Something very great must have happened, so that God could rend the veil and throw open the holiest.
It is plain that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself”, and hence it is an immense relief to the soul of the sinner to lay hold of the fact that God, the One who was offended, is the One who was first relieved. If you do not know this in your soul, you have not settled peace; the One who was offended by the sin of man was relieved of the offence by a Man - the Lord Jesus Christ; and now God can be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. I ask each of you, Do you prefer Christ to Adam? Adam sinned and incurred the judgment; the Lord Jesus Christ has borne the judgment to God’s perfect satisfaction. And God now asks you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to give Him credit for His grace.
Now that the veil is rent from the top to the bottom, what is disclosed? The ark of the covenant was in the holiest. The golden box, of which the lid was the mercy-seat, with the cherubim of glory overshadowing it, was the type of Christ. Hence, the moment He died the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. God can testify that He has found a Man entirely to His satisfaction on whom all His glory can rest. In [p. 306] 2 Corinthians 3 we read of the contrast between law and grace; the law was a demand for righteousness, grace is the ministration of righteousness. Do you understand the difference? If you were in debt, and the creditor said, I do not ask you to pay the debt, I will not only forgive it, but I will give to you, you would understand him. That is the grace of God; He is not now demanding righteousness, but He is giving. Why? Because a Man has glorified God; and therefore He can rend the veil and declare that the distance has been removed on His side, and “all that believe are justified from all things”. This is marvellous; but thank God it is true. Why? Because Christ has finished the work which was given Him to do. God has been glorified by a Man. Hence I ask you to turn away from the man who brought you under judgment and distance from God, and to believe on Him who “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”.
I would now briefly recapitulate. First, I dwelt on the holiness of God; next, on man’s utter unwillingness to draw near to God, hating the light, so that of himself he would never turn to God; thirdly, that there must be complete removal of the man that sinned, the man in whom sin is. Root and branch must go in judgment, so that it is true of every believer that “our old man is crucified with him” - crucifixion is the judicial termination of the man; and the Man who removed the distance has glorified God, and has been “raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”. He glorified God, and the testimony now is, as we read in Matthew 27, God rends the veil, He has thrown open all on His side. I do not say that every one enters in, but I say the veil is rent, the door of heaven is thrown open. God is the first relieved, to His endless satisfaction.
And now I ask you to contemplate the blessing you will receive if you accept the grace of God. But before [p. 307] I speak of the blessing which God in His grace confers, I would ask you, Will you accept it? I have tried to trace your history as a sinner; I trust I have shown you that, in the only way in which salvation could be effected, it has been effected; I have shown you that because of the work of Christ, God has rent the veil. The way into the holiest is open. There is a ministration of righteousness now from the glory of God, from the very highest point. The nearer you are to the Lord’s glory the more assured you are. The glory resting on Christ is the expression of God’s satisfaction according to all His attributes; the nearer you are to the fountain, the greater the sense of your acceptance. Many are in darkness because they are not near; they are enlightened, but if they were near they would be established. When you are reconciled to God, you find that instead of being at the greatest distance, you are now in the greatest nearness; you know the wonderful nature of your acceptance; you find that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. Many have no idea of the abounding. They can speak of the forgiveness of sins; but if you commit fifty sins and are forgiven fifty, there is no abounding there, no excess. “Grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”. You are brought into the happiest association with the Father, unto the home of His heart. The prodigal son wandered away, and had spent all that he had; then by the light of grace he came to himself and returned to his father, and to his great surprise he found his father met him on the best of terms, he “fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. How could this be? Because the shepherd had gone out to “seek and to save that which was lost”. All the offence had been removed; God had been relieved; all that offended had been removed from the eye of God in judgment,
[p. 308] and now His heart can come out in all its mighty volume and embrace the returning son.
It is marvellous, and yet there is more. The nearer you are to the Father the happier you are. You come in now in all the beauty of Christ. “And they began to be merry”. Contrast this with the “Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life”, when Adam was driven out of the garden. The holiness of God could not suffer him to be there, and man’s own estrangement from God would also forbid it. Hence the man under the judgment of God must be removed in judgment. This has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, to God’s infinite satisfaction; and now the invitation is, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”; and as in the case of the brazen serpent, he that looked upon it lived. If you believe even a little of the grace which I have been presenting to you, you will look - you will look away from Adam, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ; you will give God credit for the immensity of His grace, and then you will find that not only has all the offence been removed, but that God has been so fully glorified that the nearer you come to Him, the more you are assured of His love. Many a one does not get this assurance till his deathbed, until he is passing away from all else and is going straight to God.
I need not add more, but I cannot conclude without expressing how wonderful is the work which God has wrought. On man’s part there was no drawing of heart to Him, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”; but God now, in the greatness of His grace, says to the servant (this shows you the love which is behind the grace), “Compel them to come in”. I do not expect anything from man, and I would not work upon any man’s feelings, because I do not believe there is any good in him. But I desire that you should apprehend the grace of God. There [p. 309] is no door for the sinner but in the mercy of God. We read, “that he might have mercy upon all”. I will give you an illustration. The four lepers in the siege of Samaria said, “If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill is, we shall but die”, 2 Kings 7: 4. They looked for mercy, and they found mercy. You speak of casting yourself upon the mercy of God, but have you really done so? I trust no one will leave this room with indifference, and in his heart say, I will go on a little while longer with man. I will turn my back on the grace of God, on the good tidings which have come from God. Man is a sinner at the greatest distance from God, under the judgment of death. God sent His Son, who became a Man, and bore this judgment that was on man. “He died unto sin once”, and so glorified God in the most distant spot, that He was “raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”, and now God can, to the delight of His heart, bring “many sons unto glory” - “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”. Inconceivable, indeed, is the greatness of this revelation! This is the excess. Is there one in this room who will refuse the offer of God’s grace? God has permitted His grace to be sounded in your ears. Will you turn a deaf ear to it? Let all who have received it join in praying that God will cause His grace to shine into every soul in this room, for His name’s sake.