God Loves… Himself

Samuel Eyles Pierce on John 17

These words spake Jesus. Which connects it with all contained in the two former chapters. He had opened his whole heart to his disciples in them. Now he opens his whole heart to his divine Father for them, and in it prays on their behalf. O what a Jesus! Who having loved his own which were in the world, with such a degree of affection as to leave heaven for them, now expresses what the whole of his heart would be, when he should be in heaven, by here praying in their hearing; so as they, and all his church throughout the whole world, down to the very end of time, might know what his heart and intercession is in the Holy of Holies. He had been dealing out and giving his apostles the memorials of his body and blood. He had uttered the most divine and consolatory things he could unto them. He now prays with them. And by uttering what he did vocally, he opens heaven and glory unto them.

They could have nothing to do with what Jesus offered, except it was to ponder it over in their minds, and hereby inwardly digest it, and say to every part and petition, request and demand in it, Amen. So be it, O Lord. Let us, secondly, behold and consider the person praying. It is the essential word—and the only begotten Son of God. Yet, not as the only-begotten Son of God. As such he is one in the incomprehensible Essence. As such he is coequal, coeternal, and coessential with the Father and the Spirit in the one Jehovah, true and very God. As such he could not pray. He being essentially, and by essential union with the Father and the Spirit in the Godhead, the Most High over all the earth. As such he could not pray.

But he prays as God-man, as Jehovah’s equal, the fellow to the Lord of Hosts. As Immanuel, as God manifest in flesh. Who as such is the Image of the invisible God, the eternal Head of his church, as the Mediator, as the one and alone Saviour of his people, as the great High Priest and representative of all his chosen ones. Who according to the will, council, covenant, and grace of the eternal Three, became incarnate. He laid aside his personal glory. He emptied himself, and became true and very man. Hereby he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. He is here praying on earth, just before his death, as God-man, as the great High Priest of his church and people, on their behalf, and for their everlasting benefit, as their great representative.

We have thirdly his gesture in prayer. He lifted ups his eyes to heaven. Expressive of the fixation of his mind, and his certain expectation of being heard and answered. It is from heaven all blessings come. He had been in heaven before his incarnation. He came down from heaven. Heaven was open when he prayed immediately after his baptism. Luke says, Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and
praying, the heaven was open. And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove, upon him; and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. Chapter iii. 21, 22. Thus he was publicly introduced into his office of Priest, over the house of God.

As afterwards on the mount of transfiguration, he was proclaimed to be the great Prophet over the house of God, by a voice from the excellent glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him. Mark ix. 7. From his gesture we
proceed, fourthly, to the person addressed. These words spake Jesus, and lifted his eyes to heaven, and said, Father. It is not my father, our father, but Father. Christ stands in a relation to God, and God to him, which we do not. I am not here going to enter into the great mystery of Christ’s person, and the doctrine of the divine personalities, as this will be more suitable in a further entrance on, and unfolding this prayer of our Lord’s, it will come in more properly after. The term Father here, is expressive of his faith and confidence in him, and of his covenant engagements with him on behalf of his chosen ones. An eternal compact had been entered into between the Father and the Son. It had been carried into execution, and was almost finally accomplished. It became the Father to acknowledge his coequal Son in the lowest state of his humiliation. Nothing could break in upon, or dissolve the union between the Father and the Son. Christ says Father, pointing out how he stood, and was as such engaged to be with him. To bear up his humanity when under, and sustain it, under the imputation of sin, and under the infliction of the curse upon the soul and body of the Mediator. Fifthly, Here is the time expressed, thou hour is
come. Our Lord means the hour of his sufferings. It was a peculiar way of expression often made use of by our Lord, as recorded by this evangelist. When his virgin mother addressed him at the wedding at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, he said unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee, mine hour is not yet come. John ii. 4. It was expressive that as all the works of God go forth in their proper season, so our Lord in his incarnation, life, ministry, and miracles. Had his proper season to display his mediatorial grace, and glory. It is therefore said, on an occasion when our Lord had preached himself to be the light of the world, and spoke of the ruin of the Jewish nation and people on account of their unbelief.

