THE

RAINBOW:

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3 Magazine of Christian Literature, with Special Reference to the Revealed Future of the Church and the World.

OCTOBER, 1881.

THE DIVINE SIDE OF THE QUESTION.

The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psa. xxxiii. 10, 11). "The counsel of the Lord, that shall stand" (Prov. xix. 21).

"There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord" (Prov. xxi. 30).

"My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isa. xlvi. 10). "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. lv. 9).

LET us suppose ourselves standing beside the grave of the

rejected Jesus just after His burial. Let us further suppose that we had been His disciples, and had consequently believed all the splendid predictions of Heaven's prophets regarding the glory, the extent, the duration, and the blessings of His reign, but that we were ignorant of the foreordained resurrection of our murdered Master. What, in that case, would have been our thoughts? To say that we should have been bewildered, amazed, and oppressed with a sense of unutterable disappointment, would be saying very little. Things which are not worthy to be mentioned in the presence of this awful fact often have that effect upon us. It would not have been to us merely a personal calamity, the most terrible that could by possibility occur, blasting all our hopes, crushing them with a mysterious and remediless blow, and leaving nothing in the future but unrelieved sorrow and blank despair; but as it involved the destiny of Jew and Gentile, the veracity of the prophets, and the very character of the God of Israel for truth and faithfulness, we should have asked each other in sad whispers, with blanched cheek and trembling lips, What shall we say? what do, now? Have our prophets all deceived us? Is all the past a beautiful but cruelly deceptive dream? Is the entire history of our nation an elaborate preparation for nothing better than a disgraceful cross and a silent grave? Has Jehovah taken four thousand years in arranging for an issue which meets this fearful

catastrophe just when it seemed upon the eve of realisation? Has He been disappointed, overmatched by Satan, obliged to give up the contest for the possession of the world He created, and to retire from the field, His resources exhausted, His wisdom insufficient, His foresight at fault, and His magnificent plans abandoned— a terrible, an eternal failure? Are the Devil and his angels henceforth masters of the position? Alas! and alas! woe unto us that we have lived to see this terribly fatal day! The Sun whose rays we were told were to enlighten the universe, has set for ever in blood! The Heir of David, the Seed of Abraham, the Son of Man, the Son of God, lies there, pierced through the feet, pierced through the hands, pierced through the heart, cold, dead, DEAD! Behold the place where they laid Him!

Let us endeavour vividly to realise all this, and we shall be able to estimate more highly the wonderful wisdom of God, when we ascend from the human to the Divine side of this mighty question.

We rise, then, from the evil counsel of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the unjust sentence of the Roman procurator; from the clamours of the people, the scenes of Calvary, and the tomb of Joseph, up to the pure atmosphere of the highest heaven, and the council chamber of the Godhead. Let us put off our shoes from our feet; let us approach with uncovered head, for here all is holy. There is no excitement here, no surprise, no unforeseen circumstances requiring an alteration in the Divine programme respecting the affairs of earth. Nothing has occurred in our world to hinder the unfolding of God's majestic plans. Storm and tempest rush violently below, but here all is calm and peaceful. An incredible crime, the greatest in the annals of history, has been committed upon the earth: the Son of God, the Father's unspeakable gift for the benefit of mankind, has been contemptuously rejected, blasphemously insulted, and foully slain; but up on this lofty tableland of everlasting serenity there is no cry of wonder, no sign of disappointment, and no evidence that a sudden emergency has occurred demanding a sudden change of procedure. No dark cloud eclipses the ineffable glory, and casts a passing shadow on the golden splendours of the Sovereign's palace. Omniscience, in its undisturbed clearness, has seen from the beginning, ere ever the earth was, what would take place among, and by the agency of, men. All the ages, before the ages began, passed in review, and the Almighty Sovereign resolves to develop during their progress a purpose of vast, profound, infinite wisdom, which shall issue in boundless good to His creatures, the everlasting stability of His government, and the everlasting glory of His name.

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He asks no advice of the first created sons of light, if they were created at the dateless epoch to which we now refer, but settles, establishes in the very heaven," how, when, and where HE will act without interfering with the freedom of His responsible creature man, although He foresees that that freedom will be fear

fully abused in millions upon millions of cases. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?" (Isa. xl. 13, 14). How sublimely grand is this-God alone, amidst the unapproachable light, legislating for the entire future of a great world whose inhabitants would, for a lengthened period of its history, habitually do the things He should forbid, and so legislating that their very greatest crimes should, instead of defeating the purposes of His beneficence, be laid hold of by Him and made to minister to those purposes! Who would not adore such a Being as this? Speaking of Israel, Paul says, "God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all," and then adds, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" After this grateful doxology, this burst of fervent praise, he quotes the passage we have just cited from Isaiah, thus: "For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His counsellor ? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? for of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen." These striking questions are in point in relation to the case before us. Who hath given God advice, or help, in dealing as He has done with a wayward and sinful race? Let them come forward, and He will largely repay them; He will be no man's debtor. He is so thoroughly satisfied with the unalterable decree that has gone out of His mouth; so sure that the work He has done and is doing will ultimately flood the world with light, and fill it with song, that He is ready with right royal liberality to reward any one who has given Him the smallest hint, or the smallest help.

