[Page 1]
GOD’S WAY OF HOLINESS
By
Horatius Bonar*
[* EDITOR’S FOREWORD
It has been
written of Horatious Bonar that
“he spoke to the hearts of his
hearers, simply and directly, not thinking of how to please them, but
delivering a message from the Lord. …
If Jesus has the keys of death, then the first face I
shall see will be His! …
…
Rest - Glory - Christ. I think these three words tell all that
we know of the
- (Andrew
Bonar The Good Pastor, pp. 150, 151).
Nor are these words a reference any ‘resurrection’ for all the dead will be
resurrected, sooner or later from the place of the dead
“in the
heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:
40; Rev. 20)! Therefore, ‘the resurrection’
which ‘the
Holy Spirit hastens us on to,’
can only be a reference to a select “resurrection out from the dead”: (Phil. 3: 11, lit.
Gk.). A Resurrection of REWARD (Luke
14: 14), which will raise the souls of the dead out of “Hades” (Acts 2: 27.
Cf.
ver. 34) into God’s promised ‘thousand
years’ “Rest” (Psa. 95: 11. Cf. Heb. 4: 11); and into the coming “Glory” of Messiah’s
“‘Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the First
Resurrection … they shall reign,’ it is clear that all who rise in the first
resurrection do reign, from which it certainly follows
that such as are not accounted worthy to reign do not rise at that time. Who will say to what large degree this
searching, conscience-quickening belief contributed to the blamelessness of Mr.
Chapman’s beautiful life? The
doctrine of the coming of our Lord [to reign upon this earth] is in the Scripture
so set forth as to promote holiness if life (1 John 3: 3; 2 Pet. 3:
11-14; 1 Pet. 1: 13). That line of exposition will be found
most accordant with Scripture which makes the most imperative
DEMAND FOR HOLINESS.”
– (The First Resurrection, G. H. Lang.)
“The Christian life for Paul
was a life of chosen sacrifice on earth,
that we might gain the joy of
fellowship with Christ in the age to come.”
- (The Triumphant Church,
pp. 49, 50. John Piper.).]
“It is left
to the Apostle Paul to sum up exactly this whole conditional joy which is
embodied in the return of Christ to His Church. ‘Verily in this [earthly house of our tabernacle] we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation
which is from heaven: IF SO BE’ - that is, our longing for
the Advent is checked and conditioned by our personal preparedness –
‘that being clothed with our resurrection body, we
shall not be found naked’ (2 Cor. 5: 2).
What this clothing is the Holy Spirit has made clear. ‘It was given unto her [the Bride at the Advent] that she should
array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for fine linen IS THE
RIGHTEOUS ACTS OF THE SAINTS’ (Rev.
19: 8). Thus the joy of the Advent, once again, is made
contingent on obedience in the very last warning to the
“How shall we, that are dead to sin,
Live any longer therein?” Romans 6: 2
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PREFACE
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The way of PEACE
and the way of HOLINESS lie side by
side; or rather, they are one. That
which bestows the peace imparts the holiness; and he who takes the one of these
takes the other also. The Spirit of
peace is the Spirit of holiness.
The God of peace is the God of holiness.
If, at any time, these
paths seem to go asunder, there must be
something wrong; wrong in the teaching that makes them seem to part company, or
wrong in the state of the man in whose life they have done so.
They start together; or at least so nearly together that no
eye, save the divine, can mark a difference. Yet properly speaking, the peace goes
before the holiness: and is its parent.
This is what divines call priority in nature, though not in time; which
means substantially this, that the difference in such almost identical
beginnings is too small in point of time to be perceived by us; yet is it not
on that account the less distinct and real.
The two are not independent. There is fellowship between them, vital
fellowship; each being the helpmeet of the other. The fellowship is not one of mere
coincidence, as in the case of strangers who happen to meet on the same path;
nor of arbitrary appointment, as in the [Page 4] case of two parallel roads; but of
mutual help and sympathy; like the fellowship of head and heart, or of two
members of one body; the peace being indispensable to the production or
causation of the holiness, and the holiness indispensable to the maintaining
and deepening of the peace.
