GRACE - AS SET FORTH IN CHRIST
[p. 112] GRACE — AS SET FORTH IN CHRIST
The subject that I have before me to say a little upon at this time is grace. You will think that it is a very simple subject, and it is so; but at the same time it is a very vast subject. The climax of grace appears to me to be found in what we read in Ephesians 2: 7 “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus”: there is found there what I should call the full display of grace, in the church. But I do not attempt to go so far as that now; my immediate point is grace in its first principles, and the Vessel of grace; and my object will be completely served if in the goodness of God what I say should have the effect of establishing your hearts in grace. To be established in grace is a good thing; saints are very liable to be swayed and turned aside from the right path, and the reason of it is, to a large extent, that they are not established in grace.
There are two great principles of God’s dealings presented to us in Scripture, law and grace; they are the two principles on which God has been pleased to deal specially with men. But it is well to remember that man never was purely under law. Connected with the law there was a certain admixture of grace; for God made provision for failure. If man had been strictly and purely under law, there would have been no provision for failure, as law in itself would not admit of it. But it would have been totally impossible for Israel, even for a moment, to remain in relation with God strictly on the ground of law; and therefore there was provision for failure, and that is grace. I have no [p. 113] doubt at all that, as to its application, this did not go beyond what was connected with this world. If a man failed under the law, he could bring a trespass offering, and his trespass was forgiven; but I do not think forgiveness went beyond the question of government and what was connected with this life. It was not at all a question of what one might call eternal forgiveness; that was not the idea under the law. Israel was under law as the people of God upon earth; and if a man unwittingly failed (for there was no forgiveness for high-handed sin, in such a case a man was stoned), there was provision, and a man was forgiven; that was the character of God’s dealings with man under law.
Now the principle of law evidently is exaction; but the common idea we have of exaction is the exaction of something beyond what may be justly due. A man, if he have the power, will often exact more than is justly due. But the principle of law was that it exacted from man what was man’s duty to God. The law did not go beyond what was proper and right in man down here, but it did exact and enforce man’s duty to God and to his neighbour. Who can say then but that the law was right? Surely man had duty to God. We recognize readily enough man’s obligation to his neighbour; it would be very difficult to go on in the world if there were not such a recognition of responsibility. But surely man has a first obligation to God; he must be a madman who does not allow that if a man has obligation to his neighbour he must have obligation to God, because God is greater than a man’s neighbour. The first sin that man committed was in reference to God, the next was in reference to his neighbour. Eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree was no offence to Adam’s neighbour, he had no neighbour to offend against; but it was sin against God, that is, transgression of His commandment,
[p. 114] which came in first. Then came in sin against a man’s neighbour, Cain slew Abel. Of course it was sin against God; but there is such a thing as sin against one’s neighbour, or there may be direct sin against God, like Adam’s. Law came in to express in definite form what man’s duty was toward God and toward his neighbour. I only refer to law for a moment in order to set off grace, for we learn things to a very large extent by contrast; and I doubt if people will have any very clear idea of grace if they do not understand the principle of law.
Now the first principle of grace is relief. For instance, if a man were rightly my debtor, it makes all the difference whether I stand on my rights and exact my debt, or whether in grace I relieve my debtor; that is the difference in the main between law and grace. It has been said that there is no pleasure so great as the relief from pain or pressure and any one can understand the pleasure which must be derived from grace, from the fact of grace being relief. But there is another great pleasure allied to it, and that is to know the one who has been pleased to relieve you. Those are the two great pleasures connected with grace. Just let me give one example in the case of the woman who touched the hem of the Lord’s garment, and immediately her issue of blood was staunched. The first thing was the relief she received, she knew in herself that she was healed of that plague; her plague was the pressure upon her, and she was relieved of the pressure. But she was also led to know the One who had ministered to her the relief.
Now if you bear in mind what I have observed, that the first principle of grace is relief, I think it will help you to understand what I have to say to you. I want now to trace the character of grace as it is presented to us in Christ in the Gospel of Luke. I shall take up passages in the seventh and [p. 115] tenth and last chapters, merely as giving to us the character of grace as presented in the One who is the blessed vessel of grace. I must first say a word on this point lest some should not understand what I mean by vessel. What suggests the idea to me is the anointing of the Lord; there must be a vessel to be anointed. It was not possible for the Son of God to come here in grace among men except as man; but in becoming man He was the vessel of grace, that is, the blessed vessel in which the grace of God was set forth to man here upon earth. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses; that is, the Son of God had become man in order that in Him as a vessel God might be set forth to men. It has often been said that the spirit or character of Luke’s gospel is grace to men in a man. The Spirit of God was there in order that grace might be set forth to men but it was to be set forth in a man, and to that end the Son of God had become man. If I speak of Him simply and purely as a divine Person, you could not have such a thought as being anointed; it was only in becoming man that He could be anointed; He must be a vessel in order to be anointed. It is a beautiful thought that God could be pleased to take account of the pressure under which man was, in consequence of sin and Satan’s power, and to relieve man from that pressure. You have a type of it in the case of the children of Israel. God saw the people oppressed under the burden of the Egyptians; and it was the pleasure of God to come down and relieve them from the pressure under which they laboured. We see the same thought in a very much wider sense in the Gospel of Luke, that is, it was the pleasure of God to draw near to man in order to relieve him from the pressure under which he lay, and to that end the Son of God became man.
