What Jesus Says About the Greatest Thing on
Earth
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do....
Luke 23:34
The greatest thing one may know in this life is to be assured that he is right with God. As Jesus looked about Him, He saw tragic evidence of the terrible enemy of man. Wherever He went, He encountered those who were potential sons of God, but whose fellowship with the Father had been destroyed by this one enemy. Wherever He turned He observed the progress of humanity arrested by this one deadly foe — sin.
John Bunyan in The Holy War describes how Mansoul, the human heart, had opened the gate to Diabolus. Subjugating the inhabitants of the city, Diabolus led them in revolt against the King of Heaven and plunged the domain into darkness. The Prince Emmanuel came to recapture Mansoul for the Kingdom of God and set the captives free. This is the main mission of Jesus Christ.
Is it not strange that this generation which has suffered
Page 73
so much from evil should be so indifferent or so ignorant of the reality of sin and its consequences? Chad Walsh has written, "We are suffering from mass rationalization." We know that humanity is in a mess, but we blame everything and everybody but ourselves. We will not face the obvious facts that war, oppression, crime, and most forms of human anguish have their source in the human heart. Is it not true that that which we see written large in the world around us is first to be read in our own hearts?
The Master Teacher points out that man's biggest problem is himself. He is "off center." Man is made to revolve around the holy will of the Father, to be centered in God, but man has chosen to be self-centered and self-willed. Like a derelict planet breaking from its orbit, he has plunged into spiritual darkness far from the light and life of God. To bring man back to the Father and restore the ruptured relationship, Christ the Saviour came.
Let us glance briefly at what the Master taught about sin — Public Enemy Number One. To Jesus, sin was anything and everything that separated man from his God and man from his neighbor. He taught that the fundamental barrier between man and God and man and his brother is not intellectual, but moral, not philosophical, but personal. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). Or to put it in a positive way, He said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" (John 7:17).
God is not to be known by the massing of all the facts and phenomena of science. Nor is He to be discovered by some
Page 74
clever deductions of logic. If this were the basis for knowing God, only those with high I.Q.'s would be in the front rank spiritually; heaven would be made up of a group of carefully screened Ph.D.'s. The value of learning and the gifts of intelligence are not to be minimized, but the approach to God is a personal and moral one. What we do with the light we already have is all important.
Mansoul, duped by Diabolus, does not really want a king. That's the trouble. He wants to be king himself. He desires to make his own laws, order his own ways. This brings him into conflict with the real King. Sin is the willful transgression of the King's statutes, whether the commandments be written on tables of stone or impressed deep upon the consciences of every man. Their rejection brings ruin.
Jesus saw sin as a blow at a loving heart. Sin not only harms the sinner; it hurts the great loving heart of God. The deepest shadow in the parable of the Prodigal Son is not the suffering of the wayward boy, but the sorrow of a grieving and lonely father. To have a loved son who will not abide in the father's house, who does not choose the father's love, who does not want the father's will, but goes into a far country where he can live as he pleases, is by far the greater sorrow. This is the tragedy concerning man in the teaching of our Lord.
A few months ago my telephone rang early in the morning and I heard the voice of a man in a distant city. He told me that his son had run away from home and that he was being held in Juvenile Hall in the city in which I lived. He asked if I would stand by his son until he arrived to take him home. He
Page 75
told me of the background of the situation. There had been increasing friction between parents and son, defiance and disobedience on the part of the lad. He had drifted further and further into evil associations and companionships. Finally, there came the crisis. The boy had slammed the door in the face of his father and had chosen to go his own way. As I heard this story, I knew that the greater grief was not in the heart of the boy, but in the heart of the father. Sin is a grief to God.
Our Lord also took a serious view of sin. He hated passionately the evil things that shattered lives and separated men from God. In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan has about him a certain glamour. He is "quite a boy," even in his evil ways. But there is no such attitude toward sin on the part of our Lord. He sees it as unmitigated and absolute wrong. The cross is the final measure of the seriousness of sin. Sin will crucify the Son of God, put to death everything that is good and decent and high and holy, and plunge the soul into darkness. Sin is terrible. Though it is not a cheerful subject, it may be good for us to see the consequences of evil through the eyes of Christ. Sin produces a tormented conscience. Although the prodigal son is held in the embrace of his father, his heart and his conscience are still in a far country, unreconciled and without peace.
