Matters are sometimes brought to a close point between God and the soul: it is stripped of all its comforts: the soul is in heaviness. 1 Peter 1:6. It is broken in the place of dragons and covered with the shadow of death, as the Psalmist most affectionately paints the scenes of horror and affliction. Psalm 44:19. So that as he says, "I had fainted, unless I had believed." Psalm 27: 13. Nothing within, nothing without, for the soul to stay itself upon, but the word of the Lord and the Lord revealed in the word. Then is that sweet word fulfilled, "they shall hang upon HIM all the glory of his father's house." Isaiah 22: 25.
This was Job's tried, tempted, afflicted, yet blessed state: though all his comforts are dead, still his "Redeemer liveth:" in the midst of all his losses he had not lost this blessed knowledge: I know: it is a matter of the greatest certainty to my soul, that there is a Redeemer for lost sinners; I know he is my Redeemer: I have seen my want of him, and my certain destruction without his redemption. He liveth; while he lives my hopes cannot die, my soul cannot despair; stript of all things beside, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. I know that Christ liveth at the right hand of God, because he lives in my heart by faith. Such is the language of this Old Testament saint. Says Luther, "I had utterly despaired had I not known that Christ was head of the church." "Head over all things to his body the church." Eph. 1:22.
But how is the soul enabled to say, with Job, Christ is my Redeemer, or, with Paul, he "loved me and gave himself for me?" By the word of grace we know there is a Redeemer; by the testimony of the Spirit of truth, through faith, the sinner is enabled to say he is mine, my beloved, my friend. There are two infallible evidences of this: Christ has both our hearts and our hopes: our heart is set upon him; our hopes centre in him. He is precious to our hearts: we have fellowship with him by faith; we know that he liveth, because we enjoy the comfort of his life and love in our souls; we know him both as dying for us and also as living in us; he dwells in our hearts by faith; he sends his tokens of love; he draws our affections to himself, from the world of sin and vanity. And our hopes are in him: his Spirit gives us to see such perfection in his glorious work and finished salvation as sickens to every other hope; yea, kills self-righteousness and self-confidence: we become "dead to the law by the body of Christ." Rom. 7:4 We may as soon place our confidence in the righteousness of the thief on the cross, as in any righteousness of our own: "We know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us." 1 John 3: 24.
*