Mar 20
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When all of the redeemed of the Lord are assembled in glory with their great Redeemer, perfected and glorified forever, the only visible evidence of the consequences of sin will be seen on the Redeemer Himself. The wounds inflicted upon Him when He delivered Himself to be crucified as the Substitute for sinners, to suffer, “the Just one for the unjust,” that He might bring them to God. What an eternal reminder that it is “By His stripes they are healed!” What amazing love and grace! What an amazing Redeemer-God!!! Maurice Montgomery
Gal. 1:1. Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and
God the Father, who raised him from the dead).
St. Paul wrote this epistle because, after his departure from the Galatian churches,
Jewish-Christian fanatics moved in, who perverted Paul’s Gospel of man’s free
justification by faith in Christ Jesus.
The world bears the Gospel a grudge because the Gospel condemns the religious
wisdom of the world. Jealous for its own religious views, the world in turn
charges the Gospel with being a subversive and licentious doctrine, offensive to
God and man, a doctrine to be persecuted as the worst plague on earth.
As a result we have this paradoxical situation: The Gospel supplies the world with
the salvation of Jesus Christ, peace of conscience, and every blessing. Just for that
the world abhors the Gospel.
These Jewish-Christian fanatics who pushed themselves into the Galatian
churches after Paul’s departure, boasted that they were the descendants of
Abraham, true ministers of Christ, having been trained by the apostles themselves,
that they were able to perform miracles.
Martin Luther’s opening words in his commentary on Galatians
PAID IN FULL!
from Spurgeon, “IT IS FINISHED!” (No. 421)
The satisfaction which Jesus rendered
to the JUSTICE OF GOD was finished!
The debt was now, to the last farthing, all discharged.
The atonement and propitiation were made once for all, and
forever, by the one offering made in Jesus’ body on the tree.
There was the cup, hell was in it, the Saviour drank it — not a
sip and then a pause; not a draught and then a ceasing, but he
drained it till there is not a dreg left for any of his people.
The great ten-thonged whip of the law was worn
out upon his back, there is no lash left with
which to smite one for whom Jesus died.
The great cannonade of God’s justice has exhausted
all its ammunition, there is nothing left to be
hurled against a child of God.
Sheathed is your sword, O Justice!
Silenced is your thunder, O Law!
There remains nothing now of all the griefs, and
pains, and agonies which chosen sinners ought to have
suffered for their sins, for Christ has endured all
for his own beloved, and “it is finished.”
Christ has done what all the flames of the pit could
not do in all eternity– Christ has paid the debt which
all the torments of eternity could not have paid!
As your days, so shall your strength be. Deut. 33:25
Octavius Winslow
CHRISTIAN, consider this new epoch of time, unfold a new page of your
yet unwritten history, with the full, unwavering conviction that God is
faithful; that in all the negotiations, transactions, and events of the
unknown future, in all the diversified and fluctuating phases of
experience through which you may pass, it will be your mercy to do with
Him of whom it is said, “It is impossible for God to lie.” Oh, take this
precious truth into your heart, and it will shed a warm sunlight over
all the landscape of your yet shadowy existence. “He abides faithful: He
cannot deny Himself.” Standing yet within the solemn vestibule of this
new and portentous year, could our fluttering hearts find repose in a
more appropriate or sweeter truth than the Divine faithfulness of Him,
“with whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning”? As a new
period of time slowly rises from the depths of the unknown and
mysterious future, shrink we from its stern and solemn duties, its
bosomed sorrows, its deep and impenetrable decrees? Why shrink we?
Infinite resources unveil their treasures upon its threshold. Christ’s
atoning merits confront our vast demerit. Christ’s boundless grace
confronts our deep necessities. Christ’s promised presence confronts our
sad and gloomy loneliness. Jesus thus filled with grace so overflowing,
with love so tender, with sympathy so exquisite, with power so
illimitable, with resources so boundless, with a nature so changeless,
stands before us and says to each trembling heart, “Fear not!” We
commence a new march under his convoy. We prepare for a new conflict
with his armor. We renew our pilgrimage with fresh supplies of ‘angels’
food,’ affording nourishment for the present and pledges for the future.
For that future do not be needlessly, unbelievingly anxious. It is all
in God’s hands. He would that you should live each day upon Him as a
little child—simple in your faith, unshaken in your confidence, clinging
in your love. Let each morning’s petition be—ever linking it with the
precious name of Jesus—”My Father! give me this day my daily bread.”
Then shall the promise be fulfilled, and its fulfillment shall be the
immediate answer to your prayer—”As your days so shall your strength be.”
And let us, on this birthday of the year, renew each his personal and
solemn dedication to God; supplicating forgiveness for the past, and
invoking grace to help in every time of need for the future. The atoning
blood of Jesus! How solemn and how precious is it at this moment! Bathed
in it afresh, we will more supremely, unreservedly, and submissively
yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead. We will
travel to the open fountain, wash, and be clean. Christ loves us to come
as we are. We may approach all clothed with shame for the past, but not
a reproving look will dart from His eye, nor an upbraiding word will
breathe from his lips. Nor shall abused and ill-requited mercies past
seal our lips from supplicating blessings for the future. “Open your
month wide, and I will fill it,” is still the Divine promise and He who
gave it has added a supplementary one, if possible, yet ampler and
richer, “Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and
mighty things which you know not.”
