2 Sam. 19:30.
1900 163 These significant and touching words fell from the lips of Mephibosheth, in reply to king David on his memorable return to the throne. They are words worthy of consideration, and afford true practical instruction for the heart and conscience; as they are no less fraught with encouragement to the believer. Those who have known in any measure what divine grace is, with the marvellous way God in wisdom and love has taken to express it, must ever find delight in the free and blessed action of David toward Mephibosheth. It is a God-given sample of it, not only in what grace bestows, but in what it produces. To show the kindness of God to him, belonging as he did to the house of Saul the king's enemy, was an act of pure grace. Hence was it the suited occasion to call forth both the feelings and resources of David in the hour of his power and glory.
It was not a little to enquire or search for any of Saul's house; but, when the king learnt of the hidden one and his lameness, to send and have him brought into the king's presence declared plainly his determined purpose of kindness. Not only so; but he acted from himself according to his own gracious intentions. This was, both as to reception and position, not only worthy of the king but according to "the kindness of God" as already declared to the servant Ziba. That the recipient of such grace should bow in reverence and fear was befitting; yet it was only the happy occasion for the king to express his feelings and intention. "Fear not," therefore, only began the tale of grace; for the restoration of forfeited land must follow, crowned with the consummate blessedness that the son of a wicked persecutor should eat bread continually at the king's table as one of his own sons. Such was the king's purpose made known and made good to the favoured object of his grace.
Unworthiness is of course consciously felt by those on whom grace is bestowed; therefore elation, much less glorying in self, is quite set aside; so that Mephibosheth's confession, "What is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am"? is the language (as of every heart morally) to the exclusion of pride and presumption. Hence to take the place and position at the table as a son was in character with the pure grace of the king. Naturally it would be considered needful and right to show by his conduct toward the king that Mephibosheth had proved himself a loyal and obedient subject; but this would have been in character with law-keeping and not according to grace, which brings into the place of nearness and fullest confidence.
How precious is grace, not only for what it bestows, but what it produces in the heart of its recipient! The one acting in grace surely looks for the proper response to it, though never at the cost of weakening the bestowed blessing, but rather to deepen the sense of its fulness and blessedness. Moreover as the same God uses the occasion of deep need for the display of His grace, so He graciously and wisely orders as well as permits the circumstances for the response to it, as is strikingly seen in this case. The hour of David's royalty is followed by his dethronement and suffering. Absalom his wicked son steals away the hearts of the people; so that the true and only king has to take to flight, and by it the fidelity of all hearts is tested.
Mephibosheth is equal to the moment. Fellowship in the hour of suffering marked him, as much as his previously given place at the king's table. Not only were his resources placed at the disposal of the suffering king, but he carried his person in character with it. For he "neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until he came again in peace." True, he had becn misrepresented by Ziba, the lying deceitful servant, who was not slow to take advantage of his master's lameness to go and pour false things into the king's ears. Lying and deceit with outward pretension of devotion seemed most successful for the moment. Yea, a failing type of the true king may be overcome and taken in by it; but the meeting-day of disclosures must come sooner or later as is seen here. David returns, and the ever faithful Mephibosheth goes forth to meet him, when the truth comes out as to the false and the true servant.
Not only is Ziba righteously shown up to the king, and the faithful action and position of Mephibosheth confessed, but the true sense of the grace David had shown at the first had never left him. The same thoughts of himself as a dead dog governed him; yea, better still, his heart was full of unselfish devotion to the person of the king. Lands, when offered, were nothing to him; for he was absorbed in the person of the king, and the joy of seeing him and his rights established gave witness to the touching effects grace produced, to the delight surely of him who bestowed it. If the king too had hastily decided in favour of a false servant, now that he is rightly informed he assuredly learns, that the subject of past grace had not only been true and consistent during his absence, but that David himself was more than all beside. For in reply to offered divided land. Mephibosheth adds, "Let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house." The testing evidence as to the fidelity of his heart, and the record that proves it touchingly, remain.
