April 1929
171
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
You are called to the cross because it is the place of Emancipation. As Lincoln, by the signing of the Declara tion of Emancipation, struck the shackles from three mil lion dark slaves, so Christ by His death upon the cross brought emancipation from sin to the slaves o f sin everywhere. You are called to the cross because it is the place of Redemption.
You are called to the cross because it is the place o f Salvation.
“Bearing shame and scoffing rude In my place condemned He stood; Sealed my pardon with His blood, Jesus, my Saviour.”
The cross of Calvary stands on Golgotha’s hill for you. The cross beckons you. The cross calls you. May this Eastertide be a time when the call of the cross will sound loud and clear to the souls of men and they will find the cross of Christ their supreme joy and glory. “Anybody for Calvary?” “Any more for the Cross?”
“Redeemed 1 How I love to proclaim it, Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child for ever I am.”
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The New Covenant B y W . E . C lark
f N his letter to the Galatians, chapter 4, verses 21-31, the apostle Paul , draws a great spiritual lesson from the story of Abraham’s two wives, Sarah and Hagar, and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, the children of these two women. He says that the two women allegorically represent two covenants —one Hagar, the bondwoman, representing the covenant which was made with the descendants of Abra ham at Mount Sinai; and the other woman, Sarah, stand ing for another covenant. Paul says that the people of the first covenant were in bondage, even as were the woman Hagar and her son; but that those who are under the second covenant are free, as were Sarah and her son. The record of that first covenant is given in epitome in Ex. 24 :l-8. The people bonded themselves under that covenant in a life-and-death agreement—life by obedience to the obligations of the covenant, and death for the slightest failure in keeping the terms of it. This covenant was ratified, or “dedicated” (Heb. 9:18), that is, inaugu rated, by the sprinkling of both the book of the covenant and the people with the blood of a slain victim. As Moses sprinkled the blood he said to the people, “This is the bloodi«if the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you” (Heb. 9:20). But before the people had been under that covenant forty days, they had grievously broken one of the funda mental principles of it, and would have been obliterated from the face of the earth by God had not Moses pleaded for mercy in their behalf. Then there was instituted the system of sacrifices, which were typical of the Great Sacrifice that God had planned before the foundation of the world, and that made it possible for God to continue mercy to them as a people and also a s .individuals when the covenant was ignorantly broken from time to time. The instructions concerning these sacrifices occupy the first several chap ters of the Book of Leviticus, and the offering of these sacrifices constituted the principal part of the public relig ious life and activities of that people. , W hy A nother C ovenant ? God Himself gives the answer. It is found in the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapters 31-34, and is quoted in the epistle to the Hebrews in two places—8:8-10; 10:16, 17. In the first place, we are told in Hebrews 8 :7 that the first covenant was not faultless, else “would no place
have been sought for a second. For, finding fault with them, he said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.” The fault was not in the covenant, in one sense, and in another sense it was. It was faulty in that it was not. suited to their condition. As the apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans, “ the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh” (Rom.8:4). Poor human nature was not equal to measuring up to the requirements of the “holy” law of God. And that was why it was given —to prove to man his weakness, his utter helplessness, his sinfulness, his unlikeness to the holiness of God. Their experience under the law showed the people that their very desires were contrary to the requirements of that law. One expressed it thus: “I had not knownnsin except through the law, for I had not known coveting, ¡except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet: but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting . . . Sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good,—that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful,” etc. (Rom. 7:7-25). This was most terrible bondage, from which he cried out for deliverance. G od ’ s H elp N eeded Another put it this way, “My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psa. 119:25). This man had been brought to see, not only his need of help beyond himself, but also that God, ift-His Word, had promised the needed help. The psalmist seem ed satisfied that the help promised in the Word of God was sufficient to meet his need, for he asked that it might be “according to thy word.” And the help asked for was to be “quickened.” He did not ask that the re quirements of God might be lessened, the standard lower ed, so that he might be able to meet them and to measure up; but that, by being “quickened” in his soul, he might be enabled to rise above the things to which his soul cleaved.
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