Discourse
of God's being the Author of Reconciliation
1. First, What reconciliation is.
(1.) Reconciliation implies that
there was a former friendship. There were once good terms between God and man, there
was a time wherein they lovingly met and conversed together. Man loved God and
was beloved by him, till he left his first love and broke out into rebellion
against him. God pronounced all his creatures 'good,' and man at the last 'very
good,' with an emphasis. A God of infinite goodness could not hate his
creature, which was an extract of his own image. Man had the law of God
engraved upon his heart, and therefore could not in that state hate God, while
he was guided by that law of righteousness and exact goodness in himself. Thus
was man God's favourite above all creatures of the
lower world, styled his son, Luke iii. 38;
but how quickly did he prove a parricide, and a quarrel was commenced between
God and him! Now, reconciliation is piecing up of a broken amity, and a reglutination of those affections which were disjoined. And
the miracle of this reconciliation made by God in Christ excels the former
friendship; that might be broken off, as we find by woeful experience it was.
This as to some acts and fruits may be interrupted, not abolished; as the beams
of the sun may be clouded, but the influence of the sun cannot be eclipsed.
Then God and man were not so closely united but they might be parted; now God
and the believer are so affectionately knit that they cannot be separated.
(2.) Reconciliation implies an
enmity and hatred, or at least a disgust on one or
both sides. Adam was created in a state of God's favour,
but not long after his creation he apostatised to
corruption; by his creation a child of God's love, by his corruption a child of
God's wrath. While he stood, he was the possessor of paradise and heir of
heaven; when he fell, God seals a lease of ejectment, and man becomes an heir of hell; he turns rebel,
and joins with Satan, God's greatest enemy. God took the forfeiture of his
possession, turns him out of house and home, and hinders his re-entrance by a
flaming sword turning every way to keep his fingers off from the tree of life,
Genesis 3:24
(KJV)’ So
he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to
keep the way of the tree of life.’
or hope of felicity upon the former score. Man invaded God's right of
sovereignty, and God, of a sovereign Father, becomes a punishing judge. Man
falls into sin, and wrath falls upon man; sin separated between God and him,
and unsheathed the flaming sword. Thus are heaven and earth at variance. The
hatred is mutual: God hates men, not as his creatures, but sinners; man hates
God, not as God, but as sovereign and judge. Man turned off God from being his
Lord, and God turned off man from being his favourite;
man vents his serpentine poison against God, God pours out his wrathful anger
on man. On man's part this enmity is by sin; on the part of God (1.) from the
righteousness of his nature, since he cannot behold iniquity without indignation,
Habakkuk 1:13 (KJV) Thou art
of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest
thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the
man that is more righteous than he? As he cannot
but love goodness, so he cannot but hate iniquity, Psalms 5:6 (KJV) Thou
shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and
deceitful man. He hates and abhors all the workers of
iniquity. He hates the sins of his saints, though not their persons; he hates
the persons of wicked men, not primarily, but for their sin. (2.) From the
righteousness of his law made against sin, whereby he cannot but according to
his veracity punish it. His curses must be executed, his law vindicated, and
his justice satisfied; truth and fidelity to his law, his nature, his justice
engages him. Since there is nothing of the life of God in us naturally, there
can be nothing of the love of God to us; for what affection can the Deity have
to brutishness, and infinite purity to loathsomeness? Now, there having been
such an enmity, man is properly said to be reconciled. Good angels cannot
properly be said to be reconciled, because there was no difference between God
and them. It is a question, because believers are said to be reconciled, and
reconciliation implying a former hatred, Whether God hated believers before
their conversion? In answer to this,
[1.] To say God hated them fully
before, and loves them now, would argue a mutability in God, which the apostle
excludes: James
1:17 (KJV) Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ he is 'the Father of lights,' who is so
far from having any real change, that he has not 'a shadow' of it. If he did
not love his elect before Christ died for them, and loves them afterwards, then
there is a change in his will; for to love them is nothing else but to will
eternal life to them, and for God to hate any is not
to will eternal life to be their inheritance. If God did so hate his elect
before Christ's death as to will that they should not inherit eternal life at
all, and after Christ's death did will that they should, his will would then be
inconsistent and changeable. If God chose them from eternity, he loved them
from eternity; if he chose them in Christ as their Head, Ephesians 1:4 (KJV)
‘According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love’, he loved them in Christ as their Head, he could not
choose them to eternal life in those methods without loving them. As he loved
Christ the Head before he died for those that were to be his members, so he
loved those that were to be his members before they were actually engrafted in
him. As he loved Christ as Mediator before he was actually sacrificed, so he
loved his chosen ones before they were actually reconciled. When Christ came to
reconcile, he came to do God's will; and when any soul is actually reconciled,
it is not a change in God's will, but the performance of God's eternal will.