In this day and dispensation of the sovereign grace of God, and not least at the present time of great pretension in religious profession and activity, it is not too much to say little is known of the place grace gives or what it should produce. The principle and character of grace is according to David and Mephibosheth, though surely of a higher order and infinitely greater in its extent; seeing that the holy and righteous ground has been once and for ever laid for the display of it, at Calvary's cross, in and by the death of God's own and only Son Who by the "grace of God" tasted death. Such an expression of rich and sovereign grace must surpass the salvation it brings or the glory answering to it. Let this be understood, or at least taken in as God's own testimony, that death has been gone into with its claims as to sin completely exhausted by the Son of God, then all other wonders cease, or at least are nothing in comparison to it. God in love gave the Son, and the Son in love gave Himself, to die for sin and sinners; and this, when the world hated both the Father and the Son. This standing fact the scriptures most emphatically declare, as also that the One Who died has entered heaven; yea, after having once for all offered Himself as the one and only sacrifice for sins, He "for ever sat down on the right hand of God." No further proof is needed that the claims of truth and holiness have been met as to sin, and the glory of God everlastingly secured, seeing that the One Who did the mighty work is at rest at God's own right hand. The cross where sin was judged and the throne of God are together, so to speak, in the One that supplied the altar and now fills the throne.
Such a person and work with its blessed results may well form the basis for the full display of the rich and boundless grace of God. And it may truly be asked where and when can that grace be shown and applied, but in the same manifested scene of sin and sinners where Jesus was crucified? A condemned world, where man is under judgment and already proved lost and guilty, is therefore the sphere for the full and free activities of sovereign grace; when too every barrier has been righteously removed for the free outlet of the boundless love of God toward ruined man.
In the Epistle to the Romans, where the gospel of the grace of God is so richly unfolded, the words at the opening significantly declare it to be "the gospel of God," and most assuredly concerning His Son Jesus Christ and Him risen from the dead, but no less true seed of David after the flesh. He it is in and through whom "the kindness of God" is now displaying itself, in Whom alone all the resources of God are treasured up in their all-sufficiency for the deepest need. This every servant and true exponent of the grace of God should remember and surely act upon; especially in this day when ways and means outside the written word and the paramount claims of the Lord are largely used under the deluding plea of the end justifying the means. To every true and obedient servant bearing God's glad tidings the words of the risen Lord are most instructive and salutary, in connection with the commission recorded at the end of the first three Gospels, For He clearly makes known in Whom all power is, also the sphere and persons for whom the gospel is intended, as well as the duly appointed agent of power by whom the testimony should be rendered and made good. This is most assuring and soul-strengthening when known and acted upon, viz., that the risen, exalted, Saviour and Lord has all power given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18); and that all the world is the sphere where the gospel is to be preached to every creature (Mark 16:15). Moreover, the Holy Ghost should be sent from heaven as the mighty power to preach it, to carry it on and make it effectual (Luke 24:47-49). Such is the grand secret for every faithful servant to know and act on in going forth from the presence of earth's rejected but heaven's accepted Saviour, Lord, and King, to sound forth the news of God's boundless grace; not to an individual at Lodebar, but to begin at Jerusalem (in the place where Jesus was cruelly and unrighteously cast out and crucified) and thence to the ends of the earth, declaring free and full remission of sins through the name of Jesus, and this for His very murderers.
How lamentably true, as things on every hand testify to the fact, that very little is the precious grace of the gospel of God known or declared, notwithstanding its unmistakable clearness, particularly in the Epistle to the Romans! Yet there it remains in its world-wide blessedness for every poor sinner, whether Jew or Gentile; seeing that God declares all to be guilty before Him, "For all sinned and come short of the glory of God" None can escape; indeed, well that it is so, when God is acting in the fulness and freeness of His grace, infinitely beyond anything David did or could do in his day.
Divine wisdom and love devised and made a way out from guilt and condemnation to a place in Christ, with holy and happy liberty, not only life but the Spirit of adoption received, crying "Abba Father"; and nothing short of this is the present action and display of sovereign grace.
A brief glance at Romans 3 to 8 of that wonderful Epistle will plainly show the starting point and landing stage in the ways of God. For in His matchless grace He now declares His righteousness, both in justifying the guilty, and also in divinely clothing those that believe in the blood of His Son in Whom alone redemption is. Not only is the righteousness of God fully manifested "unto" all, but it is "upon" all them that believe. No less is the question of the sins of the believer fully and finally settled, because the substitute on whom God laid them has been raised from the dead.