Romans 9:18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

Men are carried away with the notion that through religious instruction, training and favorable opportunities, children of men are made Christians; that men enter the kingdom of God through teaching and moral persuasion….A man does not have to be born again in order to be religious; he may be infatuated with religion, and be taught to observe most rigidly forms and ceremonies, and to subject himself to the strictest discipline; to mutilate his body and deprive himself of all earthly comforts; to yield perpetual obedience to priestcraft; to pray three times a day and give tithes of all he possesses; take up the sword in defense of his religion, or lay down his life in testimony of his zeal; but except he be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. A man must be born again in order to receive Christ, or embrace His doctrine in truth and reality. H.M Curry

There is no more important event, which occurs in our world, than the new birth of an immortal soul. Heirs to titles and estates, to kingdoms and empires, are frequently born, and such events are blazoned with imposing pomp, and celebrated by poets and orators; but what are all these honors and possessions but the gewgaws of children, when compared with the inheritance and glory to which every child of God is born an heir!

The implantation of spiritual life in a soul dead in sin, is an event, the consequences of which will never end. When you plant an acorn, and it grows, you expect not to see the maturity, much less the end of the majestic oak, which will expand its boughs and strike deeply into the earth as roots. The fierce blast of centuries of winters may beat upon it and agitate it, but it resists them all. Yet finally this majestic oak, and all its towering branches, must fall. Trees die with old age, as well as men. But the plants of grace shall ever live. They shall flourish in everlasting verdure. Archibald Alexander

Romans 9:13 Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.” 14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

No sovereignty = No grace. There can be no grace where there is no sovereignty
“Man’s entire apostasy and death in sin, so that he cannot save himself; and God’s entire supremacy, so that He saves whom He will, are doctrines exceedingly distasteful to human pride. But they are Scriptural.
Why was one thief saved and the other lost? “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:26). God was not bound to save the one, and He had power enough to have saved the other; and neither could save himself. What made the difference? The sovereign grace of God.
Why was Paul saved and Judas lost? Was it because the former deserved to be saved and the latter to be lost? No, neither deserved to be saved. Was it because the one was a fitting object for the grace of God and the other not? No, the one was no more a fitting object than the other.
Why was it that Judea was made a land of light and Egypt remained a region of darkness? Who made the difference? Man or God? Was God unjust in leaving Egypt in the shadow of death when He made light to arise on Israel? What had Israel done to deserve a privilege like this?
None have deserved salvation. No man is more fit for it than another. God was not bound to save any. God might have saved all. Yet He has only saved some. Is He, then, unjust in only saving some when He could have saved all? Objectors say, “Oh, those who are lost are lost because they rejected Christ.” But did not all equally reject Him at first? What made the unbelief of some give way? Was it because they willed it or because God put forth His power in them? Surely the latter. Might He not, then, have put forth His power in all and prevented any from rejecting the Savior? Yet He did not. Why? Because so it seemed good in His sight.
Is it unjust of God to save only a few when all are equally doomed to die? If not, is there any injustice in His determining aforehand to save these few and leave the rest unsaved? They could not save themselves; and was it unjust in Him to resolve in His infinite wisdom to save them? Or was it unjust in Him not to resolve to save all? Had all perished there would have been no injustice with Him. How is it possible that there can be injustice in His resolving to save some?
There can be no grace when there is no sovereignty. Deny God’s right to choose whom He will and you deny His right to save whom He will. Deny His right to save whom He will and you deny that salvation is of grace. If salvation is made to hinge upon any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end.” – Horatius Bonar

Romans 11:1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 “Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE.”
4 But what is the divine response to him? “I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.” 5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

“But it is an internal grace, a secret in-breathing (inspiration) of God, a bestowing of faith and love through the Holy Spirit, a communication of power that enlightens the understanding, bends the will, and creates within us all good. It is distributed not according to any merit, but purely according to God’s mercy, out of pure grace, and it works irrefutable, invincibly, and irresistibly. This grace precedes every good work, prepares and accomplishes every good work in us, and creates in us first of all the capacity, the willing, in order only then as cooperating grace to bring about in us the doing itself. It supplies us the capacity to believer and to love, but then also makes us actually believe and love. Through grace, the intellect loses its blindness and the will its weakness. In this way human capacities are not suppressed or destroyed thought grace, but rather restred to their original power and purity…