[2.] There is a change in the
creature, but that does not imply a change in God. It is not a new will in God,
but a new state in the creature. The creation adds no new relation or accident,
but a change and effect in the creature. And as the schools generally
determine, it is one thing mutare voluntatem, another thing velle
mutationem; as a master commands a servant this
work one day, another work another day, the master changes not his will, but
wills a change in his work, or as some illustrate it, as a physician prescribes
his patient one sort of physic one day, another kind of physic the next, the
physician does not change his will, but will a change. As a man has a mind to
adopt a poor child to be his son, affection is the ground of this resolution;
but he lets him for a while run about in rags, and seems to take no notice of
his misery, yet at length takes him, and clothes him, and adopts him. There is
a change in the state of this child, but not in the affection, the original of
it. There was a change in the prodigal when he returned, but not in the father
when he embraced him: "My son which was lost is found,' it was a new
finding of the son, but not a new affection in the father.
Well, but how may God be said to
love or hate believers before their actual reconciliation, since he is the
author of it?
[1.] God loves them with a love of
purpose. God loves them with a love of purpose or election, but till grace be
wrought, not with a love of acceptation, we are within the love of his purpose
as we are designed to be the servants of Christ, not within the love of his
acceptation till we are actually the servants of Christ: Romans 14:18 (KJV) ‘For
he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of
men.’ serves Christ,' and is 'acceptable to God.' They are alienated
from God while in a state of nature, and not accepted by God till in a state of
grace. There is in God a love of good will and a love of delight, amor benevolentiae,
seu "eudokias",
amor complacentiee seu "euarestias". The love of good will is love in the
root, the love of delight is love in the flower. The love of good will looks
upon us afar off, the love of delight inns itself in us, draws near to us. By
peace with God we have access to God, by his love of
delight he has access to us. God wills well to them before grace, but is not
well pleased with them till grace. Christ is the effect of his love of
benevolence and compassion to relieve us, which love ordered Christ as the
means, John
3:16 (KJV) ‘For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ but
Christ is the cause of that love of friendship wherewith God loves us. A king
has a kindness for a prisoner in his bolts, and sends some to clothe him; but
he has no delight in him to think him fit for his embraces, till he be delivered, both from his fetters and his filthiness. An
elect person is not simply beloved before his actual reconciliation, because he
has no gracious quality which may be the object of that love. Neither is he
simply hated, for if so, how could he have any gracious habits infused into him
whereby he may be made the object of delight? It cannot be denied but that God
intends to bestow supernatural gifts upon those he has chosen, else wherein
does his love consist? And it cannot be conceived how a simple hatred can
consist with such an intention. He loves them to make them his friends, and
after reconciliation he loves them as his friends. It is love in God to make an
object for his love. God loves an object qualified with grace, therefore to
qualify an object so as to make it lovely, argues love in God
to that object he so qualifies; love in intention before the
qualification. Hatred could never be the foundation and cause of that
qualification; sea, the gift of Christ, which is the effect, does suppose the
love of God which is the cause. God indeed was angry with all mankind, but it
was an anger mixed with love; he was angry, but yet willing to be appeased. A
pregnant example of this, which may give us an understanding of it, we have
from the mouth of God himself: Job 13:7 (KJV)
‘Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?’My wrath is
kindled against thee' (speaking to Eliphaz), 'and
against thy two friends. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven
rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering.'
There is a cloud upon God's face, but his mercy as the sun peeps out behind the
cloud, as he acquaints them with his anger, so he shows them the way to pacify
it. Though his wrath was kindled, yet he is not so ready to inflame it as he is
to have it quenched by the means he prescribes them, wherein Job was a type of
Christ, whose sacrifice Gold only accepts as well as appoints. There is no love
of complacency either in the persons or services of any, but as considered in
Christ the reconciler satisfying the justice of God. When an elect person is
engrafted in Christ, that love which was bubbling in the fountain from eternity
flows out in the streams.[2.] God does hate his elect
in some sense before their actual reconciliation. God was placable before
Christ, appeased by Christ. But till there be such
conditions which God has appointed in the creature, he has no interest in this
reconciliation of God; and whatsoever person he be in whom the condition is not
found, he remains under the wrath of God, and therefore is in some sense under
God's hatred.
