| J.R. Miller D.D. | Page 15 |
Not from our sins only, but from all danger of whatever kind do we have shelter in Christ. The picture of the table spread in the wilderness in the presence of enemies is true of the believer in every sense. As the guest of God he is safe from every foe. St. Paul puts it in very strong words in the eighth of Romans: “If God is for us, who is against us?” Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
“Thou anointest my head with oil.” Anointing the head was one of the tokens of hospitality in the East. Jesus reminded Simon that he had failed as host in the honors shown to him as guest: “My head with oil thou didst not anoint.” Such anointing was the highest mark of respect that could be paid. Only the most distinguished guests were thus honored. When David uses these words here he means that he had been treated by the Lord as a most highly honored guest.
It seems strange to human reason that the God of heaven should so lavish his love and kindness upon sinners of a mortal race. We are apt to regard such words as exaggerations. But the Bible abounds in expressions of the same character. When the prodigal was about to return to his father, he said that he would ask for a servant’s place because he was not worthy to be called a son. Yet when he reached home he was received, not as a servant, but as a son. Jesus said,”I call you not servants,… I have called you friends.” The beloved disciple exclaimed, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God: and such we are.” No words can describe the honor and the blessedness of him who has become God’s child by receiving Jesus Christ. The best things of divine grace and glory are his. Being a child of God, he is also an heir, an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ. It is past comprehension, this wonderful loving-kindness of God that takes us in all our unworthiness, brings us into closest divine fellowship, and puts upon us the highest honors of the universe.
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