“As one who is infintely exalted above every creature, God is nonetheless with His being immediately present in every creature. He is entirely in heaven and entirely on earth and entirely in both and in everything that exists. He is neither confinved by nor excluded from anything. He Himself is everywhere entirely. There is an essential difference betwen the being of God and the being of His creatures. Nevertheless, He is immediately present in all things, with His entire being. In Him we lie and move and have our being. He Himself supports all things directly by the word of His power.” Herman Bavinck

Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

We shall add two reasons further, to confirm, and some way to clear, why it is that the Lord works, and must work thus distinctly, inwardly, really, powerfully, and immediately, in working faith, and converting sinners.

The first is draws from the exceeding great deadness, indisposition, averseness, perverseness, impotency, inability, and impossibility that is in us naturally for the exerting faith in Christ. If men naturally are dead in sins and trespasses, if the mind is blind, if the affections are quite disordered, and the will is utterly corrupted and perverted; then that which converts, and changes and renews them, must be a real, inward, peculiar, immediate, powerful work of the Spirit of God. There being no inward seed of the grace of God in them to be quickened, that seed must be communicated to them and sown in them, ere they can believe, which can be done by no less nor lower than the power of God’s grace. It is not oratory as I said, nor excellency of speech that will do it; it is such a work as begets the man again, and actually renews him.

The second is drawn from God’s end in the way of giving grace, communicating it to some, and not to others. If God’s end, in being gracious to some and not to others, is to commend His grace solely, and to make them alone in grace’s common or debt; then the work of grace in conversion must be peculiar and immediate, and wrought by the power of the Spirit of God, leaving nothing to man’s free will to difference himself from another or on which such an effect should depend. But if we look to Scripture, we will find that it is God’s end in the whole way and conduct of His grace, in election, redemption, calling, justification, etc, to commend His grace solely, and to stop all mouths, and cut off all ground of boasting in the creature as it is in I Cor 4:7. “Who makes thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou hast not received? Now if thou didst receive it, why dos thou glory as if thou didst not receive?” This being certain, that if the work of grace in conversion were not a distinct, inward, peculiar, real, immediate work, and did not produce the effect of itself by its own strength, and not by virtue of anything in man, the man would still be supposed to have had some power for the work in himself, and some way to have differenced himself from another. But the Lord designed the contrary, and therefore the work of grace in conversion must be suitable to His design. (Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53, pages 169-170; James Durham)

False Professors of Christ

The second way how these do see many things, but they keep them not, consisteth herein, that what they profess that they know, they keep not in life, practice, and conversation; their life, conversation, and action nothing agreeing with that which they profess, and seem to know and see. As for example; such as are in the mere literal knowledge of Free Justification, do find by reading, and thereupon do profess, that Free Justification is the strong Rock and Foundation of Christian Religion, the head Article of salvation, the sole saving grace of Christ, the cause of sanctification, and of all godly living, the advancer of the true Glory of Christ; but yet because by this bare literal knowledge of it, they feel not the truth and power thereof in themselves; therefore whose feet do such labor to fasten upon this strong Rock of Christian Religion; whose house of Religion is built upon the sands of their repentance and holy walking; having this rocky foundation laid in their hearts no more in a manner than the Papists lay it.

Although such seem to hold strongly contrary to Papists; yet they are, in this chief point of salvation, of the Papists minds, coming forth with the Papists objections against it; and although it be the only sacred ordinance that God in his high wisdom hath appointed to be the only cause and means to make men to live truly devout lives; yet such refrain not in their rotten wisdom of reason to belch out this blasphemy, that it opens the gate to all loose and wicked living, and are so far from continually pressing this point, by showing the horribleness of the least sin in the sight of God, and the excellency of this benefit, perfectly healing us from all sin in God’s sight, and so planting it soundly in men’s hearts to effect these happy ends, that almost they never speak of it, but find themselves grieved with them that do; or if their text chance to press them to it, they lightly touch it, and soon pass it over, being as it were glad when that text is past.