[p. 116] One word more about the vessel. The vessel is the seed of the woman; the seed of the woman was to bruise the head of the serpent. And how? By Himself bearing sin’s judgment that He might administer God’s grace to men. What do you think delivers a man from the power of Satan? One thing and one thing only — the grace of God. Until the grace of God is known in the soul a man does not get deliverance from the kingdom of Satan. The Father has delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; but the way by which it is done is by making known the grace of God to the soul, and when that is known, then there is deliverance from the power of the enemy. The vessel of grace is the seed of the woman. Remember that, because I can also speak of the vessel of grace in another light according to the glory of His Person, for He is the Son of God. But I speak of Him as the seed of the woman, the appointed vessel of God’s grace towards man down here.
One point on which I would lay stress is this, that if man was to be relieved of the pressure, it must be in the scene of the pressure; many people fail to apprehend this. The same principle comes out in the resurrection; the resurrection has to come to pass in the scene of death; it is not simply that saints are raised to go to heaven, but resurrection refers to the earth, where the death took place.
The Lord was raised again here upon earth, and He was forty days upon the earth before He went to heaven; God brings about the triumph of His glory in the scene of the ruin. And that is always the principle on which God acts. And therefore the relief takes place in the very scene of man’s pressure; and that is where grace has come in.
And now you have the vessel here, the seed of the woman, the babe that was born into the world; and [p. 117] when the babe was born, the angels celebrated the event and sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in man” — that is, there was to be a man here under the eye of God for God’s good pleasure. That is what the birth of the babe signified, He was the vessel of grace.
Next we come to the fact that He is anointed, and for this reason, that in the vessel God might be set forth in grace. It was not only a question of what Christ was personally, but that He was the vessel in which God was to be set forth in grace to man, and to that end the Spirit of God came upon Him. In the Gospel of John oneness with the Father is very much more prominently stated; for instance, “The Father which dwelleth in me, he doeth the works”. But in the Gospel of Luke it is, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”, because in that gospel prominence is not given to the person, as such, but to what He had become, in order that in Him God might be set forth to man. Hence you will find in Luke’s gospel that, when the Lord performed miracles, He spoke of what great things God had done. When the devils were cast out of the man that had the legion, he was to go and tell his friends what great things God had done for him; for, to use an expression we get elsewhere, it was “God manifest in flesh”, it was “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses”. I could not conceive anything more blessed than the presence of a vessel here in whom God had drawn close to men, for Christ was the anointed vessel to preach the gospel to the poor. That is how the Lord enters upon His ministry.
I pass on now to speak of the character of grace as we have it in these passages in Luke. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach [p. 118] deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. One thing is evident, if man were to be relieved of the pressure he must first he sensible of the pressure. Many a man of the world would not care for the relief, because he is not sensible of the pressure. In a certain sense the pressure is upon all men; but if a man does not feel it, it is of little use to talk to him about relief from it, for grace is not simply a question of taking people to heaven, but of relieving man of the pressure in the place where he is under the pressure; and in order that he may be relieved of it he must be made to feel it. If the children of Israel had been perfectly at home and comfortable in Egypt, it would have been useless to talk to them of deliverance from the Egyptians. They were allowed to come under the pressure of the Egyptians, under the hard bondage of Pharaoh, and to feel the pressure, so that they might be consciously relieved of the pressure. And so it is when God begins to work in grace in a soul, He first makes that soul conscious of the pressure that it is under, and then it is that grace is experienced; but grace can never be experienced until a soul is made conscious of the pressure under which it is. When I realize that I am sinful with death upon me, and with eternity before me, then I realize the pressure. You may depend upon it, people would be not very easy in the easiest circumstances in this world if they were conscious that death was upon them as the judgment of God; but when the sense of that is brought home to a soul by the Spirit of God, then it is that relief can be appreciated from the pressure. And the relief is this, that I get forgiveness of sins, so as never to come into judgment, and that death, instead of being to me a terror, is that by which I go to be with the Lord; I am relieved of the pressure [p. 119] under which I was. And thus the Lord speaks here of having been “anointed to preach the gospel to the poor”; that was the beginning of it, God was there presenting to men good tidings. The angels brought to the shepherds good tidings of great joy, a Saviour was born; and here we have “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor”, and so on. It was grace come in to give man relief from the pressure under which man was, in the very scene in which he was under pressure. In this chapter 4, in the presence of the blessed vessel of grace, what a contrast we have to every previous dealing of God. The law came in to enforce the rights of God; and prophets were sent to call the people back to their allegiance to God. I quite admit that the prophets spoke of what was to come; but the object and point of prophecy was, in the first instance, to recall the people to their allegiance to God. Grace does not come in on that ground at all; but it recognizes the terrible pressure under which man is by reason of sin, and gives him relief in the very place where he was under the pressure.
