08. Chapter 8: Grace for Grace

Chapter VIII.

GRACE FOR GRACE.

John 1:16. — Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Psa 36:9. — For with Thee is the fountain of life.

Inthe last chapter we have had much to say about the applications of sanctifying grace, and in the last but one something of its nature. Here is a Scripture which speaks of it again, and describes a delightful special aspect of our derivation of grace from its fountain. On the first clause of the quotation fromSt JohnI say but little. Only observe that it points to Jesus Christ as the embodiment, the reservoir, the fountain, of all that grace means for us (John 1:12). And it speaks of the vital connexion of us, of His believing followers, with Him as a definite and accomplished fact. “We have received,” or, somewhat more literally, “we did receive. ”Of himself and of all believersSt Johnsays this. They have come into receptive contact with Jesus Christ, with the divine fulness that is in Him. “The Spirit of faith” has come (2Co 4:13). The work of submissive trust has been wrought in the soul, the trust which looks not at itself but at the trusted One alone. Then the soul is not only in the hands of its blessed Rescuer; it has come into spiritual continuity with His exalted Life. “Virtue is gone out of Him” (Mark 5:30); His strength into their impotence, His peace into their nature’s war. Because He lives, they live also (John 14:19). The last clause of the quotation speaks of a certain mode, or phase, of our reception of this fulness, this “grace of life” (1Pe 3:7) which once could not flow into us, but to which now our will, our being, thanks be to God, has opened wide the door. Let us examine it.

“Grace for grace. ” On the word “grace” I have said a little already, [Note: Chapter 7] and will not repeat it. I assume the reader’s rememberance of the truth that sanctifying grace is no mere impersonal “substance,” but “God working in us”; the Lord in action in our very springs of thought and will. Now observe the phrase before us here; “grace for grace. ”Quite literally — I know not how to render more exactly — the words run, “Grace instead of grace. ”

What does it mean? Surely the thought, the image, is of a perpetual succession of supply; a displacement and replacement ever going on; ceaseless arrivals of all that is needed for the ceaseless changes of need and demand. The picture before us is as of a river. Stand on its banks, and contemplate the flow of waters. A minute passes, and another. Is it the same stream still? Yes, assuredly, the sameThames, or Wye, that ran ages ago in our forefathers’ sight. But is it the same water? No. The liquid mass that passed you a few seconds ago fills now another section of the channel; new water has displaced it, or if you please, replaced it; water instead of water. And so hour by hour, and year by year, and century by century, the process holds; one stream, other waters, living not stagnant, because always in the great identity there is perpetual change.

Even so in the Christian’s life, and in that derived fulness which is its secret of plenty and of peace. Hour comes instead of hour, joy instead of joy, snare instead of snare, trial and pain and loss instead of other like things of yesterday. But so also with the supply, the successions and exchanges of strength and blessing that come of the unchanging and unsuccessional presence in the believing man of Him whom he has received. Grace takes the place of grace; ever new, ever old, ever the same, ever fresh and young, for hour by hour, for year by year, through life. Our verse delightfully negatives the thought of grace as a something to be stored up in our own hands on occasions; a limited supply, to be economized and managed, and made to last, till it runs dry, or almost dry, and must be replenished by some new means. Here it flows for us, by us, in us, for evermore; ever passing, ever abiding, "new every morning, failing not,” (Lam 3:22)for the soul which is in contact with the eternal source.

Let us go forth in peace, in the peace which is itself a power, in great peace, while peace most humble, recollecting this truth, into the “changes and chances of this mortal life. ” No two days and hours are quite alike; no two hearts and lives. On this we have already dwelt, as we considered [Note: Chapter 7] the manifoldness of need. But here is the heavenly antidote to the trials of succession, as we saw it above to the trials ofmultiplicity. For the succession in us there is this divine succession in our Lord. For the struggles of yesterday He was present with the needed fulness. That fulness is not attenuated by the “out-going” of the “virtue” then; for it comes to us in this unwearying exchange and newness. It is full, in the same channel but a new flood, for the struggles of to-day. And to-morrow it shall be the same.

