God's Grace and Man's Need
From Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. XII
"when God's light shines in, it detects what is in the
heart"
"she knew the Master of the house was infinitely rich"
"what
could you demand more than God has given?"
Here we have the wonderful
contrast between the ways and actings of man's heart towards God, and the ways
and actings of God's heart towards poor guilty man. These two things must be
brought close the one to the other, and be shewn as they rightly are. Men's
hearts were not fully put to the test before the Lord Jesus came (John 15: 22 -
24): "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now
they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I
had not done them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but
now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." It was fully brought
out then; and what man's heart was was plainly proved. When he saw God, he
hated Him.
Although God was present in the midst of Israel, He was not
openly revealed. He was hid within the veil, within which the high priest,
shrouded in a cloud of incense, alone approached His holy throne. Neither did
man's heart come up there to see the holiness of it; nor did man come down
fully to man. It was not the full revelation of God. It was that which could
leave man in a good deal of darkness, and God hid; and therefore that which
could not clearly detect man's heart. Consequently He says, "If I had not come,
they had not had sin": not that they had not sinned; but that the Lord would
not hold them finally guilty until He had manifested Himself in Him whom He had
spoken to Israel. But when God was made manifest, man hated Him. God had before
revealed a great deal, but not Himself. He revealed much in the figures of the
law, and which foreshadowed and veiled better things; and we find the use man
made of it. I am not here speaking of the law, as trying man's conscience;
though, in passing, we may notice that too, as bringing in - not sin, for that
was there already - but transgression. The use God made of it was to prove man
a sinner. It was used to make manifest - in fact, to create - transgression.
To turn for a moment to the use man made of the law, in contrast with
God's purpose in it: God used it, as we have seen, that the offence might
abound - that sin might appear exceeding sinful. Man set about to make himself
righteous by the very thing which God was proving him a sinner, and sin
exceedingly sinful. This you are doing, if you are seeking to satisfy the
demands of God's righteousness by your own ways. Man seeks to save himself by
the righteousness of the law; but God's use was not that, for He never thought
of saving any but by Jesus. When a child is forbidden by its parent, by an
express law, and breaks the law, it not only makes manifest the evil
disposition that as in its heart, but there is then positive disobedience, and
the consciousness of sin, in that which the child does. It might have followed
its inclination in many cases before, without consciousness of sin; but now not
so: the conscience is affected and defiled; and by the law we are under
condemnation and death.
To return to the figures and shadows of better
things. Man took those very ceremonies and sacrifices, which were typical of
that one sacrifice which sin had made necessary, and by them, their conscience
nothing satisfied, tried to eke out their own righteousness; and they follow
the same course now. We know that there were a great many sacrifices for sin
under the law: for God has tried this way, that we might know its incapacity of
bringing us to Him. To employ similar means is mere superstition, and denial of
Christ. Men first set about to be righteous by commands which they cannot
fulfil; and then they seek to add ceremonies, to eke out a righteousness of
their own. That is the sum of the religion of so many - making an attempt at
keeping the law, and adding ceremonial observances thereto, and then attaching
the name of Christianity to it, while all God's truth is shut out.
Further, after all, the conscience never will be satisfied; because there will
be the dread of that day when God shall make manifest the secrets of the heart.
The soul is not on the road to have a conscience at peace with God. Travelling
on this road, the man will go on from one thing to another. He may add ceremony
to ceremony, and tradition to tradition, but he has only got farther from God -
he has only got more between God and his conscience, and no forgiveness after
all. The conscience gets satisfied for a moment or two by man's dealing with it
in this way; but there is no peace with God. When sin is brought into the
presence of God's holiness, the conscience, if not despairing, gets hardened.
See what a state those Jews were in who could go and buy Christ's blood for
thrity pieces of silver, and yet have scruples of conscience as to where the
price of blood should be put - refusing to put it into the treasury, because it
was the price of blood! Anything will suit man, provided it is not his
conscience in the presence of God. Where He is detecting the state of the
heart, and making it know complete forgiveness, so that it can be in His
presence without sin, it is another thing. Nothing is more simple than this,
glorious as is the grace that has wrought it; indeed, it is too simple for
those who are not taught of God to love the truth. But, simple as it is, man's
conscience is thus in the presence of God, and anything suits man rather than
that.
Though God is infinitely high, He is very simple to man's wants,
and to man's conscience. The washing the hands is not that which signifies, but
that which comes from the heart. Here we have something more simple than all
the intricacies of ceremony and tradition. God's light deals with realities;
and God's purpose is, by the powerful light of His Spirit, to bring into the
conscience of man all the different evils of his heart. When God's light shines
in, that evil of which conscience before took no notice - a vain thought or the
like, that passed and was forgotten - is now made manifest. That which comes
out of the heart is what defiles a man.
God is dealing with realities.
