Verse 18
God Reasoning With Man
Look at the text as marking decided progress in the moral position of mankind. There was a time when such words were not used by the Almighty. We turn over the foregoing pages of the volume and find the Maker and creature standing in this relation: God drave out the man from Eden, and set a flaming sword in the garden where man had wont to be. It appears as if God himself had turned away, turned his back upon his child, and left the sinner to wander in outer darkness, to feel the bitterness and pain of his rebellion. There is no proposition at that time to reason out the case. There is a voice of thundering and of judgment, and afterwards there is a silence more terrible than the roar of the thunder and the howl of the tempest! It is as if God had retired into the depths of infinite space, shut himself up in the chambers of his own eternity, and refused to have any further communication with the creature who had disobeyed his will. And yet, though it may seem to be so, there was, under all the apparent withdrawment and terribleness of judgment and indignation, the spirit of mercy and the spirit of hope towards man. For the gospel is not a new invention. It does not come up at any particular time and say, "I am the expression of God's mind to-day; I am a new thing on the earth; I make a new appeal to the understanding and the heart of man." The gospel is as old as God; ancient as eternity; and as for the Cross of Christ, it was built before the foundations of the rocks were laid! Yet there was a time when God seemed to "be filled with anger, holy and just, in relation to his child, who had rebelled against him. But now, reading this beautiful text, it seems as if a new order of things had been set in motion; as if God having, as it were, recovered from the shock which his child's sin gave him had come out of his hiding-place, willing to give the rebel a chance to speak for himself; to state his own case, with all the energy of his wit, and with all the force of his eloquence.
What do these words teach? What is their spirit, and what is their purpose, and what do they mean in relation to ourselves? There is no necessity to divide men into two classes, the good and the bad, we are all bad! There are degrees, as between ourselves. Some are good, some are better, some are evil altogether, as these terms go in human speech, and as they are used merely for the sake of convenience. But in the sight of God, in the presence of his infinite holiness, and in relation to the law of God, there is none righteous, no not one. And as for the chief of saints, he will be loudest in declaring that he is also chief of sinners. What answer are we prepared to make to this gracious offer? "Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord." The proposition comes from God. It does not arise from the human side at all. It is a piece of pure condescension on the part of the Almighty himself. Grace comes out of the sovereignty of God. The possibility of salvation comes from God's grace. It is not in any wise of our conception or of our own doing. We are saved by faith, and that not of ourselves, for faith is the gift of God. God having made this proposition, proceeds upon the assumption that he knows himself to be right in this case. It is precisely so in our own affairs, in the common controversies of the day. The man who knows himself to be in the right, who feels himself to have a just cause in hand, is always the first to make the noblest propositions, and to offer as many concessions as are possible without impairing the law of absolute right, truth, and propriety. We know this to be a custom amongst ourselves. The great man is always the first to make propositions of conciliation. The great and noble nature is always the first to say, "Come, let us-----" It is, generally speaking, the man who has injured us that holds his spite so long; the man who has done wrong, that seeks to do still further injury, in order, in some way, to justify himself to himself as also to society. But the man who is justly offended is the first to say, "I bear no malice; I seek for no unworthy retribution; I shall find no satisfaction in seeing you humbled and disgraced. Come now, let us discuss the matter in all its bearings, set it in its various lights, and see what it really means; and if it be possible to restore harmony, let harmony be restored." If we do so, it is in an infinitely higher degree true in the case of Almighty God. He makes the proposition to his rebel. After man has committed high treason against his throne and court, after he has done his best to snap the divine sceptre, and insult the divine honour, after he has made himself a disgrace in creation, God says to him, not, "I will cut thee in twain with my glittering sword; I will put my foot upon thee and crush thee into the dust, and defy thee to get thy life again;" but he says, "Come now, let us reason together." This proposition is not only the proof of the grace of God; but that grace itself is the vindication of his righteousness. He knows he is right, and he knows he is right in the court of reason; that if the case be honestly and fully stated the criminal will convict himself, he will burn with shame, and cry out for the judgment that is just. God is right, and we are wrong in this controversy. We are not wrong partially, not wrong here and there, with little spots of light and blue between the errors, but we are wrong altogether, foully, shamefully, infamously wrong! And unless every man shall see that and feel it, as a poisoning sting in his nature, he will never come in a right state of mind to consider the propositions of the Cross or the offers of divine grace.
