2. It represents the unparalleled, inconceivable richness of God’s mercy in Christ, taking away all a sinner’s sin, and bestowing on him freely the place and privileges of a dear child.
3. It represents that these riches lie, not in an accumulation of goodly attainments, such as men are wont to traffic in, but in one undivided, indivisible, hitherto unknown and unimagined treasure.
4. It represents that the inquirer, the instant he discovers that this one incomparable, all-comprehending treasure exists and is offered to him, cheerfully, eagerly, unhesitatingly gives away all that he possesses, in order to acquire it. That is, he gives all for Christ, and then enjoys all in Christ.
Let me suppose myself a merchant, travelling in a foreign country in quest of pearls. I have found and secured several lots that I count good. I have still capital remaining sufficient to purchase many more; I therefore continue my search. One day I meet a man who shows me a pearl more precious than any that I had ever seen before. At a glance I perceive that it is worth all I possess twenty times told. I say to the owner, and say it with a beating heart, fearing that he will despise my offer, “I shall give you all I possess for this pearl.” He accepts my offer; he gives me the pearl into my own hands, and I consign over to him all that I have in the world: first, all the pearls that I have bought in my journey; next, all my remaining capital; then houses, lands, books,—all. I sign the deed with a throbbing heart, not from fear, but from abounding joy. My act does not intimate that I value lightly my possessions and rights: it intimates that my new portion is, in my esteem, so greatly good, that it will repay all my outlay, and give me a fortune beside.
So when I abandon my repentance, and my prayers, and my services and gifts—when I sign away all my expectations on account of all religious attainments, and accept Christ alone as my soul’s portion—my act does not intimate that I count little on the various graces of the Spirit in a disciple’s life: it means that in Christ and with him I have all good things in measure infinite, in duration eternal.
If our suggestion regarding the cause and manner of the pearl’s growth is correct, the kingdom of God in the Gospel of his Son was generated in the same way: the pearl and the pearl of great price have the same natural history.
Some foreign, hurtful thing falls on the creature’s life. Forthwith the irritation which that invader produces causes the creature to throw out and over the disturber that which forms a covering round it—hiding, smothering, annihilating the originating evil, and constituting over it and in place of it a gem of the tenderest, gentlest beauty—impenetrable, imperishable, glorious.
So sin, a corroding drop, a dark, deadly, vexing, torturing thing, fell upon God’s fair creation, threatening to inoculate it with a poison that should leaven the whole lump, and change its beauty into corruption. But around the dark sin-spot, and because the sin-spot was there, divine love showered down, like the impalpable silver gathering on its object in the electrotype, embracing, surrounding, covering, killing the evil and bitter thing that threatened to destroy the works of God. Death was swallowed up in victory. The Son of God came into the world because sin was on it. He, the Holy One, took sin into his bosom, that he might quench it in his own embrace. It was sin that summoned the Saviour to the world, and gave shape to the Gospel of God. To the devil’s wile in Eden, as the occasion, though not the cause, unfallen angels and ransomed men will for ever be indebted for that specific work of their Creator which will most attract their eyes and inspire their songs. On one side they behold mercy, in spotless, unmingled white; and on the other side they behold judgment, darker, indeed, yet equally resplendent. But here in the midst, in the person of God incarnate, they see mercy and judgment meeting—the pearl of great price—where two different and apparently opposite glories mysteriously and beauteously mingle and play. Death swallowed up in victory; sin embraced and so destroyed in the person of Immanuel; sin lost in the holiness and love that agglomerated round it;—this pearl will shine in heaven with a glory that excelleth, when the sun and stars shall have fallen like unripe figs from the sky.
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