Short Meditations
Volume One
PREFACE
This collection of choice meditations on
Scripture written by J. G. Bellett appeared first in one volume entitled Short
Meditations. It was published in 1866, shortly after the author's home-call in
1864. We are not aware of any subsequent editions.
The spiritual tone and
content of the ministry coming from the pen of Mr. Bellett requires little
comment. All who are familiar with his better-known books on The Patriarchs,
The Evangelists, The Son of God, and The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
will welcome the reprinting of Short Meditations - now appearing in three
volumes. Anyone who may read his books for the first time will be richly
rewarded in his soul.
We highly commend these heart-warming,
Christ-honouring "Meditations" to the prayerful reading of the people of God,
assured that spiritual blessing will be the result.
Jacob Redekop
January 1978
The simpler our apprehension of "atonement," or
"reconciliation," (the same thing,) the happier. It implies a change of
condition towards God. Instead of being at a distance from Him, we are brought
nigh - instead of being in a state of enmity, we are at peace with Him. Such is
our condition. Whatever experience we may have of it, our condition is that of
peace with God, when we have received the atonement which has been accomplished
by the blood of the Cross.
But this reconciliation, this condition of
peace with God, rests on the fact, that God finds His satisfaction in what
Christ has done on the cross for us. My peace with God depends on His
satisfaction in Christ. If God did not rest in Him and His work for me, I could
not rest in God. If God's demand, in righteousness, against me, had not been
answered, I could have had no warrant for talking of reconciliation, or taking
my place in peace before God. I was God's debtor - debtor to die under the
penalty He had righteously put upon sin. Christ acted as my Surety with Him. He
undertook my cause as a sinner. If God had not been satisfied as to my
responsibilities to Him, I should still be at a distance from Him, He would
still have a question with me, a demand upon me and against me.
Therefore I ask, Has God been satisfied with what Christ has done for me? I
answer, He has, for He has let me know this by the most wondrous, glorious,
magnificent testimonies that can be conceived. He has published His
satisfaction in the Cross of Christ, in Christ as the Purger of sins, by the
mouth of the most unimpeachable witnesses that were ever heard in a Court where
justice or righteousness presided to try a matter. He tells me that all His
demands against me as a sinner are fully, righteously discharged.
The
rent veil declares it. The empty sepulchre declares it. The ascension of Christ
declares it. The presence of the Holy Ghost here (gift as He is, and fruit, of
the glorification of our Surety) declares it.
Were ever such august
testimonies delivered on the debating of a cause? Were witnesses of higher
dignity, or of such unchallengeable credit, ever brought forward to give in
their depositions? Were depositions ever rendered in such convincing style?
The sequel is well weighed. Peace with God is our condition, a
condition settled by God Himself. For we plead the Cross of Christ as our title
to peace, God Himself having declared that He and all His demands against us
are satisfied in and by that Cross. God rests in Christ, and so do we.
My experience may be cold and feeble. It is so surely. It may be blotted by
doubts and fears, and other affections, of which I ought to be ashamed. But my
condition is sure and strong - just as the throne of God itself. The Purger of
sins has been raised from the death by which He answered for sins, and has been
taken up to that throne as such Purger, and if He can be moved, so must the
throne where He sits. If He be disallowed there, the word and call and voice of
God that summoned and seated Him there, must be gainsayed and disallowed also.
"Being justified by faith we have peace with God," is to be read as setting out
our condition, rather than our experience. By faith in the death and
resurrection of the Lamb of God, we are justified, are in a state of acceptance
with Him, standing in Divine righteousness, or "as the righteousness of God."
This is our state, our condition before Him, our relationship to Him. Our
experience may not measure it - but such it is; though surely our experience
should be as our condition.
But let me look a little particularly at
Exodus 30.
This ordinance of the atonement-money tells us, that God
appropriates His elect to Himself, only as a ransomed people. And surely we
know that to be so. If we be not ransomed, we are not His. If we are not in the
value of the blood of Christ, we are not numbered to Him as of the lot of His
inheritance, or as belonging to Him.
Before the institution of this
ordinance, this had been a recognized truth. It was the first-born, whether of
man or of beast, that was His, in the land of Egypt, because it was the
first-born who had been ransomed. (Exodus 12, 13) And after this time, in the
day of the New Testament, we learn the same. The Lord Jesus says to Peter, "If
I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me." (John 13) And surely, again I may
say, we know that this is so; only we have it here, among a thousand others, in
the mouth of these three witnessess; by the testimony of the Passover, by the
testimony of this ordinance of the Atonement-money, and of the word of his Lord
to Peter in John 13.