Is this to keep to those foresaid most glorious truths of the excellency of Free Justification, which they so gloriously profess in words, and is it not rather before God and men a denying them in deeds; and thus do they in all the rest; for these that are in this literal knowledge, first, either they live ungodly lives; or secondly, but outwardly civil honest lives, caring for nothing more than their profits, honors, and pleasures; or thirdly, at the best, which is worst of all, do but delude the simple blind devoted people, with a legal zeal of holy walking for fear of punishment, or hope of reward, and speeding well for the same; seeming, yea, and being as hot as burning embers against outward vices, and earnestly calling for all active moral duties, which they call holy walking in all God’s Commandments; as if herein did consist the main point of salvation; {do this and live;} and yet abound themselves with all manner of inward hidden corruptions, as envy, calumniating, slavish fear, and glorious outward painting of their old rotten Adam.

All which is notably testified by the Doctrine of our Church, taught by the Martyrs and first Restorers of the Gospel in this land, saying thus, “By outward shows of good works they appear to the world.” How? The most religious and holy men of all others, making the outside of the cup and platter {that is, the outward appearance both of their persons and vocations} so clean, that they seem to the world most perfect men. Wherein so perfect? Both in teaching and living; and yet because the inside is not clean, Christ {who sees their hearts not justified with his own righteousness} knows that they are in the sight of God most unholy, most abominable, and farthest from God of all men; their judgment being preposterous, their doctrine sown leaven of mingling the Law and the Gospel together, and so marring both; and their life the hidden secret hypocrite; that is, not suspecting themselves of hypocrisy, they delude their own selves with supposed sincere hearts, respecting {as they think} only God’s glory; being inwardly full of all manner of filth, as pride, envy, covetousness, ambition, vain-glory, hatred, disdain, unbelief, conceitedness of themselves, contempt of those whom they like not, calumniating them, and such like; and yet so adorning and painting their old Adam that reigns in them, with such a fair outward new coat, not of Christ’s righteousness; {alone sufficient utterly to abolish their corruptions freely from before God;} but of their own righteousness, that they seem not only unto others, but also to their own selves in all respects amiable and excellent men; and such were they, that because they excelled in great learning, and were zealous towards God, {Rom.10:2,} in following righteousness by holy walking in all God’s Commandments, {Rom.9:31,} serving God instantly day and night, {Acts 26:7,} said hereupon unto Christ, in the high conceit of their literal knowledge, “Are we blind also?” {Jn.9:40} Unto whom Christ answering, said, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” {vs.41} And thus much of the description of the bare literal knowledge, whereby men only sophisticating about the mysteries of Christ, would be Doctors and Teachers of the Word, but by not understanding what they say, nor whereof they affirm, {I Tim.1:7,} they neither in word, nor deed keep to that which they seem to hold, but speak flat contraries. John Eaton {Honeycombe of Free Justification by Christ Alone, 1642}

“The Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all upon him.” Let that be the proposition, putting the emphasis upon the word laid. If ever there be joy, peace, and rest of spirit, or thou wilt be of good cheer, as having knowledge of thy sins being forgiven, it must be fetched out of this, “The Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all upon Christ.” Men may suppose comfort and joy, and, in the strength of their fancy, peradventure, be at some kind of rest out of some other apprehensions; but there is no solid rest to any, but as it is founded on this, that iniquity is laid upon Christ. Satan knows this well enough, and therefore he raiseth a cloud of dust (as I may so say) to obscure the glorious light of the sun of righteousness shining forth in this truth. There is such a stir to shift on the plain genuine meaning of the Holy Ghost, that the truth is, persons scarce know where to find rest for the sole of their feet, in respect of peace, through the forgiveness of sins. And indeed, beloved, as the covenant of God is peculiar only to those that shall partake of the fulness of Christ; so none shall truly and thoroughly understand such truths as these, but those that are taught of God himself; which is one branch of the covenant, “They shall be taught of me.”

