The Great Arbitration Case 2
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The defendant has no end of pleas, for the sinner has a thousand excuses; and finding that nothing else will do, he begins to appeal to the mercy of the plaintiff, and says that in the future he will do better. He confesses that he is in debt, but he will run up no more bills at that shop. He acknowledges that he has offended, but he vows he will not do so again. He is quite sure that the future shall be as free from fault as angels are from sin.
Though it is true that he just now said his heart was bad, still he feels inclined to think that it is not so very bad after all– he is conceited enough to think that he can in the future keep himself from committing sin; thereby, you see, admitting the worthlessness of his former plea on which he relied so much. "Now," he says, "if from now on I become a teetotaler, then surely I may be excused for having been a drunkard. Suppose from now on that I am always honest and kind, and never again say one bad word, will not that exonerate me from all my wrong-doings of the past, and for having blasphemed God?"
But the Arbitrator rules, still with kindness and gentleness, that the greatest imaginable virtue in the future will be no recompense for the sin of the past. For he finds in the lawbook no promise whatever made to that effect– but the statute runs in these words, "He will by no means spare the guilty." "Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."
You would think that the defendant would now be fairly beaten, but he is not– he asks permission to step across the way to bring in a friend of his. He is allowed to do so, and comes back with a gentleman dressed in such a peculiar style, that, if you had not sometimes seen the like in certain Catholic churches, you would suppose him to have arrayed himself for the mere purpose of amusing children at a show, where a clown is the presiding genius.
The defendant seems to imagine that if the case be left to this gentleman in the white shirt and ribbons, he will settle it with ease. He has with him a little bottle of water, by which he can turn hearts of stone into flesh, making heirs of wrath into "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." He has a certain portion of mystical bread, and magical wine, the reception with which he can work wonderful transformation, producing flesh and blood therefrom at his reverence's will and pleasure. In fact, this gentleman trades and gets his living by the prosecution of magic. He has occult influences streaming from his fingers, and he pretends to have ability derived from the apostles, (most probably from Judas), by marvellous manipulations– how I cannot tell you, but by a kind of sleight of hand– to settle the case.
But the Arbitrator, with a frown, hurls a thunderbolt from his hand against the impudent impostor, and bids him take himself away, and not again deceive poor sinners with his vain pretensions. He warns the defendant that the priest is an arrant knave, that whatever professions he may make of being a "successor of the apostles," he knows nothing about apostolical doctrine, or else he would not have intruded his sinful, silly self, between men's souls and God. He bids him advise the man to dress himself like a person in his right mind, who was about honest work, and not as a necromancer or priest of Baal, and give himself to preaching the gospel, instead of propagating the superstitious inventions of the Roman Catholic church.
What is the poor defendant to do now? He is fairly beaten this time. He falls down on his knees, and with many tears and lamentations he cries,
"I see how the case stands– I have nothing to plead, but I appeal to the mercy of the judge! I confess that I have broken his commandments– I acknowledge that I deserve his wrath– but I have heard that he is merciful, and I plead for free and full forgiveness."
And now comes another scene. The judge seeing the sinner on his knees, with his eyes full of tears, makes this reply, "I am willing at all times to deal kindly and according to loving-kindness with all my creatures; but will the plaintiff for a moment suggest that I should damage and ruin my own perfections of truth and holiness– that I should belie my own word– that I should imperil my own throne– that I should make the purity of immaculate justice to be suspected, and should bring down the glory of my unsullied holiness, because this creature has offended me, and now craves for mercy?
I cannot, I will not spare the guilty! He has offended, and he must die!
'As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.' Still, this 'would rather' must not be supreme. I am gracious and would like to spare the sinner, but I am just, and must not unsay my own words. I swore with an oath, 'The soul that sins shall die.' I have laid it down as a matter of firm decree, 'Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' This sinner is righteously cursed, and he must inevitably die; and yet I love him. How can I give you up, Ephraim? how can I make you as Admah? How can I set you as Zeboim? And yet, how can I put you among the children? Would it not be a worse calamity that I should be unjust than that earth should lose its inhabitants? Better all men perish, than that the universe should lose the justice of God as its stay and shield."
The ARBITRATOR bows and says, "Even so; justice demands that the offender should die, and I would not have you unjust." What more does the arbitrator say? He sits still, and the case is in suspense. There stands the just and holy God, willing to forgive if it can be done without injury to the immutable principles of right. There sits the arbitrator, looking with eyes of love upon the poor, weeping, trembling sinner, and anxious to devise a plan to save him, but conscious that that plan must not infringe upon divine justice– for it would be a worse cruelty to injure divine perfections than it were to destroy the whole human race.
