XII.

God's Sovereignty in Adoption.

JER. iii. 19.

"But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My Father; and shalt not turn away from me."

OUR

UR text appears to refer to a time far distant from the age when the Prophet wrote, to a time when God's chosen people Israel should realize, should be, in fact and in truth, that which now they were only called by name, while in spirit they were far other and very widely different. You will understand this from observing the verses before the text. "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers."

But though belonging, as regarded them, to a far-off future, it is an exemplification by a notable instance of the same great principle on which we dwelt last Sunday morning, the adopting love of the most high God. Being in Himself the eternal source and spring of this love, He has disclosed and made it known

to us in His Son; and not only so, but has given Him to be the stream in which this adopting love flows the appointed Mediator, by union with whom you and I may become partakers of this adopting love, inheritors of all its rich privileges and blessings, as we saw before. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."* We saw from the Galatians that He was made under the law for the sake of those that are under the law; that by this His obedience He might purchase back, redeem, those that were under the law; that they might receive as His due, not due to themselves, but due to Him, the adoption of sons: these things the Greek words imply. And after considering how through the only begotten Son of God alone can we become sons, we touched briefly upon the Holy Spirit's work, in setting the seal of this adoption on the heart of God's children, and becoming a joint witness of it with their own spirits, and from within them and through them, causing the cry to ascend to Him in heaven, of whom they are begotten by "the word of truth, that they should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures."+

Twice the word cry is used of this witnessing and sealing of the Spirit in Romans viii. and Galatians iv., referring clearly to the child's first cry to make its wants known to its parent; this is perhaps why the word Abba is used (the Syriac word) as well as the Greek; the sound abba coming nearest to the first uttered sounds of helpless infancy, and expressing therefore with great simplicity and beauty the reality, * Gal. iv. 4, 5. + James i. 18.

the instinctiveness, with which this cry rises out of the heart's felt and conscious needs to One whom it feels to be indeed a loving and reconciled Father. The Apostle confidently appeals to this as a fact of Christian experience, to which those whom he addressed as saints and called of God were prepared to bear witness. Twice in 2 Corinthians he makes his appeal to it, in chapters i. and v. "Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God. Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."

God forbid that we should ever hear or speak of these things without seeking to be in deed and in truth that which is described. This is the great danger, especially in high truths of this nature.

It is all lost time, and valueless expenditure of words, and perilous rather than helpful to faith, except the things themselves, which the doctrine states, are taking hold of us, moulding our hearts, forming and fashioning our lives.

Besides what other passages of Holy Scripture taught us of this adoption, we gather here some other valuable instruction regarding it.

I. God is here represented by the Prophet as having the tenderest concern for those members of His visible church who are as yet children in name only, but have the hearts of aliens and rebels. St. Paul confesses that such was the state of his heart once, though he was a Jew. "Among whom we all" (he says to the Ephesians), not only you pagans, but we Jews also, "had our conversation in time past, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."† 2 Cor. i. 21, 22. + Eph. ii. 3.

*

The Most High speaks here, as though it were in vain to wait for the free-will of man to exercise itself upon "faith and calling upon God," as our article also says. "I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle."* Yet because of the melting, subduing power of love, He would have them know how that His love follows them still, in spite of all not all their waywardness and frowardness has steeled His father's heart towards them. “Is Ephraim my dear son ? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." The great and strong wind, earthquake, fire: these terrible things of God, His stern judgments; why come they, but that after them or out of them may be heard the still small voice of patiently waiting and relenting love?

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For love has this double character; and the loftier and purer love is, the more it has of this double character. On the one hand, Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it;" and on the other hand, its "jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame."

Oh let this tender appeal from God's heart of love reach to your hearts, whoever of you are ready to say, He will not be a father to me; He will never receive me as a child, else why is it that I cannot pray, or my prayers never seem to reach His mercy-seat? I am shut out: He counts me as a stranger. His ear is heavy that it cannot hear. But tell me, was ever a praying soul rejected? was ever yet the cry of a * Jer. viii. 6. + Jer. xxxi. 20. Cant. viii. 6, 7.

broken spirit sternly cast out? Ah! though there be one here whose conscience presents to him his past life like a blotted sheet in every part, yet see how this whole chapter is one reiterated pleading of God with such an one to return. "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord; and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God."* And this pleading seems to reach its climax in that word, “I said, How shall I put thee among the children ?” The original is very emphatic And I, I said, And I. I that am God, and not man. How different were your fate, how different the dealings with you, if it were man, and not God, from whom every step you have taken has been farther and farther banishment! I, against whom you have sinned, that had such cause to consign you to the penalty, degradation, and final rejection which your apostacy might justly have drawn down; I, whose holy name has been blasphemed and polluted by the corruption and evil-doing of those that professed it, and did worse than the heathen; I, whose every attribute has been sinned against, and my Spirit done despite to: "I said, How shall I put thee among the children?" It had seemed a great thing if the Lord had promised only pardon, if He had promised justification, that He would not reckon against them their former iniquities-the past all forgotten: but when He restores, it is a restoration to the whole; all that was justly forfeited is given back, the blotted sheet is made perfectly white. However yet the poor sinner's * Jer. iii. 12, 13.