1. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Then the world needed to be reconciled. It was estranged, alienated from God. It is so still, though the fact is not always acknowledged. And if it is so, why? Why the need for reconciliation? How did it come about, it is often objected, that God so mismanaged affairs that men did not know Him and serve Him instinctively, and needed to be reconciled?
It is of the essence of His Fatherhood and the fixed purpose of His love to leave His children free. The necessary result of their freedom is a certain false independence and alienation from God. There is that in the natural man that sets him at variance with God. He is afar off and needs to be made nigh, estranged and must become reconciled. Thus the reconciliation in question is chiefly on the side of man, not of God. It becomes necessary through misunderstanding, the dulling of man’s conscience and the hardening of his heart, not through God’s anger or resentment. It is, in other words, we who are alienated from God, and not God who is alienated from us.
What need is there to dwell at length on the fact of the alienation of man from God? We cannot, we dare not, look up straight into the face of our Father, We know that we are God’s children; but we shrink from approaching Him, unless through some mediator and reconciler. It is a world-wide instinct, universal in all the human race, that we men, unclean and impure, cannot look on God with impunity. Greek myth and savage rites of sacrifice, the religion, the poetry, and the philosophy of well-nigh all mankind, have all borne their witness to this truth. It is typified in nature, in the dazzling glare of the sun, which with our weak eyes we cannot bear: it is taught in the Bible, at its very outset, when Adam and Eve shrink into the bushes, because they have sinned and know that they are naked. When our Lord proclaimed, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mat_5:8), He was uttering no new truth, so far as His words implied that the impure cannot see God; as the prophet and mouthpiece of all mankind, He was but declaring what all men have felt. “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa_6:5). “Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me, and live” (Exo_33:20).
As he is, apart from Christ, in his unregenerate state, man moves about the world not as a son in his Father’s house, but full of terror and dismay and shame, like a stranger in a strange land. He has but a dim sense of the Unseen Power upholding and guiding him: only a half consciousness of his right to live, and to rule the earth. Sin and shame wait on his steps. Pain is all round to appal him. The fear of death haunts him, for it means a passage into a cold unknown—from a world that with all its terrors and problems is half understood and at least familiar. Death (if it had existed at all for man) should have been a promotion from a lower world to a higher, like a boy’s leaving school to go on to college. But to man, unenlightened by the Gospel, in his inherited estrangement from God, death is no friend, but the king of terrors.
2. How is this estrangement to be cured? Can man reconcile himself to God? Bible language does not encourage the hope. He may make it all up with his brother, but he cannot in his own right come to terms with God. Are the records of human experience more encouraging? Let us consider the efforts man makes to approach God.
(1) Will prayer help him? But he does not know how to pray aright. And will God hear him while he is yet in his sin? “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.” If a sinner turns from his sin God will hear him, but not if he continues in it.
(2) Will sacrifice enable him to approach God? Man is everywhere sacrificial, but he knows he cannot wash out sin, even in rivers of blood, not even if it be human blood. While he searches out the costliest gift to bring, while he inflicts on himself self-mortification and torture, cutting himself with knives and lancets, passing his own children through the fire to Moloch—in the midst of it all there dawns upon him the sense that this cannot avail to bring him back to God. There is, indeed, a true effort even in heathen sacrifice: but the effort is abortive; it is baulked and fails. Even out of the midst of the purer Jewish religion, with rites and sacrifices sanctioned by God Himself, there rises clearer and ever clearer the cry, “Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it thee: thou delightest not in burnt offerings” (Psa_51:16). “Thinkest thou that I will eat bulls’ flesh, or drink the blood of goats?” (Psa_50:13). God delights not in death and bloodshed: they bring the sinner no nearer to God.
(3) If sacrifices then cannot break down the barrier, will righteousness and virtue? “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1Sa_15:22). Can we take up the words of the 40th Psalm (Psa_40:6-10), and say, “Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; . . . burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I am come: in the roll of the book it is prescribed to me: I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart”? To obey, yes, that would avail; but how is it possible for us? How shall we, with our weakened wills—we in whom sin begins before we are clearly conscious of right and wrong, in whom evil thoughts spring up so much faster and find the soil so much more congenial than good aspirations—how shall we break off the entail of evil and begin anew a life of righteousness? Even as we strive to live soberly and uprightly, we fall victims to the subtler sins of pride and avarice and hypocrisy. If we are not publicans and harlots, we become like the scribes and Pharisees. And so once more the human conscience rises in revolt against all false sell-righteousness, and cries, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom_3:12).
3. There must be a new thing in the world, a new birth, a new start for the human race, a Second Adam. The gates of sin must be broken down from outside, that man, the prisoner, may be set free: he cannot beat them down from within. His life is tainted; a new power of life must come into the world. The whole race is involved in sin: there must be a miracle, a Virgin-birth, something that cuts off the entail of sin, if there is to be a Perfect Man, a Redeemer of His brethren.