What is your special need? Is it some great sorrow of loss — loss of strength, of wealth, of affection, of beloved ones who lighted up your life? Is it some great problem of action, duty new and momentous, accumulations of demand upon your narrow hours? Is it the perplexity of wandering thoughts in the hour of hearing God’s Word, or of prayer? Is it some other need altogether internal, defilements in the inmost world of imagination and desire, stirrings of corruption far within? Is it need markedly external, temptation to principle, to patience, coming upon you from without? Is it the agonies of perplexity [Note: How different are such pains from the unhappy complacency of a mind vain of its doubts, or proud in them! When Asaph (Psalms 73 : ) was brought to rest, by the simplest looking off to God, he did not say, “How intellectual I am!” but “So foolish was I, and ignorant. ” But what a dire conflict it was while it lasted, before he be-thought him of carrying it into “the sanctuary”!] about some mystery of the Word and Ways of God? Is it the need implied in a life of toil, or that which comes with leisure, the solemn trust of hours with which you "may do what you will”? Is it pangs of memory, or of anticipation — present griefs, though not caused by the present? Of the pangs of memory, is it one of the worst — recollection of a time when a peace and joy in Jesus Christ were yours which are not yours to-day? Of the pangs of anticipation is it one of the most wearing — expectation of future failure in your life and service for your Lord?

It is need for need, weakness for weakness. Yes, but behold also grace for grace; not for yesterday, but for to-day; and for to-morrow when to-morrow is to-day. Be sure of this, that your Lord and Life will never, no, not for an hour, or for a minute, leave you with an inadequate supply of “Himself working in you, to will and to do” — to begin again, or to go on again, willing and doing — “for His good pleasure’s sake” (Php 2:13). Do not fear the certainty of perpetual needs. Do not fear the fact that the Enemy will attempt you to the last, and that to the last “in your flesh” will “dwell no good thing” (Rom 7:13). Do not be disheartened by the longest retrospect of failures. Look, and see for this moment the moment’s divine succession of supply in Jesus Christ. And be perfectly sure that neither for this moment nor any other is there “fulness” anywhere else.

I have quoted at the head of the chapter those words of the Psalmist which lead us up the River to its Source. “For with Thee is the fountain of Life”; with Thee, Jehovah; with Thee, Jehovah-Christ, for “in Thee is Life”; “he that that Thee hath life. ”

Let that verse just remind us of the duty and the blessing of continual remembrance of Him as our reason and our rest. There is such a thing as studying even the “possibilities of grace” more than Him who is “the God of all grace” (1Pe 5:10).

It is because of what He is that His people are, even for a moment, what He would have them be. And one deep secret of the development in them of what He would have there, is the contemplation of Him (2Co 3:18). Our life and walk, in a sense most practical, need be no intermittent stream of peace and of obedience. Why?Because He is no intermittent spring. Every winter, in modernJerusalem, a remarkable phenomenon is observed. The channel of the Kedron, usually dry as the valley of dry bones, suddenly resounds with the music of waters. Whatever be the natural cause hidden in the geology of the ravine, for some for or five days the Kedron suddenly and abundantly springs and flows; or, to speak more exactly, it begins abundantly, shrinks somewhat on the second day, and ere long, failing day by day, it has retired into the dry rocks again. Strange and pathetic intermittency!True picture and parable of too many a Christian life and experience!But need it be?“For with Him is the fountain of Life”; “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (Song of Solomon 4:12; if we may borrow words of the Holy Song, though they are spoken directly not of Him but of His Bride); shut up, and sealed, as to all access outside of Him; but “a fountain opened” (Zec 13:1), not only for pardon, but for life and power, to all who are in Him.

Come then, let us come now and ever, to the waters (Isa 55:1). The eternal Rock is smitten, and is flowing; and where? In the desert, in the drought; to turn the sands into the oasis; to make “the wilderness and the solitary place glad” now (Isa 35:1; Isa 35:7).

It is written of the everlasting Canaan that “they shall thirst no more, for the Lamb shall shepherd them, and lead them to the living fountains of waters” (Revelation 16-17). But it is also written of the pathway thither, that “they shall not thirst, for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them (Isa 49:10), even by the springs of water shall He guide them” (1Jn 5:11). Let us ask Him to do it indeed. Then we “shall not be careful in the year of drought, nor cease from yielding fruit” (Jer 17:8).