Knowing this, God asks us to reason the case with him. He proceeds upon the assumption that man ought to be prepared to vindicate his conduct by reasons, that a man's conduct ought not to be haphazard, but ought to have under it a basis of reasoning, of moral unity, and of understanding of the right relations of affairs. A man ought to be able to say why he does this, and why he refrains from doing that. He ought not to be living from hand to mouth, just doing what happens to come up first, without knowing why he does it. He ought to be able to say, "I will not drink of that cistern;" he ought also to be able to give his reasons for avoiding it. He ought to be able at the end of every day to vindicate to himself, to his own understanding and self-respect, the course he has proceeded upon in business or otherwise during the whole day. Is this not right? God says, "Why do you do this? Let me know your reasons for having done so. Will you state your case to me? I give you the opportunity of stating your own case in your own terms." Observe how wonderfully influential, when rightly accepted, is a proposition of this kind. If men would think more they would sin less. "Oh that men were wise, that they would consider!" If a man, before doing questionable actions, would carefully and thoughtfully sit down and examine his reasons for giving up his strength to certain policies, he would in many cases be enabled, on the ground of mere common, human, right reasoning, to avoid offences which stain and disgrace his daily life. Alas! some of us dare not think. We shut our eyes; we take the plunge, and we risk the consequences. God says to us in his gentle mercy, "Do not do so; before you leap look; before you put out your hand to touch the object of your ambition, consider what it is, what the taking of it involves; be careful, steady-minded, sober, thoughtful, knowing that he who uses his understanding aright will save himself from many a fall and many a pain." Have you ever tried this? Have you ever attempted to write out a vindication of any one sin you have ever committed? Take a white card, write at the top of it the sin you propose to commit, whatever it be; shut yourself up in solitude; write in some characters that nobody but yourself can decipher, and put down under your sin the reasons why you propose to commit it; and put down every possible excuse you can. Try to reason yourself into it, and you will fail to do so if you be just to the first principles of human understanding and to the first elements of common sense. And God asks you to do this; to reason the case out. He will not allow us to live our life in a passion, in a thoughtless hurry, to do things in confusion and haste. He imposes upon us this simple obligation: "Stand still; think about it; reason it out; see what you mean; and do not do it until you know the whole scope and consequences of the act." He proposes more than this. He comes to the man who has actually taken the plunge, who has really done the evil deed, who has absolutely committed himself to the devil, who wears the livery of the pit, and uses the language of perdition, and he says, "Come now, let us talk this matter over; let us reason together. Make this a special hour in your history; say what you will; be honest to your own judgment and to your own heart; put down your case; state your reasons and your excuses, and let us go into this case thoroughly." No man can vindicate wrong by reason. Every man who has a bad case to defend must in the first place blink his own common-sense, insult his own sagacity, and quash his own sense of right, before he can defend himself, or defend the evil action of another. That is something to know. That is a bold proposition to make, even in the court of reason not in the court of religion, distinctively so called. No man can make out a good case for wrong. He must evade many lines of obligation; he must trifle with the plain and spiritual sense of many terms; he must hurry over many very difficult parts of his case; he must depose his conscience; he must hoodwink his sagacity; and then, perhaps, he may do something confusedly and wickedly in the defence of some questionable action of his life. Young men especially should consider this very soberly and carefully: It is impossible to defend any bad action by good reason. You may be witty, sharp; your power of repartee may be unquestionable, but you cannot successfully defend a bad action by good reasoning. Logic is against you as well as theology. Common-sense is against you as well as spiritual revelation. This is the strength and the majesty of the Christian faith, that it challenges men by the first principles of reasoning to defend themselves, as sinners, before the Almighty. "Oh that men were wise, that they would consider!" "My people do not know; Israel doth not consider." If men would take a few quiet hours, now and then, and look at life as it really is, and at themselves as they really are the hour of thought might become the hour of prayer.
