The gospel is emphatically the ministration of mercy—the covenant of grace, “ordered in all things and sure”—a goodly ship, freighted with the bread of life, and commanded by the Son of God, who has steered into the harbor of our famishing world, and is dispensing the precious provision to all who will accept. These arc “the sure mercies of David.”
The law is only a partial revelation of the Divine attributes, which, in the gospel, are all equally exhibited, and all equally glorified. Here, “Mercy and Truth are met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.” The justice of God looks more terrible at the cross of Christ than at the gate of hell; and is more glorified in the sufferings of his Son than in the eternal agonies of all the damned; while his mercy is more beautiful, because more honorable to his administration, than if sinners had been saved without an atonement.
Thus, while the law reveals the righteousness of God, the gospel brightens the revelation of his righteousness, and adds the revelation of his grace. While the law imprisons the sinner, the gospel liberates him, yet liberates him according to law. While the law shows the malignity of sin, and dooms the sinner to death, the gospel assents to both, but conquers the one and counteracts the other.
The law convinces us of our fall; the gospel assures us of our redemption. The law shows us what we are, and what we ought to be; the gospel tells us what we may become, and now the change must be effected. The law tears open our wounds; the gospel pours in the healing balm. The law makes known our duty; the gospel aids us to perform it. The law plunges us in the ditch; the gospel opens to us the purifying fountain. The law is a mirror in which we behold our own filthiness and deformity; the gospel is a mirror which reflects the glory of God in Christ, and transforms the believer into the same image.
The law has no fellowship with the sinner—offers no pardon to the sinner—cannot cure the love of sin in his heart—cannot give a spark of life, without perfect obedience, and full satisfaction for past offences. Therefore some accuse the law of cruelty—cannot set forth the superior glory of the gospel, without representing the law as a tyrant or a vagrant. But it is not the cruelty of the law, but the righteousness of the law, that condemns the sinner. This is the reason that it has no alms-house, nor city of refuge, in its dominion. Yet “the law is our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ.” By convincing us of sin, it shows us our need of a Saviour. It meets the sinner on his way to hell, and drives him back to Calvary!
But the gospel is more glorious. It enters the sinner’s heart, and casts out the love of sin, and scourges the traffickers from the temple of God. It enters the prisoner’s cell, knocks off his fetters, and bids him go free. It descends into the valley of dry bones, makes the mouldering skeletons living men, and leads them to Mount Zion with songs of everlasting joy. It gives eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, tongues to the dumb, health to the sick, life to the dead, and revives such as are fainting under the terrors of the law. It is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”
The Moravian missionaries in Greenland preached several years on the great doctrines of natural religion, and the requirements of the moral law, without producing any visible reformation in their hearers; but under the very first sermon which exhibited “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” many were pricked in their hearts, and led effectually to repentance.
We have a striking illustration of the distinguishing glory of the gospel—its mercy—in the parable of the prodigal son. The young man, having received his portion from his Father, went into a far country, and spent all his substance in drunkenness and debauchery. Reduced to the last extremity of want, the proud young nobleman hired himself to a citizen of that country, and became a feeder of swine—the meanest employment to which a Jew could be degraded. On the very verge of starvation, we see him snatching the husks from the mouths of the detested animals to satisfy his hunger. Now he contrasts the present with the past. “My father’s house! O, my father’s house!” A trembling hope springs up in his bosom, “I will arise and go!” I see him coming, full of guilt and shame—halting—trembling—ready to turn back, or lie down by the wayside and die. While yet a great way off, the father beholds him—O, not with an eye of anger and revenge! and runs to meet him—O, not with a drawn sword, or an uplifted rod! He feels within him the yearning of a father’s heart, leaps to embrace the prodigal, and pours upon him a mingled shower of kisses and tears. Not a reproachful word is uttered—not the slightest censure—nothing but love. “Father, I have sinned! I am not worthy to be”—“Peace, my son! Servants, bring a robe, a ring, a pair of shoes; and haste to kill the fatted calf; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive, was lost and is found!” “And they began to be merry.”
Such, my brethren, is the unspeakable mercy of the gospel, which constitutes its distinguishing glory. It is the law that creates the famine in the “far country” of sin. The poor prodigal goes about, begging for bread; but none will give him a crust, or a crumb. The desert of Mount Sinai is a poor country for a starving soul. There is no bread in all that region, and no toleration for beggars. If the sinner offers to work for any of the citizens—either for Mr. Holiness, or Mr. Justice, or Mr. Truth—he is sent into the fields to feed swine, till he is thoroughly convinced of the nakedness of the land, and the misery of his lot; and if he faints through famine or fatigue, and fails to perform his task, he is thrust into the house of correction, and placed upon the tread-wheel of remorse, till the ministers of mercy come to his relief. It is the gospel that whispers—“Return to thy father!” It is the gospel that inspires the hope of acceptance. It is the gospel that meets him with more than paternal welcome, and rains upon him the baptism of blessings and tears. It is the gospel that brings its robe of righteousness, and its ring of favour, and spreads its feast of joy, and calls the angels to merry-making “over one sinner that repenteth.”
O, the love of God! O, the riches of Christ! His salvation is more than a restoration to the joys of Eden. He came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. Where sin abounded under the law, grace hath much more abounded under the gospel. It is an ocean of blessings—“blessings of the heaven above, and of the deep that lieth under”—the blessings of Jacob, “prevailing above the blessings of his progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills”—blessings which cannot be circumscribed by time, passing over the mountains which now divide us from the promised land, and flowing down on the other side into the pacific vales of immortality!