But this ordinance not only tells us, that we are
thus to find ourselves among the people of God, by being a ransomed people - a
people who make mention before Him of the blood of Christ, and of that only,
bringing uThe act of numbering is the symbol of appropriation. To number things
expresses ownership of them. Psalm 147:4. with them into His presence the
atonement-money, and that only - but it also tells us, that He Himself has
fixed and settled what that ransom or atonement-money shall be.
This
is full of consolation, when we think of it. We learn all about the way of
coming to God from Himself. We have not to reason about it, but to accept His
account of the matter in all its characters. Every Israelite had to present
himself to God with his half-shekel, which was called "the atonement-money."
Whether he were rich or poor, made no difference. He had not to measure his
offering himself, the Lord had prescribed and settled what it was to be. And
each and all appeared together in virtue of one and the same ransom.
So that we gather these conclusions, in all clearness and decision and
simplicity. It is the Divine good-pleasure, and the sure revelation of God,
that God have His people with Him and before Him only as a ransomed people -the
price and quality and measure of the ransom being settled entirely by Himself,
so that they have not to object or to question, be they who they may, rich or
poor - and that, in this way, all His people are not only thus reconciled and
brought home to Him, but linked in one and the same salvation, and animated by
one and the same spring of triumph and exultation.
The conscience of a
sinner, instructed by Scripture, may therefore indulge itself in these thoughts
and assurances. The true half-shekel, the real atonement-money, and that is
"the blood of the Lamb," is the consideration, the full, adequate, settled
consideration, on which the covenant of peace rests. It is a righteous ransom.
God is just while He justifies the sinner who trusts in it. The Lord Himself
says of it, "This is the new covenant in my blood." It is called "the blood of
the everlasting covenant," and it is preached to us that by virtue of it, God,
as "the God of peace," has "brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that
great Shepherd of the sheep," a Saviour-Shepherd for sinners (Heb. 13:20).
I might add to this, and to what I have already said, that the
adequacy of this mystic half-shekel, this precious blood of atonement, is
finely set forth in contrast with the insufficiency of all other sacrifices in
Hebrews 10:1-18.
The insufficiency of all the Levitical offerings is
there concluded from the testimony which they bare themselves. Out of their own
mouth they are judged -and no judgment can be of a higher quality than that.
Thus, the fact that he who made those offerings, the Priest in the Levitical
sanctuary, only stood before God, having to go out again from the Divine
presence in order to repeat the same sacrifice in the appointed time. - The
fact that such repetition was made year by year, thus keeping sin, and not the
remission of it in remembrance. - The solemn recognition of the insufficiency
of those sacrifices or offerings, by Christ Himself, when, in the volume of the
book, He comes to present Himself as ready in the cause of sinners, to do God's
will. - And then, the impossibility of the thing itself, that the blood of
bulls and goats could take away sin. In contrast with this, we get the adequacy
of the blood of Christ strikingly testified and concluded. - The fact that He
is seated in the heavenly sanctuary, as having satisfied God by the sacrifice
He has offered, and accordingly greeted and welcomed and made to take His place
for ever before God as the Purger of sins. -The fact also, that He is now
occupied with thoughts and expectations of His coming kingdom, needing no more
to think about sin and the atonement for it, as He did, in the volume of the
book, or in the day of settling the terms of the everlasting covenant. - And
the further fact, that the Holy Ghost, in the new covenant which is sealed by
the blood of Christ, tells of remission of sin; not as did the Levitical
priests over the sacrifices they offered, of the remembrance of it.
This is all encouraging and assuring. But I must add another thing. The
adequacy of the true half-shekel, the true atonement-money, is not to be rested
simply on the fact of its being appointed by God, but on its own nature. It is
appointed of God, because of its nature, because of its. intrinsic adequacy. It
is a half-shekel "of the sanctuary," having been weighed in the balances of the
holy of holies, and found of full value before the throne of God. We are not to
say, the blood of the Lamb is the appointed way, as though God might have
chosen or taken some other. We are rather to say, it is the only way, for in
that sacrifice, but in that only, God is just, and the Justifier of sinners. It
is the price, the only price, which measures the debt, which satisfies the
balances of the sanctuary, and which gives the sinner an answer to the throne
of righteousness. Blessed mystery - it does all this. So that the Apostle loses
himself in admiration, as he gazes at this great sight, as he meditates on that
sacrifice which had the virtue of "spotlessness," and of "the Eternal Spirit,"
in it. We see him treating with some scorn and indignity the thought of the
blood of bulls and goats; saying, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls
and of goats should take away sins." But with fervency of spirit, as one that
was losing himself in wonder, love, and praise, looking at the Cross of Christ,
he says, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God." (Heb. 9:14; 10:4)