He who affirms that he has peace, while living in sin is “a
liar, and the truth is not in him.” He who thinks that he has holiness,
though he has no peace, ought to question whether he understands aright what
the Bible means by either the one or the other; for, as the essence of holiness
is the soul’s right state toward God, it does not seem possible that a
man can be holy, so long as there is no conscious reconciliation between God
and him. A spurious holiness there
may be, founded upon a spurious peace, or upon no peace at all; but true
holiness must start from a true and authentic peace.
[* Over the past centuries and up to the present day, the
governments of nations throughout the world have been obsessed with “peace”.
Christians are commanded by their Lord to pray for peace; but there can
be no lasting peace throughout this world, until the Prince of Peace
descends upon the
* * *
[Page 5]
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
The
New Life. Page 7
Chapter 2
Christ
For Us, the Spirit in Us Page 22
Chapter 3
The
root and Soil of Holiness Page 35
Chapter 4
Strength
Against Sin Page 49
Chapter 5
The
Cross and Its Power Page 57
Chapter 6
The
Saint and the Law Page 70
Chapter 7
The
Saint and the Seventh of Romans Page 90
Chapter 8
The True
Creed and True Life Page 100
Chapter 9
Counsels
and Warnings Page 114
* * *
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Chapter 1
THE NEW LIFE
Ezek. 11: 19. 2 Cor. 5: 17. Col.
3: 10.
Ezek. 36: 26. Gal. 6:
15. 1
Peter :2: 2.
It is to a new life that God is
calling us; not to some new steps in life, some new habits or ways or motives
or prospects, but to A NEW LIFE.
For the production of this new life the eternal Son of God
took flesh, died, was buried, and rose again.
It is not life producing life, a lower life rising into a
higher, but life rooting itself in its opposite, life wrought out of death, by the death of “the Prince of life.” Of the new
creation, as of the old, he is the author.
For the working out of this the Holy Spirit came down in
power, entering men’s souls and dwelling there, that out of the old he
might bring forth the new.
That which God calls new must be so indeed. For
the Bible means what it says; as being, of all books, not only the most true in
thought, but the most accurate in speech.
Great then and authentic must be that “new thing in the earth” which God “creates,” to which he calls us, and
which he brings about by such stupendous [Page 8] means and at such a cost.
Most hateful also must that old life of ours be to him, when, in
order to abolish it, he delivers up his Son; and most dear must we be in his
sight when, in order to rescue us from the old life, and make us partakers of
the new, he brings forth all the divine resources of love and power and wisdom,
to meet the exigencies of a case which must otherwise have been wholly
desperate.
The man from whom the old life has gone out, and into whom the
new life has come, is still the same individual. The same being that was once “under law” is now “under grace.” His
features and limbs are still the same; his intellect, imagination, capacities,
and responsibilities are still the same.
But yet old things have passed away; all things have become new. The old man is slain, the new man
lives. It is not merely the old
life retouched and made more comely; defects struck out, roughnesses smoothed
down, graces stuck on here and there.
It is not a broken column repaired, a soiled picture cleaned, a defaced
inscription filled up, an un-swept temple whitewashed. It is more than all this; else God would
not call it a NEW CREATION, nor
would the Lord have affirmed with such awful explicitness, as he does, in his
conference with Nicodemus, the divine law of exclusion from and entrance into
the kingdom of God (John 3: 3). Yet how few in our day believe that
“that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit” (John 3: 6).
Hear how God speaks!
He calls us “new-born babes” (1
Peter 2: 2); “new creatures”
(Gal. 6: 15); a “new lump” (1 Cor. 5: 7); a “new man”
(Eph. 2: 15); doers of a “new commandment”
(1 John 2: 8); heirs of “a new name”
and a “new city”
(Rev. 2: 17; 3: 12); expectants [Page 9] of “new heavens and
a new earth” (2 Peter 3: 13). This new being, having begun in a new birth, unfolds itself in “newness of spirit” (
So that it is no outer thing, made up of showy moralities and
benevolences; or picturesque rites and a graceful routine of devotion; or
sentimentalisms bright or sombre; or religious utterances on fit occasions, as
to the grandeur of antiquity, or sacramental grace, or the greatness of
creaturehood, or the nobleness of humanity, or the universal fatherhood of
God. It is something deeper, and
truer, and more genial, than that which is called deep, and true, and genial in
modern religious philosophy. Its
affinities are with the things above; its sympathies are divine; it sides with God in everything; it has nothing, beyond a few
expressions, in common with the superficialities and falsehoods which, under
the name of religion, are current among multitudes who call Christ Lord and
Master.