God was in Christ that He might draw near to our humanity and so carry out His long-cherished purposes concerning us. This was no afterthought of revelation. It was the fulfilment of an age-long plan that had waited till its time was prepared. God in Christ reveals man to Himself, and this was the beginning of reconciliation. To bring together two estranged friends it is necessary to abolish all misunderstanding. And man’s chief misunderstanding is of himself. This is what our fathers used to call pride. We think we are better than we really are; we shirk the true facts of the case; we will not believe in the sinfulness of sin; we love to be independent, and to work out our own salvation. There is a wonderful dignity in God’s revelation of man. It is true that “the Word became human that we might become divine.” But there is no room for misunderstanding here. It is a possible rather than an actual state which God reveals. In Christ every true man of us sees first how far short he falls and receives the gift of a contrite spirit and a broken heart; and this, and this alone, opens the way to a new life in Christ and to living union with Him.
Immortal love, for ever full, for ever flowing free,
For ever shared, for ever whole, a never-ebbing sea;
Blow, winds of God, awake and blow the mists of earth away,
Shine out, O light divine, and show how wide and far we stray.
Now consider how the Atonement has justified all those efforts after union with God which man is always making, but cannot carry through unless he be in Christ. Man, we said, seeks to approach God by prayer, by sacrifice, by righteousness.
(1) Prayer, then, first. Are not all our prayers as Christians presented for us by our Representative in Heaven? We could not address God in our own right; but, taught by Christ, we pray to “Our Father”; helped by His Spirit, whom He has sent upon us, we struggle to express the yearnings of our souls, and trust the Paraclete, the Advocate within, to harmonize them with the intercessions of our other Advocate in Heaven. We end each prayer with the words “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” and the meaning of it is that only because we are reconciled to God by Him have we access and the right to pray.
(2) And then Sacrifice. We have no need to struggle any more to make-believe with sacrifices of bulls and goats. For us there is one real and eternal sacrifice, which unites for ever God and man. The precious Blood has been shed, poured out, because we men have sinned. But more than this; the Blood is offered and sprinkled, that we men may enjoy the strength of the new, the quickened Life. His is the one perfect Sacrifice for all mankind: He is the perfect Victim, and the perfect Priest. He has borne Human Nature up into the very Presence of God, like the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies; He has fulfilled the very purpose of all sacrifice—Union with God; and God raises us up together with Him, and makes us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
(3) And Righteousness. We can approach God now in that way also. For ever since Jesus Christ has departed, and the other Paraclete has come, the work of sanctification has been going on in the Church: and the men who “were enemies, but now are reconciled,” (Rom_5:10; Col_1:21-22) are being made holy, being cleansed and strengthened and conformed to the likeness of Christ. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one”. So it is written in the Book of Job (Job_14:4). But a new power can come down, as at the Incarnation, and, beginning as a germ of a new life, can work out holiness even amidst unclean surroundings. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”—yes, but also “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Joh_3:6).
One of the chief difficulties is not indifference but the desire of so many (like that of the “foolish Galatians”) to do instead of just “receiving”: to have at least a hand in saving themselves. They are like Naaman the Syrian, who was ready and eager to do “some great thing” in order to be healed, but refused indignantly to wash in Jordan and so, without paying a shilling, be clean. The Moravian missionary, Peter Bohler, whose ministry to John Wesley was the immediate prelude to his conversion and so to the great Revival which his ministry began, thought this was peculiarly true of Englishmen. “Our way of believing,” he wrote to Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian leader, “is so easy to Englishmen that they cannot reconcile themselves to it: if it were a little more artful, they would much sooner find their way into it.” [Note: E. A. Burroughs, The Way of Peace, 76.]
“Accustom yourself,” says Fenelon, “gradually to let your mental prayer spread over all your daily external occupations. Speak, act, work quietly, as though you were praying, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything without excitement, simply in the spirit of grace. So soon as you perceive natural activity gliding in, recall yourself quietly into the Presence of God. . . . You will find yourself infinitely more quiet, your words will be fewer and more effectual, and, while doing less, what you do will be more profitable. It is not a question of a hopeless mental activity, but a question of acquiring a quietude and peace in which you readily advise with your Beloved as to all you have to do.” [Note: E. A. Burroughs, The Way of Peace, 91.]
Thou, O Elder Brother, Who In Thy flesh our trials knew :
Thou, Who hast been touched by these
Our most sad infirmities;
Thou alone the gulf canst span
In the dual heart of man,
And between the soul and sense
Reconcile all difference.
Change the dream of “me” and “mine,”
For the truth of “Thee” and “Thine,”
And through chaos, doubt, and strife,
Intersperse Thy calm of Life. [Note: Whittier.]
