The Security of Grace
The beautiful saying, " Grace that hath conditions is no grace" has often been repeated. It is a true saying; for the moment the least condition is appended it ceases to be grace ; it is law. Grace is sovereign bounty issuing from the heart of the giver. It imposes nothing. It attaches no string to the gift. It displays the giver, not the receiver. Its only security is the moral condition of the receiver. Were the governor in grace to forgive every criminal regardless of his moral condition, he would let men loose who would renew their course of crime as soon as free, and be a plague to the community. But if a man shows real sorrow over his past life and condemns himself in truth for the evil he has done, he will not renew his criminal life when set free. He will be only too thankful to be set free, and anxious now to prove his appreciation of the governor's grace by an upright and good life.
Such is grace with God. He delights to forgive sinners. Nothing gives him more joy than the opportunity to forgive, for He is the God of all grace, and. when He forgives it is for ever, and without conditions. Our Lord says of His sheep, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." He never takes it back. He attaches no conditions to the gift. The only security He has in exercising such grace is in the repentant condition of the receiver. If Peter is to be a subject of His grace he must learn to cry, " Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." If the woman at Sychar's well is to be filled with the " living water, " she must feel the shame of her sinful life. If the jailer of Philippi is to be saved, he must first learn he is lost. Grace can impart its precious treasures to such, for it has a moral, everlasting hold upon them.
Moreover, every gift which grace may bestow beside salvation, for service of any kind, will be found accompanied with some fresh special work of repentance. What probings in Peter, reaching down to the very center of his being, as the Lord, in Jno. 21, commits to him the care of His sheep! And, while under grace and in the enjoyment of its abounding sweets, what a constant reminder the people of God have in the Lord's supper of their past guilt and sin! Should they forget that, they would cease to appreciate grace. Pride would take hold. They would soon be but Pharisees-in a worse state than those who, not knowing the grace of God, go doubting their salvation and mourning all the way.
But if repentance has such a large place in relation to grace, and is its abiding and only security in our attitude toward God, it is no less important in the attitude of God's people toward one another. Self-righteousness makes them bite and devour one another, and may make them to be consumed one of another. The spirit of repentance meeting the spirit of grace draws them together, and binds them together in true love. If the spirit of repentance be wanting, then to talk of grace can be little else than indifference-lukewarmness-the sure ruin of God's people.
God deals in grace day by day with an evil, unrepentant world, but not in fellowship with it. If He dealt not in grace, but claimed His rights, the world would soon be at an end. So should we, like Him, deal in patient grace with all, ready to lose our rights all the way, the heart full of grace, delighting to forgive wherever there is repentance, but that repentance defining and limiting our fellowship.
Twice Vindicated
When, by being baptized of John, our Lord identified Himself with repenting sinners, there was great danger, as the sequel has proved, that in the eyes of men the ever-abiding glory of His Person should suffer. A voice from heaven therefore was heard:" This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). It is the jealousy of the- Father concerning the glory of His Son. If He has, in infinite grace and out of love for His Father and for men, veiled His deity in humanity, and become so much like us to become our Redeemer, woe be to the man who abases Him further by denying His deity.
But there is another place where God has to vindicate His Son again. This time it is not among sinners but among saints. Our Lord is fulfilling His promise that "there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27). He has Peter, John and James with Him. Suddenly He is transfigured, and Moses and Elias, in glorified state too, are therewith Him illustrating the kingdom in power and glory.
If sinners have despised Him because of His likeness to us here, Peter, a saint, who is just rousing from sleep, lowers Him too in seeing how like Him are His redeemed in glory. He would put them all on a level with Him. So the jealousy of the Father speaks again:" This is My beloved Son:hear Him." In humiliation or in glory He is the same. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet " is our only proper state of mind as we speak of the Son of God. Men talk of the world growing better, while they increasingly insult this holy Person. They see not the world from God's standpoint.