“And
Abram went up out of Egypt … even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent
had been at the beginning,… and there Abram called on the name of the Lord”
(Gen. 13:1-4).

      This
passage presents to us a subject of immense interest to the heart, namely, the
true character of divine restoration. When the child of God has in any way
declined in his spiritual condition and lost his communion, he is in danger,
when conscience begins to work, of failing in the apprehension of divine grace
and of stopping short of the proper mark of divine restoration. Now, we know
that God does everything in a way entirely worthy of Himself. Whether He
creates, redeems, converts, restores, or provides, He can only act like
Himself. This is unspeakably happy for us as we are particularly prone to limit
Him in His restoring grace. In the situation now before us, we see that Abraham
was not only delivered out of Egypt, but brought back “unto the place where his
tent had been at the beginning.” Nothing can satisfy God in reference to
a wanderer or backslider apart from his being entirely restored. In the
self-righteousness of our hearts we might imagine that such an one should take
a lower place than that which he had formerly occupied; and so he should, were
it a question of his merit or his character; but inasmuch as it is altogether a
question of grace, it is God’s prerogative to fix the standard of restoration;
and His standard is set forth in the following passage:“If you will return, O
Israel, return to Me” (Jer. 4:1). It is thus that when God restores, He
does it in such a way as to magnify and glorify the riches of His grace. Thus,
when the leper was brought back, he was actually conducted “unto the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation” (Lev. 14:23). When the prodigal returned,
he was set down at the table with his father. When Peter was restored, he was
able to stand before the men of Israel and say, “You denied the Holy One and
the Just” (Acts 3:14)—the very thing that he had done himself. In all these
situations, and many more that might be added, we see the perfectness of God’s
restoration. He always brings the soul back to Himself in the full power of
grace and the full confidence of faith.           The moral effect of divine
restoration is most practical. The restored soul will have a very deep and keen
sense of the evil from which it has been delivered, and this will be evidenced
by a jealous, prayerful, holy, and circumspect spirit. We are not restored in
order that we may the more lightly go and sin again, but rather that we may “go
and sin no more” (John 8:11). The deeper my sense of the grace of divine
restoration, the deeper will be my sense of the holiness of it also.
This principle is taught and established throughout all Scripture, but
especially in two well-known passages, namely, “He restores my soul; He
leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psa. 23:3),
and “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). In other
words, having tasted divine grace, we walk in righteousness. To talk of grace
while walking in unrighteousness is, as the apostle says, to turn “the grace of
our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4). The grace that forgives us our sins
cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Those things must never be separated.
When taken together they furnish a triumphant answer to both the legalism and
the lawlessness of the human heart.

      (From
Notes on the Book of Genesis.)