This the end of Romans 4, etc. clearly states, in that Jesus was "delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification." Therefore His shed blood, His death and resurrection, may well give the solid basis and righteous means for the soul's present and everlasting peace with God, which is faith's title and portion. To stop here even would be but part of the sweet tale of grace, as to either full deliverance or suitability in life and relationship to God Himself. For the question of the nature common to all the race of sinful Adam has alike been raised, gone into, and decided, in order that life and liberty in Christ the last Adam might be known as a present portion. This, divine love both anticipated and provided for at all cost to itself; for the reign of sin must have its counterpart in the reign of grace, through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.
1900 184 To close up therefore the sad moral history of a nature common to all of Adam's race was part of redemption's plan; that the power of sin as well as its guilt should be met. Thus not only is removed the burden of sins from the guilty conscience, but complete deliverance from the conflicting torment of the sinful nature which righteously deserves death. This Romans 6 insists upon as already accomplished in the death of Christ, Who died for the believer's sins and to sin itself, thereby closing in death its state for ever. "In that He died, He died unto sin once" for all. And such is the privilege of faith to reckon it as unchangeably true, whatever the contradictory experience consequent upon indwelling sin. No less is there complete deliverance from God's holy and righteous law, seeing that its righteous claims have no power over those who have already died. Hence the believer's triumph in the opening of Romans 8, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." What freedom from an evil nature and its fruit, introducing to the accompanying truth of a holy life in happy liberty, even life in Christ Jesus and hence completely beyond all judgment!
It is a government fully exhausted in and by Christ's mighty sacrifice where sin met its entire and final condemnation. Those too having the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus are set free from the spirit of bondage and fear, having received the Spirit of adoption whereby they cry, "Abba, Father." Such is the wonderful platform the soul is placed upon with God the Justifier, crowned with the emphatic and confirming words, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." Thus life, relationship, and heirship with Christ crown the incomparable ways of the wondrous grace of God, which infinitely eclipses all that David bestowed, even to a place at the table as one of the king's sons. To be set before God in such holy dignity and relationship in view of sharing the coming glories with the appointed Heir of all things, the present link of co-heirship in suffering of necessity follows: "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we be also glorified together."
Creation still suffering the consequences of sin, as well as the refusal of the One Who alone could free it from the bondage of corruption, it must of necessity involve those having life in Christ in suffering with Him until the day of coming glory, when creation will share the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Blessed hope with its bright prospect for the heavens and the earth, in a day when a greater than Absalom will be no longer at large to blind and deceive. But the true David will be enthroned to reign in Jerusalem gloriously, and thence to the ends of the earth. Meanwhile it must be and is the hour of suffering in a twofold way, "with Christ" and "for Him." Suffering with Christ is consequent upon a holy life possessed and enjoyed in a scene of sin, pain, sorrow and death; and suffering also both for His worthy name and for righteousness' sake. But alas! how largely the sensibilities of the divine nature are deadened as to the one! and how very little loyalty of heart and true-hearted faithfulness are manifested as to the other, notwithstanding all that grace has given and is able to produce! Remember too that it is only in this favoured hour that any can so suffer. Let it be seen (either by angels or men) how far the love and claims of Jesus our Lord with the sense of God's abounding grace outweigh all besides, especially of this perishing world.
Participation in the sufferings of Christ consequent upon sovereign grace bestowed is seen in its fullest shape in the case of Saul the persecutor and hater of Christ; afterwards Paul the apostle and servant of Jesus Christ. The riches of grace in surpassing mercy met his desperate case, not only in his full, free, and eternal salvation, but in making him one with Christ the risen and glorified Saviour. Thus was he fitted for suffering, and from suffering he never swerved, from the hour of his conversion until his departure. Suffering in each form not only marked him, but the loving spirit of an undivided heart in keeping with the one who said, "Let him take all." In life and service Christ Jesus was his motive and object, governed by the unerring word of God through the indwelling Spirit. Hence the language of his heart was uprightly expressed in its extent and purpose when he said, "For me to live is Christ." Service evidently to its hightest honour was kept subservient, his chief desire being that Christ should be magnified in his body whether by life or death. The sense of grace in service was not lacking to his devotedness in preaching Christ even among the Gentiles. Moreover he laboured more abundantly than all others, although careful to add, "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."