Who is it in the text that invites men to reason with him? It is God! Then the sinner is invited to take his case to the fountain-head. Do not many persons stumble and err at this very point by a misunderstanding of the terms of this proposition? If we take our evil hearts to a human teacher, he can do but little for us except as an instrument. We may hear his ministry, but we must regard him as the echo and not the voice, the second and not the principal, the medium and not the revealer. If we take our case to a priest, named by the highest names, still we have done what we ought not to have done if we make that the final point instead of a temporary resting-place. It is God who invites us to state the case directly to himself. Have we ever employed one hour of life in stating our case in secret to God? Oh the crimson faces we have had! oh the tottering knees! oh the pain of self-conviction and self-torture! Go directly and immediately to God, and talk to him; speak to the invisible. It does a man good to be apparently speaking to nothing, speaking into the air, as it were, but with the holy consciousness that God is there, catching every tone and every sigh, every aspiration and every desire. Let us try that experiment of stating our case to the invisible Father, the present but unseen God. We can only do so in solitude. It is well for a man to have a place of private resort for the consideration of all the bearings of his life. Some of us have had such places ever since we can remember. We have occasion to go back to them, in recollection, with joy and thanksgiving. Places in far-away quiet fields, where we used to go between school hours and bend our knees behind some blossoming hawthorn hedge, or some old, old tree, and there, even in our teens, talk to God till the tears started, and life seemed to be going out of us in one great painful shudder. But oh the sweetness of those hours! We came back even to play, and work, and suffering with new life and new hope. God says, "I will condescend to talk the case over with you; I will hear what you have to say; I will understand your case, and listen to your reason." Go to the fountain-head; take what you can of the advantages of an intermediate ministry; listen to godly men of every denomination and every type of intellect and method of speech, and be thankful if any one can utter a tone that touches your heart, or give one gleam of light that penetrates the darkness of your understanding. But do not forget the fountain-head! Talk an hour with the servant; but spend your lifetime with the master. Have a passing interview with his agents; but when he throws open his door and says, "Come now; I am ready; I wait to be gracious," go to his feet and talk the case out.
From a proposition of this kind what can we infer but that God's purpose is, in making it, to mingle mercy with judgment? The tone is distinctly that of a merciful and gracious proposition. Such words could not be used without an intention, on the part of the speaker, to do everything in his power to meet the case of the criminal. Hear the language and say whether, grammatically and fairly interpreted, it does not imply that God is prepared to make every concession in his power to the sinner. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord." This is a stopping-place on the road to judgment. We are told that God will come to his judgment throne and sit upon it, and gather all nations around his feet. But before ascending that solemn elevation he sits down on the throne of reasoning, of conference with his creatures, and says, "I must talk with thee; I must give thee an opportunity of hearing thyself upon this question, because I know that it is impossible for any man to talk out his reasons for doing wrong without, in the very act, convicting himself; and such conviction may lead to penitence and contrition, to shame, to broken-heartedness. I therefore propose to all the rebels in my human kingdom to come to me and to reason their case in my hearing." What does he intend? Does he wish to take advantage of our slips of the tongue? Is he listening to us as a keen and unsparing critic, who will rebuke us if we make one slip in grammar, or one misstatement of the case? Is he not rather there partly as our advocate? If it be possible to speak a word in our favour, which we ourselves have forgotten, will he not supply it as we proceed with our speech? He will. Judgment is his strange work, and mercy is his peculiar delight. He, therefore, asks us to state our case, and his own purpose is to mingle judgment with mercy, and to meet us at the extremest possible points of his own law and righteousness.