The arbitrator, therefore, after pausing awhile, puts it thus– "I am anxious that these two should be brought together– I love them both. I cannot, on the one hand, recommend that my Father should stain his honor and justice. I cannot, on the other hand, endure that this sinner should be cast eternally into hell. I will decide the case, and it shall be thus– I will pay my Father's justice all it deserves. I pledge myself that in the fullness of time I will suffer in my own proper person all that the weeping, trembling sinner ought to have suffered. My Father, will you agree to this?"
The eternal God accepts the astonishing sacrifice!
What do you say, sinner, what do you say? Why, methinks you cannot have two opinions. If you are sane– and may God make you sane– you will melt with wonder. You will say, "I could not have thought of this! I never called in a arbitrator with an expectation of this! I have sinned, and he declares that he will suffer. I am guilty, and he says that he will be punished for me!"
Yes, sinner, and he did more than say it, for when the fullness of time came– you know the story. The officers of justice served him with the writ, and he was taken from his knees in the garden of Gethsemane away to the court, and there he was tried and condemned. And you know how his back was scourged until the white bones stood like islands of ivory in the midst of a crimson sea of gore. You know how his head was crowned with thorns, and his cheeks were given to those who plucked off the hair! Can you not see him hounded through the streets of Jerusalem, with the spittle of the brutal soldiers still upon his unwashed face, and his wounds all open and bleeding? Can you not see him as they hurl him down and fasten him to the accursed tree? Then they lift the cross and dash it down into its socket in the earth, dislocating every bone, tearing every nerve and sinew, filling his soul as full of agony as this earth is full of sin, or the depths of the ocean filled with its floods! You do not know, however, what he suffered within!
Hell held carnival within his heart. Every arrow of the infernal pit was discharged at him, and heaven itself forsook him. The thunderbolts of vengeance fell upon him, and his Father hid his face from him until he cried in his agony, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And so he suffered on, and on, and on, until, "It is finished" closed the scene. Here, then, is the arbitration. Christ himself suffers. And now I have to put the question, "Have you accepted Christ?" O dear friend, if you have, I know that God the Holy Spirit has made you accept him. But if you have not, what shall I call you? I will not upbraid you, but my heart would weep over you. How can you be so idiotic as to forego a compromise so blessed, an arbitration so divine! Oh! kiss the feet of the Arbitrator!
Love him all your life, that he has decided the case so blessedly.
III. Let us now look at THE ARBITRATOR'S SUCCESS. For every soul who has received Christ, Christ has made a full atonement which God the Father has accepted. And his success in this matter is to be rejoiced in, first of all, because the case has been settled conclusively.
We have known cases go to arbitration, and yet the parties have quarreled afterwards– they have said that the arbitrator did not rule justly, or something of the kind, and so the whole point has been raised again. But O beloved, the case between a saved soul and God is settled once and for ever! There is no more conscience of sin left in the believer. And as for God's Book, there is not a sin recorded there against any soul that has received Christ. I know some of our Arminian brethren rather think that the case is not settled; or they suppose that the case is settled for a time, but that it will one day come up again. Beloved, I thank God that they are mistaken.
Christ has not cast his people's sins into the shallow waters, where they may be washed up again, but he has cast them into the depths of the sea, where they are drowned forever! Our scape-goat has not carried our sins to the borders of the land, where they may be found again, but he has taken them away into the wilderness where, if they be searched for, they shall not be found. The case is so settled that in eternity you shall never hear of it again except as a case which was gloriously decided.
Again, the case has been settled on the best principles, because, you see, neither party can possibly quarrel with the decision. The sinner cannot, for it is all mercy to him. Even eternal justice cannot, for it has had its due payment. If there had been any mitigation of the penalty, we might yet fear that perhaps the case might come up again. But now that everything has been paid, that cannot be. If my creditor takes from me, by a settlement in the Court of Bankruptcy, fifty percent of my actual debt, I know he will not disturb me. But I cannot feel quite at ease about the other fifty percent– and if I am ever able, I would like to pay him the remainder. But, you see, Christ has not paid only a portion of the debt, but he has paid every penny of it!
"Justice now demands no more,
Jesus has paid the dreadful score."
