Our Anchorage - The Love of God in Christ Jesus
Romans 8:31-39
Our hearts have been directed to the glorified Lord Jesus, as the object and as the inspiration of Christian life, endurance, and service. We have looked at Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and have seen a little of what that meant, for the rest of their lives, to the men who were with Him, and what Christ glorified meant to all the others who, at different times, and in different ways, and at different places, saw Him in glory - Stephen, and Paul, and later still, John.
John, in speaking many, many years afterward of the sole impression that remained with him from the time spent with the Lord Jesus, summed it all up in one marvelous phrase: a parenthesis it is in his gospel, but was there ever a more important and wonderful parenthesis? "The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). What they saw, when they saw the Lord Jesus in His glory, was the manifestation of the grace of God.
This portion of Paul's Roman letter, which we have just read, seems to me to be Paul's way of stating what he saw in the face of Jesus Christ. After dwelling much upon this part of the Word, the impression has come to me, at this point, that this is what the apostle was working toward all the way through; this is his release. He has been doing a piece of very laborious work, he has set himself to a great treatise - and it is that - it has defeated all the greatest minds, ever since, in their efforts to fathom this letter and to interpret it. But you have a feeling as you read, and arrive at this point, that now the apostle said, "Now that is that; let me say what I am after all the time, what I have really had in mind; let me unburden my heart". And he does so here. "These things" to which he refers - "What shall we say to THESE THINGS?" - All THESE THINGS that he has been saying, what is the upshot? What do they all point to? What is the supreme significance and implication of all that I have been saying?" And he goes on to answer his own question, and to release from his heart this thing that has been there, prompting all his effort and undertaking. It is this mighty, mighty revelation of THE LOVE OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST.
I say he was working toward that. It is a painful process. The first stage of the letter, as you know, is occupied with that painful necessity, that so unpleasant necessity - the exposing of sin. He does it very thoroughly; he goes though the whole Gentile world, and gives, not an exaggerated picture, but a very terrible picture, of sin. There is no place in the whole Bible where sin in its awfulness is more exposed than in the early part of this letter. It is a terrible picture of human sin in its natural state. And he proceeds from the Gentile world to the Jewish world, the world of Israel. Although elect, chosen,called, separated, and given so much of Divine deposit and trust and revelation, Israel had to have the Law. You do not need a police force in a perfect State; you do not need law if there is no lawlessness. The very giving of the Law, Paul says, is only another proof that in this matter of sin Jews are no better than other people. "By the law sin is manifested." I have spoken of the Police force: the very presence of a policeman says that there is wrong in the world; the very presence of the law means that there must be lawlessness. And so Israel is no better than the rest. Sin is universal; sin is in every creature; sin is the state of the whole creation. It is a terrible exposure, uncovering, but very necessary. I am quite sure that, when Paul got to the end of it, he sighed and a sigh of relief, he was glad to get past that, to get on to something better than that - really what he was after.
You see the point: THIS is what he is after! He must do that - and God must make us know sin, the reality of sin, the awfulness of sin; sin must become a terrible thing with us, before ever we can appreciate the grace of God. No one ever appreciates Divine grace who has seen little or nothing of the sinfulness of sin in their own heart. Great pains, then, are taken in this letter to expose the reality and the nature of sin, and its effects; not in order to bring condemnation, not to make people miserable, but just to lead to the grace of God - to enhance Divine grace. So, the apostle says, 'where sin abounded' - bounded over Gentile and Jew, over the race, over the whole world; a great wave has passed over and inundated the whole creation - where sin, like a great ocean, spread itself, ABOUNDED, grace did SUPER-ABOUND! Grace was greater than the greatness of sin!
So he comes to this at last: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?" It is a marvelous thing: and, as you can well see, the apostle is speaking much out of his own experience and history here, when he catalogs these things which are a real threat to hoe and to life and to prospect. Very real and terrible things they are that he catalogs here. 'Shall tribulation ...?' Paul knew something about tribulation; tribulation in his experience was a very real thing indeed. 'Or anguish ...?' - yes, we find Paul more than once in anguish; anguish over the spiritual state of his beloved converts, and the churches. To the Thessalonians he speaks twice of his 'travail' for them - his anguish. 'Or persecution' ...?' Paul knew quite a bit about that! 'Famine ..' - he tells us he was in hunger; 'nakedness ...' - yes, in nakedness; 'or peril, or sword... ' And if that is not enough, 'death ... life... angels ... principalities ... things present ... things to come ... powers ... height ... depth ...', and, he says, "I cannot go on enumerating and analyzing any more: - "or any other creation" - that covers everything! "I am persuaded that there is nothing in creation - all these things and anything else that you would like to gather into that - I am persuaded that none of these things shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." That is GRACE!
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 50)
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