THE GOSPEL OF GOD
[p. 81] THE GOSPEL OF GOD
The gospel comes down from heaven. Many are limited in their apprehension of the gospel by taking a gospel from the Old Testament. Properly speaking the gospel is not there. You do not get the true idea of it, or anything equal to it, in the types. It is not a question of how much of the gospel is received, but whether the whole scope of it is presented.
I constantly find that many have not the true idea of the gospel. The first thing to be seen is that the gospel comes from God. Is man’s need the measure of God’s grace? No. True the grace covers his need. It would not be the gospel if it did not cover man’s need; but it is far more than that. If you come to look at what the gospel really is, it is entrancing. In the gospel I touch the source, the very spring of God’s heart. The rest comes after: “The mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge” (Colossians 2: 2,3); but the fountain where all began is the gospel. It is the Beautiful gate of the temple.
The glory that had been driven away through sin in Ezekiel’s time returns in Luke 2: 10,11. It returns to make this wonderful announcement: “I bring you good tidings of great joy ... for unto you is born this day ... a Saviour. which is Christ the Lord”.
Israel, more guilty than in Ezekiel’s -day, “crucified the Lord of glory”. and now “the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ” shines down to you - a sinner on earth. It is the light from the finish, from the top, from the glory of Christ to me, where I am, in all my distance, in “the highways and hedges”. The evangelist is sent to open eyes, and when the eyes are open the light comes in and invites me to the very top where the light comes from. It is wonderful!
[p. 82] Where did the invitation to the feast (Luke 14) come from? From the house to the highways and hedges, to “the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.... Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”. What a wonderful thing for each to be brought to the feast in God’s house. From the lowest to the highest!
You have not the full comfort of the gospel if you do not know that God Himself delights to have you in His house. The Son knew the joy His Father would have in the “many sons” He brings to glory. God will satisfy Himself about us. He has removed in the cross of Christ all that was contrary to Himself, and He will conform us to the image of His Son. He has His ideal and will bring us up to it. The gospel is not merely the benefit of the sinner, but the Father has joy, and the Lord Jesus Christ shares in the delight of having us in company with Himself, and, as we enter into it, we enter somewhat into that wonderful word, “They began to be merry”. The gospel is not only that I should like to go into the Father’s house, but, what is immensely more, the Father would like to have me there, and I am brought there in perfect suitability to Himself. When I am delivered from the burden of my sins, the action of the Holy Spirit is to shed the love of God abroad in my heart. No one understands love till he has tasted it. There is nothing we are so ignorant of practically as the love of God. God delights in having us with Himself.
In the Lord’s private life on earth, from infancy to thirty years, He was the delight of God; then He went into public life, and it culminated in the mount of transfiguration, where the glory not merely saluted Him, as at His birth, but invited Him. As Peter says, We were “eye-witnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1: 16).
In private life and in public life He is the perfect One, and now from this point, invited by the glory,
[p. 83] He comes down to die. The judgment of God - death - lay on us, and He, the one “corn of wheat”, dies; but He is raised from the dead “by the glory of the Father”. God’s holiness is met, and in righteousness He is raised from the dead; and now “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. Therefore He says, “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them”.
But first I have to learn that I have life in the Person who effected the justification; therefore it is called the “justification of life”. This is far more than mere acquittal. Righteousness is established; God is free, and His love can express itself. Therefore when in the parable the prodigal turned towards the father, the father ran. Love travels faster than necessity. Necessity brought the prodigal to the father. Love delights to satisfy itself about me. It is not only that you can go in, but a much greater thing - God, in all His majesty and His glory, can come out. All is equipoised. The glory cleared Isaiah (chapter 6), but it could not invite him in; that was reserved for “the glory that excelleth”. Not only have I the entrée (holiness is the entrée), but I am shaped to the grandeur of the scene, shaped to the glory of God. Not admitted like a stranger, but metamorphosed to the same image; not to equality but similarity; metamorphosed into moral correspondence; not merely a wonderful change, but I have new tastes and new interests, I have come to the greater than Solomon.
Glory is the expression of God’s satisfaction, consistently with all His attributes. “The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. Beholding His glory, you have the sense in your soul that that blessed One is in divine satisfaction according to all God’s attributes.
The Lord grant that our hearts may understand what a delight it is to the Father to have us in His own presence, suited to Himself, characteristic of Him who brought us there.