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God is merciful and full of pity; He loves His creatures, however fallen; and He longs to save men from the corruption and darkness which engulf them. Therefore the world is not condemned merely because it is lost, but because it is not willing to be saved-honestly! The condemnation is not that the world is in gross darkness, but that it deliberately chooses to remain in this darkness, after Light is mercifully sent to it. Hear the sad words of the Saviour Himself:
" For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation:that Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God " (John 3:17-21).
Why was it that the Lord of Glory, coming into the world which His hands had made, in love and grace and tender pity, as a Man among men, was crucified by His creatures, under the charge of being a criminal, unfit to live among them? It was because '' men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil"! His life among us was itself an exposure of the lives of all others, and in His words He told the truth about us, exposing our hearts as God sees them. This was His only crime; for this He was crucified! True, He told the truth in love and sweet compassion, holding up the mirror to us in order that we might realize our need and accept salvation at His hands. For while the mere presence of such an One in the world necessarily manifested all things here, yet He testified that He had come not to condemn, but to save. And thus not cold and merciless "truth" alone, exposing us to hopeless condemnation, but "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ " (John 1:17)! But yet the truth, in the purest grace, we will not have, and even man's indifferent laws and standard of justice were outraged by us in order that He Who is "the truth" might be got rid of!
Since the murder of Jesus of Nazareth, the world is under the condemnation of having killed the only Man in the world's history Who was fit to live! is guilty of having visited the criminal's doom upon the only One born of woman Who was not, by nature and by practice, a criminal! This is the cruel answer of the human heart to Him Who simply ventured to tell the necessary truth to those He loved, and came to save! And do not say that it is not the answer of your heart, dear reader, simply because you did not have the opportunity to actually imbrue your hands in His blood! Satan could have stirred up your sinful heart just as easily as he did the hearts of the murderers of Jesus. The capacity of one heart is the capacity of all, for '' As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man " (Prov. 27:19); while this capacity of each human heart for evil God alone can estimate:"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:who can know it? I the Lord search the heart" (Jer. 17:9, 10).
But there is a present test of this matter, my reader? What is your present attitude toward the Light? Have you accepted Jesus' testimony that you are a lost sinner, only fit for judgment in your natural state, and have you trusted your soul to Him, that you might be fitted for eternal happiness? Or do you with all your respectability, love darkness rather than light, because your deeds, too, are evil?
For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, -" God . . . manifest in the flesh " (i Tim. 3:16), – is this Light that has come into the world, to save all who will come to it, and thus necessarily condemning all who refuse it! The Word of God, one of the Persons of the Godhead (through Whom, as become Man, all the Fulness of the Godhead has shown out in a perfect Humanity), He has fully revealed amidst the darkness of earth what God is,-all that man is being thus also delineated, by vivid contrast. This is the Light! "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" "in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men " (John 1:i, 14, 4).
This great phenomenon of the ages,-the appearance in the world of the only perfect Man it has ever seen, the lowly and tender-hearted Jesus of Nazareth,-was nothing less than the. revelation of the Almighty Himself, the Creator Who framed the universe, in humble Manhood! "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made " (John 1:3), God's purpose
was ever fixed, as His love was set, upon man,-the creature whom He had destined to be His friend and companion! Therefore as Man, the great Lover of men Himself drew near, to woo and to redeem the objects of His Divine affections. In assuming humanity He became the manifestation of that Eternal Life that had existed in God without a beginning. For when He took part in. flesh and blood, God, Who had always lived as God, beyond our ken, now lived the life of God before our eyes, as Man.
This Life of God, shining out in the career of a Man, is the "Light of men," the "Light of the world"! And thus we have "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God [God's moral glory,- the sublime perfection of His nature and character, displayed in words and acts] in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6)! From the face of Jesus,- the face of a Man,-the Light of what God is, in blended holiness and tenderness, now shines toward all men, and into the hearts of all who open their hearts to receive the blessed, healing revelation!
How is it with you, dear reader? Has this Light shined into your heart? or are you under the condemnation of having rejected the God Who has thus revealed Himself, because you are not willing to face the truth about yourself in the presence even of the love which seeks but to heal you? If the latter be your case then, in spite of the many theories of unbelief with which you may be attempting to reassure yourself, know this from God's Word:If you will not permit the Light to unmask you now, in tender, saving grace, He Who is that Light, as your Judge, must inevitably unmask you in the day of judgment, stripping you naked in condemnation, in the presence of the whole universe, to your eternal undoing! But now, in boundless love and pity, He beseeches you to trust Him and be reconciled to Him, so as not to force Him to such an alternative. Have you closed with this offer? Or do you tempt your God?
Thus the advent of Jesus in this world of sinners was the coming of God Himself, in humble guise, to live the Life of God in humanity, illuminating the darkness. That the Almighty should assume manhood was predicted by the prophets. In foretelling that the promised Ruler in Israel was to be born in Bethlehem, Micah (5:2) declared He would be the One "Whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." In Zechariah 12:10, Jehovah says, " They shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced." Jehovah could not be " pierced," except He assumed creaturehood. And Isaiah testifies most unequivocally:"The Lord Himself shall give you a sign:Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel,"-that it to say, " God with us "; " For unto us a Child is born, unto us a. Son is given ; and the government shall be upon His shoulders; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace" (Isa. 7:14; 9:6).
