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Chapter 9
EXPLORING DOORS
Grace Grapples, Doesn’t Dabble,
is Profound
Revelation 3 and Grace
A Tale of Two Churches
1. Preliminary
Understanding
GRACE AND LOVE
If you
consult Revelation 3:7 and
But how
does grace relate to love ? Grace has the concept of pleasantness, good
pleasure, kindness, expansive contribution, generosity. Love is like that, but
has a deeper sense of personal involvement, in that it REQUIRES that one not
only has this vast generosity of spirit, not exacting but desiring to ennoble
and develop, but has within it, as if a core, an attachment which yet is pure,
a solicitousness which is yet not possessive, a desire which is not touchy or
tedious, but persistent and of a tender goodwill. Love does not fail, but those
loved may fail (Ephesians 1:6, 11).
What
however if grace intervenes. If the grace is effectual, as in donation of life
to the dead, then that is the result. If it is again, effectual, as in
spiritual life from the dead, that too is the same. Love with grace means that there
is a gift, with an exuberance, a donation with no residue of bitterness or any
qualification of queasiness. But what if the gift is not transformative ? Then
grace would not be sufficient for its object. What however if it IS
transformative ? Then of what ? If it is restricted to the financial situation
of its object, that may fail; to his/her mental powers, this may age; but if it
is to grant life of spirit in the presence of God, and if it includes adoption
as a privilege GRANTED, even to the family of God, then this effectual grace is
eternally transmutative: eternal life is there.
What
however would happen if it were without love ? Suppose some vast contribution
of spiritual life were possible in which you still retained the option to love
yourself more than God, and prostitute grace to your own selfish advancement,
as if you were the hub and God the road ? Then such grace would not be
effectual; and God would not be God.
In what way
would God not be God ? In this way: that He is not like that. He does not cast
pearls before swine, or give His life TO untransmuted lead. IN giving it, He
transforms (regenerates) the one who receives it, so that this then becomes a
transaction so vital, so profound, that it is no longer even possible for the
recipient to change, just as born a Smith, you cannot then acquire the genes of
a Jones. As the joke has it when a daughter writes home from Camp: Mother I did
not bring my jeans, the Mother replies, If you do not have them now, it is too
late to get them.
Of course
it is a play on genes, but the issue is this: IF when you are born again as I
John 3:9 expressly intimates, you have a spiritual inheritance and nature, or
‘seed’, then you simply cannot divest yourself of this. It is quite as
designate as other sorts of birth. What you are born, YOU ARE! What have you,
asks Paul, that you did not receive ? (I Corinthians 4:7).
Is it a
body ? did you make it ? Is it a spirit ? Did you construct it ? Is it
susceptibility ? Did you manufacture and instal it in your frame ? Is it the
willingness to be susceptible ? Is this chosen equipment, specified for supply
? Past all this is God, who knows YOU with all your equipment, not only incomes
and outcomes, but the essential being which you are, in spirit; for the spirit
of man in the end, would go this way or that, and wills this or that; and
though sin control the vision without the light of God, it does not control God
who knows those with whom He has to deal.
But someone
may say: Is this fair ? Is this the love of God, that you should be swept into
someone else’s domain by a dynamic irresistible and into a state in essence,
irreformable ( or more accurately in this case, undeformable, but let that
pass, the point is unchangeable in NATURE) ? One notices the addition of the
concept of ‘irresistible’ in this formulation, but in one sense, if we move
into the scriptural concept, it is just. When the wind blows, the eyes are
opened and one enters (John 3), or as Jesus put it in John 6:65, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me
unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” There is a grant which
is or is not made. In that sense, it is irresistible, for if the grant is
given, you are governed by it. It is yours. It is not left on the doorstep to
be picked up or let go: it is YOUR new nature!
In all such
thought, however, there is an almost ludicrous play upon analogy. HOW and WHY
does God so grant ? Does He grant to bits of blank paper, to be written on ?
Are you selected for grants, not like some university program, or even like
some deserving race, or some needy group, and of course, not like some scheming
abuser of social service privileges who hoodwinked the giver, or in any other
way whatsoever that relates to YOU, but by caprice, by whim, by mysterious
effluences, or because you are attractive to God ? Such is rubbish. There is NO
MERIT in the grantee whatever (as in Ephesians 2, Romans 3), and there is a
removal of any opportunity to BOAST in being chosen of God.
If you
would boast of selection in terms of His desire for you because of your
intrinsic character seen in terms of desirability, for your singularity, then
freedom would be nil – your inheritance your ground of selection, so that moral
responsibility would be nil, and man could logically accuse God of erratic
creation, meaningless love and now bold dictation.
It is a
PERSON who is CHOSEN in Ephesians 1:4, not a piece of blank paper or a type of
‘hype’ or generalised image. What is chosen is a distinctive entity, and not
another. It is not summary, simply because it is selective, and it is most
certainly NEVER assigned in the Bible to granting because of some alchemy
between the spirit of the man or woman or child, and the captured heart of God,
or the drawing of the recipient’s pleasantness to the divine desire. It is not
some sort of spiritual attractiveness (Romans 1-2); and since IT IS A SPECIFIC
PERSON as distinct from any other, in selection, is there then some quality, in
something other than nullity, which draws the divine favour ?
Certainly
not, for all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (far below the divine
threshold of acceptance as meritorious for adoption – Isaiah 64:6, and we were
‘children of wrath’ in our natural estate – Ephesians 2:1-3), and we are told
in Deuteronomy 7:7-8, that the ground of selection was LOVE and faithfulness.
This, however, is vigorously denied in the Biblical revelation, both in the
breadth of His love (Colossians 1:19ff.), and in the incapacity of man to
boast - “I was a model X, the best!, so you see, that is how I am
where I am today, with the Lord!” Choice is selective, but the love toward
man is total as seen in Colossians, I Timothy and II Peter 3, John 3 and their
allied reminders.
LOVE AND WILL
Indeed, GOD
loved in view of the oath to Abraham, just as the total sphere of love in John
3:16 is THE WORLD. To this He is committed. LOVE however is not possessive (I
Corinthians 13:5). It is not a matter of setting your heart on something that
fulfils yourself, attracts your desires, selectively, and grabbing that. In
what way then does God view the sinners who are called man, in making selection
for grace by love, so that some become His children ?