And there is the other point of which I also spoke; grace comes in, not simply that man may gain relief, but that he may have the pleasure of knowing the One who has been pleased to minister to him the relief, he is to know God. I have said very often, in speaking of the gospel, that the great end of the gospel is that God may be known in the heart of man; and I think the work of the gospel is not done till God is known in man’s heart as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. I do not think you will ever get free from the bondage of sin and of the world till you know God; when you can rest in the love of God, then you are free from the power of all else. Nothing is so great and blessed as to know God; there is nothing in the universe that can [p. 120] equal the joy of knowing that God is love, and that He loves me. It is a great thing in this world to know that I am an object of love, but how much greater to know that I am an object of the love of God! “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”. I say the love of God is the greatest thing I can ever know, and when once that is known in the heart, I am freed from the bondage under which I lay by the power of the new wine which has come in.
The first point is, that grace in its application to man must be in the way of relief. But now I want to enlarge a little on the character of grace. Just turn to Luke 7: 41 - 50. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”.
Here we get another principle of grace, and that [p. 121] is its freeness and sovereignty. A difference between people is recognised in the parable in regard to their obligation; one person may owe five hundred pence and another fifty. In regard to any one now present, you have your particular obligation to God and I have mine; your responsibility to God is not mine and mine is not yours. For instance, I may have been a much greater sinner than you, and I may have sinned with much more light; we are all different in respect of our obligation. Therefore, when it is a question of judgment, every man is judged according to his works. But grace is sovereign and free. It is sovereign in the sense that it makes no difference between the obligations of people. What marked the two debtors was that, while their debts were different, neither had anything to pay. Then it was that the creditor frankly — that is, freely — forgave them both. I call that the sovereignty of grace. The principle of grace is this, it does what it will with its own. “Is thine eye evil because I am good?” Grace is good, and grace will do what it will with its own; and therefore it says, “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”. The creditor says, One owes me five hundred pence and the other fifty, but in both cases I will remit the debt; I am sovereign, I will make no demand whatever; “he frankly forgave them both”. What a picture that was of the grace of the Lord in this world! He who came here to be the vessel of divine grace, was born into a world where everybody was a sinner and a debtor to God; He came into a world of trespasses, but God was not imputing trespasses, and therefore Jesus says to the woman, “Thy sins are forgiven”. But remember, Simon might have had the same word; it was as near to him as to the woman; the Lord announces it to the woman because she was prepared [p. 122] for it, but it was just as free to Simon as it was to her. The Lord was as near to Simon as He was to the woman, for He had come into Simon’s house; the woman had no business there, but she came in and drew near to the Lord; and Simon might have had all that the woman got, for divine grace was present there in Christ when neither had anything to pay. Simon had no more to pay than the woman when it was a question of God; the position was that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing trespasses. And so you see those two great principles in grace, sovereignty and freeness. And mark one thing which came out as the fruit of it: “Which of them will love him most?” Relief is one great pleasure, but there is a second great pleasure, to know the One who has relieved me; and that is what comes out here, the one who is relieved of most will love most.
But I pass on to chapter 10: 30 - 37. “And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of [p. 123] these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And be said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise”. Now, no one can doubt for a moment but that, under the figure of the Samaritan, we have a beautiful picture of the Lord Himself in His ministry here upon earth. Hence I believe the parable represents the transition from law to grace. The priest and Levite passed by on the other side, they could not help the man who had fallen among thieves; grace is represented in the Samaritan, he came where the man was; and the parable presents not simply the relief accorded, but the care which was to be exercised towards the man until he should no longer be in want of care. Now we can get further light as to the character of grace, the man is not simply relieved, but carried and cared for. The wilderness is where the Christian needs care. He needs to be watched over and cared for so long as he is down here in a scene where everything is adverse, where he is exposed to temptation and to all evil. There will be a time when care will not be needed; when we get to heaven, that scene of divine serenity where evil cannot intrude, we shall not need succour and sympathy as we need them down here, where we need to be saved to the uttermost! And this is what you get here; the beautiful point in the parable is that you get man’s true neighbour. The law demanded that man should love his neighbour as himself, but the law never told him who was his neighbour; no one ever understood who was man’s neighbour until Christ became man; but when divine grace came in Him close to man, then man learnt who was his neighbour. And as a true neighbour He never leaves you, but undertakes to care for you all the time you stand in need of care. See what a wonderful thing grace is! It ministers relief, it is sovereign and free, and [p. 124] it cares for its object so long as its object stands in need of care.