None other than "the Mighty God" Himself, the " Father of Eternity," was revealing Himself in the meek and lowly Jesus. Therefore the life and death of this Man, Who was God also, is henceforth the only Standard of perfection,-the Light by which all other things are judged. My unsaved reader, do you wish to begin to learn what you are, and what God is? Then come, and honestly measure yourself by this Standard.
Measure your life of self-seeking in the Light of His life of complete self-abnegation, even to the point of His endurance on the cross of the punishment of your sins, that you might be forgiven! Measure the enmity of your mind against God in the Light of His loving devotion to His Father,- His obedience unto death, and that the death of the cross! Measure your pride and ambitions in the Light of His voluntary humiliation! your selfish struggle for riches, fame and power in the Light of His self-sacrifice Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich! Measure your selfish insistence upon your "rights" in this world-who have really forfeited all rights before God-in the Light of His uncomplaining abrogation of all rights as Man, Who, as God, alone possessed rights! Measure your feeble and selfish love toward even those dearest to you,- not to speak of your hatred of those you deem your enemies,-in the Light of His marvelous love for His enemies, for whom He died, and for whom He interceded on the cross, even while His murderers mocked Him! Measure your transgressions, more than the hairs of your head, in the Light of His holy deeds of love! Your corruption of heart and mind in the Light of His transparent purity!
To what extent have you lost reputation and caste through loving service among the publicans and sinners of this world? Where is your life, lived in such holy power as to completely convict men of sin and arouse their enmity to the point of outraging even human justice to get rid of you by hanging you on a gallows as a criminal? Measure yourself with this One? compare yourself with Him? You can only contrast yourself with Jesus of Nazareth, though you should happen to be the least guilty sinner that ever lived! In the glorious Light of His life and death, in suffering for others, the very best deeds of our lives become spotted and dark, with the mixed motives which attend even the best impulses of our poor selfish hearts. In this Light,-judged by this, the true Standard, by which all things must be judged, and will be, for time and eternity,-even "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isa. 64:6)
Atheists, agnostics, infidels, and "higher critics" acknowledge the existence of this Light, and are forced grudgingly to concede that it is Light, at the same time that they squirm under it, and seek to turn the edge of its exposure of their moral nakedness. They all confess that Jesus stands alone in human history. But yet these wretched sinners affect to speak in a condescending and patronizing way of Him whose shoe-latchet the very best of them who has ever lived is utterly unworthy to stoop down and unloose! They seek to avoid the demonstration that the life of Jesus is the life of god in a Man, and thus the condemnation of the lives of all others, as a Standard of comparison which proves that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," so " that they are all under sin, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." (Rom. 3:23, 9, 10)
How we would like to put the life of Jesus to the credit of man, instead of acknowledging that it condemns the entire human race! How we seek to persuade ourselves that perhaps, after all, simply a man, like ourselves (!), has lived this unique Life of love and self-sacrifice at which all the world marvels!
But no! God Himself it is Who emptied Himself, mysteriously veiled His majesty in creaturehood, and visited His creature thus, to tell out the infinite depths of the love of His tender heart, and to do the work which would justify Him in showing mercy to the vilest sinner! God Himself it is Who, in the humanity which He had truly taken, grew up in this barren world of darkness as a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground! Who went about doing good, suffering with the suffering, and sympathizing with the sorrowful! ministering to the poor and the oppressed, temporally and spiritually! healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, raising the dead, speaking peace and granting forgiveness of sins to sinful outcasts who know their need!
God Himself it is Who, in the Person of the lowly Jesus, in perfect sympathy endured in His own heart the suffering and the sorrow He relieved, even as it had been written:" Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." (Isa. 53:4) God Himself it is Who, as Man for men, upon the cross suffered the full punishment for sins, vicariously, for the very ones who mocked and murdered Him, as well as for all the fallen sons of men,-as it had also been written of Him :
" He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53:)
Yea, God Himself it is Who, as Man, rose from the dead, bringing creaturehood, in His Person, beyond death and judgment, and carrying it into the heavens whence He came! And God Himself it is Who, still as Man, shall soon come again, revealing Himself the second time to the world, though this time in judgment,-appearing to convict His gain-sayers, in the dazzling glory and irresistible power which belong to Him as God! For "Behold, the Lord cometh, with myriads of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have unrighteously committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." (Jude 14, 15)
Finally, dear reader, as one who loves your soul with a feeble reflection of the love of God, your Maker, I ask again:How is it with you ? Have you come to this Light? or have you chosen darkness? Have your eyes been opened to behold the gracious beauty of the lowly-hearted Mighty One Who is both Light and Love? What have you, individually, to say to your God, in view of His revelation of Himself to you as the Man, Christ Jesus, Who came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost? Do you despise Him, because He has proven Himself to be gracious and approachable, instead of a stern Judge? If so, you shall meet Him in this other character, which you will not despise! May God's mercy save you from such a fate!
For then, alas, you must behold the Light! And you will measure yourself by it, and realize the truth when it is too late,-when the period is forever past during which the grace and power of God could and would have remedied your hopeless condition!
Sinner, waste not one moment! Flee from the wrath to come! Fall at the feet of Jesus, the Light of the world, the Light of men! Put all your trust in Him alone! For He is "God over all, blessed forever!" (Rom. 9:5.)
Come! hasten! flee to this gracious, healing, saving Light! Let His voice persuade you to salvation, Who poured all His sweetness out before us in this dark scene as the Man, Jesus, in order to interpret Himself to His creatures, and Whose gracious words still go out to you from His throne in heaven:'' Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest! Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me (for I am meek and lowly in heart), and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (Matt. 11:28, 29) F.A.