First, God does not hate their
persons, nor any natural or moral good in them. Not
indeed the person of any creature, for as persons they are his own work. The
creation was good in God's eye at the first framing, and whatsoever of goodness
remains is still affected by an unchangeable Being, for infinite and unbounded
goodness cannot hate that which is good either naturally or morally. Christ
loved that morality he saw in the young man. God loves their moral qualities,
and they are the common gifts of his Spirit, and qualities wherewith he has
endowed them; as their primitive natures were good, so what approaches nearest
to that nature has some tincture of goodness, and therefore has some
amiableness in the eye of God. But he took no pleasure in them, neither in
their persons nor services, as acceptable to him, without the Son of his love.
Secondly, God hates their sins.
Sin is always odious to God, let the person be what it will. God never hated,
nor ever could, the person of Christ, yet he hated and testified in the highest
measure his hatred of those iniquities he stood charged with as one surety. The
father could not but hate the practices of a prodigal, though he loved his
person. God loves nothing but himself, and other things as they are like
himself, and in order to himself; therefore God must needs hate whatsoever is
contrary to his immaculate purity, and different from his image. He hates the
sins of believers, though pardoned and mortified; though his mercy pardons
them, his holiness can never love them; though the punishment be removed from the person, yet the nature and sinfulness is
not taken from the sin. Much more does God hate the sins of his unconverted
elect, which are neither pardoned nor mortified. If he hates sin in its weakness, much more in its strength.
He hates their sins objectively, that is the object of, and the only object of,
his hatred; their persons terminative, as the effects of his wrath do terminate
in their persons. Though sin is the object of God's hatred, as being a
contrariety to his holy law, yet it is not the object of his wrath, but the
person sinning; actions are not immediately punished, neither can, but the
persons so acting. In that respect God may be said to hate the persons of men,
and of his elect before conversion, as the effects of his wrath do terminate in
them.
Thirdly, God hates their state.
Though God loves morality in men, yet that does not include the acceptation of
their persons, or of their moral acts, or any love to their state. Though
Christ loved the young man's morality, yet he could not love his state, since
it was at some distance from the kingdom of heaven, though not so great a
distance from it. The elect before their conversion are in a state of enmity, a
state of darkness, a state of ignorance, and a state of slavery; and that state
is odious to God, and makes them incapable, while in that state, to 'inherit
the kingdom of God.'1 Corinthians 6:9-11
(KJV) {9} Know
ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not
deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, {10} Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall
inherit the
Fourthly, God hates them as to the
withholding the effects of his love. We call the effects of God's grace grace, and the effects of God's wrath wrath. So God may be said to hate an elect person
before his conversion, because, being in that state a child of wrath, the wrath
of God abides on him, and the curses of the law are in force against him. As
God is said to repent, when he withholds those judgments and effects of his
anger which he had threatened against a nation, so God may be said to be angry
and to hate, when he pours out vials of wrath, and also when he withholds the
fruits and proper effects of love.
(3.) Proposition as a caution.
Though God be the prime author of this reconciliation, yet no man is actually
reconciled to God till he does comply with those conditions whereupon God
offers it. 'God was in Christ' when he was 'reconciling the world;' we must be
in Christ if we be reconciled to God: he in a way of direction, we in a way of
dependency. Till a man does believe, though God has been reconciling the world
in Christ, yet he is not under the actual peace with God, though under the
offers of this peace. 'The wrath of God abides' on him, as well as the offers
of peace are proposed to him, otherwise what need had the apostle to beseech
men to be reconciled to God, upon the account that he was in Christ reconciling
the world to himself, if there were not something to be done by us in order to
it: ver. 20, 'We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' To what
purpose should we be exhorted to lay down our arms, discard our enmity, offer
up our weapons, if nothing were to be done on our parts. It is true, God is in
Christ 'reconciling the world, not imputing their trespasses unto them.' But to
whom? To all the world without any distinction? Though the offers are made to
all, yet while men accept not of them, sin will be imputed to the unbelieving
world. Shall we think God will recede from his anger till we recede from our
sins? What rebels can be said to be reconciled to their prince till they
observe the conditions in his proclamation? Christ cannot present men friends
till by faith they are united to him; for though there be an accomplishment of
the general reconciliation in the death of Christ, yet there is no benefit
accruing to us till full union by faith. Much less can man be said to be
reconciled from eternity; the apostle cuts off that conceit: ‘Colossians 1:21 (KJV) And you, that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled ‘Yet now has he
reconciled,' now, not before. If it were from eternity, the Colossians
were never enemies to God, if always reconciled, the apostle speaks a
falsehood, for to be enemies and friends at the same time implies a
contradiction, to be reconciled from eternity, and yet but now, are
inconsistent. Alas! we come into the world with the badge of God's wrath upon
us, and our backs turned upon God. The first thing we do is to kick against
him. Reconciliation in the decree is from eternity; but we cannot more properly
be said to be reconciled from eternity because of that, than to be created and
born from eternity, because decreed to come upon the stage of the world in
time. Reconciliation in the purchase is temporary; we were reconciled
meritoriously at the time of Christ's death, but no more actually reconciled
than we can be said to be born when Adam was created, because we were in him as
a cause. Reconciliation particular and actual is temporary; we have then God
appeased towards us, when we can by faith hold upon his Son upon the cross, and
with a hearty sincere faith plead the wounds made in Christ's sides, the
sorrows in his soul as a propitiation for sin, an atonement of God's own
appointment. It is not sin but the sinner is reconciled. 'God will hold an
eternal antipathy to sin, as sin does to God; God will never be pacified
towards sin, though he will towards the sinner. He is in Christ reconciling the
world, not sin in the world, to himself; let none, therefore, build false
conceits upon this doctrine. We must distinguish between reconciliation
designed by God, obtained by Christ, owned by the gospel, received by the soul.
