(1 Pet. 3:18)

In our unbelief we were not only "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise" (Eph. 2:12), but were also alienated from God, at enmity with Him. Morally we were at an infinite distance from our Creator, whose rights over us we had violated. Sin had effected all this, and brought us into this place of distance from God.

Now the aim of sin is to dishonor God; Satan's design, in whom it originated, is to dethrone God, to destroy His sovereignty and set up in its place the supremacy of evil. When this conception of sin is apprehended it will be realized how abhorrent to God sin must be. There would have to be an impossible change in God's nature and character to reconcile Himself to the continuance of sin in His universe. Sin is intrinsically abhorrent to Him, and of necessity God must put sin at an infinite distance from Himself. In doing this, God is only maintaining His sovereign right, and the necessity of His nature.

But what a dreadful thing it is for a moral creature to be identified with what God has necessarily to put at an infinite distance from Himself ! A creature made to have communion with God, put away at an infinite distance from Him-how dreadful is the thought ! How dreadful to us even in our very imperfect realization of the awful reality of sin.

But this terrible position of separation from God was once ours. We were sin's captives, taking our
part in Satan's struggle to dethrone God; doing our share in the abominable effort to dishonor Him. It is a position in which we necessarily were the objects of His displeasure. While we followed the course of this world, to which we belonged and of which we were a part, we were "sons of disobedience," and naturally "children of wrath" (Eph. 2:2, 3). We were appointed to death and the judgment that comes after death (Heb. 9:27)-objects of God's present displeasure and exposed to His eternal wrath. How awful the doom that was before us ! How little we then realized it !

But this is not all. As regards deliverance from this position in which we stood, we were absolutely helpless, entirely without resources to deliver ourselves from it. The redemption of the soul is costly (Ps. 49:8). Who has the price? Silver and gold are valueless here. Even were it possible to gain the whole world it were valueless for the redemption of the soul.

Entirely helpless men are, then, to deliver themselves out of the position in which sin has brought them. No ability to free themselves from the penalty of their sins. They cannot turn aside the death to which they are appointed. They cannot free themselves from the eternal judgment to which they have been sentenced. But, thanks be to God, in infinite grace He has intervened in behalf of man in the time of his extremity. He has not left men, has not abandoned them to a just and eternal doom. He might have done so, and no one could say to Him, Nay. He would have been just in exercising His sovereign right. But while it was His right to leave men to their deserts, it was in His heart to interpose on their behalf. It was a necessity of His nature to love the moral creature He had created. He could but love him still after his fall. Man's sin could not change the heart of God. It was a necessity of God's nature to abominate man's sin, but it was also a necessity of His nature to love man even though he was estranged from Him, and to pity him in his helpless and hopeless condition. Oh how good and blessed for us that this was so !

And if God could love and pity man in his sins, He was not without power to exercise His love and show His pity. Love in God was not helpless. It was able to interpose on man's behalf. It had resources righteously to intervene and to meet man in his need and extremity. It was a necessity of God's nature to bring in the resources of His love, wisdom and power in man's behalf. If it was impossible for man to get back to God, it was possible for God to come out to man, to lay hold of him and bring him back.

Let us consider, briefly, the intervention of God to meet sinful men in their extremity. He has raised up a Man capable, through an atoning sacrifice and thus righteously, to open the way for the recovery of sinful men to Himself. He has given His well-beloved, His only Son to become the Mediator between the righteous claims of His nature and sinful men-One able to answer to God concerning men's sins. God gave His Son-the Jehovah-Messiah promised of old-to suffer sacrificially for sin that He might bring sinners back to Himself.

The Son of God thus became the Redeemer-became a Man to be that; but to redeem men He must needs purchase the right of redemption. This could only be at an infinite price. The price was His infinitely precious blood, the giving of His life to establish the right to forgive sins and give eternal life. This is what He does for all who will own Him as Saviour. He has obtained the right to do this by taking the penalty of our sins upon Himself.

Now the gospel is, in its essence, the proclamation of the love of God for sinners as manifested in the gift of His Son to be their Saviour; and the grace and love of Christ in suffering in behalf of sinners, to acquire the right of redemption which He now exercises in our behalf. It is by these two things-the love of God and the grace of Christ- that the gospel appeals to sinners. In taking effect in the souls of sinful men, it brings them to Christ, it breaks down their alienation and enmity, and makes them willing to bow the knee to Him, with willing hearts to confess Him as their Saviour, and acknowledge Him as their Lord.

Thus are sinful men reconciled and brought to God, and the Christ to whom they bow the knee, freely forgives their sins and gives them eternal life; they are passed thus out of death into life:out of distance into nearness to God, forever freed from the eternal doom to which they were exposed because of their sins. Brought to God to live in fellowship with Him the rest of their life here in the flesh, and in a fuller and richer measure to be with Him eternally in His heavenly home !

Brought to God-the God of our Lord Jesus Christ -the God of holiness! Brought to the God who
would not look upon His own Son when He stood for us before God to answer to Him concerning our sins!

Beloved brethren, to what extent has this great and blessed fact laid hold of our souls? To what extent are we in the realization that we have been brought to a God of uncompromising holiness ? Is this blessed fact having its full fruit in our lives ? How far is it practically true of us that we are living "to the will of God?" Is it a past thing in our life to have wrought the will of the Gentiles ? To what extent are we living the remainder of our life in the flesh to the lusts of the flesh or to the will of Him who died for us and rose again ?
These are serious questions. Is there not great need of asking them ?Do we not-one and all- need to challenge our hearts, and soberly consider whether we are duly responding to the claims which God's love has upon us ? Is it not necessary to ask ourselves if, in some sense, the grace of Christ be in vain with us ? Shall we boast of being positionally in nearness to God while we are not morally in the condition that answers to the position? Surely the Scriptures imply that our blessed position involves a corresponding condition. Let us then be exercised as to how far this is true of us; and may God bless the exercise, and grant it to be fruitful. C. Crain