The Threefold Marvel # 2

The Threefold Marvel # 2

Yet Jehovah is not only the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity - but "whose name is Holy" (Isaiah 57:15). His very nature is ineffably pure. To His immaculate eyes, the heavens themselves are unclean (Job 15:15), "the stars are not pure in his sight" (Job 25:5). "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity" (Hab. 1:13). If - then, it is an incredible thing for the great God to dwell on the earth, if it would be an incomprehensible thing for Him to tabernacle in a finite creature of time - even if that creature were himself sinless - what shall it be for One who is infinitely Holy to dwell within one that is fallen, corrupt, and vile? That is indeed a marvel and miracle of grace - appreciated only in proportion as we apprehend Who He is - and what we are!

We read that "the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together" (Isaiah 11:6), and that is a miracle of nature; but for the Holy One to indwell a sinner is a miracle of miracles, the transcendent marvel of grace!

Yes, it is not only a marvel of condescension that the infinite God should indwell a finite creature - but SECONDLY, it is also a miracle of Divine mercy that the ineffably Holy One should take up His abode in the heart of a fallen and sinful creature. Were it not that the Word of Truth clearly and repeatedly taught this - we had not dared to affirm it, nor even imagine such a wonder for ourselves. "Though the Lord is exalted, He takes of the humble" (Psalm 138:6). O that our hearts were duly affected by His peerless graciousness. If they were, we would exclaim with the Psalmist, "Who is like the Lord our God - the One enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the garbage pile in order to seat them with nobles - with the nobles of His people!" (Psalm 113:5-8). The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy - yet "the God of all grace" (1 Peter 5:10). "I live in a high and holy place - but also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit" (Isaiah 57:15).

That exhibits to us, THIRD, a marvel and miracle of Divine power. By nature, there are none of "a contrite and humble spirit." So far from it, all the fallen children of Adam are in love with sin and self! The world over - the unregenerate are intractable, impenitent, proud, and self-willed. It is only by the supernatural operations of Divine power - that the wild are tamed, the stout-hearted made contrite, and the haughty become lowly.

Above, we have said that the great God takes up His abode in a worm of the earth - yet it is not one considered as a "worm of the earth" that He does so. No, rather is it as one upon whom the Lord had set His heart from before the foundation of the world, as one redeemed by Christ and cleansed by His precious blood, as one who has been renewed by the Holy Spirit, as one who has thrown down the weapons of his warfare and surrendered to the claims of God, as one who has been made a new creature by the might of Omnipotence. Wonder and adore at this threefold marvel and miracle!

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)