God’s good news.
G. Campbell Morgan on the evangel of grace.
More often than not, I find myself returning to the sermons of the renowned orator of Westminster Chapel, G. Campbell Morgan, for insight and inspiration. Last year, I procured a ten-volume collection of his sermons called The Westminster Pulpit, which appears to be a somewhat unsystematic anthology of discourses covering both the Old and New Testaments. At times, Morgan’s reflective esotericism can be tedious. However, he proclaims Christ alone with authority and sincerity and is very often found returning to the heart of Scripture, a.k.a. the gospel of the grace of God. In that way, Morgan’s homiletical verve is reminiscent of the apostle Paul’s, who once divulged his evangelistic zeal by declaring, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
Morgan’s sermons expounding that scene, in particular, are incredibly evocative. For example, in one sermon entitled “The Evangel of Grace,” he attests that it is precisely the “gospel of the grace of God, which is the gospel of the Son of God, is the declaration of the attitude of God toward men” (7.133). The good news of God, you see, is good in every which way because it reveals that God’s heart is full of grace for each and every sinner. No matter what, the Christ of God has accomplished everything necessary for sinners to be welcomed at the Father’s throne. “The gospel of the grace of God,” writes Morgan, “is, first, a declaration in the history of the world that God loves men however they have sinned, however far they have wandered, however deep the stain may be, however polluted is the heart” (7.134).
However stained with sin we may be, no matter how marred and mangled our past and present might be, we have a portion with the Father because of the Son. This is what the gospel tells us. The gospel is God’s program of self-disclosure, a Trinitarian plot put into motion “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24; Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8) in which the posture of God the Father is shown to be one of unendingly welcoming mercy because of the sacrifice of God the Son. This is the definitive message that we are entrusted to declare. It is an unalterable announcement that God’s attitude toward every sinner is likewise unalterable. Morgan puts it this way:
God’s attitude toward the sinner is that of love stronger than death, mightier than the grave, so infinite and wonderful and profound that it stoops to the level of the ruined man, and, gathering to itself all the pain and agony resulting from sin, cancels it in the passion of His own heart. (7.123)
The passion of Christ put sin away. That’s what was happening on Mount Calvary, where a nondescript Jewish Rabbi and Friend of Gentiles was pegged to a wretched Roman cross in order to bring about atonement for a world full of sinners. On that horrible tree, Jesus was wiping away every sin and stain from our tainted record by becoming sin for us. As the apostle Paul proclaims to the church at Colossae, “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13–14). The nails that skewered the Lord to the cross were, at the same time, the proverbial “nails in the coffin” for sin and death.
The good news is that your sins and mine have been “canceled,” that is, they’ve been blotted out, smeared over, and wiped away. “The gospel,” Morgan says, “reveals the Divine passion, pain, agony, sorrow, whereby the past is canceled, made not to be, put away, forgiven” (7.138). This is good news, indeed — it is the announcement that our transgression has been forgiven, our sin covered, and the holiness of God credited to us on account of Christ alone (Ps. 32:1–2). Such is what allows us to know, understand, and believe that absolution for every iniquity is found in the agony of the Christ of God.
Grace and peace to you.
Works cited:
G. Campbell Morgan, The Westminster Pulpit: The Preaching of G. Campbell Morgan, Vols. 1–10 (Fincastle, VA: Scripture Truth Book Co., 1954).