There is a great contest between God and man: man seeking to withdraw from God, and God following in patient, persistent love.
1. In general terms God keeps near us, however far away we go from Him.
Think of our forgetfulness of Him and His continual thought of us. Think of our alienated hearts and His unchanging love.
We cannot turn away His care, we cannot exhaust His compassion, we cannot alienate His heart. All men everywhere are objects of these, as in every corner of the world the sky is overhead, and all lands have sunshine.
What a picture of divine patience and placability that truth points for us! It shows the Father coming after His prodigal son, and so surpasses even the pearl of the parables.
2. The special reference to Christ's work.
That work is the exhibition in manhood and to men of a perfect righteousness.
It is the implanting in the corrupt world of a new beginning. It is the clothing us with Christ's righteousness, for which we are forgiven and in which we are sanctified.
So Christ's work is God's coming to bring near His righteousness, and now it is nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart.'