We do not
have to hypothesise, for our present purpose is to show what the scripture says
in order that the depth and wonder of grace be realised, in contradistinction
to all other things, and its comprehensive meeting of man’s need be
appreciated.
God says
almost endlessly in various situations, that it is the WILL of man which
interferes with His love so that its fulfilment is not co-extensive with the
human races. We considered the depth of the divine heart involved in grief at
the finally lost, in our last
Chapter, and in Ch. 7 above, considered the
impartial profundity of God’s love relative to things in heaven or on earth,
while in SMR Appendix B, this is reviewed at
some length. Indeed, we find the quoting of the human will by Christ in the
most decisive fashion, as in Matthew 23:37, as the agent in the obstruction of
blessings that are eternal. In Ch. 8 above, we saw
that there is nothing merely instrumental in the love of God, that it is
heartfelt and integumental, just as in Ch. 7, we found that there is no
qualification or diminution in the love of God in its extent.
Our present
interest is this: Granted that His love is so profound and its extent so undiminished,
how is there meaning in the liberation of man (unlike the Communist
‘liberation’ case, only to servitude to the will of the new masters) that
relates to man as a being, rather than a mere instrument for somebody else ? In
short, how is such love able at one and the same time to be effective in its
object and yet pure in its unselfish motivation ?
We have
then now a number of elements. Speaking to
In I John
2:2 accordingly, we see that the AMPLITUDE of the offering of Christ is
co-extensive with the whole world. Like the sacrificed animal in Leviticus 16,
it is for all. It is however ON BEHALF of all (like that animal), so that there
is none for whom it is not presented, the recipient being impelled by truth and
righteousness, to receive it. Yet a person MAY NOT so receive it (Deuteronomy
29:18ff.), and in that case there is no cure for the curse. Cancer untreated by
nature has a deadly aspect. A will to reject it – the cure, not the cancer! -
has a fatal function.
The love of
God is thus exhibited in this amplitude as in the divine protestations as in
Isaiah 48:16ff. (Ch. 8 above), II Chronicles
36:15ff. – where His explicit compassion to deliver them is met by their
recalcitrance NOT to be delivered so that His justice sweeps the merciless
meander away. He is not thwarted because love does not INSIST and COMPEL, as we
all know, this being an absurdity so gross that we hear of efforts in this
direction, it is both laughable and horrible. Love is not possessive. Yet it is
urgent or even insurgent, because with clarity that is willing to suffer, it
discerns the need of its object. Some have tried to protect the sovereignty of
God as if He were some Eastern Potentate, determined to grab and fulfil lusts,
even if these be spiritual in this instance.
However,
such is contrary to divine protestations and all such illustrations. Even Paul
was not forced to accept that the kicking against the goads was inappropriate,
or for that matter, that even if it were, he should cease doing it. One is
reminded of the childish case when a little boy was in some way embracing a broom,
as if to mount up on it (perhaps like a witch), and being told to come down,
WOULD NOT. After a while, he left the broom to tell the person instructing him
this, “I am NOT going to get off the broom.” Clearly the fulfilment of one’s
will was the point, not whether or not the thing in question was worth
attention anyway. To TELL it he LET IT GO!
Love is not
thwarted, but it DOES suffer, this being part of its quality and beauty.
Suppose now
grace were mandatory, and you HAD to come in an ULTIMATE sense, because someone
WANTED you, like the case of the ferocious tribesman who TAKES his woman, who
suffers from the dire incompatibility and sheer disgusting grossness of the
unloving man (in such a case) as he fulfils his desire, and could as well have a
prostitute. What then ? That is not the biblical case, for the amount of vast
pathos in the refusal of the objects of God’s love is all but co-extensive with
scripture! Hosea 7:1, Jeremiah 51:9, Proverbs 1, Hebrews 6, 10, Mark 19:17,
Luke 19:42ff., Matthew 23:37ff., Hosea 12:10, 11:1-4 and so on.
WILL, THRILL and the OCCLUSION OF OBSTINACY
In Hebrews
Ch. 6 case, so near is the spirit of the reprobate to God, that it even tastes
of heavenly things, gains glimpses of such matters, becomes aware of some of
these issues, and yet, for all that, in the very face of this most summary and
essential reality of the sacrificial offering of Christ, stamps on it!
(to use the thought in Hebrews 10, or spits it out, to follow the current
figure). Obviously, such a thing, removing the remedy, induces the judgment which was
there in principle, before any remedy was made available. It is love’s remedy,
and it is stamped on. It is not to be done twice, as if mere will were the
manipulating factor, for to remove remedy is to find judgment, like removing
the offer of protective clothing in a radioactive situation. Such a
repudiation, as in Judas’ case, is fatal; yet of course the spirit concerned
was never Christ’s any more than Judas was, who was expressly called a devil
from an early time (John 6:70).
Now our
present point, after this short review of some aspects more exhaustively
covered before, is this. If grace does not grab the recipient, and if love does
not seize its object, as if it were not a person but a piece of blank paper,
but LOVES someone, and so does this in a personal way, not some fashion which
is so perilously principial that it is mere acquisition, how is it grace in
function and fact, as distinct from rapture!
The answer
is this. Grace does not FORCE the person, as the constant divine laments
illustrate so well. Nor does a person’s will, sunk in a blindness incurable
without regeneration (John 3), determine the issue (which in any case would
also be contrary to Romans
SINCE it is
not by force, and SINCE it is often rejected, and SINCE God often laments - as
may His servants who speak for Him and describe their own reactions – for
the results of such human liberty as is consonant with the NON-USE of divine
force, while God nevertheless grants to His own alone, this gift: how can all these
things be true simultaneously ? It should be noted that in any case, they are
scripturally precise. The difficulty seems to include several elements in the
earthly thinker, which is one of the reasons that many remain locked in battle rather
than finding the exuberant clarity of the Bible on this point. Some see ONE
point, the sovereignty of God (which is absolute, unconditional and complete)
and ram it home as if it were comparable with some kinds of human sovereignty,
mysterious, private, personal and simply a datum.
That is a
vast distortion of biblical depiction. GOD IS LOVE, and there is nothing
mysterious about that. GOD DECLARES repeatedly (as seen in Ch. 7 above, and SMR Appendix
B), that HIS LOVE is co-extensive with those on heaven and on earth, for
their reconciliation to Himself, which includes regeneration as in II
Corinthians 5:17ff.. How then are some not reconciled, and yet not abused in
their persons, in being merely co-opted, recipients of a life which may not be
desired ?
