"We cannot believe God gave His only begotten Son for the spiritual healing and salvation of His enemies, since such an act would be impossible to us. No hero of whom we have read or heard is equal to a like sacrifice. It defies probabilities. Is not this a sign that the Gospel, and the message within it, was thought out in a mind transcending ours, and the way of the Cross was a way suggested by no analogies of history.
All religion has been pressed with this problem, how to harmonise the perfect rectitude of the Divine nature and the solemn claims of law with forgiveness. All religions have borne witness to the fact that men are dimly aware of the discord and dissonance between themselves and the Divine thoughts and ways ; and a thousand altars proclaim to us how they have felt that something must be done in order that forgiveness might be possible to an all righteous and Sovereign Judge. The Jew knew that God was a pardoning God, but to him that fact stood as needing much explanation and much light to be thrown upon its relations with the solemn law under which he lived. We have Jesus Christ. The mystery of forgiveness is solved, in so far as it is capable of solution, in Him and in Him alone. His death somewhat explains how God is just and the justifier of him that believeth. High above men's thoughts this great central mystery of the Gospel riseS; that with God there is forgiveness and with God there is perfect righteousness.
When my thoughts about life are put away that I may get God's thoughts, Christ becomes the gift of God's heart to me, a Deliverer in whom the power of my new life consists, an
410 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Enlightener from whom I learn to think of God and man. " If any man be in Christ," says Paul, " he is a new creature : old things have passed away, behold they have become new." His former judgments, his estimate of great and small are changed ; he finds himself in a new washen earth. It is no power of earth that can work a change like that, but the redeeming will of God, who is able also to subdue all things unto Himself.^
Enough, my muse, of earthly things,
And inspirations but of wind ;
Take up thy lute, and to it bind
Loud and everlasting strings.
And on them play, and to them sing,
The happy mournful stories,
The lamentable glories
Of the great crucified King ! Mountainous heap of wonders ! which dost rise
Till earth thou joinest with the skies ! Too large at bottom, and at top too high, To be half seen by mortal eye;
How shall I grasp this boundless thing?
What shall I play ? What shall I sing ? I'll sing the mighty riddle of mysterious love, Which neither wretched man below, nor blessed spirits above,
With all their comments can explain. How all the whole world's life to die did not disdain ! ^
^ W. M. Macgregor, Jesus Christ the Son of Ood, p. 100. ^ Abraham Cowlev.
God's Double Dwelling-Place.
Literature.
Bacon (L. W.), The Simplicity that is in Christ, 318.
Brown (A. G.), In the Valley of Decision, 168.
Campbell (J. M.), Responsibility for the Gift of Eternal Life, 64
Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 199.
Dykes (J. 0.), Sermons, 67.
Gresley (W.), Brighton Sermons, 297.
Murray (A.), The Ministry of Intercession, 180.
Gosterzee (J. J. van.), The Year of Salvation, i. 27.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, iii. 73.
Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, 3rd Ser., 230.
Selby (T. G.), The Lesson of a Dilemma, 165.
Simcox (W. H.), Cessation of Prophecy, 48.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 370.
Watkinson (W. L.), Ashes of Roses, 245.
Sermons for the Christian Seasons, 1st Ser., i. 1G9.
British Congregationalist, Jan.-June, 1907, 516 (Jowett).
Christian World Pulpit, ii. 52 (Dykes) ; li. 134 (McHardy).
Church of England Pulpit, xxiiv. 40 (Henslow).
Church Pulpit Year Booh, ii. 19.
Homiletic Review, lii. 149 (Matthews).
Presbyterian and Reformed Review, liii, 278.
GOD'S Double Dwelling-Place.
For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. — Ivii. 15.
EvEEYTHiNG depends upon our conception of God. All our ideas are influential, but the most influential of all ideas is a man's idea of God. The wealth or poverty of our character is consequent upon how we conceive the character of God. Does our conception of God ever affect us as though we were gazing upon some awful peaks or looking down into some terrific abyss ? Does the contemplation ever take our breath away ? Do we ever look in awed quietness ? " When I saw him I fell at his feet as one dead." And the wonder of it is that these words come from the lips of John the Beloved, from the one who had leaned on the Master's breast at supper.
IT The Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, was once addressed by a lady who believed him to be somewhat liberal and vague in his views of religion; she said, "Sir, can you tell us what you really think about God ? " The answer was : "Madam, it matters very little what I think about God, but it matters a great deal what God thinks about me." Yet beneath that assertion there was another which you can distinguish at once, namely : It matters very much what I think God thinks of me. It is essential that I should have right views of that Divine nature which is every hour appealing to mine, the one unescapable reality of my life without which one can neither think, nor speak, nor act. Every man must positively or negatively define his attitude to God.^