He wants nothing from man. He is shewing him what he is. He is bringing into
man's conscience what is already in his heart. When God's light shines in, it
detects what is in the heart, and thus there is a manifestation to a man's
conscience of all that comes out of his heart. That light soon teaches him the
vanity of washing his hands,and such things (v. 2 - 8). It tells him that to
draw near to God with his mouth, and honour Him with his lips, while his heart
is far from Him, is all in vain. It shews him that all mere ceremonial
offerings and prayers are worse than useless. "This people draweth nigh unto me
with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me." The light detects the evil of man's heart (v. 11 - 20): "Not that which
goeth into the mouth, but that which cometh out of the mouth, defileth a man.
For out of the mouth proceed evil thoughts, murders," etc. Thus God's light
comes in and shews what comes out of the heart. Take the first index of what is
there, when seen and expressed in the light - an idle word, perhaps (James 3).
But farther, the does not say simply, You have done this or that, but He traces
the evil to the root. He traces the conduct or the words of man to some source
- to what? to the heart! If there are idle and corrupt words, there is an idle
and corrupt heart; and out of the abundance of the mouth speaks. That is what
man's nature is, what he is. So that, though men have the fairest conduct
outwardly, God unmasks what is within, and shews the vanity of all their
outward ceremonies as a menas of eking out a righteousness of their own. He
regards not the mere outward conduct of man, but measures the heart; and
tracing all the evil to that, asks, Why is this? For out of the heart of man
proceed evil thoughts (v. 19), and there He closes with man. His purpose in all
these dealings and ways with man, is to shew him what he is before God.
The we turn to the other side of the picture, in which God's heart is
brought out (in the case of the woman of Canaan) (v. 21 - 28). This woman had
not the pride of human distinction in which the Jews gloried. She was neither a
Jewess nor a Pharisee - quite the contrary; she belonged to a city which God
held up as a most reprobate city; Matt. 11: 21. She was a Syrophoenician - a
Canaanite - of a race held in the Old Testament to be accursed (Gen. 9: 25 -
27), whence nothing of repentance could be expected. The Lord comes into the
coasts of Tyre and Sidon, peopled by the descendents of Canaan ("cursed is
Canaan"). That is where grace ever comes. And she was one of these outcasts in
the fullest sense of the word. She had no priviledges, no claims. Well, she
recognizes Him here as the Lord, the Son of David, and salutes Him as such. As
such she knew what mercies He had brought among the Jews; and she comes and
asks for blessing. He does not answer her a word. He takes no notice of her
whatever. His ears are closed to her request, at least so far as that He gave
her no answer. A repentant Jew might have appealed to Him under this title. He
was in the place of the promise which Messiah came to accomplish. "I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," v. 24. But for this there
must be some claim to the promise. If you meet Christ on the ground of what He
is as promised to Israel, you must have some fitness for the promise, some
claim to it. If you are seeking by righteousness to get the help of grace, that
is not my errand, says Christ; I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel.
Why is there no answer, the heart may say; for she
had recognized His lordship? She had, and could have no claim on or connection
with Him on that ground; with the Son of David a Canaanite had nothing to do.
The disciples were anxious to get rid of her by satisfying her demand, but He
would not allow it; He holds to God's order. If she came to the Son of David to
get help, she must come as a Jew. But here (v. 25) she gets a step farther, she
ceases to address Him as the Son of David (the ground on which she supposed,
giving Him the due honour, she might expect something), and her sense of want
constrains her to cry out, "Lord, help."
Are there none here expecting
that, because they entitle Christ aright, because they give Him His due title,
and honour Him, He must answer them, and are astonished that He does not? The
poor woman felt her sorrow; she wanted something, and there was the simple
expression of her need; but, even then, He answers, "It is not meet to take the
children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs." My errand is from God; I do not
go beyond that. Her owning and addressing Him as the Son of David was in the
way of righteousness, which was true. Her need still makes her go forward, and
she says, "Lord, help me!" But He answers, I am come to the children - to seek
for fruit on the vine which God owns. You might think God would own righteous,
well-conducted people, and that they might then take the fruits and blessings
God attached to that. But you have no claim on that ground: you are sinners. As
far as God's ways were revealed outwardly, the Jews were God's people. But she
was outside everything - a dog. She is looked upon as a dog, and now she takes
the place of a dog. What now, being a could she hope for? Why not give up hope?
Why, because she abandons all title and claim in herself, but the need which
cast itself on pure bounty; and there was, she asserted, an overflowing
abundance of grace, which could even give some supply to the dogs: "Truth,
Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
There was bounty in the house of God for dogs themselves. Be it she
was a dog; she made no pretence to take the children's place, and therefore it
was no answer to her to call her that, because the Master could look beyond the
children, and there was an overflowing supply of grace and fulness that did not
leave even the dogs without provision (v. 27). And such was the poor woman's
real state. She knew the Master of the house was infinitely rich. She knew God
and Jesus ten thousand times better than the disciples around. She knew that
there were bounty and plenty enough in the Master's house and from that
superabounding supply of grace He could let the dogs eat. The vilest and most
hopeless could find food in the Master's house. The real understanding of God
is according to our understanding of our total vileness and nothingness. Israel
had never understood divine love as it was here exhibited to the dogs -
fathomed by her need - fathomed by her wretchedness. She reached up to the
source of from whence even the children are fed - the fulness of the love of
God Himself, which did not shut even dogs out from His bounty. She passed by
all dispensation, even to what God Himself had done, seeing He had come down,
not to hide His holiness, but to shew what He really was; and when the sinner
was brought to a confession of her own nothingness, He swept away everything
between the sinner and Himself, as He did with the woman of Samaria.