(4.) This reconciliation on God's
part in and by Christ is very congruous for the honour of God, and absolutely
necessary for us.
[1.] For the honour of God.
First, For the honour of his
wisdom. Had not a mediator been appointed, mankind had been destroyed at the
beginning of his sin, God had lost the glory of his present works, and his wisdom
would seem to lie under a disparagement in publishing a rest from his works and
pronouncing them good, when the very same day (as some think) they should be
sullied with an universal spot, and the choicest part of the lower creation
turned back upon God, and all the other creatures employed to base and unworthy
ends, below their creation and contrary to the honour of their Creator. Without
the appointment of a reconciler, the honour of God in creation had been
impaired, the creation had been in vain. No creatures could have attained the
true end of their creation, since man, whom they were designed to serve, had apostatised from the service of his and their Creator; they
could not be employed by him in that state for the service they were ultimately
intended for.
Secondly, For the honour of his
truth and justice. Since God had decreed and enacted that whosoever sinned
should die, God must either, upon man's sin, destroy him to preserve his truth
and justice, or neglect his own law, and turn it upside down for the discovery
of his mercy. These things were impossible to the nature of God; he must be
true to himself, just to his law. If justice then should destroy, what way was
there to discover his mercy? If God should restore man to his friendship without
any consideration, where would be the honour of his justice, the firmness of
his truth in his threatening? The wisdom of God finds a way for the honour of
both, whereby he preserves the righteousness of his law and the counsel of his
mercy, not by changing the sentence against sin, but the person, and laying
that upon his Son as our surety, which we by the rigour
of the law were to endure in our own persons, whereby justice was satisfied
with the punishment due to the sinner, and mercy was satisfied with the merit
due to our Savour.
[2.] Necessary for us. Necessary
since all men had breathed in the contagion of Adam, had his corrupt blood, and
the poison of the old serpent diffused in their veins; and being thus enemies
to God, became subject to wrath and the eternal malediction of the law.
Necessary at the very first defection; had there not been an advocate to
interpose, we cannot conceive how, according to the methods of the established
law, God could have borne one moment with the world. There was as much
necessity for some extraordinary remedy against the biting of the old serpent
as against the bitings of the fiery ones in the
wilderness, which could not be cured by any natural means. They must have
inevitably perished under their venom, and man under his. If we come to God in
ourselves, what are we but as criminals before a judge, stubble before fire?
God is infinitely good, i. e. infinitely contrary to
evil; and if to evil, then to us, who think, speak, act nothing but evil. The
justice of God upon man's sin required that man should endure an infinite
punishment; and because he could not endure a punishment intensely infinite, by
reason of the limitedness of his nature, as a finite creature, therefore he was
to endure a punishment extensively infinite in regard of duration, whereof he
was capable by reason of the immortality of his soul. Since things stood thus,
the fallen creature could not be restored to felicity till some way were found
out to restore the amity, with a full satisfaction to both, that God might,
without any dishonour to himself and his law, rejoice
in his creature, that the creature might with a firm security rejoice again in
God. The will of God is an evidence of the necessity of it. Why did God ordain
it if it had not been necessary? The natural inclination and will of Christ as
man was contrary to it; for he in the flesh desired this cup might pass from
him. How, then, should the infinite wisdom of God, the infinite affection to
his Son, put him upon that which was so ignominious, and the infinite wisdom of
the Son consent to such an event, without an apparent necessity?