Chapter 3: That There Is a Way to Make Peace Between God and Sinful Man
It is evident that when a person loves their lusts so much that they secretly wish God were not so infinitely holy and just as He is, they, in effect, desire that God might cease to be. Is this not a deadly hatred? You love your lust so much that you harbour a deadly hatred against God, whose holiness and justice you know are set against it.
You wish, in essence, that God would cease to be God, for if He were less holy or just, He would cease to be God.
Indeed, if we truly understood our own natures in this regard, nothing would break a man's heart more than this. What could be more heart-wrenching than to realise, "I have been an enemy of God all my days, and therefore, what can I expect but that God will be an enemy to me eternally?" This is what will bring down the proudest heart in the world. Until you come to see sin in this light, you do not see it rightly.
Though this argument could extend my treatise, because I mention it to prepare the way for what remains—specifically, the doctrine of reconciliation—I shall therefore move on.
Chapter 3:
That There Is a Way to Make Peace Between God and Sinful Man Would it not now be joyful news to you to hear of a possibility for God to be reconciled to you? You see there is enmity in your hearts towards God; and not only enmity, but a most deadly and desperate one. I could show you many examples of this enmity, but the main
thing I aim to do is to open up the doctrine of reconciliation.
Therefore, if you grasp this truth of God and if God has struck it into your conscience, will not the doctrine of reconciliation be acceptable to you? Oh! It would be, and indeed it is, to those who fear God and rightly see themselves as enemies to Him.
But I fear that, while I am speaking of the doctrine of reconciliation between God and you, you might not fully understand its excellence or savour the sweetness of it. Therefore, if I have said anything that seems to be terrible to you in my other treatises—if I have shown you what an evil and dangerous condition you are naturally in, how liable you are to the wrath of God and the torments of hell, where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched—it is all for this purpose: that you might better appreciate the blessed and sweet doctrine of reconciliation between God and your souls.
This, then, is what we shall begin with, as the first sound of the blessed silver trumpet of the Gospel; namely:
Doctrine: That there is a way to make peace between God and sinful man.
God has not left mankind, who has sunk into such a depth of misery, irrecoverable and irreconcilable. The Lord here declares to you that He is willing to be reconciled to you; indeed, as we shall see later, He even entreats you to be reconciled. But here is the first sound of the trumpet of the Gospel, and blessed are they who hear this joyful sound: namely, that there is a possibility of being reconciled, that the Lord is willing to enter into parley with His enemies.
For God could have cast them off forever and never even considered parleying with them, just as He did with the angels that sinned, against whom He was so provoked that He resolved within Himself—
and has kept this resolution since the beginning of the world and will keep it to all eternity—that He will not enter into parley with those creatures or be reconciled to them on any terms. It is as if a man were so estranged from another that, if someone were to come to speak about terms of peace, he could not bear to hear of it. "No," he would say, "I will never enter into a treaty with him as long as I live."
In the same way, God will never enter into a treaty with the fallen angels. He will not hear of any terms of reconciliation but is determined to exact His vengeance upon them for all eternity.
Therefore, the Apostle says they are reserved in chains for the judgement of the great day.
But now, what shall become of man? Poor man might well fear, upon hearing what God has resolved against the angels, and he has reason enough to tremble at this. For indeed, man is a far poorer, meaner, and more wretched creature than those angels. If it is so between men that, when a great prince is offended with some nobleman in his court—even for his first offence—and all the people in the world cannot persuade that prince to even consider reconciliation, what hope is there for a lesser servant, some poor groom who has also offended the king?
When he hears that the king's chief favourite, one who was always in his presence, has been condemned without hope of reconciliation for a single offence, he would surely think to himself, "What will become of me? Is there any hope that there might be a parley between the king and me?" Certainly, this poor man would be ready to have his heart sink within him and sit down, overwhelmed with fear and despair.
In the same way, we would all have done so upon reasoning within ourselves concerning God's dealings with the fallen angels, had we
not heard this glorious and blessed sound of the Gospel and the hope of reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. Without it, we would have sunk into the bottomless gulf of despair and concluded with certainty that there could be no peace between God and us, given that we are, by nature, such enemies to Him.
But though this truth is beyond our thoughts, as far as heaven is above the earth, and though it could never have entered into the heart of man that God would parley with poor fallen man after such great enmity brought about by sin, know this: this is the message that has come from heaven, even from God Himself—that He is willing to parley with you. Yes, He is so willing that He has sent ambassadors to us to entreat us to be reconciled.
But more on that later. God, I say, is content to enter into a treaty with man concerning a reconciliation and the making up of peace between Himself and their souls; for that indeed is the very scope of the Gospel. If I were to dwell a little on this, to inquire about the reason why the Lord would be willing to enter into this treaty with mankind, the truth is, it is an unsearchable depth. We cannot imagine why the Lord would choose to parley with us and treat concerning terms of peace with us rather than with the angels.
