IN all ages, saviours choosen have been educated and disciplined in the school of trial. They walked in narrow parts on earth, they were purified in the furnace of affliction. For Jesus sake they endured opposition, hatred, calumny. They followed him through conflict sore; they endured self denial and bitter disappointment. By their own painful experience, they learned the evil of sin, its power, its guilt, it woe, and they looked upon it with abhorrence. A sense of the infinite sacrifice made for its cure humbles them in their own sight and fills their heart with gratitude and praise which those who have never fallen cannot appreciate. They love much because they have been forgiven much. Having been partakers of Christ’s sufferings, they are fitted to be partakers with him of his glory.
The heirs of God have come from garrets, from hovels, from dungeons, from scaffolds, from mountains, from desserts, from the caves of the earth, from the caverns of the sea. On earth they were “destitute, afflicted, tormented”. Millions were down to the grave loaded with infamy because they steadfastly refuted to yield to the deceptive claims of Satan. By human tribunals they adjudged the vilest of criminals. But now God is judge himself’ (Ps 50: 6). Now the decisions of earth are reversed. “The rebuke of his people shall he take away.” (Isa 25:8) “They shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord.” He hath appointed “to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” (Isa 62:12:61:3).
They are no longer feeble, afflicted, scattered and oppressed. Henceforth they are to be ever with the Lord. They stand before the throne clad in richer robes than the most honoured of the earth have ever worn. They are crowned with diadems more glorious than were ever placed upon the brow of earthly monarchs. The days of pain and weeping are forever ended. The king of glory has wiped the tears from all their faces; every cause of grief has been removed. Amid the waving of palm branches they pour forth a song of praise, clear sweet and harmonious; every voice takes up the strain until the anthem swells through the vaults of heaven, “salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the lamb.”
And all the inhabitants of heaven respond in the ascription “Amen”. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. (Rev 7:10, 12).
In this life, we can only begin to understand the wonderful theme of redemption, with our finite comprehension we may consider most earnestly the shame and the glory, the life and the death, the justice and the mercy, that meet in the cross; yet with the utmost stretch of our mental powers we fail to grasp it full significance. The length and breadth, the depth and height of the redeeming love are but deeply comprehended. The plan of redemption will not be fully understood; even when the ransomed see as they are seen and know as they are known; but through the eternal ages, new truth will continually unfold to the wondering and delighted mind. Though the grief and pain and temptations of earth are ended and the cause removed, the people of God will ever have a distinct, intelligent knowledge of what their salvation has cost.
The cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed through all eternity. In Christ glorified, they will behold Christ crucified. Never will it be forgotten that he whose power created and upheld the unnumbered worlds through the vast realms of space, the beloved of God, the majesty of heaven, He whom cherub and shinning seraph delighted to adore – humbled himself to uplift fallen man, that he bore the guilt and shame and the hiding of his father’s face till the woes of a lost world broke and crushed out his life on Calvary’s cross. That the maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside His glory and humiliate himself from love to man, will ever excite the wonder and adoration of the universe. As the nations of the saved book upon our redeemed and behold the glory of his father shinning in his countenance, as they behold his throne which is from everlasting to everlasting and know that his kingdom is to have no end they break forth in rapturous song “Worthy worthy is the lamb that was slain and hath had redeemed us to God by his own most precious blood!”
The mystery of the cross explains all mysteries. In the light that streams from Calvary the attributes of God which had filled us with and awe appear beautiful attractive. Mercy renderness and parental love are seen to blend with holiness, justice and power. While we behold the majesty of his throne, high and lifted up, we see his character in its gracious manifestations and comprehend as never before the significance of that endearing title our father.
It will be seen that the who is infinite in wisdom could devise no plan for our salvation except the sacrifice of his son. The compensation for this sacrifice is the joy of peopling the earth with ransomed beings, holy, happy and immortal. The result of the saviour’s conflict with the powers of darkness is joy to the redeemed, redounding to the glory of God throughout eternity. And such is the value of the soul that the father is satisfied with the price paid: and Christ himself; beholding the fruits of his great sacrifice is satisfied.
The strength of Christianity and its spiritual efficacy derive from the death and resurrection of Jesus. If Christ had ended his journey at the cross which climaxed his humiliation for our iniquities, without his body taken to the grave where he rose after 3 days, there would have been no life in Christianly.