It is not
far to seek. SINCE we are chosen in Christ, who are His, BEFORE time began, and
since Christ is not alterable, the same today, yesterday, forever, being God as
man and God swears He does not change, then what is true of Christ on earth is
in PRINCIPLE true of God in predestining election. Hence that divine love, that
‘I WOULD’ of Christ is present, as I Timothy 2 expressly states (cf. Matthew
What does this
mean ? It means that He KNOWS who are His. He does not force; He does not
merely listen to ramblings, or acknowledge receipt of communication. It is
dependent on HIS KNOWLEDGE, and what He knows is the truth.
WILL AND FORCE
On what
does it depend ? On THOSE WHOM He can FORCE ? Not at all, this is excluded by
endless scriptures, direct and in implication. Does it then turn on this, those
whom He can receive because of some superiority, some X-factor of greater
assimilability to God, because of some more meritorious, more godly aspect in
the spirit of the man, so that this becomes a mere divine acknowledgement of
greater godliness in some, better character ?
Far from
it, by express denial, and this in itself would merely mean that some were
CREATED better, so that the divine laments would all be stuff and nonsense, God
merely making some to fit, and then, seeing them fit, taking them off,
fittingly. It is best not to caricature God or to disagree with His statements
in understanding Him!
Being in the
image of God necessarily makes you to have a select nature, that is, something
not merely instrumental. Hence He does not make you in the image of an object
when He predestines! He is not a liar, and knows what He is doing, knowing the
end from the beginning. There are no short-cuts. He made the wood.
It is no
less important to realise that there are no conditions for a man, as if he
would constitute the barrier to God, who would merely have to sit and watch, if
you will. God selects without man being created, and without any regard to a
man’s works whatsoever; and what he is includes all his works, for his motives
and desires are deployed in what he does through what he is. This is the
biblical depiction. There IS however a situation which GOD regards, and it is
other than a mere blank. It is a PERSON. Since condemnation is based on a
person’s PREFERENCE for darkness over light, and since there is no merit in one
above another, all having zero merit in the severe light of God’s purity, how
then can such preference not be an expression of a latent superiority in man ?
whether you think of it as operational in time or discernible by God, before
our time ?
It is
however not a superior susceptibility which the chosen one has, which led to
the divine choice; for a man is not even operational where such things, being
inherited, or culturally or even educationally imparted, can work. This is
excluded. What then is INCLUDED ? The person. What then do we find here ?
The thing divinely cited being the WILL of the target, man, and the WILL as
operational being excluded, then it is clear that the will is included before
God, and this not in its
own right or action, but in His sensitive NON forcing of it, and UTTER
knowledge of it, past all moods and modes. He does not MAKE someone who
prefers, in the last essential reality, NOT to have Him, nevertheless to have
Him.
This, it is
no theory, but the endless parade of the scripture, as He laments.
What He
arranges in predestination is what is to be, and what is to be is what He
evaluates without such force, or rapture. Yet it IS IRRESISTIBLE, for the one
to whom it is granted, gets it. However in fact, that word in John 6 does not
say this, but that you ARE WITHOUT IT unless it be granted, not that if it is
granted, you will HAVE IT. In any case, there can be no choice by man, since as
Christ declared, until you are regenerated you are blind to the actual field,
so that of course you could not wittingly choose that to which you are blind
(as in I Corinthians 2:14). If the natural man does not receive spiritual
things, then of course he has to become something else BEFORE he can receive
them, and as a natural man, as unconverted, he does not because HE CANNOT, any
more than someone with short-sightedness can without glasses read very fine
print!
It is
simply a matter of seeing, then, that what God has organised before time, will
IRRESISTIBLY be implemented in it. Otherwise the blind would have to see before
having operational eyes, which means all go to hell, which is other than the
scripture declares. The irresistibility is irrelevant to our quest, since it is
a mere result of what was wrought before time. WHAT however was then wrought ?
It was a presentation, not in history, and not in enaction, but in
foreknowledge (where Romans 8:30 starts its cycle), of life eternal to the
person concerned, a presentation seen as non-violent, non-instrumentalist,
sincerely accepted, genuine in its action, not contrary to love in its
disposition.
HOW could
this be known ? There is no limit to the power of God, and just because it is
not here obliterating something, this does not mean that it is not operative!
In what way however is this not a mere superiority within the breast of the one
who so receives this gift, before time, in the foreknowledge of God ?
It is in
this way, that if you are chosen in view your distinctive properties, where
will is excluded, then these have greater affinity to God, which readily
implies a better nature. If however you take what the BIBLE SAYS, that it is the human preference
which excludes, and this in the very face of God’s love for the world, and that those refusing the manner and receipt
of its object are excluded BECAUSE OF THIS (John 1-3:19), and so they are
damned (3:36): then you are not in this dilemma. Simply, then it
is RELEVANT to human will, because GOD SAYS SO.
What
however is the inference from this for our present topic of the nature of grace
and the distinctiveness of love from all force and instrumentalism ?
SOVEREIGN SELECTION,
LOVE’S TOTAL SCOPE and
ABSOLUTE HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
It is this.
If you regard will as a mere expression of character, it might be urged that
its action similarly and likewise, merely exhibits the superiority of the one
who elects to be elected. If however you regard the will as that of one
ESSENTIALLY in the image of God, and seen in God as not befuddled, limited or
susceptible to inferiority or superiority AT ALL, and THEREFORE, someone
regarded in the eye of God outside this whole concourse of the fall, in
ultimate reality, then the case has no difficulty. ONLY SIN makes worse, so
without this in the equation, there is nothing which CAN be worse, and
therefore be BETTER! Hence this consideration evaporates.
Using the
criterion the scripture DECLARES is therefore the resolution of the ‘problem’.
Grace gives without being mandatory, though in its application in history,
where sin breeds folly and blindness, it comes on this our scene, and in terms
of the VISIBLE scenario, as irresistible.
Since love
statedly, in the Bible, seeks all, but in its own modesty, does not thrust
itself on any, however, we know that the fact that a grant is not the same as a
forced grant merely reflects the reality of freedom in the image of God in
predestination, though it is one divinely superintended and indeed mandated, so
that the STATED ground of exclusion, the human will, is not other than
the fact.