There is something, indeed, that may come to our minds; for example, if God did not reconcile Himself to man and save him, He would lose His entire creation. When the angels fell, He did not lose all of them, but if God did not provide a way to be reconciled to man, the entire human race would be utterly lost. Now, the Lord will not cast away the whole kind of such an excellent creature as man is. But the truth is, these are only guesses as to the reason for His choosing to treat with us about salvation and not with the angels. The main
point is this: God has ways to glorify Himself in reconciling Himself to mankind that we do not know of.
We do know this—that there are glorious intentions that God has in this work, but we shall never fully understand them until we come to Heaven. And indeed, that will be the very work of Heaven itself: to praise God for all eternity for that great act of His, namely, His willingness to be reconciled to lost man rather than to the fallen angels. We shall understand some of the reasons for this in due time, for God does things according to the counsel of His will. There is nothing He does without a great deal of reason, reasons which we must adore even if we cannot fully understand them now.
For the present, let me hint at this: let the consideration of even this much affect your hearts. Oh, if we were sent to preach such a point as this to the devils or to the angels in hell, and say, "The Lord has kept this counsel from you for almost six thousand years, and His ways towards you have been such that it seems He would never parley with you. But now God has revealed His will towards you, that He is content to enter into a treaty with you about the things that concern your peace and the reconciling of you to Himself," what a message would this be to them, do you think? But this has never been, nor ever shall be, preached to them.
If God were to send this message to the damned in hell and say to them, "The Lord is content to enter into a parley with you about reconciling Himself to you," what a message that would be! But this cannot be; this is only a message to those who are alive here in this world. It is only to that part of the children of men who are living upon the earth that this message can be preached—that there is a possibility of reconciliation between God and them.
Truly, the consideration of a possibility is something that may satisfy the heart of man, regardless of what the terms may be. "Oh! Is it possible that God may be reconciled? I will never inquire about the terms out of fear that their hardness should discourage me. Oh! Let the terms be whatever they may, this is the most acceptable news— this is the best tidings to my soul—more acceptable than if I were told that I had been given a thousand worlds. Even this—that I hear there is a possibility of reconciliation between God and myself."
This may serve as a prop to support and keep up any troubled conscience from despair, even in just reading this, though they may still fear God's willingness to make up the peace. But it is possible that you may have it. No angel in Heaven, nor any man in the world, knows or can know otherwise—that it is possible for you, yes, even for you, such a sinner as you are, or someone like you, to come to be reconciled.
And does this begin to stir your heart, just from reading that man's condition is not hopeless, but that there is a possibility of his being reconciled? Do you believe because of this? Then, as Christ said to Nathanael, "Thou shalt see greater things than these." So, if your heart begins to be moved by this, you shall, before we are done with this subject, read even greater things about the counsel of God concerning His willingness to be reconciled to the children of men.
Before I proceed, let me say this one word about this point. Let us take heed that we do not turn this grace of God that we hear of today into something that increases our more fearful condemnation, or make our condemnation far more dreadful than that of the devils, because we have been given more means for our deliverance than they ever had. For if we are not careful, it may indeed prove that our condemnation will be more dreadful than that of the devils.
Therefore, when you hear anything about this doctrine of reconciliation, or the possibility of being reconciled to God, you need to lift up your hearts to God and pray that the reading of this blessed doctrine does not result in the increase of your condemnation. Such a message has never been preached to the devils; therefore, if I do not come in and accept the terms of reconciliation, I shall be in a worse state than the devils. It can never be charged against them that God was willing to be reconciled and they refused, but this may indeed be said of all wicked and ungodly people who live under the sound of the Gospel and continue in their wickedness until they die.
This will be the charge laid against them one day, and God will say to them, "You knew that you were naturally enemies to me; yet I revealed in my Gospel that I was willing to enter into terms of peace with you, but you refused, slighted, and scorned it."
What could possibly provoke the heart of a person more than this: that when he has his enemy, who has deeply offended him, at a disadvantage, he should still offer terms of peace, only for that enemy to walk away scorning, slighting, and despising him? Truly, this is how wicked people behave who live under the light of the Gospel. When the ministers of the Gospel come and preach peace and reconciliation to them, telling them that God is willing to be at peace with them, willing to treat and parley with them about the matter of salvation, they go away, and the language of their actions is this: "Well, we will manage as best we can for ourselves; we are resolved to continue in our ways of sin and to seek satisfaction in this or that lust."
Now, God forbid that this attitude should be found in the heart of anyone who reads this book.