No sooner had Peter denied his Lord and the Master had turned to look upon him, that he went out into the night and wept bitterly. There was no scourge upon Peter's back. There were no chains upon his wrists. Why then was he pulled into the darkness? He was driven by his sense of shame. So Judas Iscariot, after he had betrayed his Lord and heard the shouts of the crowd calling for the blood of Christ, found the thirty
Page 76
pieces of silver red-hot in his hand. Returning to the high priest and cohorts, he cried, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." They answered, "What is that to us? See thou to it!" With a cry of anguish, Judas flung the coins upon the pavement of the temple and rushed out into the night to take his life. Remorse lashed the soul of Judas.
Today, psychiatrists and therapists are besieged by patients whose sins will not let them sleep, whose sense of moral guilt and failure pursues them without pity, giving them no rest or inner peace. Perhaps you know the wretchedness of one before whom conscience stands with an accusing finger. What release and relief for such a one to know the pardon and peace of God which Jesus Christ brings to those who come in repentance to Him.
Another teaching of our Lord is that wrong doing results in an enslaved will. "...Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (John 8:34). There is no slavery as cruel, as intolerable as the slavery of sin. Let the alcoholic speak. Let the one in bondage to lust say a word. Let someone testify who knows the domination of a critical heart and a cutting tongue. Oh, the galling yoke of resentment, bitterness, and hate!
Jesus came "to preach deliverance to the captives... to set at liberty them that are bruised." He said, "If the Son therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Is there a higher liberty than this, to be free from ourselves, to live in the will of God? He teaches that the ultimate consequence of sin is judgment. How readily we accept the revelation of our Lord concerning God's love and mercy, but how slow we are to accept the revelation of His righteousness and justice! One fact shines out clearly in the teaching of our Lord. Sin, if persisted in, has consequences which reach beyond this life into
Page 77
eternity, and ultimately everyone will stand before the eternal justice of God. Consider the solemnity of the words which Jesus uses — "lost," "outer darkness," "everlasting fire," "weeping," "gnashing of teeth," "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Such terms convey a message of inexorable judgment.
"But," you say, "I don't believe in judgment. God is too good to damn a person, too good ever to punish." Whether we recognize it or not, we already live in a moral universe. Let a man trifle with truth, live a life of deceit, and he will see what it does to human relationships. Let a man abandon purity, embrace lust, and he will find out what it does to love. Let someone assert himself, trample upon the rights of others, and see what it does to friendships and family. Live solely for self and see the prison-house of selfishness which incarcerates the soul. Judgment is already operating.
It might be well to walk through the ruins of Berlin, sit down in the rubble, and meditate upon what history has to say about those who depart from the ways of God. Stand in front of some of the defaced monuments to Mussolini in North Africa and consider that the way of the transgressor is hard. What Christ is saying is that the law which is now in operation in human life extends into eternity. How great then, how incalculably great, is the gift of pardon! Our sins can be forgiven, the past covered, and the soul made right with a holy God. This is what Christ can do.
Most serious of all, sin separates us from the Father. Fellowship with the Father is the end and purpose of life. Sin carried the Prodigal away from the father's house, and beyond sight of the father's face. The father did not close the door.
Page 78
The father did not bar the gate. He did not withdraw his favor. The Prodigal himself walked away into the far country.
Jesus seems particularly aware of the loneliness of the sinner. The prodigal finds himself in a far country beyond the fellowship of his friends, beyond the companionship of his brethren, beyond his father's face. The one lost sheep is alone in the wilderness. Can any greater goodness come to man than to be welcomed home to God? Is there any deeper satisfaction than the knowledge that one is found by his father and received into his heart forever? This is the satisfaction the Good Shepherd can bring to us.
A young couple were having difficulty with their small boy. As they sat down at the dinner table, they admonished, "Now, Johnny, if you misbehave again, you will have to eat alone in the kitchen." Johnny continued as though he had not heard. Time came for action, and so they took Johnny to the kitchen, put his plate upon the sideboard, and settled him on a stool. Firmly they said, "Johnny, you must eat alone, but we will remain until you have returned thanks." Johnny bowed his head and prayed, "I thank Thee, Lord, for preparing a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." But God does not take us apart, shut the door, and isolate us from Himself. In the Garden of Eden, it was God who called, "Adam, where art thou?" God was seeking. Adam was fleeing. It is sin that separates us from God. It is the Saviour who brings us back.
