Grace is High When Hearts are Low

This meal presents God’s answer to the problem of evil. It does this in at least two respects. The first thing God wants to do with evil is forgive it, cleanse it, wash it away. His eternal design, established before all worlds, was to populate the resurrection with untold millions of forgiven sinners. The apostle John saw a multitude that no one could number standing before the throne. And here on this Table we see the foundation of that forgiveness. If Christ had not died under the wrath of God, as a propitiation for our sins, we would all be utterly lost. And that is the meaning of the broken bread here. That is the meaning of the red wine in the cup. Christ died in the place of sinners.

But a second answer to the problem of evil concerns the mere existence of evil. Why did God allow evil to come into existence at all? The answer is that so we might come to understand in practice how the lowliness of humility overthrows the greatness of the proud. We overcome evil when our graces are high, but our graces are only high when our hearts are low.

When our hearts are low, we see things in a spiritual light. A humble man will never think that anything is little or small if Christ is there. And that same humble man, if Christ is not there, will laugh at every pretended greatness. Now—is Christ here now? Is this a little thing? You will shortly have a morsel of bread in your hand, and you will have a taste of wine on your lips. What will that do? It throws down the principalities and powers, and it does so because Christ is here—as we see in evangelical faith. It does so because it embodies the gospel of grace, and that grace means that God was at work in the cross. What did He do? In humility, Christ became a propitiation, and we were forgiven. In humility, He modeled that humility for us to follow after we were forgiven, so that we might become the agents of extending His kingdom from the river to the ends of the earth.

So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.