THE FULNESS OF GOD'S GRACE
THE FULNESS OF GOD’S GRACE
Exodus 15: 1, 2; John 7: 37 - 39; Acts 7: 55
It is a great thing to apprehend the scope of God’s gospel, and the wonderful change that it effects in the believer. We get types of it in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament it comes out in its fulness.
There are three great works of grace. I have read these scriptures to take them in order. First, by the work of Christ you are delivered from the judgment which is due to you, and which rested on you. Secondly, you receive the Holy Spirit from the very Person who delivered you. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit leads you to the place where Christ is. The magnificence of it should arrest your heart.
When the destroying angel went through the land of Egypt, it was a night of death; but Israel was saved from the judgment by the blood of the lamb being sprinkled on the lintel and on the two side posts of the door. And let me say to each of you that the judgment of death is on every child of Adam, and if it has not been taken off you, it is on you still. God says to Israel, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”, Exodus 12: 13. Under the shelter of the blood they were safe from judgment, but they were not saved, because they were not out of the place of judgment. But in Exodus 15, after they had crossed the Red Sea, we find them singing a song. The Red Sea is a type of the death and resurrection of Christ. He entered into death “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil”, Hebrews 2: 14. God made a way for Israel through the sea. They did not make the way themselves; God made the way, and the light of God showed them the way. But they had to walk through it, with waters on the right hand and on [p. 235] the left. They saw what was impending, they had the sense of the terribleness of it, and that if they did not pass that way there was no other way that they could be saved from their enemies. They saw what might happen to them, but it did not happen, for God had made a way for them through it. So Christ has made a way for us through death and out of death, but we have to accept the sentence of death, we have to appropriate the death of Another. There is no other way out of death but through the death of Christ. In John 5: 24 we read, “He that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me, has life eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life”. It should be translated “out of death” not “from” death. Our translators put from death, because out of death is an admission that all are in it. Every man is under the sentence of death. It is not only that “in Adam all die”, but all are sinners, and “the soul that sinneth, it shall die”. “The wages of sin is death”. The way is made for you out of judgment, but you must appropriate the way. The light of God shows you the way. The first work of grace is that you not only see the One who died, and who opened the way out of judgment, but that you appropriate His death as the way that God has made for you out of it; for death is on you, and if you are not out of it, you are still under it. I do not want to alarm you; I prefer to attract you with the marvellous blessedness of the gospel. As Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”, Romans 1: 16. God has come to us in grace; man has ruined himself; he has offended against God, and he cannot retrieve himself. The Son of God bore the judgment due to man, and the man under judgment has gone judicially in the cross. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him”, Romans 6: 6. Do you know it?
[p. 236] Now I want you to see what a wonderful moment it is when you can say, “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”. This follows on your knowing the resurrection of Christ. Israel were sheltered by the blood in Egypt, but they were afraid of the Egyptians; they had not peace. You cannot have peace until you know that the foe is crushed. Then comes the song. You know that the Lord has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea. He has “annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”, 2 Timothy 1: 10. “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”, Hebrews 2: 14, 15. There was the fulfilment of the sentence on the serpent in the garden of Eden; Genesis 3: 15. You are clear of death when you see a Man risen out of death, as we see in Romans 4: 24 to 5: 1, “If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. No one has peace who does not see Christ in resurrection. Peace is the end of war. The foe is crushed. Then you can sing, “The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him”. There is no fear now. What a wonderful day that is to you when you come to that, after the darkness and distress of the night! I know it is a terrible way; you find that there is no way out of judgment but through the Red Sea. When you come to Jordan there is not a drop of water; it is your death with Christ, but in the Red Sea there is water on the right hand and on the left. You see all the terror of it. It is not your death with Christ but Christ’s death for you. If you shrink from Jordan it is because you have never been through the Red Sea, and it is so with many believers; they have never travelled through the Red Sea till their death-beds. You must go through death; you must appropriate Christ’s death. There is no singing there; it is a solemn moment - darkness and distress. But the morning dawns and you are out of it all; you are out of judgment. You find that the Lord has triumphed gloriously. You have peace with God. You are clear of all that was against you. You receive the Holy Spirit, and the first impression He makes upon your soul is not about your own state, but about God, that God loves you. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit. If you want an illustration, take the parable of the prodigal. The great impression made on the son when the father covered him with kisses was, I love you. There was reconciliation because the shepherd had gone out. If there had not been reconciliation the father could not righteously have received him. It is a marvellous fact that the first action of the Holy Spirit in a poor ruined sinner who believes is to give him the sense that God loves him - to shed abroad the love of God in his heart.