A Christian is one who has been “crucified with Christ,” who has died with him, been buried
with him, risen with him, ascended with him, and is seated “in heavenly places” with him (
This newness is comprehensive, both in its exclusion of the evil
and its inclusion of the good. It
is summed up by the apostle in two things, “righteousness
and holiness;” “put off,”
says he, “the old man, which is
corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; put on the new
man, which, after God, is
created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4: 24, literally “righteousness and holiness of the truth,” that
is, resting on or springing out of the truth). The new man then is meant to be righteous and holy,
inwardly and outwardly, before God and man, as respects law and gospel, and
this THROUGH THE TRUTH. For
as, that which is false (“the lie,” ver. 25) can only produce un-righteousness and
un-holiness, so “the truth” produces righteousness and holiness through the power of the Holy Ghost. Error injures, truth heals; error is the
root of sin, truth of purity and perfection.
It is then to a new standing or state, a new moral character,
a new life, a new joy, a new work, a new hope, that we are called. And he who thinks that religion
comprises anything less than this, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. To that which man calls “piety,” less may
suffice; but to no religion which does not in some degree embrace
these can the divine recognition be accorded.
These are weighty words of the apostle, “we are HIS WORKMANSHIP.”* Of him, and through him, and to him, are
all things pertaining to us.
Chosen, called, quickened, washed, sanctified, and justified by God
himself, we are, in no sense, our own
deliverers. The quarry [Page 11] out of which the marble comes is His; the marble itself is His; the digging
and hewing and polishing are His: He is the sculptor and we the statue.
* Eph.
2: 10. See also Dent. 32:
6; Ps. 100: 3; 128: 8; Isa. 43:21; 60: 21; Rom. 9: 21;
Heb. 13: 21; James 1: 18.
“We are his workmanship,”
says the apostle. But this is not
all. We are, he adds, “Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them.” The plan, the selection of the materials,
the model, the workman, the workmanship, are all divine; and though it doth not
yet appear what we shall be, we know that we shall - [if
obedient to His commands] - be “like him;” his image reproduced in us, himself
represented by us; for we are “renewed after the
image of him that created us” (Col.
3:10).
It is not, however, dead, cold marble that is to be wrought
upon. That is simple work;
requiring just a given amount of skill.
But the re-moulding of the soul is unspeakably more difficult, and
requires far more complex appliances.
The influences at work in opposing, internal and external, spiritual,
legal, physical, are many; and equally numerous must be the influences brought
into play to meet all these, and carry out the design. The work is not mechanical, but moral
and spiritual (physical in a sense, as dealing with the nature of things, but, more truly, moral and
spiritual); and omnipotence is not mere unlimited physical power, operating, as
upon inanimate matter, by mere intensity of volition; but power which, with
unlimited resources at command, exhibits its greatness by regulating its
forthgoings according to moral circumstances, producing its greatest results by
indirect moral influences, developing itself in conformity with law and
sovereignty, and holy love on the one hand, and on the other with human guilt,
and creature responsibility, and free volition. The complexities [Page 12] introduced are infinite, and the “variable
quantities,” if one may so speak, are so peculiar and so
innumerable, that we can find no formula to help us in the solution of the
problem; we get bewildered in speculating on the processes by which Omnipotence
deals with moral beings, either in their sinfulness or their holiness.
And here let us notice the duality or two-foldness of divine truth; the
overlooking of which has occasioned much fruitless controversy and originated
many falsehoods. Truth is, indeed,
not two-sided, but many-sided, like a well-cut crystal. In a more general sense, however, it is
truly double; with a
heavenly and an earthly, a divine and a human side or aspect. It is at the line where these two meet
that the greatest nicety of adjustment is required; and hence it is here that
divergent theologies have come especially into conflict. The heavenward and the earthward aspect
of truth must be carefully distinguished; the one fitting into the other; the
one the counterpart of the other.
God is absolute Sovereign; this is the one side; man has volition of his
own, and is not a machine or a stone; that is the other. God chooses and draws, according to the
good pleasure of his will; yet he hinders no man from coming or from willing. God is the giver of faith, yet faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom.
10: 17).* God worketh [Page 13] in us both to will and to do: yet he
commands us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is God that sanctifies us, yet it is
through “the truth” that we are sanctified
(John 17: 17). It is God that purifies (Titus 2:14); yet it is by faith that our hearts
are purified (Acts 15: 9). It is God that fills us with joy and
peace; and yet this is “in believing.”
