Man’s Mightiest Argument with God
GOD is love. He loves His only-begotten Son. This is self-evident: He loves the good, the pure, the lovely. They are in harmony with His nature. But God loves the sinner, not because the sinner is lovely or lovable, but God loves in order that He may make the sinner lovable. God loves everything capable of being transformed by love. Man was not made to be a sinner. He was made to glorify God, to reveal in his own life some of the many excellencies of God’s goodness, to be a prism through which the pure white light of God should be refracted in varied beauty. But man sinned. The design of God was marred. The prism became opaque. The beauty of character was lost. The luster of holiness vanished. Yet God sees within the wreck the possibilities of restoration. He looks upon the longing heart and restless mind, and pities with infinite pity. He sees that selfishness has perverted every good in man, and He longs to set him right. God loves. God pities. God longs to save the poor sinner from himself. The desire of God to help is measured by the infinite Gift He has bestowed. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. “For when we were yet WITHOUT STRENGTH, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5: 6-8. Such man was, such he is—“without strength.” He has no power to lift himself above himself. Restless as the sea, ambitious as Lucifer, aspiring to the highest, if not the worthiest, man has no power to lift himself up. Never did a nation elevate its standard, of itself. Never did man of himself improve motive and morals. Some power from without must undertake the work, or take hold of the soul. Invariably it has been the influence and power of religion which has improved the man or the people. On the other hand, there are numerous examples of men and nations drifting to degradation and ruin while trusting in themselves. Yet the consciousness of sin and weakness on the part of man has also brought the conviction that something must be done to save him, some mighty effort put forth, some great sacrifice made. Out of this have grown all the awful sacrifices of heathen worship. Women have given themselves to deified depravity worse than death; men have imposed upon themselves, in the name of the thing they worshiped, all sorts of torments—wearing of hair shirts, fastings, scourgings, burning, broiling, torturing in a hundred ways—in the hope of appeasing Deity and silencing an accusing conscience. The first-born son has been offered a victim to horrible deaths, and nations have offered multitudes of humans to appease the gods. The conviction is true. Sin demands a Sacrifice or Substitute. It demands, first, the death of the sinner, not as arbitrary payment, but as existing potentially in the sin itself, as the fruit in the seed. “Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death.” “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” And the payment of the wages leaves the soul in death. It has no claim upon the life beyond. Human conduct can no more than fill the present moment; it can by no manner of means lay up a stock of righteousness for the future. Hence the human, erroneous effort to do extraordinary things, to make extraordinary sacrifices. But the more men have multiplied their vain means and cruel devices to buy God’s favor, the worse they have grown. Yet sin still demands the life; and, if saved from the sin, the sinner must have the Substitute. The Substitute has been provided in the love of God. It was no forced substitution. God “GAVE His only-begotten Son.” His Son “GAVE Himself.” The Substitute became the Sacrifice—freely offered for all; and all who break partnership with sin, and place themselves upon the side of God and righteousness and love, shall know of God’s power to save. Men may criticize the plan of God. They may belie wisdom. They may scoff at His power to save, and go down to eternal death. God will not argue with them. He reveals man’s mighty need. He tells of His infinite fulness to meet the need. He declares, “If any man willeth to do His will, he shall KNOW.” And He invites, “O TASTE and SEE that the LORD IS GOOD.” His love for you compelled His substitution and sacrifice; but in His love He will not, can not, COMPEL you to accept His free grace. If you are determined to drift on to death, He must let you go. If you will to do His will, His grace abounding over sin is freely bestowed. And all the types and sacrifices of lambs and goats and bullocks described in His Word, are but the remembrancers, the index fingers, of faith pointing to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, who is able to save TO THE UTTERMOST all those who come to God by Him. There is one mighty twofold argument we may use—the argument which moved the heart of the infinite God in our behalf—our NEED, and His fulness of love and power.