Now I turn to John 7: 37 - 39, to show you what the person has who has seen Christ risen. He has peace, and he has received the Holy Spirit; not only to shed abroad the love of God in his heart, but as rivers of living water to flow out from him. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive”. Now it is not merely that He has come to us, but we have come to Him. “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink”.
[p. 238] Who but the blessed God could have thought of such a thing as the gift of the Holy Spirit? What can equal it? In John 1 the Lamb of God takes away all that is contrary to God. Is that all? No. He baptises you with the Holy Spirit, and thus brings you into all that is according to God. It is inconceivable to the human mind. The very immensity of it proves it to be divine. You who were in the bondage of Egypt are not only delivered, but you have entered on a new day, the Spirit’s day. The Lord’s words are fulfilled, that the Spirit which was to be given when He was glorified is in you, not only as a well of water, but as rivers of living water flowing out of you. You are not only perfectly happy, fully satisfied yourself, but you can make others happy. To be filled with the Spirit, the Spirit of the living God, is your portion. The more I think of it, the more amazed I am at its greatness, and the more surprised at my dullness about it; but I do thank God for it, because I fully believe it.
Before I turn to the third work of grace, which is Acts 7: 55, let us go over the first two which I have already dwelt on. First, you are cleared; all that was against you has gone from the eye of God, the judgment has been borne by Another, all your enemies are gone. You have appropriated the death of Christ, and you are in favour. Secondly, you have received the Spirit of God who is the seal in your heart of the accomplished work of Christ; and not only so, but you are set up in a new style. In the place where you were in the house of bondage, the iron furnace, you have the most blessed portion, a blessing not from the earth, but on the earth - the greatest gift that God could give you, and that is His Spirit, so that you are independent of everything here; you have in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Why do I ever wish for anything here? Because I am not turning to account this great gift. We are diverted, alas, by earthly things. Natural blessings tend to divert us,
[p. 239] as those in Luke 14 were diverted from the great supper, not by bad things but by natural things; for the natural will never help the spiritual, and to say the best of it, it is all transitory. Love likes to give what will be permanent. What God gives you will last for ever.
But now I turn to Acts 7: 55. Where will the Holy Spirit set you? Look at Stephen. A new line is opened to heaven and this is the inauguration of it. “Being full of the Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. A place is made known to the believer by the Spirit of God. There is now a direct line to Jesus in glory. Have you gone that line? Every believing soul that has reached Him from Stephen’s day to this has gone that line. Have you? Do you say, I hope to when I die? But I want you to go it now. I want your heart to be so drawn to the Lord in glory that, beholding Him, you may be transformed, and be like the queen of Sheba, who, when she beheld Solomon in his glory, said, “It was a true report that I heard in mine own land ... Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me”, 1 Kings 10: 6, 7. You need not wait to see it till you die. Stephen saw it before he died. You cannot see Him anywhere now but in glory. If He comes into the assembly of His own, He comes in glory, not to be seen by the human eye, but by the Spirit of God.
This completes the gospel. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, looks for Christ in heaven, and looking up stedfastly into heaven he sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Seeing the Lord there made him at home there; and so will it you. The nearer you are to Him in glory the happier you will be. Instead of being repelled, you are transformed into His likeness. This is not effected by reading the [p. 240] Bible, but by being in His own presence; though you will then understand the Bible all the better.
The announcement of the gospel is, “I bring you good tidings of great joy”, Luke 2: 10. You are not only clear of judgment, but you receive the Holy Spirit, and that not only for yourself, but to flow out from you in rivers of living water. You are not only happy for yourself, but you can make others happy. And then, instead of looking for something down here, the Spirit conducts you up to heaven where Christ is, and you find the home of your heart there.
If you read Ezekiel 1 you will see that when the glory was departing from Israel, the prophet saw in the brightest spot the figure of a Man. The wickedness of Israel was driving away the glory, but there is a Man in the glory. The glory never came to Israel again until Luke 2. Then the glory of the Lord shines round about the shepherds and the angel says, “I bring you good tidings of great joy”. The Man has come. Would you not like to see Him now? You can, by the Spirit of God, see the Man in the glory now. Before a stone was thrown at Stephen he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.
The Lord grant that our hearts may be so attracted to Him, that instead of following our own foolish ways, we may be drawn nearer to Him - led up to Him by the Spirit. May He grant that those who do not know the first work of grace may be on the way to it; and that those who do, and have found peace, may enjoy the Spirit - the second work; and then be ready for the third, which is to find their place with Christ, for His name’s sake.