It is God that renews; yet we read “make you a
new heart” (Ezek. 18: 31). The movements of man’s faculties
are not superseded by God, but assumed and regulated, the intellect is not
overborne and deforced, but set free to work its true
work truly.** The “heavenly things”
and “earthly things” are distinct,
yet not separate; always to be viewed in connection with each other, yet not
confused; for confusion here works mysticism, superstition, and false
doctrine. “There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of
the terrestrial is
another” (1 Cor.
15: 40). In every Bible
truth there are two elements, the divine and the human: but the divine element
is one thing, the human another.
The theology that embodies most truth is that which knows how to
recognise both of these, without confusion yet without isolation or antagonism,
and which refuses to merge either the divine in the human or the human in the
divine.***
* Hence the difficulty of believing is not from the absence of
proper faculties, but from the derangement of these; and conversion is
God’s restoration of these to their original nature. Faith is not a foreign gem imported into
the soul, distinct from all our original powers, it is simply the man
believing, in consequence of his soul being set right by the Holy Spirit; but
he believes and disbelieves in the same way as before. It is not the intellect, or the mind, or
the affections that believe, it is the man, the whole man; the same whole man
that formerly disbelieved. Very
absurd and unphilosophical (not to say unscriptural) have been the questions
raised as to the seat of faith, whether it is in the intellect, or the will, or
the heart. Faith is the man
believing, just as love is the man loving.
In Rom. 10: 9, the apostle is not
contrasting the heart with the wind, but with the mouth; in other words, the
inner with the outer man.
** The
more thoroughly we can study the word of God, the better; and all critical
helps are to be welcomed. Genuine scholarship, consecrated to the elucidation
of the word, is an accomplishment of no common price. Everything that brings
our souls into full contact with “the word,”
in its fullness and variety so as to steep them in it, is to be greatly prized,
as fitted to make us holier, more fruitful, and more spiritual men.
** We
hear much of the divine and the human element in Scripture; nor is the
expression amiss; yet might we not rather say that the Bible is all human and
yet all divine? It is PERFECT according to what God meant it
to be though we may note what we call “imperfections”
in it. The mountains of earth, in
their ruggedness, are perfect in their way, though they have not the artificial
perfection of the statue or the temple.
God has chosen that his book and his world should resemble each other in
that kind of perfection - a perfection which man appreciates in the landscape,
but depreciates in the Bible.
[Pages 14]
Hence the necessity for confining ourselves to the word, and the
danger of introducing human metaphysics into questions connected with the
spiritual change wrought on us. It
is God that worketh; it is we who are wrought upon; and everything needful to
be known in connection with this work is revealed in the divine record. We give this thought some prominence,
because of the tendency with many to magnify humanity, and to undervalue the
greatness of that change, which begins the Christian course and character. No elevation of natural taste, no
infusion of religious or benevolent earnestness, no cultivation of the
intellect, can fill up the description given us, in the word of one “who fears God,” and
is the “called according to his purpose”;
“begotten again to a lively hope, by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ [out] from the dead.”
And we urge this the more decidedly, because, as is the beginning, so
will be the middle and the end. A
false idea or a diverging step at the outset may lead to a false religion
throughout life, to an imperfect and superficial goodness, as one incorrect
figure or sign in an equation falsifies both process and result. If the dislocated joint is not properly
set, it will never work comfortably; and if the wound is merely skinned over,
the disease may be taking its own way underneath; all the more fatally because
it is supposed to be removed.
How the Holy Spirit operates in producing the newness of which we have spoken, we know not;
yet we know that He does not destroy or reverse man’s faculties; He
renovates them all, so that they fulfil the true ends for which they were
given. As he does not make the hand
the foot, nor the eye the ear, so he does not make the heart the intellect, nor
the will the judgment. Each [Page 15] faculty remains the same in end and use as before, only purified and set properly to
work. Nor does the Holy Spirit
supersede the use of our faculties by his indwelling. Rather does this indwelling make these
more serviceable, more energetic, each one doing his proper work and fulfilling
his proper office; while the whole man, body, soul, and spirit is, instead of
being brought under mechanical constraint, made more truly free; never more
fully himself, than when
filled with the Holy Spirit. For
the result of the indwelling of the “free Spirit”
is liberty; not bondage, nor the production of an artificial character.