In this
way, human responsibility is entire: for if you are not chosen, it is no mere
divine caprice or choice of desired implements for special reasons, but rather
that entire intractability of desire which puts you where you are to go. ALL
the steps on the way are historical expressions, but not determinants, for what
determines is the knowledge of God, which is as far above the knowledge of man
in its totality and perfection, as the heavens are above the earth.
On the
other hand, divine sovereignty is total, for God not only man made in His image
because He wanted it that way, but in so doing made the essential option, even
if sin removed it from man’s conscious sight, as if he were autonomous. The
grace of God is not restricted, as if in some governmental program where there
is some shortage of gifts; for it is not contained in some disposing
preference, but according to the utmost opportunity which the nature of man
admits, this nature itself the creation of God, and moreover in image, like
Him! Man as such, indeed, is not DEFINITIVE of the form or nature of God, but
constructed in His image, as a creature, so that correlative communication is
possible, natural and proper.
He WOULD
have all men to be saved, to come to repentance (II Peter 3:9, Colossians 1, I
Timothy 2, Matthew
It is GOD’s
knowledge which is statedly the condition (Romans 8:29, 9:16), and where and how He
chooses is not based on works at all, and since the works of man are expression
of his will, not on the operation of man’s will at all. Man DOES NOT CHOOSE GOD
at all. Yet is man’s election wholly concordant with the divine restraint which
does not force, and is God’s decision expressive of limitless love and grace,
that never moves past the margin that would obliterate the reality of the
personal in man.
In short,
as shown previously, there is not only no problem in predestination, but there
is insoluble problem without it. Moreover, if it were not that man COULD become
other than he is, there COULD be no freedom, for you would otherwise always be
limited to what you are, and what you are is in the last analysis, the dower of
body and spirit which you are given. What liberty is there in expressing what
has come to you ? But if you can be OTHER than you are, then there is something
outside the mere expression of your being, which is available, and to this you
may come.
If however
YOU had to choose yourself, then again, it would be a filtered or blind or
directed decision, based on a being which, after all, you do not choose, in
order that it might be you, including all your sensitivies and sensibilities;
and there is no freedom in that. You merely respond as made.
When
therefore GOD chooses you, and with restraint KNOWS you, and also BRINGS you to
what you were not, beyond the whole ambit of your being, then there is liberty
which is co-extensive with responsibility, whilst likewise, in God, there is
love which is co-extensive with the field of operation as so summarily declared
in Colossians 1.
Love is here
GIVEN its meaning, and it is as we find it, though most pure and most
effective, and most like itself, not thrusting but zealous. God has what He
wants, for it is not His will to dominate frail fealties that are not
heartfelt! It is ONLY because of this divine love and grace that freedom is
possible for man, and it is in terms which are as much emphasised as any other
topic in the Bible, that predestination and human responsibility thus find
their only possible resolution. It is normative in Bible study so to find, that
what it stresses is what, like the chassis for a car, is necessary, is WHAT IS
THERE! Knowledgeability is total, harmony is a colossus, and the joy in
beholding it all is boundless.
Yet someone
might say, If a man is to be made into something different from what he is, how
is this liberty ? How could he possibly know what it would be like, since he is
limited to what he is in seeking to know what it would be ? Firstly, this however is merely to ignore
the fact that it is scripturally GOD who chooses. We have just seen that in
this choice it is not a sovereignty which is foreign to love, but expressive of
it, and hence in this milieu, the lack of human imagination is not relevant. It
is GOD WHO CHOOSES, but with respect to the nature of man, in whom the meaning
of love is intrinsic, but not its operation, because of sin.
We
therefore return to this fact, as a mere extension of the impossibility of
explanation of the whole duty and nature of man, and of this world and its
forces and powers, of liberty such as man expresses, in the restrictions and
distortions of it which man has: without God and His love and grace and gifts
and action.
This, it
too is further verification of the scripture, for in this also, not only does it
meet every rational consideration (that is, every aspect of the case with
precision and harmony), but it does so in principle in ways not elsewhere
available, since:
without God, it cannot be done,
without His love it is not
explicative of man, and
without His nature, our nature is a
mere confusion of contradictories.
Yet secondly, note how beautifully the nature of
His love harmonises with the integrity which does not merely make something
ELSE out of a man, but restores him to his own created nature, ex-sin
and cum-Christ, so that restoration not innovation is the criterion.
WITH the restoration, it is true, there goes an enrichment into an assured
eternity and a close-knit correlation with Christ. Yet the result is not beyond
man, made by and for God, and at the first realising a relationship of
communing and communication; but rather is it that in his restored
co-ordination with his Creator, there is renewal to life, the life he lost.
It is thus
a passage not to foreign soil, or alien quarters, but to home both to source
and situation, a rebuilding and since this is life, a rebirth. Since, moreover,
God is God, it is to a glory of wonder in His presence, that man is then moved,
one enhanced as dusk to the first full bloom of dawn. Wrought in love, this
transmutation has focus on the plight of man as it provides his superb yet
apposite deliverance.
In this regard, scriptures such as Colossians 1, considered in depth in
the last chapter, with its insistence that it PLEASED the Father to have all fullness
dwell in Christ, and through His blood on the cross to reconcile ALL things:
these provide attestation of the ground of human responsibility with the utmost
clarity.
This,
Colossians 1 is the chapter of alls and we move from the
firstborn of ALL creation (Christ
occupying this on arrival, “FOR all
things were created by Him”), a point added in summary, “all things
were created through Him and for Him” (
As total
backdrop and creator of anything of which it may be said, “It is created”, and
therefore not Himself created, since otherwise He would have had to create
Himself without being there, an absurdity equal to that of any such thought, it
is Christ who is the One in whom “all fullness
dwells”, prior to and beyond time, itself a creation (Romans 8:39). This is
both apt and appropriate for the eternal Creator and word of God, and
fittingly, though marvelously, what pleased the Father was set in a sort
of all but geometrical totality also.