If God could trifle with righteousness in making a case up with us his own throne would be insecure, his own heaven would not be worth having. In taking care of righteousness he is taking care of us. In judging everything upon a basis of absolute infinite righteousness he is taking care of everything that is good in us in the universe; he is protecting himself as God, and setting a flaming sword around his own throne! Herein do men greatly err. Talking upon religious questions, they say, "Why does not God come down and forgive us all?" That is precisely what he wishes to do. Only even God cannot forgive until we ourselves desire to be forgiven. When we come to him saying, "Lord, have mercy," we shall hardly utter our prayer before his great heaven will become one glorious exhibition of mercy, and come down into our hearts and lives with its light and its beauty! We make a fundamental mistake if we suppose that God has only to say, "I forgive you all," and thus restore the universe to harmony and order. God cannot say so. If he were to say so, he would be trifling with righteousness, he would be rendering insecure the pillars of his own throne, and the reins of his own government would fall out of his hands. He must be just; he must be righteous. Righteousness must be vindicated, and then grace becomes sure. Righteousness must be satisfied, and then eternity becomes heaven! The law must be made honourable, then the gospel will be given to us, with the assurance of eternal permanence, but not without.
It is impossible for the Almighty himself to forgive men unless men come to him with contrition, with repentance towards himself, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no action so difficult as the action of forgiveness. There is no action so complicated as the action of pardon. It seems a very simple thing to say, "I forgive you; say no more about it; there is an end of the whole affair!" He who could speak so is immoral. He who could talk so is not to be trusted. If a man could treat the moral relationships of life in that way it would but prove that his conscience had been drugged, that his judgment had been hoodwinked, and that there was nothing morally permanent in the quality of his soul but its corruptness. If we could get men to understand that thoroughly we should have begun a great work in their souls. We have heard people say, again and again, that God will be merciful; at the very last he will say, "Ah well, you have lived a bad life, I know, but I forgive you you may go into heaven." There is nothing so false in reasoning, so absurd in logic, so corrupt in morals, as vapid sentimental talk of that kind! What, then, does God propose to do? He proposes this: "Do you feel the sinfulness of sin?" Yes. "Do you renounce all hope of saving yourself?" Yes. "Do you know what sin is as sin? Not merely as a social offence, not merely as a national or social crime, but sin as sin; and do you hate it as such?" I do. Then God says, Take all the grace you need; the Cross is the answer to the pain of your conviction, and the atonement made by my Son is the way, and the only way, and the infinitely sufficient way, to pardon, to purity, and to peace! That is a result secured by the consent of both parties. I may have offended you. You may come to me and say, "You have deeply grieved me; but I forgive." I can say, "Take your forgiveness away; I do not want to be forgiven by you!" Observe, therefore, that you have not the power to forgive me. You can forgive the crime, but you cannot forgive the sin. And even your forgiveness of the crime I may resent, and turn into an occasion of inflicting still deeper injury upon you. But if I come to you and say, "I have injured you; I see that I must have given you great pain; I did you wrong, and in my heart I am sorry for having done so," if then you say, "With my heart I forgive you," the transaction is based on solid moral principles, and the result is likely to be permanent and beneficent. It is so with God. God cannot pass an act of universal amnesty; he cannot open all the prison doors of the universe and say to the criminals, "Come forth, I forgive you all." But if they in their condemned cells would but heave one sigh of penitence, and utter one cry for God's forgiving mercy, every bolt would fall off, every lock fly back, and there would be no prison in all the universe of God! Are you willing to be pardoned? Have you come from a sense of sin to know its bitterness, and to feel the want of something more? To you is this gospel preached, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
Thus the sinner is left absolutely without excuse. Looking at the whole volume of inspired revelation; looking at the person and ministry of God the Son; looking at his sacrifice upon Calvary; and at the whole scope and bearing of his mediation; having regard to the gracious proposition made by the Father of lights to the children of darkness, that they would come to him and reason their case, we declare that, If any man be lost it is because he will not be saved! "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." We cannot escape that conclusion; and in one aspect it is a glorious conclusion, because it gives us assurance that nothing is lost that would be saved that God's great arms have been stretched out to the very brink of hell, that he might save the man who was just slipping over; and that man said "No!" And when he went down, he went down because he persisted in moral suicide; and a verdict of suicide must be returned by all the angels of light, and all the spirits of just men made perfect! There is no other verdict. Shall that be pronounced upon us? Some may say, "I have excuses." No! Unless you mean by excuses that you can trifle, that you can state a case that has no moral substance in it. If you say that you can gloss over your actions, put a little gilding upon the outside of your behaviour, so as to make it look tolerably well, we agree with you. But if you say that you can reason out your case, if you have done one bad action in your life, you are stating what you know to be untrue. Can you defend a bad action? What a wicked genius must be yours! If you have ever pressed your finger too heavily upon man, woman, or child who was weak and self-helpless, all your genius and sagacity would be used in vain if you attempted to defend the action on moral principles: your attempted vindication would only double your sin.
