The Lord's Coming

Miscellaneous Writings of

C. H. MACKINTOSH

Volume II


LOIZEAUX BROTHERS
New York

FIRST EDITION 1898
TENTH PRINTING 1960


LOIZEAUX BROTHERS, Inc., PUBLISHERS
A Nonprofit Organization, Devoted to the Lord's Work
and to the Spread of His Truth
19 West 21st Street, New York 10, N. Y.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

The original numbering of these writings has been retained.
Many of the above may be had separately in pamphlet form.

"GOD FOR US"

(Romans VIII. 31.)

How much is wrapped up in these few words, "God for us!" They form one of those marvelous chains of three links so frequently found in Scripture. We have "God" linked on to "us" by that precious little word "for." This secures every thing, for time and eternity. There is not a single thing within the entire range of a creature's necessities that are not included in the brief but comprehensive sentence which forms the heading of this paper. If God be for us, then it follows, of necessity—blessed necessity—that neither our sins, nor our iniquities, nor our guilt, nor our ruined nature, nor Satan, nor the world, nor any other creature can possibly stand in the way of our present peace and our everlasting felicity and glory. God can dispose of all—has disposed of them, in such a way as to illustrate His own glory, and magnify His holy name, throughout the wide universe, forever and ever. All praise and adoration be to the eternal Trinity!

It may be, however, that the reader feels disposed, at the very outset, to inquire how he is to know his place amongst the "us" of our precious thesis. This, truly, is a most momentous question. Our eternal weal or woe hangs upon the answer. How, then, are we to know that God is for us? In reply to this most weighty question, we shall seek, by God's grace, to furnish the reader with five substantial proofs that God is for us, in all our need, our guilt, our misery, and our danger—for us, spite of all that we are, and all that we have done—for us, although there is no reason whatever, so far as we are concerned, why He should be for us, but every reason why He should be against us.

The first grand proof which we shall adduce is—

THE GIFT OF HIS SON.

"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 iii. 16.)

Now, we are glad, for various reasons, to commence our series of proofs with these memorable words. In the first place, they meet a difficulty which may suggest itself to the mind of an anxious reader—a difficulty based upon the fact that the sentence culled from Rom. viii. 31 evidently applies primarily to believers, and only to such, as does the entire epistle and every one of the epistles.

But, blessed be God, no such difficulty can be started in reference to the all-embracing, and encouraging words of Him who spake as never man spake. When we have from the lips of our blessed Lord Himself, the eternal Son of God, such words as these, "God so loved the world," we have no ground whatever for questioning their application to each and all who come under the comprehensive word "world." Before any one can prove that the free love of God does not apply to him, he must first prove that he does not form a part of the world, but that he belongs to some other sphere of being. If indeed, our Lord had said, "God so loved a certain portion of the world," call it what you please, then verily it would be absolutely necessary to prove that we belong to that particular portion or class, ere we could attempt to apply His words to ourselves. If He had said that God so loved the predestinated, the elect, or the called, then we must seek to know our place amongst the number of such, before we can take home to ourselves the precious assurance of the love of God, as proved by the gift of His Son.

But our Lord used no such qualifying clause. He is addressing one who, from his earliest days, had been trained and accustomed to take a very limited view indeed of the favor and goodness of God. Nicodemus had been taught to consider that the rich tide of Jehovah's goodness, loving-kindness, and tender mercy could only flow within the narrow inclosure of the Jewish system and the Jewish nation. The thought of its rolling forth to the wide wide world had never, we may safely assert, penetrated the mind of one trained amid the contracting influences of the legal system. Hence, therefore, it must