RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
INTRODUCTION.
EVERY child of Adam is of necessity placed in the relation
of a creature to the Creator. All owe their being to Him (Acts xvii. 25-28). In
this sense He is the Father of all (Ephes. iii. 14-15 ; iv. 6), and so Adam is
called God's son (Luke iii. 38).
As creatures, dependent on God daily
and hourly, confidence in Him as the Creator should always have characterised
each one of us. For as Creator He takes thought, and has a personal care even
for animals, even for all to whom He has given life (Jonah iv. 11 ; Matt. vi.
26 ; Luke xii. 6); and how much more does He care for those who must have an
everlasting existence. Worship, then, and service should unhesitatingly have
been rendered to Him by all the human race (Rom. i. 25). But in this, as Daniel
boldly told the heathen monarch, Belshazzar, he had grievously failed: "The God
in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not
glorified" (Dan. v. 23). So that king, convicted by the prophet of his impiety,
and of his failure as a creature, as he sat enthroned amid all the splendour of
oriental sovereignty, passed away that night from earth to await, as far as we
know, his doom, when he shall be summoned before the great white throne.
Responsibility as a creature he could not shake off, though his failure
in reference to it was enhanced by the opportunity God had offered him of
profiting by the well-known history and example of his grandfather,
Nebuchadnezzar.
As creatures, all of us have failed, all have sinned ;
so to nothing but misery and everlasting perdition could we have justly looked
forward, had not God acted, in the sovereignty of His grace, to quicken some,
and to bring them into new relations to Himself as saints, as servants, and as
of His household, etc.
Of what grace does this speak? Grace naturally
foreign to the heart of man, and which has its origin only in the heart of God.
For who of men would naturally entrust their interests on earth, and the
carrying out of their purposes, to those who had sinned against them, and had
evinced a life-long disregard of their wishes, if not a bitter enmity to their
person ? But it is out of such that God sets some apart as vessels devoted by
Him to a holy use. i.e., saints, sanctified in Christ Jesus (i Cor. i. 2),
chosen by Him " to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth" (2 Thes. ii. 13; 1 Pet. i. 2).
His servants, too, such are (i
Pet. ii. 16 ; Rom. vi. 22), and He has none others on earth ; all His work in
this world, which is done by creature instrumentality for the advancement of
His kingdom and the glory of His Son, being carried out through them. Of His
household, likewise, they are reckoned (Ephes. ii. 19), for He would not keep
them at a distance, though they only deserved everlasting banishment from His
presence. In these relations to Him we, who believe on His Son, shall be found
for ever. The character and sphere of service may, and assuredly will change.
We shall not be always on earth, and in a scene where God's authority is
disowned. For on high, when for ever freed from all toil and trouble, enjoying
the Sabbath rest which awaits us, His name, with that of the Lamb, will be on
our foreheads, the token to all to Whom we belong ; and the privilege will
still be ours of being engaged in His service: for "His servants shall serve
Him" (Rev. xxii. 3). And in a special relation to God will Christians then be
displayed, peculiar to those who are now His habitation on earth by the Spirit,
for they will be His holy temple, in which He will dwell for ever (Ephes. ii.
21). What delight must He take in those of His creatures who are redeemed by
the blood of Christ!
Saints, servants, of His household, His people, His
dwelling-place, His temple, His elect, and His called-ones, what relations are
these to God, we may well say, of which we can make our boast. Now all these
are connected with the revelation of Himself as God. Favours, privileges, they
surely are, in which none of us, and, we add, no creature, would ever have
thought we should be called to have a part; yet they do not exhaust the list of
our privileges, for in another character God has been pleased to reveal
Himself. He is our God, for we are His redeemed ones. He is our Father, too, as
born of Him, which is relationship to God in the closest and best sense. We are
His children by birth, born of water and of the Spirit (John iii. 5). We are
also His sons by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. iii. 26).
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