Will you reason with God? He invites you to do so. Do you address an invitation to the Almighty to reason with you? You need not address an invitation to him, because his invitation has been issued from the beginning, and is still operative. He the divine One the grieved Father, issues the invitation. How shall we accept it? Simply, heartily, lovingly, thankfully. One hour's reasoning with God may mean a lifetime in eternity of purity and joy. Let us reason out all cases with God, and never do anything that even looks doubtful without having a spiritual loving conference with the Eternal One. It is thus that character will be made solid; every day be touched with infinite beauty, and life become a hope and an assurance of immortality! Why not surrender at once? Why not say, "I will lay down my arms here, never to take them up against the divine government again so long as I live"? Why not say, "We love him because he first loved us! We find in Jesus Christ the answer to our original sin and to our actual transgression; our only hope of new life is in the ministry of God the Holy Ghost"? If this could be said by one, there would be joy in the presence of the angels of God. If it could be said by a multitude, then heaven itself would be filled with the music of a new joy, and become still more heaven by reason of its ecstatic rapture. I wish to rouse your minds, and compel you to consider your lives, and to press men by God's great, great grace to surrender themselves to the Lamb of God, the only Saviour of the world.
Note
"What is the tenor of his [Isaiah's] message in the time of Uzziah and Jotham? This we read in chapters i.-v. Chapter i. is very general in its contents. In perusing it we may fancy that we hear the very voice of the Seer as he stands (perhaps) in the Court of the Israelites denouncing to nobles and people, then assembling for divine worship, the whole estimate of their character formed by Jehovah, and his approaching chastisements. 'They are a sinful nation; they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. Flourishing as their worldly condition now appears, the man whose eyes are opened sees another scene before him (1-9), the land laid waste, and Zion left as a cottage in a vineyard, (a picture realised in the Syro-Ephraimitish war, and more especially in the Assyrian invasion the great event round which the whole of the first part of the book revolves). Men of Sodom and Gomorrah that they are, let them hearken! they may go on if they will with their ritual worship, "trampling" Jehovah's courts; nevertheless, he loathes them: the stain of innocent blood is on their hands; the weak are oppressed; there is bribery and corruption in the administration of justice. Let them reform; if they will not, Jehovah will burn out their sins in the smelting fire of his judgment. Zion shall be purified, and thus saved, whilst the sinners and recreants from Jehovah in her shall perish in their much-loved idolatries.' This discourse suitably heads the book; it sounds the keynote of the whole; fires of judgment destroying, but purifying a remnant, such was the burden all along of Isaiah's prophesyings.
"Of the other public utterances belonging to this period, chapters ii.-iv. are by almost all critics considered to be one prophesying, the leading thought of which is that the present prosperity of Judah should be destroyed for her sins, to make room for the real glory of piety and virtue; while chapter v. forms a distinct discourse, whose main purport is that Israel, God's vineyard, shall be brought to desolation. The idolatry denounced in these chapters is to be taken as that of private individuals, for both Uzziah and Jotham served Jehovah. They are prefaced by the vision of the exaltation of the mountain on which Jehovah dwells above all other mountains, to become the source of light and moral transformation to all mankind ( Isa 2:2-4 )." Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
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