Reformed Christian Studies

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER IX. BELIEVE JUST NOW You are in earnest now; but I fear you are making your earnestness your Christ, and actually using it as a reason for not trusting Christ immediately. You think your earnestness will lead on to faith, if it be but intense enough, and long enough persisted in. But there is such a thing as earnestness in the wrong direction; earnestness in unbelief, and a substitution of earnestness for simple faith in Jesus. You must not soothe the alarms of conscience by this earnestness of yours. It is unbelieving earnestness; and that will not do. What God demands is simple faith in the record which he has given you of his Son. You say, “I can’t give him faith, but I can give him earnestness; and by giving him earnestness, I hope to persuade him to give me faith.” This is self-righteousness. It shows that you regard both faith and earnestness as something to be done in order to please God, a

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER VIII. BELIEVE AND BE SAVED It is the Holy Spirit alone that can draw us to the cross and fasten us to the Saviour. He who thinks he can do without the Spirit, has yet to learn his own sinfulness and helplessness. The gospel would be no good news to the dead in sin, if it did not tell of the love and power of the divine Spirit, as explicitly as it announces the love and power of the divine Substitute. But, while keeping this in mind, we may try to learn from Scripture what is written concerning the bond which connects us individually with the cross of Christ; making us thereby partakers of the pardon and the life which that cross reveals. Thus then it is written, “By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Faith then is the link, the one link, between the sinner and the Sin-bearer. It is not faith, as a work or exercise of our minds, which must

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER VII. THE WORD OF THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL How shall I come before God, and stand in his presence, with happy confidence on my part, and gracious acceptance on his? This is the sinner’s question; and he asks it because he knows that there is guilt between him and God. No doubt this was Adam’s question when he stitched his fig leaves together for a covering. But he was soon made to feel that the fig leaves would not do. He must be wholly covered, not in part only; and that by something which even God’s eye cannot see through. As God comes near, the uselessness of his fig leaves is felt, and he rushes into the thick foliage of Paradise to hide from the Divine eye. The Lord approaches the trembling man, and makes him feel that his hiding place will not do. Then he began to tell him what will do. He announces a better covering and a better hiding place. He reveals himself as the God of grace, the God w

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER VI. THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE SUBSTITUTE Life comes to us through death; and thus grace bounds towards us in righteousness. This we have seen in a general way. But we have something more to learn concerning him who lived and died as the sinner’s substitute. The more that we know of his person and his works, the more shall we be satisfied, in heart and conscience, with the provision which God has made for our great need. Our sin-bearer is the Son of God, the eternal Son of the Father. Of him it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.” He is “in the Father, and the Father in him;” “the Father dwelleth in him;” “he that hath seen him hath seen the Father;” and “he that heareth him, heareth him that sent him.” He is the “Word made flesh;” “God manifest in flesh;” “Jesus the C

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER V. THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING But an inquirer asks, What is the special meaning of the blood, of which we read so much? How does it speak peace? How does it “purge the conscience from dead works?” What can blood have to do with the peace, the grace, and the righteousness of which we have been speaking? God has given the reason for the stress which he lays upon the blood; and, in understanding this, we get to the very bottom of the grounds of a sinner’s peace. The sacrifices of old, from the days of Abel downward, furnishes us with the key to the meaning of the blood, and explain the necessity for its being “shed for the remission of sins.” “Not without blood”[20] was the great truth taught by God from the beginning; the inscription which may be said to have been written on the gates of tabernacle and temple. For more than two thousand years, during the ages of the patriarchs, there was but one gr

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER IV. RIGHTEOUS GRACE We have spoken of God’s character as “the God of all grace.”[14] We have seen that it is in “tasting that the Lord is gracious” that the sinner has peace.[15] But let us keep in mind that this grace is the grace of a righteous God; it is the grace of one who is Judge as well as Father. Unless we see this we shall mistake the gospel, and fail in appreciating both the pardon we are seeking, and the great sacrifice through which it comes to us. No vague forgiveness, arising out of mere paternal love, will do. We need to know what kind of pardon it is; and whether it proceeds from the full recognition of our absolute guiltiness by him who is to “judge the world in righteousness.” The right kind of pardon comes not from love alone, but from law; not from good nature, but from righteousness; not from indifference to sin, but from holiness. The inquirer who is only half in earnest

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER III. GOD'S CHARACTER OUR RESTING-PLACE We have seen that a sinner's peace cannot come from himself, nor from the knowledge of himself, nor from thinking about his own acts and feelings, nor from the consciousness of any amendment of his old self. Whence, then, is it to come? How does he get it? It can only come from God; and it is in knowing God that he gets it. God has written a volume for the purpose of making himself known; and it is in this revelation of his character that the sinner is to find the rest that he is seeking. God himself is the fountainhead of our peace; his revealed truth is the channel through which this peace finds its way into us; and his Holy Spirit is the great interpreter of that truth to as: "Acquaint thyself now with God, and be at peace."[7] Yes, acquaintanceship with God is peace! Had God told us that he was not gracious, that he took no interest

GOD'S WAY OF PEACE A BOOK FOR THE ANXIOUS BY: HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. CHAPTER II. MAN'S OWN CHARACTER NO GROUND OF PEACE If God testify against us, who can testify for us? If God's opinion of man's sinfulness, his judgment of man's guilt, and his declaration of sin's evil be so very decided, there can be no hope of acquittal for us on the ground of personal character of goodness, either of heart or life. That which God sees in us furnishes only matter for condemnation, not for pardon. It is vain to struggle or murmur against God's judgment. He is the Judge of all the earth; and he is right as well as sovereign in his judgment. He must be obeyed; his law in inexorable; it cannot be broken without making the breaker of it (even in one jot or tittle) worthy of death. When the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the soul it sees this. Conviction of sin is just the sinner seeing himself as he is, and as God has all along seen him. Then every fond idea of self-