For all the sins of all his people he has made such a full and satisfactory atonement, that divine justice were not divine justice at all if it should ask to be paid twice for the same offense. Christ has suffered the law's fullest and severest penalty, and there is now no fear whatever that the case can ever be revived, by writ of error, or removal into another court, because it has been settled on the eternal and immutable principles of justice!
Again, the case has been so settled, that both parties are well content.
You never hear a saved soul murmur at the substitution of the Lord Jesus. If I ever get to see his face, I'll fall down before Him and kiss the dust beneath His feet! Oh! if ever I see the Savior who has thus delivered me from ruin– if I have a crown I will cast it at his feet, and never, never wear it– it must, it shall be His! I feel like the good woman who said, that if Christ ever saved her, he should never hear the last of it. And I am sure he never shall, for I will praise him as long as immortality endures, for what he has done for me! I am sure that every saved sinner feels the same. And Jehovah, on the other side, is perfectly content. He is satisfied with his dear Son. "Well done!" he says to him. He has received him to the throne of glory, and made him to sit at his right hand, because he is perfectly content with the great work which he has accomplished!
But, what is more and more wonderful still, both parties have gained in the suit. Did you ever hear of such a law-suit as this before? No, never in the courts of man. The old story of the two oyster-shells, you know, awarded to the plaintiff and defendant, while the oyster is eaten in court, is generally the result. But it is not so in this case, for both the plaintiff and the defendant have won by the arbitration. What has God gained? Why,glory to himself, and such glory as all creation could not give him, such glory as the ruin of sinners, though so well-deserved, could not give him. Hark how, "Heaven's eternal arches ring With shouts of sovereign grace!"
Angels, too, as well as those who have been redeemed, strike their harps! which they have turned afresh to a nobler strain, as they sing, "Worthy is the Lamb, and blessed is the eternal God!" And, as for us, the poor defendants, why, what have we not gained? We were men before– now we are something more than Adam was. We were "a little lower than the angels" before, but now we are "lifted up far above all principalities and powers." We were God's subjects once, but this arbitration has made us his sons. We were at our very best only the possessors of a paradise on earth, but now we are joint-heirs with Christ of a paradise above the skies! Both sides have won, and both sides must therefore be blessedly content with their glorious Arbitrator!
And, to conclude, through this Arbitrator both parties have come to be united in the strongest, closest, dearest, and fondest bond of union. This law-suit has ended in such a way that the plaintiff and the defendant are friends for life, no, friends through death, and friends in eternity!
How near God is to a pardoned sinner, "So near, so very near to God, Nearer we cannot be; For in the person of his Son, We are as near as he."
What a wonderful thing is that union between God and the sinner! We have all been thinking a great deal lately about the Atlantic Cable. It is a very interesting attempt to join two worlds together. That poor cable, you know, has had to be sunk into the depths of the sea, in the hope of establishing a union between the two worlds.
But oh! what an infinitely greater wonder has been accomplished! Christ Jesus saw the two worlds divided, and the great Atlantic of human guiltrolled between. He sank down deep into the woes of man until all God's waves and billows had gone over him, that he might be, as it were, the great telegraphic communication between God and the apostate race, between the Most Holy One and poor sinners! Let me say to you, sinner, there was no failure in the laying down of that blessed cable. It went down deep– the end was well secured, and it went down deep into the depths of our sin, and shame, and woe! And on the other side it has gone right up to the eternal throne, and is fastened there eternally fast, by God himself! You may work that telegraph today, and you may easily understand the art of working it too. A sigh will work it– a tear will work it– say, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and along the wire the message will flash, and will reach God before it comes from you. It is swifter far than earthly telegraphs; yes, and there will come an answer back much sooner than you ever dream of, for it is promised– "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." Who ever heard of such a communication as this between man and man? It really does exist between sinners and God, sinceChrist has opened up a way from the depths of our sin to the heights of his glory!
This is for you who are at a distance from him, but he has done more for us who are saved, for he has taken us right across the Atlantic of our sin and set us down on the other side! He has taken us out of our sinful state, and put us into the Father's bosom, and there we shall dwell for ever in the heart of God as his own dear children!
I wish that some might now be led to look to the Savior, that some would come with weeping and with tears to him, and say, Jesus lover of my soul, Let me to your bosom fly. "Take my case, and arbitrate for me; I accept your atonement; I trust in your precious blood; only receive me and I will rejoice in you for ever with joy unspeakable and full of glory."
May the Lord bless you evermore. Amen.
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