An Address given in Edinburgh on Tuesday, April 4th, 1922
Scriptures read—Ephesians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 5:5-9; Hebrews 11:4; 1 Corinthians 22:27-32
Want to speak of the distinction between being “Accepted by God” on the ground of the death of Christ, and being “Acceptable to God” in our lives as Christians. If we do not labour to be acceptable to God as Christians, it is because we have a very shallow apprehension of what it is to be accepted by God; and as we have a deep sense of what it is to be accepted by God, we shall certainly labour to be acceptable to God.
In the Gospel we go further than clearance; we go further than forgiveness, blessed as that is. We, believers, are accepted of God; it says “He has made us accepted in the Beloved.” Now if we can once get into our minds that God will have nothing short of absolute perfection, we should not mix it up with ourselves in any shape or form. A friend of mine was going through a certain town at a time of revival, and getting into conversation with a lady, he spoke to her of the blessedness of knowing her sins forgiven. She said, “Sir, I have never met a person who knew that his sins were forgiven,” and he replied, “Take a good look at me, you have seen him at last,” and she did take a good look at him as if she were staring at some strange specimen from another world, and when she recovered her breath she said, “Oh, you believe in perfection, do you?” and he replied, “Yes, Madam, if I didn’t believe in perfection I couldn’t say that my sins were forgiven; but don’t run away with a wrong idea; the perfection is not in me either before conversion or after conversion. I know myself better than any other man knows me, and God knows me far better than I know myself, and I am far from perfect, but if I didn’t believe in perfection I couldn’t say I was saved,” and then he rang this out—and if you get this into your heart, young believer, you have got something—“I have a perfect Saviour who has done a perfect work and given me a perfect salvation.” But that salvation is so wonderful, dear friends, that it goes further than clearance.
If you were to study the types a little, those types that were given by the hand of Moses in connection with the Tabernacle in the wilderness, you would find things that throw light on the matter of our acceptance with God. As to the Sin offering and the Trespass offering there was no option; these had to be brought or else judgment fell upon the offender; but when we come to the Burnt offering, it was brought of the offerer’s voluntary will. That is a wonderful aspect of the death of Christ; He came of His own voluntary will, and He said before these worlds were made, “Lo I come, in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O God.” Now I read that passage in Hebrews because of what it says about Abel. All these offerings before the Law was given were burnt offerings, and when the Law was given we find this, that the offerer, who of his own voluntary will brought his burnt-offering, put his hands upon the sacrifice, and all the acceptance and the sweet savour of the sacrifice was transferred to the offerer, so that he stood in all the value of it. Do you want to know how you stand accepted before God? Listen, He has made us “accepted in the Beloved.” Now the Beloved is Christ, and it would be perfectly correct to say here, “He has made us accepted in Christ,” but God desiring to give us a deep sense of what our acceptance is, speaks of Him as “the Beloved.” He has made us accepted in the Beloved, and not in ourselves.
Now when Abel offered his offering, what do we read? He brought of the firstlings of his flock, and it says that God bore witness that he was righteous, testifying of his gifts. Had He to testify of Abel? He could no more testify of Abel than He could testify of Cain—if He had testified of Abel it could have been nothing but judgment, but it says He testified of his gifts, and the gifts set forth in picture Christ in connection with the atoning work.
Let me give you a little illustration to show you the difference that there is between clearance and acceptance. A young man, let us suppose, is brought before the Court charged with some serious crime, and the punishment is either a lengthy term of imprisonment or a particularly heavy fine. He has wealthy friends and they get together this big fine, and they clear the young scamp. The fine is paid, and what happens? He is as free to leave that court as the judge himself. Suppose when he leaves the court, as he goes out of the main doorway, he comes out alongside of the judge himself, and, going up to the judge, he puts out his hand and offers to shake hands with him. What does the judge say? “Young man,” he says, “your fine has been paid, and you have as much right to leave this Court as I have, but I don’t shake your hand; I have nothing to do with you.” The young man is cleared but he is not accepted. Oh, how different is our case! Not only cleared, but accepted—“He has made us accepted in the Beloved.” Nothing can add to that acceptance; nothing can take from it; it depends upon Christ, and Christ is dependable. He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever; His Person, His heart, His work, His power are all unchanged, and therefore the acceptance of the feeblest believer is unchanged too.