4. The fountain of our peace is the Cross of Jesus Christ. “He made peace through the blood of the Cross.” (Col_1:20). “We are reconciled to God through the death of the Son.” In ascribing, indeed, peace to the Cross we do so in no exclusive sense. We base our reconciliation with God on no single act of our Lord’s human life. Christ himself is the rock on which we build. Christ Himself being perfect God and perfect Man is the bridge which spans the gulf between God and man; or rather, in His person that gulf has ceased to exist. But the Cross is the crowning act of the life of humiliation and suffering—the life of a man amongst men. Whilst His whole life was a sacrifice and oblation of Himself for the sins of the whole world, the death on the Cross was the completion of His redemptive and atoning work. His blood was the ransom which He paid; it was at His death He “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, and which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross.” Upon the altar of the Cross He suffered to redeem our loss. It is for these reasons that our salvation is so commonly and particularly ascribed to Christ’s death.
The Peace promised before the Cross and announced in the Resurrection, has its central point of realization in the Cross itself. So St. Paul says, in writing to the Colossians (Col_1:20), that He was “to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace by the blood of his Cross,” from which we see that the Cross has become oracular, it is a talking Cross, and the blood of the Cross—“the blood of sprinkling speaks better things than that of Abel” (Heb_12:24); for one reason, because sacrifice is more oracular than murder. In the same way St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph_2:13) that “we who were once afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he is our peace, who makes both one.” Here, again, it is Christ crucified that is oracular and vocal, so that we may, if we please, imagine that the words “Peace I leave with you” (Joh_14:27), spoken under the shadow of the Cross, were spoken from the Cross itself, and that He had re-opened the lips that were closed in death to give them at once the resurrection greeting, and say, “Peace be unto you” (Joh_20:19). The fifth chapter of Romans (Rom_5:1) also is written from the viewpoint of the Cross; it opens with, “We are justified by faith, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we examine to see how this justifying faith, which is also the peace-producing faith, is itself produced, we see from the last verse of the previous chapter that “He was delivered up for our transgressions, and raised again for our justification. Therefore . . . we have peace” (Rom_4:25). The objectivity of peace is the testator on his death-bed, with the signed document in his hand, the subjectivity of peace is that we are united to him by faith and share his conditions.
My Soul, there is a countrie
Afar beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged Sentrie
All skilful in the wars.
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet peace sits, crown’d with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend
And (O my Soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend,
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There growes the flowre of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortresse, and thy ease.
Leave then thy foolish ranges ;
For none can thee secure,
But One, who never changes,
Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure. [Note: Vaughan.]
5. But, we must remember, it was no private act of the second Person of the Trinity as opposed to the other two. Such a thing is inconceivable in the Blessed Trinity; whatever the Son does, He does in union with the Father, and with the co-operation of the Holy Ghost. There can be no division between the Persons, no conflict of Wills, for of necessity the Three are One, and will the same thing always.
This is the gospel of reconciliation. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have met in their divine omnipotence to rescue man. It does not float in the mere atmosphere of theory. It is brought close to the heart that will receive it by all those languages which the heart knows best. The love of the Father is interpreted by all the tokens of His love which appeal to the lower lives. All nature, with her voices of beneficence, claims the Son for His Father. All the capacities of thought and feeling which are in Him assert the Father whom they echo and from whom they came. And the redeeming Son is full of pitiful and powerful appeal by the tragedy of His cross. While He is conquering man out of his rebellion, He is at the same time winning his heart by suffering for him. And the Spirit who has brought Christ to us has shed His influence out of every most familiar and appealing thing.
As the sun that lightens us makes all the objects round us the reflectors and distributors of his radiance, and so brings his light to us clothed with the clearness that belongs to them, so to the Christian the Spirit of his Saviour seems to have subsidized ever thing to make some new and more perfect revelation of Him.
The home relations and the things in nature, our books, our friends, our thoughts, have all been made interpreters of Christ. Oh, there are times when, as one sits in meditation or moves quietly about in work for Jesus—when all this seems so rich and plain. A beautiful, serene simplicity seems to come forth out of this complicated snarl. We catch the music of one great pervading purpose in all this tumult and clatter. It is all redemption working out its plans.
God made that hillside so perfect in order that He might show me His fatherly love. Christ gave me this task to do that I might understand His self-sacrifice for me. The Spirit brought me into my friend’s friendship that it might so interpret to me the friendship of my God. At such times all seems plain. The world is for the sons of God, and all that goes on in the world is reclaiming and training their sonship. The whole creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Those are the times when the world is ideal and beautiful and sacred. [Note: Phillips Brooks, Sermons for the Principal Festivals and Feasts for the Church Year, 105.]
