SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
THE LORD FROM HEAVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE REVELATION OF GRACE, AND THE LIFE TO
COME
"THE Son of God is come!" The Eden promise of the woman's
seed was like the little rivulet far up a mountain side, to which men point as,
the beginning of a mighty river. Down through the centuries type was added to
type, and prophecy to prophecy, enlarging its scope and unfolding its meaning,
until the completed Hebrew Scriptures became a deep, broad stream of hope and
promise. And when the fulness of the time had come, "God sent His only begotten
Son into the world," and promise and hope became merged in glorious fact. The
primeval revelation was enshrined in the traditions of the human race, and took
shape in many fantastic forms in the mythologies of the ancient world. But
nothing in the wildest fancies of pagan religions or of classic poetry is so
utterly incredible to the natural mind as is the truth of Christ. "The gods are
come down to us in the likeness of men," was a cry that excited but little
either of scepticism or of wonder; for, having regard to the character of their
gods, such a descent was natural and easy. But that God, who is spirit, has
been "manifested in flesh"; that God, whom the heaven of heavens cannot
contain, has revealed Himself on earth, and revealed Himself "in the likeness
of men"; that the Man of Nazareth, "the son of the carpenter," the crucified
Jew, was the Word who was in the beginning with God, and was Himself God, the
Creator of all things that exist, and apart from whom nothing that exists came
into being - this seems to be outside the limits, not only of what is possible
in fact, but of what is conceivable in human imagination. Hence the deep
meaning of the words with which the Lord received the Apostle Peter's
confession of His Deity: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah; for flesh and
blood bath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." Can we
wonder at His declaring that "no one knoweth the Son save the Father"!
We
think of the Nazarene as He taught by the Lake of Galilee, or in the Temple
courts, surrounded by peasants and fishermen, but shunned by all people of
culture or repute not only in the social, but in the religious sphere; and we
remember that the last the world ever saw of Him was hanging on a gibbet
between two common criminals. And as we ponder these things we begin to
appreciate the meaning of the challenge, "Who is he that overcometh the world,
but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God!" Jesus, "the despised and
rejected of men," the outcast heretic, the crucified blasphemer - that HE is
the Son of God! The faith that thus takes sides with God against the world is a
faith that overcomes the world, "For whosoever believeth that Jesus is the
Christ is born of God." Hence it is that God is "the justifier of him that hath
faith in Jesus"; for "as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to
become children of God."
With the mass of men who profess the Christian
creed, what passes for faith is but a surface current on the smooth and shallow
stream of their religious impressions. Most of us "believe" that the earth is a
sphere, and that it is twirling on its axis and spinning round the sun. This
venerable hypothesis is scientifically useful, and, moreover, it is probably
true. But if "science" should discover to-morrow that it is false, the
discovery would not spoil our appetite for a single meal, or rob us of our
sleep for a single night. And there are multitudes of professing Christians who
in recent years have bartered their conventional faith in Christ for the coarse
profanity of the "New Theology," or the pleasing and plausible fallacies and
false-hoods of "Christian Science"; and the change has served only to increase
their self-esteem and their enjoyment of existence. A mere creed orthodoxy has
but little in common with true faith in Christ. And yet the many organised
phases of latter-day apostasy could not work such havoc among professing
Christians, were it not that orthodoxy is paralysed by the crusade of recent
years against the divine authority of Scripture.
In the physical sphere,
when life loses its aggressive power, and can no longer overcome the forces
that produce decay, vital energy soon fails; and so is it here. Evangeicalism,
attacked on one side by superstition and on the other by rationalism, has been
content to stand upon the defensive, and to sacrifice truth for the sake of
peace and so-called unity. The enthusiasm of faith has been killed by the
spirit of compromise.
Plain speaking is needed in times like these. "To him
that overcometh" is the prevailing note in the Lord's last messages of warning
and cheer to His people upon earth. For when churches fail, He counts upon
individual faithfulness. And in these days of ours organised Christianity has
failed, and the defence of the truth has become "a soldier's battle." In too
many of our pulpits, indeed, the commonly received "doctrines of the Christian
religion" - man's sin and ruin, redemption by blood, the resurrection of the
dead, and eternal judgment - are openly assailed or implicitly denied. And from
most of our pulpits the distinctive truths of Christianity are never heard. For
doctrines such as those above enumerated are not distinctively Christian at
all. As the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, they are a part of the divine
revelation of Judaism. They are "the first principles of the oracles of God,"
or, in other words, the elements of revealed religion. But the Christian
revelation is a revelation about Christ. Not that "a man of the name of Jesus
Christ once stood in our midst," that He worked great miracles, taught great
truths, lived a holy life, and died a shameful death - all this a wayfaring
man, though a fool, can discover for himself by human testimony; but that the
man who thus lived and died on earth was the Son of God (and we have seen what
that title signifies -" the Lord of Glory," "our great God and Saviour"); and
that He is now sitting on the throne of God, in all the glory of God, and with
all power in heaven and on earth. In view of all this-seemingly so incredible,
and yet so divinely true - we can understand His words, "When the Son of Man
cometh, shall He find the faith upon the earth?"