If the Master teaches the seriousness of sin, He also reveals the certainty of salvation. He is the sinner's Friend. We cannot miss this fact as we read the gospels. He sought sinners out. The self-righteous were scandalized. They said, "He receiveth sinners and eateth with them." But Jesus was seeking them that He might save them. He delighted to walk by the
Page 79
seashore, where the wrecks came in. He loved to take the battered driftwood of life in His strong hands and make it new for God. To the shameful woman of Samaria, rejected by those of her little village, He offered the cleansing water of life. To the quisling tax-collector, Zaccheus — up a tree and out on a limb — He called, "Make haste, and come down, for today I must abide at thy house." Christ transformed him, made him new. He stooped and washed the feet of Judas Iscariot in a last appeal of love. He prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," while a sea of hatred and cruelty rolled over Him. Jesus seeks the sinner. There is not one instance in all the gospels in which He rebukes the earnest, repentant heart, not one occasion in which He refuses to meet the need of the humble seeker. He ministers to all. He goes to the greatest lengths to reach all — even to the cross.
The record becomes exciting when we understand that Christ gives full and final forgiveness to the one penitent in heart. He restores him to fellowship with God without qualification, without probation, without insisting on certain requirements or regulations to be fulfilled. He immediately reconciles the sinner to God. A helpless paralytic is laid at His feet. The Saviour sees a deeper malady — a disease of the soul. "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thy house." With cleansed heart and in newness of life, the man leaps up and goes his way praising God. The greater miracle is the healing of the soul.
A woman of notorious reputation enters the house of Simon the Pharisee, where Jesus is dining. Bathing His feet with her tears, she pours upon Him her devotion. Simon, knowing what kind of a woman she is, says to himself, "...This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of
Page 80
woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner" (Luke 7:39). Our Lord, knowing what was in the mind of Simon, said, "...Her sins, which are many, are forgiven: for she loved much..." (Luke 7:47). And turning to the woman, He adds, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7:50). Her tears were the tears of gratitude, of a heart already cleansed, of a life already at peace with the Father. Jesus gives immediate, full, and final forgiveness.
The thief upon the cross cries out, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom..." And Jesus turns without hesitation and says, "To day, shalt thou be with me in paradise." Jesus gives immediate and complete restoration to God.
Shortly after the worst of the blitz, a visitor to London was walking down Old Bailey Street and saw the Statue of Justice towering above the ruin and rubble around it. It spoke to him of the truth that when man ignores the justice of God, chaos comes. As he was meditating, he saw, beyond the Statue of Justice, St. Paul's Cathedral. Across the dome, still intact, bright in the morning sunlight, shone a cross. Above the ruin of sin, there is the redemption of God. Christ came not only to point the way, but to be the Way, to reach down by His atoning death to lift us in mercy to God. There is salvation for the sinner. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "...God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them..." (II Cor. 5:19).
Dr. E. Stanley Jones tells of a boys' school in the old days of strict discipline. There was a rule that anyone caught stealing would be flogged in front of the class. A little hunchback
Page 81
was caught stealing a fellow student's lunch. He was called before the teacher, who said to the lad, "Take off your shirt for the beating." The boy, ashamed of his twisted spine, cried out "No! not that!" The large boy whose lunch he had stolen raised his hand and said, "Is there any reason why I may not take the beating for him?" The teacher thought for a moment. "No, not as far as I know." "Then sir, permit me." He went forward and took off his own shirt, receiving the lashing for the other boy.
This is the cross. God does not stand afar off as a judge without feeling. In the Person of Christ, the holy and righteous One reaches out to the world in compassion, carrying the full penalty and hurt of our sins. In justice, He forgives all who come in Christ's name to receive His pardon. Let me face myself, acknowledge my condition, give myself to God, and receive from Jesus Christ the greatest thing there is — forgiveness and a life in full fellowship with the Father.
