the wisdom that is from above

 Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — is "FIRST PURE, THEN PEACEABLE." It shows how God may dwell with man, and yet not sacrifice His purity; how man may dwell with God, and yet not lose his peace. It neither tarnishes Divine holiness, nor crushes human hope. It guards first the righteousness of the Judge; thereafter and therewith it obtains the pardon of the criminal. It is in Christ crucified that the two apparent contradictions meet. The substitution of Christ for His people is the fulcrum which sustains alike the honour of God and the safety of believing men. God preserves His own purity, and yet lifts the lost into His bosom: the guilty get a free pardon, and yet the motives which bind them to obedience, instead of being relaxed, are indefinitely strengthened.

II. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — is "GENTLE AND EASY TO BE ENTREATED." This is not the view which springs in nature, and prevails in the world. Fear in the conscience of the guilty, after passing through various degrees of intensity and forms of manifestation, ever tends to culminate in the question, "Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" See the result as it is exhibited in India. The chief gratification of a chief idol is the self-murder of his worshippers under the wheel of the truck that bears his weight. The wisdom that is from above is gentle; "a bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench." The wisdom that is from above is easy to be entreated; nay, more, He tenderly entreats you — "Come unto Me, all ye That labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

III. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — is "FULL OF MERCY AND GOOD FRUITS." So far from being in all cases united, these two, in their full dimensions, meet only in the gospel. The administration of a government might be full of mercy, and yet destitute of good fruits: nay, more, the want of good fruit might be directly due to the fulness of mercy. Mercy to the full — an absolutely unconditional pardon to the guilty is in human governments inconsistent with the public good. In the gospel of the grace of God, absolute fulness of mercy to the guilty binds the forgiven more firmly to obedience. The wisdom which is exhibited in the covenant is full of mercy. God could not put more mercy in His covenant, for all His mercy is in it already. Woe to us if that which it contains comes short of our need. It is not a wider door of mercy that we want, but a larger liberty to sin. This Divine wisdom is also full of good fruits. The tree is good, its fruits are good, and it bears them abundantly. Either attribute is in itself precious; and there is an additional interest in the union of the two. If there had not been Divine wisdom in the plan, the profusion of mercy would have blasted in the germ all the promises of fruit. The mercy that is free to us was dearly bought by our Divine substitute. Justice was satisfied while the guilty were set free. There lies the peculiar feature of the mercy which God gives and sinners get through Christ. It does not encourage the forgiven to continue in sin. It makes the forgiven love the forgiver much; and love is the greatest, the only fulfiller of the law.

IV. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — is "WITHOUT PARTIALITY, AND WITHOUT HYPOCRISY." We are so much accustomed to partiality and hypocrisy in human affairs, that it becomes difficult to lodge in our minds the conception of an off, r entirely equal, and an announcement absolutely true. Accustomed in the moral department of human things to a continual state of siege, we have contracted a corresponding habit of suspicion. We lack the tendency, and perhaps the power, to exercise a pure implicit trust. How shall we be brought, in very deed and in simplicity, to trust that God is true, although every man should be a liar?" Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Take away this suspicious heart, and give a tender, trustful one. The Mediator's proposal for peace with God is —

1. Without partiality offered alike to all. All the fallen are in need, and all alike. His own goodness will not admit the best into favour; his own badness will not keep out the worst. Grace, absolutely sovereign and free, is the main principle of the gospel.

2. Without hypocrisy: — truly offered to each. What have we here? Can the Supreme, consistently with His own honour, plead before His creatures, that He is not a hypocrite, making His offer appear more generous than it really is? Yes; such is His longsuffering condescension. All the repetitions of His offer are of this kind — the overflowings of a compassion that is more than full He stands at the door and knocks; He pleads with sinners, Why will ye die? Strange measure of forbearance this! But is it needed? Do men deny or doubt the sincerity of the offer which the Messenger of the covenant has brought to the world? They do. Nor is it here and there a rare example of peculiar wickedness; it is the commonest sin I know. We do not speak this distrust; but we live it. I have seen a dog tried in this fashion: his owner took a full dish of finest human food from the table, as it had been prepared for the family, and set it before him, encouraging him by word and gesture to eat. The sagacious brute shrank back, lay down, refused, and gave many unmistakable indications that he would be too glad to eat, but he saw clearly it was all a pretence it was too good for him, and never intended for him — and if he should attempt to taste it, the dish could be snatched away, while he would perhaps receive a blow for daring to take the offer in earnest. The picture, although its associations are less grave, possesses, in relation to our subject, the one essential quality of trueness. It represents, more exactly than anything I know in nature, the treatment which God's offer gets from men. We treat the offer as if the offerer were not sincere. Alas for the pitiful condition of sinful men! — refusing the great salvation, because it is so great that they cannot believe it is really intended to be given free to the unworthy.

(W. Arnot.)