But now we labour to be acceptable, and that is a very different thing. Let me give you an illustration in connection with that. Suppose a grocer puts out a little notice that he wants an errand boy, a good trustworthy lad, and a likely lad comes along. The grocer agrees that he starts work on Monday. He is accepted as an errand boy. If he has to keep his job, he will have to be acceptable. He must be acceptable, and if he is not acceptable, he may be discharged. But here is another case. A child is born into a family, and consequently it is in a position of acceptance; it must be because of its birth and the love put upon it. It is accepted, and there is no question of that child being turned out of doors or discharged. May I ask you, will that child be more desirous to be acceptable than the grocer’s hireling? The errand boy knows that if he does not behave himself, if he is not acceptable, he will be turned out of his situation; the child knows that nothing like that will take place, but see there is a bond of affection between the child and the parent, and that child for affection will have a more deep desire to be acceptable to the parents than the errand boy. God does not coerce us into an acceptable life by putting us in jeopardy; all those blessings that are ours in Christ are given to us by boundless grace and love in order to find a response in our hearts; and therefore we labour to be acceptable to Him.
Now we have a wonderful point of illustration in that 11th chapter of 1 Corinthians. The apostle Paul had been to Corinth, and God had used him much, and out of its ranks there had come followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; but, alas, old habits were strong with them, and some of them were doing things that were disgraceful to the Christian profession. Consequently, as they came to the Lord’s Supper, some were eating and drinking that Supper unworthily; that is to say, their manner of doing it was unworthy; they came with unjudged sin in their lives; they came with flippancy and superficiality and carelessness; they were taking the Lord’s Supper unworthily. The apostle says, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” Now the word “sleep” is a word that is used in connection with death only in connection with the believer, and the whole passage tells us that these who were put to sleep in Jesus were believers. The point was this: they were taken to heaven because they were accepted; they were taken from earth because they were NOT acceptable. The passage continues, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged, but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.” Our acceptance in the Beloved is God’s sovereign favour to us on the righteous ground of the work of Christ, and He seeks by His Spirit to put into our hearts the desire to labour to be acceptable to Him.
I was having tea one Saturday afternoon in the City of Aberdeen, and as I drew near the door of my host’s house to ring the bell, who should come along but his eldest son, fresh from the football field. It was a damp, late, autumn day, and he came of course muddy from head to foot. Very shortly after that we sat down to the tea table. This young fellow sat down with us without a trace of mud upon him. As he drew near to his father’s house with mud upon him, he had a title to that house; he was his father’s son. He was accepted, but he knew that if he sat at the tea table in these muddy clothes he would not be acceptable, and hence he went to the bathroom and to his wardrobe, and had a good wash and a change of clothes, and soon sat down at his father’s table in an acceptable condition.
Now God is determined that these two things shall be brought together. If we are not labouring to be acceptable, then God will have to set in action those measures that He takes in His deep love. He may pass us through tribulation. He may put us through exercises of various kinds and through discipline, in order that he may bring us to our senses in this matter.
I just make an appeal as I close. Here are some hundreds of people, I suppose nearly all Christians. If we Christians here tonight were all labouring to be acceptable to Him who has made us accepted in the Beloved, labouring because we realize that everything down here is passing away, and that, as we were previously saying, the path of righteousness is the path of life, I believe Scotland would be stirred. There is a great cry in these last days for revival. I am certain of this, revival begins not amongst the sinners, but amongst the saints, and when we arise from amongst the potsherds of worldliness and earthly mindedness, and we get Christ before us and live with a single eye for His glory, then the revival will come.
Oh, may God ground us very firmly in just those simple words, “He has made us accepted in the Beloved,” and may He deepen in every one of our hearts the desire to labour to be acceptable to Him, and may we judge ourselves rather than He should judge us. Yet He will not shrink from judging us if we need it, because He is not going to allow us to be judged with the world, since we are Christ’s. May God give His blessing, for Christ’s name sake, Amen!