Though in the natural
sphere we can put pressure on the sane and the intelligent to acknowledge facts
and to yield to reason, we cannot compel belief in Christ, for spiritual truth
is spiritually discerned. And yet we may be able to clear away mists of
ignorance and barriers of error, that prejudice and blind the minds of men. The
Christian revelation is apparently falsified by facts. If the Christ of the
Ministry be indeed Almighty God, wielding all power on earth, what explanation
can be offered of this world's evil and hateful history throughout the
Christian era? "The times of the restoration of all things," or, in other
words, the times when everything should be put right on earth, were the burden
of Hebrew prophecy. But the hope was to be realised at the advent of Messiah;
and yet, after nineteen centuries, it seemingly remains but a dream of poets
and mystics.
Platitudes about the goodness and wisdom of an inscrutable
Providence will neither silence the infidel nor satisfy His suffering people.
But the Lord's words last quoted were spoken in connection with other words
which point to the solution of the mystery. God will indeed avenge His own
elect, though He is longsuffering respecting them. Or, as the Apostle Peter
wrote, recalling, doubtless, these very words, "the Lord is not slack
concerning His promise as some count slackness, but is longsuffering." The
great truth of grace was lost between the days of the Apostles and the age of
the Patristic theologians. As the sun breaks forth on a typical April day, and
then again becomes veiled in clouds, this truth flashed out in the teaching of
the Reformation, and then disappeared again. Though Luther was its foremost
champion, the Church which bears his name systematically denies it; and it is
practically ignored by the great theological schools of Calvin and Arminius.
And yet it is the truth which alone will teach us to "justify the ways of God
with men."
He to whom all judgment is committed, and who wields all power,
is exalted to be a Saviour, and His reign is a reign of GRACE. When in the
synagogue of Nazareth He stood up to read the appointed lesson from the
prophets, He closed the book at the middle of its opening sentence. "To preach
the acceptable year of the Lord" were the last words He uttered. And as all
eyes were fastened on Him - well might they stare in wonder -" He began to say
unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." "And the day of
vengeance of our God" were the words before Him on the page, but He left these
words unread.
And by reason of the longsuffering of God the dawning of that
awful day is still deferred. It is not that the moral government of the world
is in abeyance, but that divine judicial action is postponed until the day of
grace shall have run its course. And this of necessity. For if all judgment is
committed to the Lord Jesus Christ - all judicial and punitive action
respecting sin - the day of grace must run its course before the judgment can
begin. The great amnesty has been proclaimed - forgiveness and peace for sinful
men; and while this ministry of reconciliation lasts, judgment there cannot be.
The functions of Saviour and Judge are incompatible. He must relinquish the
throne of grace before He takes His place on the throne of judgment.
"All
power is of God," but the power of rule on earth is now delegated to men, and
men are incompetent and corrupt. But the day is coming when "the mystery of God
shall be finished," and the rule of this world shall become our Lord's and His
Christ's. Then shall be heard the anthem, "We give Thee thanks, 0 Lord God
Almighty, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power and hast reigned, and
Thy wrath has come." And then shall He give rewards to His people and "destroy
them who destroy the earth." A pandemonium ended by a bonfire might
epigrammatically describe the divine government of the world, as travestied by
our popular theology.
But in the light of Scripture all is clear and plain.
True it is that this earth that has been the scene of the pandemonium, shall
yet be given up to fire, but not till every word of Hebrew prophecy has been
fulfilled; for no word can fail that God has ever uttered. "We, according to
His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth," but this belongs to an
eternity to come. It is in time as measured upon human calendars, and here on
this earth of ours, now blighted by human sin, that divine goodness and power
shall yet be displayed in righteous rule. Of the fulfilment of this hope "God
hath spoken by all His holy prophets since the world began," and "the mystery
of God" is that its fulfilment is delayed. And yet by the mass of those who
profess to believe the Scriptures it is treated as a dream of visionaries, and
not a few there are who scoff at it. Though they pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy
will be done on earth," they refuse to tolerate the thought that the Lord will
fulfil the prayer which He Himself has given us. In the religious sphere,
indeed, it would seem that men will believe anything except the truth of God,
and thousands of our pulpits promote the delusion that the work of the churches
will yet result in the conversion of the world. Were the subject not so solemn,
ridicule would be our fittest weapon against a figment so grotesque.