What was
this ? It was that “having made peace through the
blood of the Cross” something else should be wrought BY HIM (Colossians
Let us then
pause to recall that in 1:18, we learn that “in all
things”, He is to have the pre-eminence, just as in Philippians 1 we learn that
equality with God was nothing to be snatched at, since He was in the very form
of God, before becoming man. Accordingly to His infinite status, then, so is
His total fullness in incarnation, even of the Godhead, affirmed:
it is expressed as ALL the FULNESS, as declared in
What is to
be revealed to be comrade to all these ‘alls’ and consummation to this
large prologue of totalities in this passage in Colossians ? It is
that not only did it please the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell,
but that having thus made peace by the blood of the cross, it ALSO PLEASED HIM
“to reconcile ALL things to
Himself.” Creator of all, pre-eminent above all, having made peace by His blood
on the cross, with all fullness dwelling in Him (cf. Colossians 2:9), He is the
agent, the pivot, the door, the table, the platform, the foundation on which
this particular desire of the Father rests.
In what
then does it so rest, and to what is it directed as it rests in Him ? that THUS
and in THIS PERSON He might reconcile ALL things
to Himself. It is exactly the same in tenor in I Timothy 2, where the scope is
GOD on the one hand and MAN on the other, and His desire is that ALL might be
saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
PRECISE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIVINE GRACE
It is then
precisely a characteristic of divine grace, from which every other may take its
name, that it is in terms of TRUTH that it is operative, not mere largesse; it is
in terms of embracive totality of concern for ALL, by the Creator of ALL, so
that ALL being committed to the task ALL might be reconciled to God. There is
no partiality, no indulgence of mere preference and precisely NO mystery about
this facet of the matter. God is emphatic, dramatically, repetitively,
eloquently so on this point as in a nutshell it is likewise to be found in John
3:16.
HENCE human
freedom is co-extensive with the race in this, that it is THIS preference in
the ultimate, administered in terms of Christ and His Cross, that is operative
where election is operative, before this world (Ephesians 1:4). There is
precisely NOTHING else which excludes, and there is this totality of
embracement from God, which is positively affirmed.
GRACE it is
which operates with such resurgence beyond mere self-satisfaction, the
enjoyment of one’s preference and so on, in the divine counsel; and let us be
clear, we KNOW this because God has seen fit to TELL it in these eminently
clear fashions! Grace has an aim, it has means, it has kindness, it is not
selfish, it wishes to donate, it is restrained by love. It is impassioned in
its tenor but never stumbling. It is Ephesians 2 which informs us that this
action of God is replete with grace, impelled in grace just as it is moved in
love, like twin streams converging in some vast junction. Thus in Ephesians 2,
it is not enough that it is warmly asserted in v. 8, that
“by grace you are
having-been-saved persons,
through faith,
and that whole thing
is not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God”.
Certainly
that is a somewhat grammatically sensitive translation, but not one which even
slightly distorts, but rather the more accurately expresses for the English
ear, what is being asserted (the gender of the Greek term for ‘faith’
requires this meaning). Thus grace is a point of entry, BY GRACE, this whole
thing is occurring. That then is not enough, for Paul insists, or better is
moved by the Spirit of the Lord to write this more briefly in parenthesis ALSO
in verse 5, when advising us of an important fact.
It is this:
“when we were dead in
trespasses, {God} made us alive together with Christ,”
is to be read with the fact that
“by grace you have been
saved”. It is in verse
8 that this preliminary notation, flowing over like some flush spring, is given
its classic and comprehensive expression.
Unmerited
favour, in a love of embracive totality, where Christ is the ground and Christ
the implement, this is the depiction of divine grace.
2. CHURCH ONE : Revelation
3:7–
NOBILITY OF HEART AND
DIVINE GRACE
Now we turn
to Revelation 3:7, the
In the
message to this Church from Rev. 3:7ff., they are reminded of the mini-parable
of Isaiah 22, where as in Zechariah, God selects a person as a figure for some
aspect of the Messiah. There it was Eliakim, as in charge, a figure of the
leader and provider, disposer of resources. HE would open and none would shut,
shut and none would open. Immediately after this, in Isaiah 22, you see the
figure of one like nail in a secure place, on whom all the sacred vestments are
placed.
They
represent their function, and their function is the work of the priesthood, and
the work of the priesthood is a figure of the work of the Messiah, when He
Himself shall BECOME the sacrifice (as in Isaiah 53). Thus, when in this
little parable, the nail is cut down, and all the vestments hanging on it, of
course fall with it, we see the death of the Messiah. Yet this death is one
which swallows up death itself, in victory and forever (Isaiah 25), so that
(Psalm 22 – Joyful Jottings 22),
life wins over death through the work of grace ministered for love, imposing an
impelling mercy (cf. Isaiah 26:19).
Hence in
using this figure from Isaiah 22, the book of Revelation at 3:7-8 shows the Messiah
who suffered and knows suffering nevertheless using His dreadful sovereign
power to overcome whatever resistances afflict this church, just as He did for
Peter. This is seen in Acts 3-4, with boldness of speech, pith of point and
power of spirit testifying of Christ, in Acts 5 and 12 in liberating them from
prison, and in Acts 5:40-41giving them the love and grace to REJOICE when
beaten, since the cause was just and endurance in a good cause has good
results, and honours Christ, when it is His.
To this
Church, then, with a little strength, as in Revelation 3:7ff., to this body,
faithful in keeping to His word, which means savouring and applying the truth,
there is granted this absolute provision, that its work will be sustained and
its opportunities invented, its tour of duty made fruitful, its testimony
honoured. Further, its record being clear, it is found fitting to deliver it
from a terrible time of testing which is coming: it is almost as if they having
VOLUNTARILY suffered and been confirmed in strength with faithfulness and a
loyalty delightful to the Lord, will not be required to suffer a COMPULSORY
suffering. That task is not required in such circumstances. You cannot guess
how the grace of God will work, but you can be sure that in His kindnesss and
compassion He will not bring needless suffering or meaningless or pointless
trial to His people (Lamentations
The message
however to this Church, it is this: HOLD FAST what you have. You possess the
truth, so then display the flag. This is your part now: KEEP AT IT. Do not
waver as you wave. Do not let complacency compromise your stand, or subtlety
beguile your efforts. A Church can be moved by someone coming to new power,
wealth, or being most difficult. Yet it must not yield to force or blandishment
alike, but hold fast its heritage, its place, its work, its function.
In one
sense, this is easy, for it means merely a continuance on a winning game, if
you will; but in another it is hard, for it is SO easy - when you are
winning on all sides, when the strategies function like ripe fruit on orange
trees, scarcely able to contain their own abundance, to slacken, to become
proud, or even arrogant, unfeeling, self-assured, unwatchful, gross in
insensitivity and so on. Nevertheless, to each his own test, his own place in
the orchestra. Let it be well filled, and kept so.
