Tf The grace wherein we stand is the same as that on which Abraham stood, a righteousness reckoned, or imputed, to him when he had none of his own. The justified believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and that righteousness is the rock on which he stands. He does not stand on his efforts, or his intentions, or his tears, or his joys, or his varied feelings of either joy or sorrow. But he stands on the righteousness of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He stands on the great fact that the Son of God has been his substitute on the Cross, and that as the Son of man He is now his representative before the throne.1
5. By faith. " By faith we have access." That is no arbitrary appointment. It lies in the very nature of the gift and of the recipient. How can God give access into that grace to a man who shrinks from being near Him ; who does not want " access," and who could not use the grace if he had it ? How can God bestow inward and spiritual gifts upon any man who closes his heart against them, and will not have them ? My faith is the condition ; Christ is the Giver. If I ally myself to Him by my faith, He gives to me. If I do not, with all the will to do it, He cannot bestow His best gifts any more than a man who stretches out his hand to another sinking in the flood can lift him out, and
1 E. Hoare.
29S THE HARVEST OF THE JUSTIFIED
set him on the safe shore, if the drowning man's hand is not stretched out to grasp the rescuer's outstretched hand.
Tf We are all " solifidians " now. The word is obsolete ; but it was eloquent in its time. It means depending on faith alone. The guests at this table claim no personal merit. They recognise the value of morality, but are frank to confess that in their works, however good or many, there is neither expiatory value nor earn- ing capacity. The only meritorious thing they have ever done is to believe in Christ; which is not the purchase price but the condition affixed to the gift of everlasting life. And even that faith is not their own ; it is the gift of God.1
IV.
In Hope of the Glory.
" And let us rejoice (exult) in hope of the glory of God."
1. What is the glory of God ? It is the Glory of the Divine Presence (Shekinah) communicated to man (partially here, but) in full measure when he enters into that Presence. Man's whole being will be transfigured by it. The phrase, " the glory of God," is, in the Old Testament, used specially to mean the light that dwelt between the cherubim above the mercy-seat ; the symbol of the divine perfections and the token of the Divine Presence. The reality of which it was a symbol is the total splendour, so to speak, of that divine nature, as it rays itself out into all the universe. And, says Paul, the true hope of the Christian man is nothing less than that he shall be, in some true sense, and in an eternally growing degree, the real possessor of that glory.
TJ The very heart of Christianity is that the Divine Light of which that Shekinah was but a poor and transitory symbol has "tabernacled" amongst men in the Christ, and has from Him been communicated, and is being communicated, in such measure as earthly limitations and conditions permit, and that these do point assuredly to perfect impartation hereafter, when "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." The Three could walk in the furnace of fire, because there was One with them, " like unto the Son of God." " Who among us shall dwell with the everlasting fire," the fire of that divine perfection ? They who have had introduction by Christ into the grace, and who will be led by Him into the glory.
1 D. J. Burrell.
ROMANS v. i, 2 299
^f The glory of the Christian is not simply to behold the glory of his risen and glorified Lord. Oh, marvellous grace, he is to participate in it ! For the same Christ who made that imperative prayer in the upper room gave this promise also, " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne ; even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne."1
2. Rejoicing in hope of the glory. The word here translated " rejoicing " is " boasting " or " exulting." Sometimes it is used in the New Testament in a bad sense, of a proud boasting in some * thing as one's own; sometimes in a good sense, of thankful rejoicing in God's presence or gifts, as here. Such rejoicing is possible only upon justification. Or at least only then is it safe. No doubt if you can make a man look forward, you do him a wonderful good, you raise him in the scale of existence ; he is not a mere grovelling animal any longer. It is not surprising, there- fore, that people have talked bo much about the advantage of expecting another state of existence, of the good which must come from hoping for its blessings; of the watchfulness which is awakened in a man who is taught how he may escape a distant evil that is threatening him. There has been no exaggeration in statements of this kind, there scarcely can be any. But there may be the most fatal omissions in them, omissions which make that which is told worse than a mockery.