In the
days of the Ministry the "professing church" on earth had been so thoroughly
absorbed by the world that it was itself "the world" against which the Lord so
strenuously warned His disciples. And in our day "the church" is not converting
the world, but becoming assimilated to the world. Man is God's creature, and
therefore by nature a religious being. But he is a fallen creature, and
therefore his religion always tends downwards. And the god of this world caters
for the idiosyncrasies of his dupes. For one the lure is the elevation of
humanity, for another, it is to bring the Deity down to his own level:
rationalism and superstition - the cult of the Eden lie, and the cult of the
golden calf - these are now the evangels of the Churches of the Reformation;
and the men who keep to the old gospel are a dwindling minority.
But the
last note struck in these concluding pages shall not be controversy, but appeal
and hope. "0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken," was the Lord's rebuke to His disciples because their faith had given
way under a strain such as none had ever known before, and none could ever know
again. He whom they had worshipped as Messiah had been crucified. in shame; and
was not His corpse lying in the tomb. Yet fools they were to doubt, even in
face of facts so stern and so terrible, that the words of the prophets were
divine, or to think that God could fail to fulfil them to the last jot and
tittle. And we may well give heed to that rebuke, and take it to ourselves - we
whose faith breaks down because, forsooth, in the longsuffering of God, with
whom a thousand years are as one day, the fulifiment of the promise is delayed
! When toward the close of His ministry the Lord warned His people of times of
trouble, which may now perhaps be near at hand, He spoke words well fitted to
create feelings of despair. But His purpose was far different, for immediately
He added, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh."
"Look up," for our hope is
in His coming. "The second advent" of our theology belongs to a future too
remote to influence our lives; and, moreover, it is associated only with the
thought of judgment. But His coming was the hope of His people in a bygone age,
and it is the true hope of His people still. Upon His coming, indeed, depends
their full redemption; for we have bodies as well as souls, and our bodies are
still subject to that hideous outrage, death. For death is none the less an
enemy because He has triumphed over it, and has given the victory to us. And
beyond the hope of His believing people - that true church which He Himself is
building - there lies the hope of Israel, yet to be restored to favour when the
"professing church" of this "Christian" age of ours shall have received its
doom. And beyond the hope of Israel there lies the hope of this sin-blighted
world, for the sovereignty of the world is to become His; and "even the
creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption." And as our
faith dwells upon this glorious vista of prophecy and promise yet to be
fulfilled, let us remember that all is for the glory of Him whom we know as our
Lord and Saviour, and (it cannot be repeated too often) that all awaits His
coming.
This is the age of His absence, but the coming age shall be
characterised by His presence. Not an isolated event, albeit Scripture tells us
that a series of manifestations of Christ will mark its course, but a new
attitude toward men - immediate divine action both in blessing and in judgment.
For while the covert atheism of these days of ours scoffs at the thought that
the prayer which He Himself has put into our lips could ever be fulfilled, His
believing people know that His kingdom is certainly coming, and that His will
shall be done on earth.
These pages are a humble effort to unfold some of
the many glories of our Lord Jesus Christ. To all the redeemed He is Saviour
and Lord; but He is also the Messiah, and King of Israel. More than this, and
higher, He is the Son of Man, "King of kings and Lord of lords," "the Heir of
all things," "the Firstborn of all creation." And above and beyond all this is
His supreme glory as the Son of God, the glory which He had with the Father
before the world was.
And there is but ONE Lord Jesus Christ. The Christ of
Nazareth and Calvary is He who will consume the lawless one by the breath of
His mouth, and destroy him by the manifestation of His presence. And that same
awful glory it was that overwhelmed the beloved disciple in the Patmos vision;
for His eyes are as a flame of fire, and His countenance is as the sun shineth
in its strength. Not even the holiest of mortal men can stand in presence of
the glory of God; but so perfect is our redemption that we are called to
rejoice in hope of it. And the time is coming when "this mortal shall have put
on immortality"; and then shall be fulfilled the prayer of the betrayal night,
for when thus "changed" it will be our privilege and joy to behold the glory of
our glorious Lord and Saviour.
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