What,
further, is the blessing given to this Church ?
A pillar in
the house of the Lord will the one who follows become, and he “will go out no more.” Here is an ineffably beautiful
grace, one which would mean prison to the unloving, but to the lover of God, an
irenic bliss. What ? no more to have to fight the dragon, the devil, the
subtle, the scheming, the slanderers, the proud, the arrogant, the betrayers ?
What, no more to venture into battle, loving the lost but reviled by them ?
Misrepresented no more, in a peace which is wholesome, holy and functional!
What bliss!
“I
will write on him My new name” – it continues, the word of the Lord to those who being planted by God,
continue to the end as those who are of God. A new name ? Like petros for
Peter ? Is it some kindly and personal mode of appellation so that you feel a
part of the will and way of Him who so familiarly addresses you, perhaps rather
in the way friendly school children call each other by highly individual names
in pleasantness or even pleasantry. In this case, however, it iswith no
admixture to cloud the love or mist the grace.
Here then
is the personal and intimate, not at all automated, the challenging and the
continually real situation in which nothing is mere routine or form, nothing is
mere duty; for in love the excellence is achieved and from love it is
motivated, and for love it is completed (cf. John 13:1). The texture of
individuality is preserved, the possibility of flaw (as with David and
Bath-Sheba) exists, and the necessity of receiving challenge with sharp
attention is a delight, for it is an occasion for strengthening and discerning
the pure wonder of the co-operative thrill of working not only FOR but WITH the
Lord. It is with FAITH in Him who is known NEVER to leave one (Hebrews 13:5),
in one way, as in a doubles match! It is here that the intimacy of faith moves
past the universality of challenge, for the Lord KNOWS His sheep and HIS sheep
know Him, and they shall never perish.
This does
nothing to reduce the challenge or to diminish the thrill of service, and its
utter assurance given to this church, does nothing to render merely automatic
its progress; for even if you have doors open before you, you must not stumble
on the appointed track.
Such is
grace in its liberality, liberty in its challenge and love in its assurance,
that it covers the cases, stimulates the heart, rests the spirit and brings
peace to the soul. It is worthy of man since it is made FOR him by the One who
made man in His image, and now presents him with that vast entourage of wonder
and delight, that equally vast peril of folly, and that overwhelmingly grand
provision of redemption, that in security one may learn, and in peace one may
war, even with the Enemy of Souls.
3. CHURCH TWO –
Revelation 3:14:
SCURRILOUS DEFICIENCY
AND DIVINE GRACE
Now readily
comprehended is the case of the lukewarm church, its city waters at
The Lord
advises this body of people, in the format of a church, to buy a gold which is
not material (as in Proverbs
riches ? How ? It seems then that this is a tweak at
their pre-occupation, an exposure of their preoccupations with buying, so that
if you want the word, buy righteousness, at least get
the right objective! get yourself pardon, cleansing,
spiritual acceptance, holiness from God. It is as if to say this: If you
replete with riches and self-satisfaction from your commercial exploits, then
see if you can lay hold of this!
Get
gold which is that of faith tried and sure, tested and authentic (as in I Peter
1:6-7, cf. the different imagery of similar portent in Isaiah 55:1-4 and 54:6-14), gain white garments, if purchase is in view, if acquisition, not
mere sensory clothes. These clothes are the expression of the washing of sin by
the double action of God’s pardon and regeneration (as in Titus 3:5), so that
there is not merely a justification, but, what is impossible to sever from it,
a sanctification, so that the entire process of life, radically changes. The
irony is rendered the more intense by the description of their actual
(spiritual) state, for they are deemed blind, miserable, poor and naked, thus
being without means to buy anything of value! How much less the divine
prodigy of infinite value, ransom by Christ!
Then, that
miracle, for fortunately it is freely obtainable and entirely sure (as in Romans 3:23ff., 5:15,
6:23, Isaiah 55, Genesis 15:1ff., Psalms 16-17), it would come as from days of
yore to the present; then their church life would cease to be a dreary farce of
form without power or light, and become instead a drastic change displaying a
wealth of riches in God, a divine co-operation in the freely founded new life,
something worthy of life because it is alive with the life of God.
Get
your eyes anointed! comes the cry. In other words, you need to have eyesight, not this
blinded pretence. You are blind for all your vaunting, and indeed blind as
shown by all your vanity and unseeing preoccupation with products of the
Almighty, replacing zeal and zest in Himself, as seeing Him who is invisible
(Hebrews 11:27).
Now we come
to the part which is relevant, in this context, to our present purpose, the
exquisite nature of grace in meeting the needs and interpreting the reality of
man with sensitivity.
I LOVE ? I
chasten, the Lord declares (Revelation 3:19). If I love, it is not to encourage
sluggishness, fraud or falsity (as in Jeremiah 7:9ff.) that He acts; for rather
does He purge this. Listen to Jeremiah’s apostrophe from the Lord:
“ ‘Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn
incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know,
and then come and stand before Me in this house which is
called by My name, and say,
‘We
are delivered to do all these abominations’?
‘Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of
thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,’ says the Lord.”
What then is the message ? It is in thrust as if the Lord is
saying this, or something like it:
I chasten my children, I bring them
up, I do not fiddle with a form which is not faith, but operate in lives which
being alive, are susceptible to and movable by discipline. Yet it is not a discipline
which is mere force or power, but one which, rooted in love, with tenderness in
its heart, and the fulfilling of the meaning of the life individually in its
eye, brings out what ought to be, in those who if sincere, desire just the very
same thing!
Zeal ?
Yes, this is relevant, but FIRST in
leading to nothing other than REPENTANCE. It is not MORE works that are
required, but SOME faith! It is the connection, transformative and
transcendent, that is needed, as of a baby in the womb. A dead residue,
post-mature and poisoned, lingering, afraid of life, is not the point; it is
BIRTH. I am knocking on your door, open and I enter with fellowship abundant
for you, restorative and kind.
Thus, in Revelation 3:20, we see the picture of the Lord at
the door of the life, knocking, and offering to those who receive Him, alive,
listening and ready for discipline, development or enduement, fellowship in
repast.
Those who may open are those who HEAR. The point: INVITE HIM
IN! But what of the deaf ?
It seems
therefore here just to point out that this is an invitation to those
individuals in a shamefully weak church, who are PROFESSING Christians. It
would therefore be entirely apt and appropriate if the call is to those who are
in FACT what they profess in word, and so CAN hear, and when hearing, may come.