She had arrived at what God was. He had done away with that which brought man a
little nearer to Him, that is ordinances, etc. ; and He now comes down to shew
what He is, and what man is; and when man comes to his true and real standing,
God is there to meet him in all His unlimited grace. Law was given by Moses,
and was but a veil; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The full truth of
what man's heart is is brought out by the revelation of God in Christ. Now
there was not any one between God and man to veil His holiness or to conceal
His love; not even any oft-repeated sacrifice; not even a Moses with a veil on
his face; but man must deal with God himself - with God in Christ. And here,
you see, the Lord would not satisfy this poor woman on any other plea but on
that of her own real character. He calls her really what she was, and she
understood that there was in God's heart all that the Lord Jesus Christ had
seen in it when He was in Heaven, for He was here to shew it. And, supposing
she had been something more than a dog, she would not have needed so much
grace. It is our vileness which brings out that wonderful grace which God gave.
For, if she had been in less need, what would have been the consequence? Why,
that there would have been less grace manifested in God.
And what is
the great truth in Christianity that is brought out by all this? That the veil
is rent from the top to the bottom; and that man, as he is, is in the presence
of God - the man is there unveiled. What have we got in the Cross? The first
thing is, God dealing with man in His own presence? But how? Did He come to
require anything? Nothing; how should He come and require it? In a certain
sense He did require fruit from the vine, but there was none. What then did He
come for? why did He come into a world full of sin? what did He seek here? He
sought sinners! Did he come ignorant of the extent of their sin? No, for He
knew what was in man's heart full well before He came. He knew their sin well.
He knew all that would come upon Him. But what stops the sinner? Not that he is
to come to God - we see the Lord Jesus Christ come down to him in his sins. Is
there anything between Him and the sinner? No, my friends - nothing; not even
His disciples. They might quiet and get rid of importunity, but neither shew
God's holiness nor reveal His love. It was the prerogative of His own love to
come and touch the sinner without being defiled by the sin: just as He did to
the leper. The leper exclaimed, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." The
Lord puts forth His hand and touches him, saying, "I will; be thou clean." And
remember, if He came to shew God's love to man in his sins, so that his heart
might be won, and have confidence with God, He came to take away sin from man
by taking it on Himself.
The veil of the temple being rent from top to
bottom, I see the holiness of God: but the very stroke which has thus unveiled
the holiness of God has put away the sin that would have hindered my standing
in he presence of that holiness. I see what God in His love has done for us in
the Person of Christ. I see that the bruising of His Son has taken place. Here
I get God himself coming down to me, and I am enabled now to go back with
Christ into the rest of His holiness. In the death of Christ I see the fearful
vengeance of God against sin; and the rending of the veil, which displays God's
holiness and love to man. And so the more the eye of God scrutinises and
searches me, the more it brings out the blessed truth, that the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses me from all sin. It shews me the whiteness of the robe that has
been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
If I hesitate to stand in His
presence, I am putting in question the value of Christ's precious blood. You
may say, I hope to be saved. You cannot hope that Christ will die for you! It
cannot be a matter of hope whether Christ is to die! The way the heart reasons
is, I am not hoping Christ will die for me, but I hope to get an interest in
Him; I want a proof of His love. When you question this, you question whether
Christ has become the friend of publicans and sinners; and, further, you
question the power of His blood.
Suppose you had a title to demand
some proof of His love, what could you demand more than God has given? He has
given His own Son. You could not ask so much as He has already given. But if I
am seeking that God should tell me something else, I am seeking some other
revelation than what He has given me. He rests my peace on believing the one He
has given. The soul that has come to God knows that He is love, and it is to
Himself we are come.
The very way in which I know God is through faith
in His Son. I know His own love, that He thought of this, and did it for me.
Why is it the sould does get this wondrous simple peace, to be in His own
presence without a cloud on His love? Because we are telling to God, and to our
poor hearts, something short of this - that we are dogs. Grace is to the
sinner, and to none other. If I can stand before God in my own righteousness,
grace is not needed. He will bring down your hearts to your real contrition .
There He can act in the fulness of His grace, accrding to the need of the heart
that has discovered its need in His presence. He is manifesting that gace
according to the value of the sacrifice, now that He is at the right hand of
God. Not merely now that God can come to the sinner, but the cleansed sinner
stands accepted in the presence of God - accepted in the Person of Jesus; and
that nothing stands between us and God. The Lord give us only to own the
fulness of His grace, and see that way in which we are debtors to Him, who was
willing to suffer all things that He might present us spotless to God.
Amen.