“He was made sin for us,” 2 Corinthians 5:21. The Lord laid our very iniquities themselves upon him: this is the greatest grace the soul can have comfort in, in this life, that iniquity is done away; and, therefore, it concerns all that hear such admirable tidings, to know from whence it comes, who undertakes this great work, to discharge a poor sinner, and to lay all its iniquities on Christ. If Christ himself doth not lay iniquity upon himself, much less doth the righteousness of man lay it on him. It is not all the prayers, the tears, the fasting, the repentance, though ever so perfect and complete, that lays any one iniquity upon Christ; it is the Lord alone that does it; nay, none of those performances have the least moving power in them to persuade him to it; the Lord moves himself to do it: all our services are for other purposes; they have no prevalency with him at all, no, our faith itself lays not our iniquities on Christ; but, as I said, the Lord lays, Christ bears, our faith doth but see and make evident that, in time, which before was hid and not seen. Beloved, it may be the just complaint of the Lord to the sons of men; I have laid the iniquities of you all upon Christ, and everything almost runs away with the honour of it; as if something else did ease you of the burthen of them, and I am neglected. Now so long as you have these vain conceits in you, that any thing you do becomes your case, and the lightening of the burden of your sins, they will go away with the praise that is due to God. To whomsoever we apprehend ourselves beholding, as we say, for such a courtesy, such a one shall go away with the praise of it. And so it is most true, beloved, as long as we reckon our own holy duties, repentance, and enlargement in prayer, etc. as the bringers of refreshment to our spirits, and the unloaders of our hearts from our transgressions, that are the burden of the soul; so long these are exalted above measure. Hence these strange epithets and expressions are fixed to them: “Oh; the omnipotency of repentance; and of meeting with God in fasting and humiliation! Oh; the prevalency of tears to wash away sin!” They supposing that these ease us of the weight of sin, go away with the glory. Oh! who is omnipotent but the God of heaven! What washes away the sins of men but the blood of Christ? It was the sin of the Jews, when they had gotten a prey, they presently thought it was their own nets and drags that got it; and therefore (saith the prophet) “They sacrifice to their own nets, and offer incense to their drags.” Beloved, you will offer incense to your performances, as long as you go to them to be your deliverers. The deliverance from the weight of your sin, is not from the virtue of any thing you do; it is the Lord alone that lays iniquity upon Christ; and, therefore, let him alone carry away the praise and glory of it; let nothing rob him of it.

It is not in the power of any righteousness we do, though ever so complete, no nor of our faith, to lay iniquity upon Christ. The Lord lays, Christ bears, and faith beholds this iniquity thus laid by him, and borne by Christ; and so the soul receives comfort upon the apprehension of it. None but the Lord can possibly lay iniquity upon Christ, because none hath to do with the disposing of it but he; “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done evil in thy sight.” If the debt be God’s, who hath power to dispose of it, either to take it off the principal, or transfer it to a surety, but he that is the creditor? What hath any man to do with another man’s debt? (Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted)

In paradise the Lord made a large grant to the sons of men in Adam; “Of all the trees in the garden thou shalt eat, save only the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” He reserved that one tree to himself, and but that one; he gave him of his bounty to eat of every one besides; and yet such was his itching humor, that of all others, fain would he be meddling there, till he brought ruin on his own head. In the gospel, all our grants are large; “All are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s: God spared not his own Son, but gave him up to death for us all;” nay more, “I am your God, and you are my people.” He thinks not much to give his Son, nor himself, to his people; there is but one thing he keeps to himself, Isaiah 43:8; “My glory will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven images;” all that the Lord reserves to himself; is but “the praise and glory of his own grace.” Oh! pilfer not that from God, which, when you have it, will do you no good in the world; and seeing he will have only this, do not grudge it him. It is not out of niggardliness that God keeps this to himself, for in Isaiah 42:6, you shall find that he is bountiful enough, for all that; “I will give thee for a covenant to the people, to open the blind eyes, and to bring the prisoners out of prison.” That will do us more good; and, that he may do us good, his own Son shall be given for a covenant; but “my glory, that shall not be given to another,” as it follows presently after. Oh! therefore, let not your performances, be they ever so exact, aspire so high, as to usurp that glory that is due to the Lord alone!

