The peace and the evil of the gospel

Under the thunderous rebuke of a suffering God of love, "Get Thee behind Me", His beloved Son was made a lightning rod to save our tabernacles from burning down. Like a hundred megawatt electrocution we see God's rightful anger again and again strike His Anointed One. The Guilty One would be our Surety, forever to bear our sin, to bring us home again, and to set us before our Father (see Genesis 43:9). The agitating cutting off from the eternal Spirit of acceptance gagged His throat (see Psalm 22:15), with every nerve jangling, cellular structures dissolving, internal organs bursting (see verse 14), His blood pressure soaring. All Jesus could do was to barely hang on. Divine wrath overthrew the Divine Son of man in retribution upon all the abominations that have ever characterized us, His most beloved creation. Beholding His execution in our damnation, our conscience is shocked with conviction, crucified with Christ. His unrelenting spiritual electrocution from the Judge shunts our pride to ground, our natural self-centeredness thrust into the grave. A new power jolts our mind, awakening it to holier desires and purposes. We are delivered from Satan's hold and a new nature comes to life.

The Son of God saw Himself forever giving up His paradise so that we could replace Him, He forever paying the tremendous cost for our reinstatement to His Father's kingdom. On the cross the Prince of heaven must suffer our damnation and eternal extinction, so that humanity might eternally take His exalted place and privileges as heir to His beloved Father. By all that the servant lamb could know from His senses was that He would be forever buried, His Holy Father's Spirit forever lost to Him. He felt that He would never again hold communion that had been wonderful beyond measure. He must lose His greatest pleasure, dwelling in the excellent Spirit of His Abba. For sin to be forever put away, He must be forever shut away. And the tempter was present to persuade Him that, just as His disciples felt no sympathy for Him in His present distress, neither would anyone of humanity take advantage of His provision for their reconciliation with His Father. All this torment would be for nothing. Still, He never lost hold of faith in His Father's love to send His Spirit to call His children to Himself.

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. 2:9-11).

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to every nation in the Latter Rain.

This gospel is the promise that stands opposed to the Law, as Paul put it.

"And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

For if the inheritance be of the Law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise." (Gal. 3:17,18).

I want to look at this very pivotal issue.

Paul appears--appears--to pit the grace of God against the Law of God. But the Lord made both the blessings and the curses. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isa. 45:7). The evil He creates is not satanic, but the catastrophes that He would providentially use to punish His people. Hence, the curses propounded by Moses "the man of God" (Deut. 33:1). God would stop their sinning. To those who refused to be corrected and who therefore were fully determined to be wicked, death would rear up it's ugly head higher and higher as a divine threat determined against them. Finally, if they kept shaking their fist at correction, capital punishment would be theirs. Their rebellion, their destruction, had to be stopped. "To sin, wherever found, 'our God is a consuming fire.' Hebrews 12:29. In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them." Desire of Ages, p. 107.

Law and grace, Law and the promise, Law and the inheritance, don't have to be in opposition. But sin has made it be dealt that way.

"Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." (Gal. 3:21).

It was for exaggerated distinction that Paul seemed to pit the wonderful reconciliation with God and its accompanying promise of His Spirit, against the Law.

Paul was not against law. "God forbid!", says Paul. "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (Rom. 3:31).

But God's requirement was that commandment-keeping can never precede promise-receiving. Never! Never! "Even for ever and ever." ( Dan. 7:18). Divine mercy must precede obedience. Grace must cause obedience. Never the other way around. This is God's science of our salvation, and Satan's constant target. The satanic doctrine that obedience must cause grace? Law keeping causing divine favor? Abomination straight from the bottomless pit!

Who can repent and be converted on their own? What human can initiate the process of his salvation? Who can remove the chastisement of his peace, the wrath of God for not trusting in the crucifixion of His Son? No, not one. That is all purely human "works". And humanism never got anyone anywhere, among the religious or in the secular world. But it gets tried a trillion times a day by 7.8 billion people. This, simply because the human race doesn't know what Jesus did for us and for His Father, we all naturally seek righteousness of our own ethical resources. But our own devised program is filthy, gross wretchedness. Also, the wrath of God abides upon us. So our program is not only putrid, it is also tormenting. But God's chastisement of our peace, that terrible anxiety and emptiness is given to our hearts to lay our pride in the dust, that no flesh should glory in His presence. Yet, He has provided His resolution. "The chastisement of our peace was upon (His Son)." (Isa. 53:5).

Will we go to Gethsemane and Golgotha, and stay there until it all makes sense? Will we plead for the promised power to give us the shield from the condemning curse of the Law upon us? No matter how many times Satan demands that we let go of Jesus, will we cry out, "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me" (Gen. 32:26)?

Then we will see what Paul saw in Romans 7. All our efforts to obey God are an impossibility, and the wrath of God will continue, until we let the propitiation of the only Begotten of God sink in. When we have searched for God's love with all our hearts, His promise is, "I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive." (Jer. 29:14).

We have sought His face; we have sought out the unknown God of ellusive love. He has revealed His love in power, and all the condemnation has gone away.

Now we can obey Him and His Law. And we are perfectly happy to do so. Obedience comes naturally, easily, freely, peacefully, and perfectly in His eyes. And down comes the continuous blessing from the Father, "This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

This is the promise that flows down from within the veil.

And that is His promise.