GOD'S GRACE IN PUNISHMENT.
THE punishment of the wicked is not merely a penalty pronounced upon them for their wickedness, thereby showing God's hatred of sin, but the punishment is also the inevitable result of sin. The following utterances of Holy Writ,—"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" "the soul that sinneth, it shall die,"—do not indicate an arbitrary penalty alone, pronounced upon the transgressor of royal law; they indicate the logical, inevitable result of wrongdoing. When man was created, he was a perfect physical being, in harmony with the law of his Creator, which was the law of his own being. Not to sin was to remain in accord with the law of God, to yield himself to follow its righteous requirements. It did not even imply so much as yielding; it was his spiritual nature to follow its precepts. He must resist that law, the normal law of his being, in order to sin. This he did when he yielded to the tempter. Following the normal law of his creation, obeying in all things his Creator, his life would have been forever perpetuated. "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28. "He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor." Prov. 21:21. In fact, righteousness is life. In Jesus Christ was no sin, therefore the grave could not hold Him. See Acts 2:24. While, on the other hand, "Sin, when it is finished [full grown], bringeth forth death." James 1:15. Life is full-grown righteousness; death is full-grown sin. Righteousness keeps man in continual, unbroken connection with the great Source of life; sin breaks the connection, and man dies. In all this we see the infinite wisdom of God. Righteousness in God's plan (and there is no other) perpetuates existence. Sin tends to its own destruction. God would neither have a dying saint nor an immortal sinner. True, saints die, but in God they live; their rest in the grave is but a night of unconscious sleep, whence they wake in the morning in His likeness. But he who is finally found a sinner "sleeps a perpetual sleep." By man's transgression in the beginning, he lost his righteousness, and hence his life. But before that sentence was fully executed, God's love and mercy interposed. Christ gave Himself to save man from sin (Titus 2:14), "a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Tim. 2:6). He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Cor. 5:21. And this righteousness and life of Christ, as abundantly shown by many scriptures, is bestowed upon us, if we only believe. Believing God, faith in God, is yielding to Him fully, to wait, to do, to suffer, whatever He has for us to do in all things. This places man in harmony with his Creator, and makes living connection with the great Source of life. The Spirit of God enters the mortal sinner, purges the sin, cleanses and renews the heart, and gives power to overcome sin. See Eze. 36:26-27; Rom. 5:17; 8:5, 13. This faith lays hold on the great Fount of grace, which is open to him who yields to God, and grace changes the heart, moulds the life, and makes the sinner more like Christ (Rom. 5:1, 2; 1:16), and the faith upon faith lays hold of abounding grace (2 Cor. 9:8; Rom. 5:20), of "the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1:7), and in that grace (Eph. 1:6) is the glory of God, or His righteous character, revealed, and stamped upon him who looks by faith to the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6). Thus from faith to faith is revealed from glory to glory of the character of Christ, till we stand in His likeness. Acquainted with Him. A Different Outcome.
It is by this connection with God that we become acquainted with Him. When He comes in the clouds of heaven, He will not be a "stranger" to those upon whom His character has been stamped (Job 19:27, margin); they will behold Him, and say, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us." Isa. 25:9. The change is already wrought in character; it is clothed with Christ's righteousness, and the only change is from the body of our humiliation to the body of Christ's glory (Phil. 3:21), a change from glory to glory. But it will not be so with the wicked. They rejected God's grace or favor; they would have none of His glory. They chose sin, and, in choosing sin, they chose death. By not yielding to God, and by yielding to Satan, all4connection with the Source of life, light, grace, glory, or righteousness (for all are one and the same in the ultimate), was lost; and he who persists in his rebellion or stubbornness of heart identifies himself with sin, and becomes a very part of it, just as he who chooses God's will identifies himself with God, and becomes a part of the heavenly family. God's grace purges or cleanses away sin from the heart of the sinner. It is in the world for the purpose of destroying sin; for that is the very mission of Christ (1 John 3:5; Heb. 2:14), and therefore he who identifies himself with sin will be destroyed by the manifestation of the glory of that grace, when its Author appears, destroyed "with the brightness of His coming" (2 Thess. 2:8), the shining forth of His presence. It is God's choice that the sin shall be purged now by grace; it is the choice of the persistent, incorrigible sinner that he shall be destroyed by sin. He rebels now against God; he slights the grace of His glory, but that rebellion continued must one day face the glory of God's grace, shining from the face of Jesus Christ. Then will the wicked say to the rocks and mountains: "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." And yet it is but the shining forth of His glory, that glory which His people have already received (1 Peter 5:1), and which will then be revealed in them (Rom. 8:18). Now the Merciful One is saying, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" Reader, is the glory of the Lord upon you, in your character now? If not, how will you hear the revelation of His glory when He comes?