Romans 11:17-24 And if some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them… Let me endeavour — I. TO EXPOSE THE PARTIALITY, AND THEREFORE THE MISCHIEF, OF TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS WHICH MIGHT BE TAKEN OF THE GODHEAD. 1. One is incidental to those who bear a single respect to the attribute of goodness. (1) They look to Him as a God of tenderness and nothing else, and ascribe to Him the fondness rather than the authority of a father. They would admit of no other aspect for religion than that of uniform placidness; and to decorate this bland and beauteous imagination the more, they would appeal to all that looks mild and merciful in the scenery of nature, and it is inferred that surely He, at whose creative touch all this loveliness hath arisen, must Himself be placid as the breeze, and gentle as the zephyr which He causes to blow over it. But Nature has her hurricanes, earthquakes, and thunder, as well as these kindlier exhibitions. (2) This beholding of the goodness, without the severity of God, lulls the human spirit into a fatal complacency to its own state and prospects, and serves, in practice, to break down the fence between obedience and sin, and to nullify all moral government. 2. But there is also a mischief in looking singly to the sovereignty of God apart from His goodness. (1) Theologians who have thus erred, and not so much by the views they have given forth of His inviolable sanctity; but rather by the views which they have given forth of such a dread and despotic sovereignty, as to impress the conception of a fatalism, against which all prayer and all performance of man are unavailing. However difficult it may be to adjust the metaphysics of the question, there is one thing unquestionable, and that is an amnesty, offered to all; a propitiation for the sins of the whole world. And, therefore, we would not that so much as one individual should be chilled into hopelessness by the dogmata of a hard or unfeeling theology, against returning to a God who waiteth to be gracious. (2) But independent of all lofty speculations, there is abroad an impression of severity to which much of this world's irreligion is owing, and it is a frequent anomaly that they who at times can take comfort in sin under an impression of His goodness have at all times such a sense of His severity as never to attain a thorough confidence in His favour. And just as a man would shut his eyes against a spectacle that pains them, so will they shrink from a contemplation that only serves to put dread into their bosoms, and there is an habitual distance kept up between the spirits of all flesh and Him who is the Father of them. Just as you would rather avoid than encounter the man with whom you are not perfectly at ease, so you have the same motive for shunning God. But it is our very distance from God that sheds a dimness over His character and ways, over His wrath, as well as over His love. II. TO POINT TO THE WAY IN WHICH THESE TWO VIEWS OF THE GODHEAD ARE SO UNITED IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST, AS TO FORM ONE FULL AND CONSISTENT REPRESENTATION OF IT. 1. There is a severity. There is a law that will not be trampled on, a lawgiver that will not be insulted. The face of God is unchangeably set against evil. (1) We cannot light upon a single instance of God so falling back from the severity of His denunciations against sin, as at all to soften the expression of His hatred towards it: not at the Fall, not at the Flood, not at the promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai, not at the entrance of Israel into the Promised Land, not in the subsequent dealings of many centuries with His own perverse and stiff-necked children, and, lastly, not at that terrible period when the Jewish economy was swept away, and even the tears of a compassionate Saviour did not avert the approaching overthrow. In all this there is an admonition to us. (2) There is an immense delusion on this subject. We estimate God by ourselves — His antipathy to sin by our own slight and careless imagination of Him. Now if we measure God by ourselves, we should have little fear indeed of severity from His hand; for, save when there is gross and monstrous delinquency, we can bear very well, both with our own transgressions and those of others. No man, e.g., would ever think of vehemently denouncing another just because he thought little of God. This is adverted to by the Psalmist, "Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thyself," etc. Not therefore to you who are disgraced by profligacy, but even to you who live in a state of total and practical unconcern about another world, would we ask, "Behold the severity of God." I am perfectly aware of many who look upon such representations as these to be too strong. They can see, and be impressed by it, as a great moral delinquency, when an earthly parent is thus robbed of the love and loyalty of his own offspring; but how then can you miss the more emphatic application of the same principle, though far more intense in degree to our Father who is in heaven? You know how to feel for the wounded feelings of the parents; and is there no reply to the complaining voice of Him who saith to us from heaven, "Behold I stretch out My hand, but no man regardeth"? 2. But along with this severity there is a goodness, and they meet together in the fullest harmony. It is this, in fact, which constitutes the leading peculiarity of the gospel. When God is severe it is never because of His delight in the sufferings of His creatures, but always because of His justice, holiness, and truth. Could a way be devised by which these might be inscribed as legibly in a deed of amnesty, then we may be assured that He who hath no pleasure in the death of His children, but who hath sworn by Himself that He would rather that they should all live, cause it richly to flow over to the utmost limits of this sinful creation. Now it is precisely this which distinguishes the evangelical system. The gospel is a mercy in full and visible conjunction with righteousness. With the pardon which it deals out for sin it makes most impressive demonstration of the evil of it, the mercy of the gospel meets with the truth of the law, and God can at once be a just God and a Saviour. A Saviour has been born, on whom God did lay the iniquities of us all. The Holy One of Israel now sitteth upon a throne of grace, The uncompromising doctrine of Scripture is this, if you refuse the mercy of God upon this footing, you will receive it upon no other. "No man cometh unto the Father, but by the Son": while all that enter into His presence by the open door of the Son's mediatorship shall be saved. The mighty problem was resolved by God. You will meet with several expressions in Scripture on that subject: "God being just, and a Saviour"; "God being just, and the justifier of them that believed in Jesus"; "Mercy and truth meet each other; righteousness and peace kiss each other." III. APPLICATION. 1. Such is the goodness of God, now that this goodness has been harmonised with the other attributes of His nature, that it overpasses the guilt even of the most daring and stout-hearted offender among you. 2. In every proportion to this goodness will be the severity of God on those who have rejected Him. 3. None truly embrace Christ as their Saviour who do not submit to Him as their Master and Lord. (T. Chalmers, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; |
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