If, in some degree of spiritual torpor, to take a case, they need awakening (as
in Song of Solomon 5, when the sleeping one is not alert enough to bother to
come to the literal door to admit the Prince, his brow wet with the dew of
acquired in service, but disdains the use of her feet), then will they do as
she did, and failing to heed, have a drastic involvement in pain and sorrow,
shame and confusion, in order that they might learn the meaning of diligence,
and acquire anew the soft delight of true love that does NOT disdain reality,
but seeks it with ardour ?
Or will
they sleep on, needing more awakening yet! Indeed, will they in long
decrepitude of spirit, not hear ? Are some of this body “like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not
aware of them” – Luke 11:44). Yet some may be alive, and so hear and
invite and be enlivened (Ephesians 3:16, 5:18).
Thus we are in the realm of the converted, selectively
hearing, because they are new creations, but like Jonah, needing a thrust of
the grace which begot them, like yachts which are temporarily becalmed, in
order that once again they may get under way. The call is tender, the church
rebuke is truculent, the opportunity is not automatic, the opening of the door
this time, is to restoration of true fellowship with the Lord, from which sin
has temporarily wrought some rupture, perhaps because they are in so wayward a
church: and in this there is warning to those who insist on staying in frankly
rebellious denominations! (cf. Romans
Our present concern however, topically, is this. There is no force, EVEN to impose deepened fellowship at this time, even when the soul is in some false church, in danger of eternal severance (that is, the church) from the Lord, It is so even when the people in that church are in danger of sleeping in the soporific stupour. There is therefore is a certain responsibility.
Thus there is a grace and liberty which is not present only before conversion, but after it. To be sure, after conversion, the new nature, the new knowledge and the abiding of the Spirit of God (Romans 8:9) does not permit some new adventure in transformation; but neither does it admit some replacement of individuality and opportunity, with a monotone of mere dictation, or an impress of a dictator’s thrust. God is not like that; His grace is not like that: His love is not thus.
4. THE MOST
REASONABLE,
UNIQUE PROVISION OF UTTERLY NEEDED DIVINE GRACE
But man can show kindness that is
not grace. Aboriginal peoples can be given large quantities of money which many
of them turn into alcoholic drink, drunkenness, brawling, violence, domestic
upset, drugs, reduced powers of concentration, incentive not to bother to
labour, and the like. This is not to say that many white people do not do as
much; but rather that in such indigenous cases as these, there is a special
kind of vulnerability in the welfare area. Often is found not a mixture any one
part of which might not ignite, but one which does so when all components
are present.
Thus the combination of
a non-literary culture, in the
presence of one which involves effort and individual concentration and
divergence from many in order to qualify in various ways,
a welfare system which gives special
attention to making the non-effort to change far less difficult to bear,
a measure in many of resentment
which some people fan by distortion of the admittedly less than delightful past
for them, with
possibly a degree of sensitivity in
efforts to meet what many others can meet rather easily in the literary medium
and so on:
all these things can make of simple
monetary pay-outs - for some multiply augmented - a match for a
fire. Assuredly other combinations for other peoples and sub-groups exist, it
is just that this one is used for illustration. What then of such a case as
this
?
Thus a certain type of welfare procedure can tend to destroy most readily, as the author has seen in detail, often enough. The children at first show some promise, then often are found engaging in drugs abuse, or early sexual relationships or child-bearing, or multiple productions or in brawls with non-husbands, or in combination with other children from other matches with varied pressures and co-ordination problems and so on. Such a procedure, amoral and liberal (at times) is not effective. It is not here our intention to suggest a way that is better, other than the Gospel as base, or its ready availability, or that other groups may not have their own complex psychological and social furies; for this is a simple political problem, which like so many others without Christ, does not have an answer, just as some mathematics would fail if you did not have room for the number 1. Improvement of course is possible but in view of the restless, amoral, ostensibly neutral but in fact invasive spirit of the Age, here as often elsewhere, welfare needs more emphasis on the “well”. (Cf. SMR pp. 374ff..)
What is our point is this, that what Biblically is called GRACE is not of this
kind. Nor on the other side, is it at all like some economically demanding
focus or program, with the aim of much output, minimal input from the
producer’s perspective, in a little and out a lot, and this in affairs
including people. Maximised productivity procedure, with human beings tossed in,
like new bits of wood on some blazing fire, with only one object, to make it
burn better, this is nothing to do with the grace of God, any more than is the
opposite, bits of fuel tossed into burning wood, because the fire is fun, or
enjoyed by its components before it is ashes. People are not bits of wood for
such antics.
Neither of these extremes is grace, is humanly fitting, effective, just, wise
or functional. You may get this and that out of the distortion; but in the end
you tend to pay because what is NOT the case is being treated as if it were.
Thus the hardening inside England in the Industrial Revolution is reminiscent
of the hardening of criminal life, the enormous export to Australia of hardened
people, and the necessity of renewing and leavening the socially compressed
lump in the motherland, growing tougher and less attractive, like old bread in
the sun.
This need was seen by many Christians at various times, such as Shaftesbury, and Wilberforce, the former in industry, the latter in the particular matter of NOT treating slaves as faggots of wood for the fire, which he in singular measure helped to extinguish altogether. The wheel turned, and the nation met one yet more ruthless than she had been, in Hitler’s Germany, just as one as proud in Kaiser’s Germany. In two World Wars she lost much of her illicit gain, from trafficking in souls. This is not to comment on either war. It is to correlate preliminaries and resultants.
So too the opposite approach in welfare has seen destructive vacuities induced or solaced, not in indigenous people only by any means, but in an AMORAL SOCIETY, one which is EXPLICITLY such, with divorce in express terms which include NO BLAME (readily leading to hideous injustice, such as the giving of support to a wife who has left her husband for some other man, so that the children with her in that home must be supported to some extent by the husband whose home has been pirated, prior to or during adultery). In such an amoral frame are these and other endeavours to let people who do not physically damage others, have treatment as merely individual in their thought processes, slicing or severing spiritual realities at will. This leads to anomalies, enormities, frustration and gross bureaucratic intrusion into life –and such an intrusion can become paganising and in no small measure, forcible pollution.
