The peace which he found all men want, and shall find in Jesus, if they seek it honestly, earnestly. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never had. We pronounce him an unnatural father, who, on a breach occurring between him and his child, though he is the injured and not the injurer, does not long to be reconciled--is not the first to make advances and overtures of peace. In this feature of the parental character God has stamped upon our hearts the beautiful image of His own. Yearning over them as the kind old man over his wayward prodigal, his exiled child, God was willing to receive back sinners to His arms; to reinstate them in His family, and restore them to His favour. But how was this to be done?--done without dishonour to His holy law, and with due regard to His character as a God of truth. He had said, "The soul that sinneth shall die;" nor could peace be restored between Him and man but on such terms as maintained His truth. A father or mother punishes one child, and allows another, guilty of the same offence, to go free. But had God cast fallen angels into hell, and, without any regard to His word, admitted fallen men to heaven, what had angels, what had devils, what had men themselves thought of a God who conducted his government with such caprice--playing fast and loose with His most solemn words? "The way of the Lord," said ancient Israel, "is not equal;" and in such a case there had been ground for the charge, and none for the indignation with which He repels it, saying, "Hear now, O Israel, is not my way equal? are not yours unequal?"
There was only one way of restoring peace; but it involved a sacrifice on God's part which the most sanguine had never dared to hope for. If the Lord of heaven and earth, veiling His glory, would assume our nature, would take the form of a servant, would stoop to the work of a subject, would die the death of a sinner, we might be saved--not otherwise; if He would leave heaven, we might enter it--not otherwise; if He would die, we might live--not otherwise; if He would enter the grave its captor, we might leave it its conquerors--not otherwise; if He, as our substitute, would fulfil the requirements of the law, both in doing our work and discharging our debt, both obeying and suffering in our stead, peace could be restored--not otherwise. For these ends God did not spare His Son, but gave Him up to death, "that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life;" and the "set time" having come at length, Jesus descended on our world, to make peace through the blood of His cross--His angel-train, ere they returned to heaven, holding a concert in the skies.
Dying, the just for the unjust, He has made peace; and these are the easy terms, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." How gladly should we accept them? If men reject peace, what chance for them in war? "Hast thou an arm like God? Canst thou thunder with a voice like him?" "Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth; but woe to the man who striveth with his Maker!" He has proclaimed a truce--granting a suspension of arms, and offering most generous proposals of peace. How should men improve the pause, and accept the overtures!--as eagerly seizing salvation through the cross of Christ as a drowning man life through the rope some kind hand flings within his reach. In warfare patriots have stood up gallantly against overwhelming odds, and, closing their broken ranks, have said, "Better fall on the field, better lose life than honour;" but when sinners, dropping the weapons of rebellion, yield themselves up to God, honour is not lost, but won, in a crown that fadeth not away. Brave men have said, "Better fight to the last, die with our swords in our hands, than become captives to pine away a weary, ignoble life within the walls of a prison;" but when the sinner gives himself up to God, he goes not to exile but home; not to chains and a dungeon, but to glorious freedom, a palace, and a throne. God asks you to give up your sins that they, not you, may be slain. It is of them, not of you, He says, "But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me!"