I wish you to connect all these thoughts with the seed of the woman; God brought it to pass that the seed of the woman should be the vessel of grace (Christ was a great deal more than the seed of the woman — He was the Son of God, but He was the seed of the woman); and the seed of the woman was to be the vessel in which grace was to be set forth for man. That was the divine thought from the outset, to bring relief to man in the place where the pressure was upon him, and to give him to know the One who relieved him.
I take you now to the last chapter of Luke: “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things”. Mark that expression, “in his name”. Now that indicates that the Lord is no longer personally here, for Scripture would scarcely speak about His name in that way if He were here. What was set forth was to be preached “in his name”, so that it was no longer a question of the personal service of Christ down here. In the other passages I referred to, the subject was mainly of the personal service of Christ. He became man’s neighbour, for He came close to man that the grace of God might be set forth to man. But when I come to this chapter, it is the value of His name, as dead and risen. I believe “name” in Scripture to indicate that which God is pleased to set forth in any person. If God gave a name to David or to Abraham, or whoever it might be, the name indicated what God was pleased to set forth in that person. I believe the same to be true in regard of Christ, His name prophetically indicated what was [p. 125] to be set forth in Him. For instance, His name was to be called Immanuel. Why? Because in Him was set forth the great truth of God with His people. So too here, we have what is to be set forth in Him, namely, a door of repentance and forgiveness of sins. And why set forth in His name? Because the righteousness of God is witnessed in Him. If I want to understand anything about the righteousness of God or how it is that grace reigns through righteousness, it is learnt in Christ dead and risen; that is, that in the setting forth of divine grace God has made no sacrifice of His righteousness, but “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life”. Hence the Lord says here, “Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day”, so that repentance and forgiveness of sins might be set forth in Him suitably to the righteousness of God; that there should be no compromise of the righteousness of God, but that it might be maintained in the setting forth of grace in Christ: that is why it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. The thought of name is in that sense wonderful to me, for if a name is given God intends that the recipient shall be characterized by the name He gives him, so that the name should indicate what God wills to set forth in that man. That is true in the highest possible sense of Christ.
Another point here which you could not have got in connection with the Lord’s personal ministry is, that grace is without limit. You get it, I think, in the expression “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. When every natural link was broken with Israel down here, then the great thought of grace comes out, repentance and forgiveness of sins for all nations; Jerusalem is owned — and it is a remarkable fact — but as [p. 126] the starting point of the activity of grace, and it is to go out thence to all nations.
One word about grace in regard to the Jew. The Jew had no more claim on the grace of God than the Gentile. In a sense the Jew had a claim upon God for the fulfilment of promises, because promises had been made to Abraham and to his seed; but in crucifying Christ they lost the promises, and a Jew had no exclusive claim on the grace of God. Therefore when grace comes out in the fullest sense after the death and resurrection of Christ, it is without limit; it begins at Jerusalem, but it goes out to all nations. It is the great setting forth and the climax of grace as to the way in which God is to be known by man upon earth.
It is to be noted that Matthew and Luke bring before you the way in which Christ is to be known here upon earth; those gospels do not unfold, as John does, the glory of His Person, or the way in which He is to be known in the Father’s house. In Matthew and Luke you get the way in which He is to be known by the Jew and by man. Luke unfolds to you the way in which Christ is to be known by man down here, repentance and forgiveness of sins are preached in His name. Repentance and forgiveness refer to earth, not to heaven. It is a point of the greatest moment, that the grace of God ministers relief to man from the pressure in the scene of that pressure; and the end is that man may know the One who has relieved him. If you do not get behind grace to know the One from whom grace has come, the grace of God has not done its proper work in your heart; but if the grace of God has touched your heart, you will not be content until you know the One who has ministered the grace of God to you. The gospel is the glad tidings of the grace of God set forth to men in a man. Christ became man that He might be the vessel of [p. 127] divine grace to man; and He takes His place in the midst of God’s people as the One anointed of the Lord to preach the gospel to the poor. And then the subject expands, and you see the sovereignty and freeness of grace; you learn who is man’s neighbour, who ministers to the man that had no claim on him, and that in pure grace; and the ministry is perfect, for He cares for him all the way along. And in the close of the gospel the grace of God is based on “it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. Then there is another point, which I cannot touch upon tonight; He goes to heaven in order that He may send the promise of the Father.
It is a wonderful subject, one has not exhausted the whole field of grace by any manner of means, and I may have more to say about it another time. But my object was to give you an idea of what grace is, which I have no doubt is familiar to almost everybody present; and the way in which it is presented to us in this gospel.