This seems to be a kind of paradox, that God should, from all eternity, look with eyes of love upon his people, and yet there should be a time in which there should be an alienation or enmity between God and them. For the reconciliation of this difference, you must know, it is one thing for God to recollect all future things that shall come in all the several times of the world, into one thought of his own; and it is another thing for these things to come to pass in their several times, according to their own nature. You must know, it is true, that in God’s eternal thoughts, according to the infinite vastness of his own comprehension, he did sum up, from first to last, all the occurrences and passages which in succession of time should come to pass. As for example: — he had at once in his eye man in his innocency, in his fall, and in his restoration by Christ; he had in his eye man committing sin against him from time to time; and, at the same instant, had in his eye Christ dying for these sins of men, and so satisfying his own justice for their transgressions. Now, because God had all things at once in his eye, which, in respect of their actual being, are in succession of time; therefore, it comes to pass, that God, from all eternity, had everlasting love unto his own people, though in time they do those actions which, in their own nature, are enmity against God. As God from all eternity had the present sins we now commit, in his eye, and at the same moment had the satisfaction in his eye; from hence it comes to pass, there was not a time in which God actually stood at enmity with our persons: but, in respect of the nature of things coming successively to pass, man’s condition may be considered as a condition of enmity; and again, it may be considered as a condition of reconciliation to God. That you and I were born in sin is true, and that this our being born in sin was a state of enmity against God, is as true; that in the fulness of time Christ came into the world, and then actually did bear our sins, by which God became reconciled unto us again, is also most certainly true. There is a great distance of time between sin committed, and that satisfaction actually made; but in respect of God’s eye looking upon all things at once, there is no distance of time between that enmity which sin did produce, and that reconciliation which the blood of Christ hath wrought, to take away this enmity. (Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted)

“What shall we do that we may work the works of God?” Naturally, men are upon doing to get; when we talk upon matters of religion, it is doing gets everything; therefore, they will be doing, that they may have something. Now, though Christ doth not answer the question they made, being a silly one, yet he gives them another answer that was to the purpose; “This is the work of God, to believe in him whom he hath sent.” Never look to get it by doing; look to get it from him, and not from yourselves, and your own doings.

You must not imagine that our motion of coming is the prime mobile that gives motion to Christ to open and entertain; as if our coming did stir him up to set open, and give entrance. Christ hath not any such thought in him that we must come, and therefore will own us for his own; for it is certainly true, the very motion of our coming to Christ, is from himself, and from his coming to us, before we do so much as move. It is a common principle known to all divines, and most people; we are first acted, and then we act. First, Christ gives to us to come, and then, by his gift, we come to him; we must not imagine, by coming to Christ, he is moved and invited towards us, and is stirred up to open to us, and give entertainment to us; but his first coming to us, and living in us, stirs us up to motion: “You that were dead in sins and trespasses, (Ephesians 2:1,) hath he quickened?’ Beloved, is there death till Christ quickens? Where then can there be this motion of ours, before he himself be come with his life? Where there is no life, you know there is no motion; and till the fountain of life communicates it, there can be none; therefore it is Christ that gives this coming unto men, and he having given it, they come to him.

Believing is, in sum and substance, but a yielding to the mind of the Lord revealed; while persons are contradicting, they are not believing, in respect of those things that they contradict. To believe and to contradict the same thing, is a contradiction; for to believe, is to sit down satisfied with the thing that is related. Finally, suppose it should be, that coming is believing, and that this life, spoken of here, is not in persons till they believe. What is meant by life here? The apostle tells us, “Our life is hid with Christ in God; and Christ is the life of the world,” that is, of the elect. It seems then, that the life of every elect person hath a being in Christ, before he believes; believing, therefore, doth not produce a new life that was not before, only it manifests that which was before; and it makes that life, which was before, an active life; or is an instrument by which that life that is hid in Christ, after believing, becomes an active and appearing life in this person. So that all that can be made of it, is but this; till believing, there is no activeness of the life of Christ in the person that is elected; his life is in Christ, and was reserved in him till the time of believing for him; and then doth he, the elect person, become active in life, when Christ gives him to believe actually: but to say, that this believing should give the first being of that life in persons, is to say, there is not that life of the elect in Christ, before they believe.

Elect persons have a participation and share in Christ himself, even before they believe; and let none conceive that this takes away, or diminisheth from the prerogative of believing neither. For there are glorious things done by faith unto believers; God hath honoured it above all mere creatures in the world; he hath made it the conduit-pipe for the conveyance of all that peace and comfort; nay, of all that strength which believers have all their lives; no faith, no comfort, no peace of conscience, no pleasure to walk with God. Through faith, Christ conveys himself in speaking peace to the soul, in bidding the soul be of good cheer; the soul lies in darkness, while it lies in unbelief. But still that which is proper and peculiar to Christ alone, is not to be ascribed unto believing.