Tested too beyond any as to natural position and advantageous circumstances (ever expedient for personal provision and comfort), yet when measured by his Lord and Saviour everything was dung and dross compared with His excellency. Not only in the first freshness of his conversion and service did he so count, but "I do count" all things but dross provided he had Christ as his gain. False servants in the spirit of selfish deceitful Ziba surrounded him; but he knew (and warned the saints he so loved) that their end was destruction. Alas! their god was their belly, they cared only for earthly things. Jesus the Saviour in glory completely won his heart at the first; sustained him through pilgrimage and service; and at the end the same Lord Jesus absorbed his affection in the desire to have Him as his own precious treasure and portion. His love also for the church and the gospel was undiminished. He never shrank from suffering for others, as he received it in participation with Christ, so that the Person of the Lord was practically unrivalled: even heaven and all its precious things sunk in comparison with Him.
The lesson of such experience and devotedness remains as a voice for today, a day when church profession and outward zeal prevail. Nevertheless it is not according to knowledge, much less in spirit and character with divine grace in a God-exalted but world-rejected Saviour. Indeed it may be asked where is the testimony of the descended and abiding Spirit maintained? where do saints own His presence and all-sufficiency for exalting the Lord and Saviour and the precious gospel, so as to make manifest the effects in divine power and fruit according to those produced in the Acts of the Apostles? Nothing however has changed, except alas! the state of the church not faithful. See the position and action of the servants of the Lord, both true and false. Further, the humbling cry may be raised, most heart-searching to all; where is the life of Christ reproduced day-by-day according to the worthy Pattern and Object set forth by the apostle to the Philippians? Christ Jesus in His perfect humiliation here and His glorious exaltation above need to speak afresh to all hearts. Particularly those who truly desire to live and walk according to Him (the worthy and unchanged Pattern and Object), should remember that He not only bore the sins of His people but left them an example to follow in His steps. It is too patent that professors of Christ are legion, though alas! such as were in Sardis of old, who have a name to live but are dead. No less the church in Laodicea specially marks the closing age of assumption and indifference, where the Lord is seen outside (if in grace still knocking at the door). Inside the thoughts and sayings are that they are rich and increased with goods and need nothing; they know not that in the Lord's sight and judgment they are poor, wretched and naked. This must ever be the case when Christ is despised for salvation, life, and righteousness; and mere profession even of religion without Him takes its place.
Most humbling too is the fact, confronting us on all sides, that so many true believers, in the enjoyment of the free forgiveness of their sins and of eternal life in Christ, are content to swim with the stream, and give their presence if not a helping hand to that system speedily to be judged. Such heed not the plain binding word enjoined by the Holy Spirit, "A form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:5). Those too, who did run well in the path of separation to the blessed name of their Lord (once content, however despised and few, with His all-sufficiency), seem sadly otherwise; they at least need to taste more fully the power of His presence Who deigns to be with those gathered to His name. May we ever recall the unchanging principle given to the believing Hebrew, amid much religious pretension and ritual, "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13). Of this the most faithful need to be reminded, together with the timely and encouraging words, "Behold I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3:11).
At a time when so many reasons if not excuses are given to yield and go back to objects and ways once left, it is important that the ear should be closed to the voices of men, and listen only to the voice of the unfailing Shepherd, Who will ever lead and guide by His unerring word until He come. An undivided heart with the cherished sense of the boundless grace of God will by the Holy Spirit produce a fuller and more worthy answer to the One to Whom each believer owes everything, and thus be found in company with the gracious character of Mephibosheth and even the apostle Paul. God grant that the spirit of a true disciple with Christ in His rejection may be more faithfully desired and entered into by all His own, not only denying self in every form but following Him alone for Whom they are left here. May we be kept from ever seeking to separate present suffering and coming glory, knowing "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him." Let us be assured that there is nothing (and never can be) to compare with Him Who loved and died for each and all His own, that they may be with and like Himself to His own joy and their eternal satisfaction.
Be it so, Lord Jesus, now and for ever for Thine own name's sake. Amen. G.G.