By the grace of God, we have seen in the past few evenings what God's salvation is. Tonight is the sixth evening. I hope to give a quick review of what we have covered in the previous five meetings. Then we will continue. We have seen sin, the law, God's love, His grace, and His righteousness. We have seen how man became a sinner and how the law came in to expose man's sins. We have also seen that though man is proved to be a sinner, God still loves him. Not only has God loved us, but He has also shown us mercy and grace. We have also seen how God's grace has been manifested, what the nature of this grace is, how it came about, and that it can never be mixed with human effort. Last night we saw that, in spite of God's love and His desire to give us grace, there was one hindrance to grace's coming to us. If one thing had been left unsettled, God's grace could not have come to us. Though grace is now here to reign, it reigns only through righteousness (Rom. 5:21). Grace cannot reign by itself. Hence, the Lord showed us how righteousness was manifested. His righteousness has dealt with our sins. At the same time, it enables us to receive grace from God. We have covered these during the last five evenings. Now, we will go on with the gospel of God and His salvation.
The salvation accomplished by God through the Lord Jesus has manifested God's grace. At the same time, it satisfies God's righteous requirements. At this time we will cover the work of the Lord Jesus. This is an excellent and sweet subject. It deals with the way the Lord Jesus accomplished God's salvation. We have to see how the Lord Jesus satisfied God's demand and how He has manifested God's grace. At the same time, we have to see how the Lord Jesus satisfies the heart of the Christian so that we would be satisfied with His work also. A song which we sing says, "God's heart is satisfied with the work of the Lord Jesus, and our hearts are also at rest with His work." God is satisfied, and we are satisfied. If time permits, I hope that we can cover both of these aspects.
The first thing we have to see is that the Lord Jesus is God. We may say that only God can bear man's sin. Never consider the Lord Jesus as a third person coming to die a substitutionary death. Do not think that God is one party, we are another party, and the Lord Jesus is a third party. The Bible never considers the Lord Jesus as a third party. On the contrary, it considers Him as the first party. You may have been told that the gospel is like a debtor, a lender, and the lender's son. The debtor has no money to pay back his debt. The lender, being very severe, insists on the payment. But the lender's son steps forth to pay the debt on behalf of the debtor, and the debtor becomes free.
This is the gospel that man preaches today. But this is not the real gospel. If this were the case, at least two points would not be fair and would be contrary to the Bible. First, this kind of understanding makes God the mean One and the Lord Jesus the gracious One. In such an illustration, we do not see God loving the world. Rather, we see only His righteous demand and the demand of the law. We see a severe God, One who is without grace and One whose words to man are always harsh. We see that the Lord Jesus loves us and gives grace to us. This is a wrong gospel. However, although this is a wrong gospel, God still uses it. Actually, I was saved through this kind of illustration. But although I was saved, during the first three years I could never praise God. I always felt that the Lord Jesus was good, that I should thank and praise Him, that without Him everything was hopeless, and that it was fortunate that He came. But I felt that God was very harsh, severe, and mean. He was not at all lovable. It seemed that everything good was with the Lord Jesus and everything bad was with God, that God is terrible and the Lord Jesus is lovable.