Christ nor his promises must be divided, for men to pick and choose what they list, and leave the rest; men must take him and them one with another. I know licentious persons would be glad of salvation from wrath by Christ, and of temporal good; and they are apt to assume a liberty from this point, that their faith is good, and the promises shall be performed to them, though they have no goodness; but have they any heart to believe other promises as well as these, those of mortification of sin, and holiness of life, that God in the attendance on his ordinances will subdue their iniquities, and cause them to walk in his testimonies? These are no bits for their palate. How they that truly believe, having no spiritual sense, embrace all sorts of promises, and as eagerly pursue mortification and holiness promised, as deliverance from wrath. They would as gladly have Christ to reign in and over them, as to blot out their transgressions. The text imports so much in the generality of the expression, not believing some few culled things out of Christ and his promises, leaving the rest, but believing in whole Christ, and all sorts of his promises. (Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted)

Mark what the apostle saith, “Our life is hid with Christ in God.” It is true, there is a natural life, that may be destroyed as well as the life of a wicked man; but yet the soul of a believer is not destroyed; it is cannon proof, all the devils in hell cannot destroy it; “Christ himself is our life; now, when he shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory.” So that Christ himself must be killed, before our lives shall be destroyed by the enemies. You that are believers have this advantage of your enemies, the unbelievers; you may take away their lives, but they cannot take away yours; they have but one life, a natural life but they that are believers, have a life in Christ; nay he is their life. Beloved, the Lord intends only your good in all your changes, and that which is best, he provides for you; though your life be taken away from you, where is the hurt or loss? Consider it well, beloved, death is but the opening of the prison doors to let you out; it is but the arrival of a vessel into the haven of rest. What doth the sword do when it enters into a believer? It makes but a change of immortality for mortality, of life for death, of strength for weakness, of glory for shame, of holiness for sin; it doth but pull down a rotten house of clay, to give possession of mansions of glory; it doth but take persons from a cottage at will, to enter into a lordship of inheritance; for it gives full possession of an eternal one. The sword that enters into the breast of a believer, doth but put him into the chamber of the bridegroom, and consummates the marriage of the Lamb to him; it is the fulfilling of the great cry of the saints, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;” and, “I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.” It takes the bride into communion with her long looked-for beloved, and gives her possession of those things she longed for.
Mistake me not, I speak not all this while against holiness and righteousness, that becomes a people to whom Christ is a way; for holy and righteous they shall be; Christ will make them holy, and put his spirit into them, to change their hearts and to work upon their spirits; but this is not the condition required to partake of Christ. Christ himself gives himself, and then he bestows these things when he is given. I say, Christ is given to men first, before they do anything in the world; and all they do, they do by Christ present in them; “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” We do not so much live, but by the life of Christ, which is life in us. All the actions of life proceed from the soul, now present; how then comes the actions of the soul to be a condition to partake of the soul, that gives life, and, by its presence, works such actions? Christ is the soul of every believer, that animates, and acts the believer in all things whatsoever. Must not this life, Christ, be put into a believer, before he can actuate life, which is a stream springs from that life? How then can this be a condition to receive, to have Christ. When Christ is first come, by whom these things, that are called conditions, are afterwards wrought, he himself being present to work them? So, say I, God bestows Christ upon men to be a way to bring them to the Father; he is an absolute and free gift. There is no other motive that Christ should be any one’s saviour, than merely the good pleasure of the Father, the bowels of God himself; “Not for thy sake, but for my own sake; not for thy sake, thou art a rebellious and stubborn people, but for my own sake.” Here is the freeness of Christ, to a person coming to him, when he comes merely for God’s sake; and God merely upon his good pleasure will do it, because he will; “He hath mercy upon whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth; it is not in him that willeth, (saith Paul, Romans 9.) nor in him that runneth, but in God that sheweth mercy.” So that Christ becomes a way unto them, not out of their will, not out of their disposition, not out of their holy walkings, but out of that mercy that proceeds out of the mere will of God; his own good pleasure is the only fountain and spring of it. (Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted)