September 17

"This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

WHEN does this acquaintance between God and man commence? It commences in reconciliation—it commences at the time of man's peace with God. I can form no acquaintance with an individual against whom my heart cherishes deep, inveterate, and deadly enmity; my very hatred, my very dislike to that individual prevents me from studying his character, from analyzing his heart, and from knowing what are his feelings towards me. But bring me into a state of amity with that individual—remove my enmity, take away my dislike, propitiate his feelings towards me, and then I am in a position for studying and becoming acquainted with his character. The Holy Spirit does this in man; He takes away the enmity of the sinner's heart, humbles his spirit, and bows it in penitence; constrains the sinner to lay down the weapons of his hostility against God—brings him to see that the God against whom he has been battling and fighting all his life is a God of love, a God who draws sinners to Himself, a God who is reconciled in Jesus Christ.

That soul, disarmed of its rebellion and enmity, is now brought into a position for the study of God's character. Looking at God now, not through the law, but through the gospel, not in creation, but in Christ, he is in a position for becoming acquainted with God. And oh what an acquaintance he now forms! All his dark and shadowy conceptions vanish away; all his distorted views are rectified; and the God that he thought was a God so hateful, a God whose law was so repulsive, a God who was so harsh and tyrannical, he sees now to be a God of infinite mercy and love in Jesus Christ: now he becomes acquainted with Him as a sin-pardoning God, blotting out the utmost remnant of his transgressions; he becomes acquainted with Him as a God reconciled in Christ, and therefore a Father pacified towards him. Oh! what a discovery is made to him of that God, with whom before his soul lived in the darkest and deepest alienation!

Thus he becomes acquainted with God, when his heart becomes reconciled to God. A closer and more simple view of Jesus, a daily study of Jesus, must deepen my acquaintance with God. As I know more of the heart of Christ, I know more of the heart of the Father; as I know more of the love of the Savior, I know more of the love of Him who gave me that Savior; as I know more of His travail of soul, to work out my redemption—as I know more of the tears of blood He shed—as I know more of the groans of agony He breathed—as I know more of the convulsions through which He passed—as I know more of the death-throes of the spotless soul of His—I know more of the heart of God, more of the character of God, and more of the love of God. Want you to see more of the glory of God? See it in the face of Jesus. Learn it in the "brightness of the Father's glory," learn it in "the express image of His person," as it stands revealed to you in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.