Men are responsible to believe the gospel, and they will be punished for not believing it. They are not responsible to know any thing about God's counsels, inasmuch as they are not revealed, and, therefore, there can be no guilt attached to ignorance concerning them. The apostle could say to the Thessalonians, "knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." How did he know it? Was it by having access to the page of God's secret and eternal decrees? By no means. How then? "Because ([Greek: hoti]) our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power." (1 Thess. i. 4, 5.) This is the way to know the election of any. When the gospel comes in power, it is a plain proof of God's election.
But, I doubt not, the people who draw a plea from the divine counsels for rejecting the divine testimony, only want some flimsy excuse to continue in sin. They really do not want God; and it would be far more honest in them to say so, plainly, than to put forward a plea which is not merely flimsy, but positively blasphemous. Such a plea will not avail them much amid the terrors of the day of judgment, now fast approaching.
But, just at this point, God began to reveal himself, and his purposes of redeeming love; and herein lay the true basis of man's peace and blessedness. When man has come to the end of himself, God can show what he is; but not until then. The scene must be entirely cleared of man, and all his vain pretensions, empty boastings, and blasphemous reasonings, ere God can or will reveal himself. Thus it was when man was hidden behind the trees of the garden, that God unfolded his wondrous plan of redemption through the instrumentality of the bruised seed of the woman. Here we are taught a valuable principle of truth as to what it is which alone will bring a man, peacefully and confidingly, into the presence of God.
It has been already remarked that conscience will never effect this. Conscience drove Adam behind the trees of the garden; revelation brought him forth into the presence of God. The consciousness of what he was terrified him; the revelation of what God was tranquillized him. This is truly consolatory for a poor sin-burdened heart. The reality of what I am is met by the reality of what God is; and this is salvation.
There is a point where God and man must meet, whether in grace or judgment, and that point is where both are revealed _as they are_. Happy are they who reach that point in grace! Woe be to them who will have to reach it in judgment! It is with what we are that God deals; and it is as he is that he deals with us. In the cross, I see God descending in grace to the lowest depths, not merely of my negative, but my positive condition, as a sinner. This gives perfect peace. If God has met me, in my actual condition, and himself provided an adequate remedy, all is eternally settled. But all who do not thus, by faith, see God, in the cross, will have to meet him, by and by, in judgment, when he will have to deal, according to what he is, with what they are.
The moment a man is brought to know his real state, he can find no rest until he has found God, in the cross, and then he rests in God himself. He, blessed be his name, is the Rest and Hiding-place of the believing soul. This, at once, puts human works and human righteousness in their proper place. We can say, with truth, that those who rest in such things cannot possibly have arrived at the true knowledge of themselves. It is quite impossible that a divinely quickened conscience can rest in aught save the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God. All effort to establish one's own righteousness must proceed from ignorance of the righteousness of God. Adam might learn, in the light of the divine testimony about "the seed of the woman," the worthlessness of his fig-leaf apron. The magnitude of that which had to be done, proved the sinner's total inability to do it. Sin had to be put away. Could man do that? Nay, it was by him it had come in. The serpent's head had to be bruised. Could man do that? Nay, he had become the serpent's slave. God's claims had to be met. Could man do that? Nay, he had already trampled them under foot. Death had to be abolished. Could man do that? Nay, he had, by sin, introduced it, and imparted to it its terrible sting.
Thus, in whatever way we view the matter, we see the sinner's complete impotency, and, as a consequence, the presumptuous folly of all who attempt to assist God in the stupendous work of redemption, as all assuredly do who think to be saved in any other way but "by grace, through faith."