O what an inexpressible relief it is to rise to the Divine side of this question after what we have seen of its human side! It is an escape from darkness to light, from pollution to purity, from a den of assassins to a circle of love, from a nest of demons to the steps of God's throne. What shall become of us, of my friends, my neighbours, my race? I cry in despair, as I look upon man turning into poison every good thing that God has given him, and at last filling up the measure of his iniquity by dyeing his hands in the blood of Jesus the Christ. I see paradise a failure, man driven out; the early world a failure, the race all but exterminated by a tremendous flood; Judaism a failure, the favoured people making the Word of God void by tradition, and turning His Temple into a den of thieves; the Heir coming to His own, rejected, despised, crucified between thieves; and Christianity leavened with corruption, and overborne through many ages with an apostasy of baptized paganism; I see all this, and my heart sickens, and my brain reels, whilst I cry out, Is there no help in man? But when

I lift up my eyes to heaven, what a glorious change! what a divine relief! Here I behold the eternal procession of love and wisdom moving on majestically to its sure goal, as if nothing had occurred to check it for a single instant. It is a sublime and very wonderful sight. A voice comes from the Excellent Glory, in unruffled calmness, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure." How reassuring! how full of consolation! And accordingly God moves on with stately step, through flood and fire and tempest and hurricane, through human failure, corruption, wickedness, and folly, and every step brings him nearer the Godlike issue in which he means His unchangeable purpose to terminate.

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We say not that the foreseen rejection of the King was the rule of the Divine counsels; but we do say that Divine purpose and Divine foreknowledge are associated in Scripture in a manner which is sufficiently remarkable to arrest earnest attention. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts ii. 23). Scripture abounds with instances of a similarly suggestive character. The Serpent would bruise the heel of the woman's seed, but it was decreed that He should bruise the Serpent's head. The people were to reject Him, but the purpose of God was that His Servant should be "exalted and extolled and be very high." He is "despised and rejected of men," but it was determined that He should "prolong His days, and that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in His hand." To Him whom man despiseth and the nation abhorreth, it is promised that kings shall see and arise, and princes also shall worship. He was numbered with the transgressors, but the Lord says, "I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong." How men would use Him His Spirit describes beforehand thus: "For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture." But what says God concerning Him? "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." It was foreseen that the kings of the earth would set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, to destroy Him; but the counsel of Jehovah was, "I will make Him, My firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth." The people saw no beauty in Him why they should desire Him as their Ruler; but God determines that His throne shall remain whilst sun and moon endure. The traitor's kiss sold Him into the hands of His murderers, but God says to the kings of the earth,

"Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little."

And then what a far-reaching vision is opened up to us, when the idea of Jehovah's "thoughts" is suggested! 66 The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psa. xxxiii. 11). Here they stretch across all the ages, and anticipate with the calmness of settled certainty the realisation of His will. "Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered" (Psa. xl. 5). Here human inability to embrace the magnificent sum of God's thoughts is gladly confessed; and as they are so graciously, so mercifully "to us-ward," they are made the subject of grateful adoration. " O Lord, how great are Thy works! and Thy thoughts are very deep " (Psa. xcii. 5). Here their profundity goes down beneath the deepest depth of man's sins and sorrows, and lays the foundation for a perfect remedy, the actual efficiency of which no foreseen evil deeds of the race shall be able to prevent." For the Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity" (Psa. xciv. 11). Hence it is "a vain thing" for the kings of the earth and the people to imagine that they can defeat the purposes of Jehovah concerning His anointed Son (Psa. ii.). All the scorn and the derision, the shooting out of the lip, and the wagging of the head, were foreseen, but the Lord says with that wonderful calmness which is so characteristic of His utterances, "Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He hath glorified thee" (Isa. lv. 4, 5). But how is this, and the offer of abundant pardon which accompanies it? Here is the grand answer: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. Iv. 8, 9). It is thus that our God reveals Himself in wondrous contrast to the thoughts and ways of men. "For I know their works and their thoughts," He says, works and thoughts of evil; but what follows? "It shall come to pass that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see My glory" (Isa. lxvi. 18). How that thrills the heart! See His glory! His purpose is to stand then, after all the crimes and sins of men! Christ rejected, the Holy Spirit resisted, religion corrupted, the Word of God disregarded, and what follows? The extermination of the race, and God, with wearied and exhausted patience, abandoning His original plan as impossible of realisation in such a world? No, not that; but, "I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see