Hope beyond circumstance.
Octavius Winslow on the unfailing relief of Psalm 130.
A few weeks ago, I preached from Psalm 130, where the anonymous psalmist cries out for divine help from “the depths.” Each line of this “Song of Ascents” effectively illustrates the contours of suffering and sorrow and the relief that springs from God’s Word, which imbues the tormented soul with hope (Ps. 130:5). As I was preparing to deliver that sermon, I remembered that Octavius Winslow’s exposition of Psalm 130 was sitting on my shelf. In Souls-Depths and Soul-Heights, Winslow takes a look at this heart-wrenching psalm through a series of discourses that are injected with his particular evangelical and experiential brand of theology, which blends a firm grip on Reformed doctrine with a deep understanding of how that doctrine is moored to daily Christian living. This aim is evident throughout his commentary on Psalm 130 but especially in Chapter 7 where he steers the sufferer to put their hope in Christ alone notwithstanding their present trial. Winslow writes:
There is but one divinely revealed and assured hope of heaven, and it centres wholly and exclusively in the Saviour of sinners. The atonement of Christ touches the soul, and meets its case at every point. There could be no hope of the sinner’s pardon and justification consistently with divine justice, holiness, and truth apart from the obedience, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ . . .
There is no circumstance in which we may be placed, no condition in which we may be involved, no lack, or danger, or impossibility, draping our path with lowering clouds of dark despair, but the soul may yet fix its hope in God . . . We may hope in his forgiveness, to cancel our greatest sins; in his wisdom, to guide our most intricate perplexity; in his power, to raise us up from the lowest depth; in his love, to soothe our profoundest grief; in his resources, to supply our every need; and in his faithfulness, to make good the word of promise upon which he has caused our souls to hope. (95, 98–99)
Winslow captures the scope of the psalmist’s journey from harrowing adversity to hopeful expectation. This, of course, isn’t some saccharine sentiment meant to make the sufferer feel better. Rather, as an echo of the psalmist, Winslow offers a certain hope that is centered on the Christ of God. “Christ,” he attests, “is the foundation, the object, and the end of the believing sinner’s hope” (95). Whereas the psalmist’s assurance of relief revolves around the promise of the Word, Winslow’s, like ours, revolves around the person of the Word with whom “there is forgiveness” (Ps. 130:4). The ultimate relief, then, for sinners and sufferers is precisely what the person of the Son shows up to dispense — namely, “plentiful redemption” and absolution that cannot be quantified. “Innumerable as your sins are,” Winslow continues, “aggravated as is your guilt, bankrupt of all merit and fitness and claim but that which your character and case as the chief of sinners supplies — you yet may hope in Christ” (97).
The hand of God, then, is unhesitatingly extended to everyone, notwithstanding their circumstances. His promise of relief isn’t qualified by any laundry list of parameters nor is the hope he offers only applicable to a select group of individuals. Indeed, the ubiquity of our grief and guilt cannot eclipse the prevalence of his grace for us. In that way, we ought not to set limits on that which cannot be contained or confined. As deep and as fierce as our predicaments may run, deeper still is God’s steadfast love, which, as Winslow remarks, remains “unpurchasable and most free”:
See, then, that, in the stupendous matter of your salvation you do not limit that which in its efficacy Christ has made illimitable; that you append no conditions to that which God has made unconditional; that you attempt not to purchase by fancied worthiness of your own that which the infinite merit of Jesus has made unpurchasable and most free. (103)
A contemporary of other theological titans like J. C. Ryle and Charles Spurgeon, Winslow’s works are a testament to the ageless hope that those who belong to Christ have because of Christ. Although our lives are marbled with mayhem and mishaps, there is an infinite reservoir of relief made available to us through the body and blood of God’s only Son. Every aggrieved and afflicted soul is, therefore, invited to find in him solace that never ebbs and hope that suffuses every circumstance
Grace and peace.
Works cited:
Octavius Winslow, Souls-Depths and Soul-Heights: An Exposition of Psalm 130 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2011).
Thank you for this reflection.