2 Samuel 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither does God respect any person… It is a Divine device, consisting of moans arranged by our Father in heaven to prevent his banished ones being finally expelled from him. It is not a scheme for awakening God's compassion, but a design which manifests and reveals and expresses and conveys the mercy which endureth for ever. This Divine design is therefore a scheme of Divine paternal love. And seeing that love in its ordinary forms cannot reach objects when they sink below their normal state, the love which planned the Christian system is that variety of love which we call "grace," that is, love going after its objects as they retire clad in the scarlet robe of guilty shame, love clinging to it, objects when they have proved themselves most unworthy, love overcoming evil with good, and love assuming a gracious form to the unloving and unlovable. Such love is like a plant of renown, or a flower of paradise, blooming in a horrible pit; it is like a choice vine or a tree of precious produce bearing its golden fruit, not in its own rich and warm soil, but in cold and miry clay; it is like an ark of refuge floating on waters so stormy that they have caused every other craft to founder; it is like precious light lingering, above the horizon after the sun has suddenly set in awful storms. It is like — ah! to what shall we liken it? We want a high class of figures beyond all we have ever seen, and a style of metaphors which we have no power to create. Never do we feel our poverty and helplessness as when we try to speak of the grace of God. But what we wish now to say is that the Christian scheme is created by the genius of Divine grace. All love can devise and design, but this form of love is most skilful and fertile in invention. The genius of the imagination can write poetry, but the expressions of grace are the sweetest, deepest, divinest poetry. The former can paint beauty, but grace creates and restores beauty, giving beauty for ashes. The former may represent life, but grace restores life. The Christian scheme is the product of Divine love. (Samuel Martin.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. |
    |