How marvellous it would be to be forced to contribute to the upbringing of your own children in the presence of a proud adulteress, or adulterer, who has chosen someone else as partner to violate the integrity which produced ONE set of children from TWO people. Its indifference to spiritual, personal and value realities looms darkly, as profound as the pit!
From such things as these, much help is given to the cult and culture of pleasure-seeking indifference to education, or the rigours of it, or vigour in ANYTHING (of which the comic cartoon ZITS appears a good, sardonic and at times, satirical example), so that there being some sort of reasonably adequate provision for the material means of life, nothing one does needs too much thought.
What tendencies can be exalted here! As industriousness is replaced by studious contempt for effort, or righteousness, or integrity, and as attainment is belittled as conformist, so does the social cost increase from the sheer force of indolence and immorality, increasingly inspired by political amorality, expressed in various social programs, as it spouts out now this way, not that on its downward course in the drains to the sea of discontent and violence.
Biblically, GRACE is not of either of these kinds. It is not the searing seeking which destroys the soul, or allied to the indolent indifference which merely attests its motion towards destruction. It is kindness with concern, provision with realisation, undertaking with understanding, expenditure with specialised and godly purpose, activity with awe, godliness with thoughtfulness, and especially is it EXPLICITNESS about truth as the background and basis for intervention for deliverance. It is not that FUNDS or THINGS are given as if this were the main thing. Instead, they are given in a NAME and a MILIEU, in a MORAL FRAME and in a PERSPECTIVE which is articulated, active, assured and inspiring, that of the Lord. God intervenes in God’s name.
You see this in II Corinthians 12, where Paul afflicted in the eyes wishes to be healed (as he healed many in the name and power of God). THIS prayer was answered in the negative, but not with negativity. It was explained to the apostle that with his visions and provisions, the sheer dynamic of the divine in his life in this way, there was need for a “thorn in the flesh” to remind him of the personal need of holiness, of humility.
Not only was there a PRECISE and unpropagandised understanding given, which did not shield from the truth, but was even given in terms of it, but there was a softening in this, that the Lord ALSO gave a gracious and blessed undertaking to Paul, one which his life proceeded to show in vast measure, that “MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU.”
This was a personal, powerful presence as well as an articulated word, and it WORKED for and in Paul as stated. Further, Paul felt a certain onset of graciously oriented power in his life in this very ‘weakness,’ for it made him focus on God all the more, just as in God came the power, the direction, the guidance, the gumption, the vision and the company which made his work what it was. As the apostle then stated, showing how wonderful had been this WITHOLDING in and through grace on this occasion, “I will rather boast of my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
This showed that the message at Jeremiah 9:17 was not lost on the apostle. Let us ponder it.
“Thus says the Lord:
‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man
glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man
glory in his riches;
But let him who glories
glory in this,
That he understands and
knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,’ says the Lord.”
Paul continued in II Corinthians 12:10,
“Therefore
I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in
distresses, for Christ’s sake.
For when I am weak, then am I strong.”
Not only however is this GRACE OF GOD a matter of articulated understanding, or understood provision with the heart of the receiver in view, person to person relationship the criterion, but you find in such places as Psalm 106, 78, Ezekiel 20, a special divine feature. What is that ? It is the way despite the foolish rebelliousness or lack of faith on the part of the people in this and that manner, in varied historical circumstances, that God laboured when He “acted for My name’s sake …”
This refers to a divine action of great weight, a withholding of judgment, a tempering of justice in a passion for mercy, a help which does not compromise the proclivity for purity, but gives more scope for its attainment. On such occasions, God acts with mercy, expanding patience, fine-tuning love, providing scope, not with laxity but with latitude for a time.
It often means that His intention to teach them and all the world through their evil, that God does not accept this moral abasement and spiritual laxity, that He is not interested in mere formalism, is given a broader time scope, but is not cancelled. It is not even deferred so much as adorned with a depth and a liberality which puts the reality concerned past all cavil. In exquisite patience which is vastly removed from indulgence, He repeatedly allows the situation to call forth the uttermost depths of compassion, yet this with wisdom; of pity, yet this with determination for a purity which will and must be present in the end.
In Ezekiel 20, we are alerted to the extreme scope of that patient pitifulness, that gracious forbearance which neither surrenders truth nor fails to provide the utmost scope for opportunity. We see it working, and labouring to deliver them in mercy and concern, as in 20:8-9, 20:17, 20:22, so that several times you see this some phrasing, “I acted for my name’s sake” distancing judgment, and extending mercy. You see a similar thing, for example, in Psalm 106:44-45ff..
“Nevertheless
He regarded their affliction,
When He heard their cry;
And for their sake He
remembered His covenant,
And relented according to the multitude of His mercies.
“He also made them to be pitied
By all those who carried
them away captive.
Save us, O Lord our God,
And gather us from among
the Gentiles,
To give thanks to Your
holy name,
To triumph in Your praise.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
From everlasting to
everlasting!
And let all the people
say, “Amen!”
Praise the Lord!”
This presents us with a further gravely important feature of grace. You will notice the words, “when He heard their cry!”
There in pity, in intervention, He gave them opportunities, the prophets attesting these things, the King in His graciousness, acknowledging that what could constitute overflowing grounds of condemnation, He would suffer to be bypassed, not for ever but in new and gracious kindness, while in mercy there came new opportunities. When these flourishes and exultances of grace pass to a point near where it becomes a question of mere deployments of rejected conviction, amid mutiny, then temporary or permanent judgment may follow.
In II Chronicles 36 as in Psalm 78:56-64, you see the movement, in the former case to utter desolation at last, and in the latter, to a vast discipline which may at times have seemed interminable, but yet it was one even in the exile which WAS INTERPRETED explicitly, even being given a 70 year limit announced in advance.
In these instances you further find attested the fact that the provision of grace is WORK. God worked for His name’s sake, or wrought for His name’s sake (AV), and this meant that a just anger, or action was deferred, or perhaps if meeting repentance, realisation and return, deleted in terms of a major labour in the divine heart.
You see this most dramatically in a long historical review in Ezekiel 20. Many a time we find the Lord in anger at gross and even chronic wastage of His provisions, rebellion against His truth, departure from the way of abundant life, befuddling convergences of His word with other alien words, like so many automobile accidents, yet HOLDING BACK in grace.
This action of grace is referred to
as something which He did, which He WORKED. In the AV, expressively, we read
this sort of pattern of words, repeatedly:
“Then I said,