RESTORING GRACE
John MacDuff
“I will heal your backslidings.” —Hosea 14:4
Wandering again! And has He not left me to perish? Stumbling and
straying on the dark mountains, away from the Shepherd’s eye and the
Shepherd’s fold, shall He not leave the erring wanderer to the fruit of
his own ways, and his truant heart to go hopelessly onward in its career
of guilty estrangement? “My thoughts,” says God, “are not as your
thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” Man would say, “Go, perish!
ungrateful apostate!” God says, “Return, O backsliding children!” The
Shepherd will not, cannot allow those sheep to perish which He has
purchased with His own blood! How wondrous His forbearance towards
it!—tracking its guilty steps, and ceasing not the pursuit until He lays
the wanderer on His shoulders, and returns with it to His fold
rejoicing! My soul! why increase by farther departures your own distance
from the fold?—why lengthen the dreary road your gracious Shepherd has
to traverse in bringing you back? Do not delay your return! Do not
provoke His patience any longer! Do not venture farther on forbidden
ground! He waits with outstretched arms to welcome you once more to His
bosom. Be humble for the past, trust Him for the future. Think of your
former backslidings, and tremble—think of His patience, and be filled
with holy gratitude; think of His promised grace, “and take courage.”
Go and lay your icy heart upon
His flaming heart of love!
(From Octavius Winslow’s, “Christ, the Everlasting Father”)
The everlasting love of Christ never veers, never
chills, and knows not the shadow of a change.
Measuring Christ’s love to us by our love to Him,
we often imagine that it must necessarily be
affected by the cold, chilling atmosphere of our
hearts; that when our love to Him ebbs, His love
to us also ebbs; that when ours proves fickle
and treacherous, wandering after some creature
idol, then His love, exacting reprisals, in like
manner starts off, and leaves us for another
and perhaps more faithful object.
No! the love of Jesus to His saints, is as eternal
as His being, is as unchangeable as His nature.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Yield not, then, to despondency, beloved, when
you discover the mercury of your love sink, even
though it be to freezing point.
There may be times when you can scarcely
detect its existence, so faint its beating pulse,
so congealed its warm current.
But since Christ’s love is not the effect, but the
cause of ours to Him, and is an everlasting love,
glowing in His heart ages that cannot be numbered
or measured, before one pulse throbbed in ours;
we may take comfort in the assurance that no
variation of affection in us towards the Savior
can in the slightest degree affect the tenderness,
depth, or immutability of the great love with
which He has loved us.
Look, then, to Christ’s love to you,
and not to your love to Christ!
Go and lay your icy heart upon His flaming
heart of love! Go to His cross, and there muse
upon the love that bore your sins, that suffered
and bled, that wept, and groaned, and died for you,
paying the death penalty of your transgressions;
and, while you thus muse, the flame will kindle,
the fire will burn, and your tongue will break forth
into singing!
“For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the
middle wall of partition between us.” Ephes. 2:14
Octavius Winslow
BEHIND this wall Jesus did once stand, and although thus partially
obscured, yet to those who had faith to see Him, dwelling though they
were in the twilight of the Gospel, He manifested Himself as the true
Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of His people. “Abraham rejoiced to
see my day,” says Jesus, “and he saw it, and was glad.” But this wall no
longer stands. The shadows are fled, the darkness is dispersed, and the
true light now shines. Beware of those teachers who would rebuild this
wall; and who by their superstitious practices, and legal
representations of the Gospel, do in effect rebuild it. Remember that
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that
believes.”
It is behind “our wall” that Jesus stands—the wall which we, the new
covenant saints, erect. Many are the separating influences between
Christ and His people; many are the walls which we, alas! allow to
intervene, behind which we cause Him to stand. What are the infidelity,
I had almost said atheism, the carnality, the coldness, the many sins of
our hearts, but so many obstructions to Christ’s full and frequent
manifestations of Himself to our souls? But were we to specify one
obstruction in particular, we would mention unbelief as the great
separating wall between Christ and His people. This was the wall which
obscured from the view of Thomas his risen Lord. And while the little
Church was jubilant in the new life and joy with which their living
Savior inspired them, he alone lingered in doubt and sadness, amid the
shadows of the tomb. “Except I thrust my hand into His side, I will not
believe.” Nothing more effectually separates us from, or rather obscures
our view of, Christ than the sin of unbelief. Not fully crediting His
word—not simply and implicitly relying upon His work—not trusting His
faithfulness and love—not receiving Him wholly and following Him
fully—only believing and receiving half that He says and commands—not
fixing the eye upon Jesus as risen and alive, as ascended and enthroned,
leaving all fullness, all power, all love. Oh this unbelief is a dead,
towering wall between our Beloved and our souls!
And yet does He stand behind it? Does it not compel Him to depart and
leave us forever? Ah no! He is there! Oh wondrous grace, matchless love,
infinite patience! Wearied with forbearing, and yet there! Doubted,
distrusted, grieved, and yet standing there—His locks wet with the dew
of the night—waiting to be gracious, longing to manifest Himself.
Nothing has prevailed to compel Him to withdraw. When our coldness might
have prevailed, when our fleshliness might have prevailed, when our
neglect, ingratitude, and backslidings might have prevailed, never has
He entirely and forever withdrawn. His post is to watch with a sleepless
eye of love the purchase of His dying agonies, and to guard His
“vineyard of red wine night and day, lest any hurt it.” Who can
adequately picture the solicitude, the tenderness, the jealousy, with
which the Son of God keeps His especial treasure? And whatever would
force Him to retire—whether it be the coldness that congeals, or the
fierce flame that would consume—yet such is His deathless love for His
people, “He withdraws not His eyes front the righteous” for one moment.
There stands the “Friend that sticks closer than a brother,” waiting to
beam upon them a glance of His love-enkindled eye, and to manifest
Himself to them as He does not unto the world, even from behind our wall.
…