Thus, then, though no violence is done to our being in
regeneration, omnipotence is at work at every point. Our new being is not the
result of a mechanical process, yet it is the product of a divine power. God claims it as a “creation,” and as his own handiwork. “He that
hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God” (2 Cor. 5: 5); where the
word implies the thorough elaboration of some difficult piece of work. “It is God
which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”
(Phil. 2: 13): where the expressions
indicate an operation which influences our “willing”
as well as our “doing;” and this on
account of his “well-pleasedness”
(as the word is); his “well-pleasedness”
with Christ (Matt. 3: 17) and with his own
eternal design. “God’s tillage” (or husbandry, 1 Cor. 3: 9) is his name
for us when speaking as a husbandman; “God’s
building” (or fabric), his name when speaking as an
architect. It is to THE IMAGE
OF HIS SON that He has “predestinated
us to be conformed, that he might be the first-born among many brethren”
(Rom. 8:29); having “chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be [Page 16] holy and without blame
before him in love”
(Eph. 1: 4). it is, then, “to holiness” that God is calling us (1 Thess. 4: 7); that we
should have our “fruit unto holiness” (Rom. 6: 22);
that our hearts should be “stablished unblamable in holiness” (1 Thess. 3: 13); that we should abound in “all holy conversation and godliness” (2
Pet. 3: 11); that we should be “a holy priesthood”
(1 Pet. 2: 5); “holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet. 1: 15); “called
with a holy calling”
(2 Tim. 1: 9); “holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph. 1: 4), presenting not our souls alone but our
“bodies” as (not only a “living” but) a holy sacrifice to God (Rom. 12: 1); nay, remembering that these bodies
are not merely “a sacrifice,” but
“a temple of the Holy Ghost”
(1 Cor. 6: 19).
Holiness is likeness to God, to him who is the Holy One of Israel; to him whom they laud in heaven, as “Holy, holy, holy”
(Rev. 4: 8). It is likeness to Christ;
to “that holy thing” which was born
of the Virgin; to him who was “holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb.
7: 26). It is not only
disjunction from evil, and from an evil world; but it is separation unto God
and His service. It is priestly separation for priestly service. It is distinctiveness such as that,
which marked the tabernacle and all its vessels, separation from every common
use; separation by blood; “the
blood of the everlasting covenant;” this blood (or that which it
signifies, viz., death) being interposed between us and all common things, so
that we are dead to sin, but alive unto God, alive to righteousness,
having died and risen in him whose blood has made us what we are [or should be]. SAINTS, holy ones.
This holiness or consecration extends
to every part [Page 17] of our persons fills up our being, spreads
over our life, influences everything we are, or do, or think, or speak, or
plan, small or great, and outward or inward, negative or positive, our loving,
our hating, our sorrowing, our rejoicing, our recreations, our business, our
friendships, our relationships, our silence, our speech, our reading, our
writing, our going out and our coming in; our whole man in every movement of
spirit, soul, and body. In the
house, the sanctuary, the chamber, the market, the shop, at the desk, on the
highway, it must be seen that ours is a CONSECRATED LIFE.
In one aspect, sanctification is an act, a thing done at once, like justification. The moment the blood touches us, that
is, as soon as we believe God’s testimony to the blood, we are “clean” (John 15: 3),
“sanctified,” set apart for
God. It is in this ceremonial or
priestly sense that the word is used, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; for as
that to the Romans takes us into the forum, and deals with our legal standing, so that to the Hebrews takes
us into the temple, and deals
with our priestly standing. As the vessels of the sanctuary were at
once separated to God and his
service, the moment the blood touched them, so are we. This did not imply that these vessels
required no daily ablution afterward; so neither does our consecration
intimate that we need no daily sanctifying, no inward process for getting rid
of sin. The
initiatory consecration through the blood is one thing, and the continual
sanctifying by the power of the Holy Ghost is another. The former is the first step, the
introduction to the latter; nay, absolutely indispensable to any progress in
the latter; yet it does not supersede it, but makes it rather
a greater necessity. To this very
end are we consecrated by the blood, that we may be [Page 18] purified inwardly by the Holy Ghost; and he who would make the completeness of the former act as a substitute,
for the latter process, or a reason for neglecting it, has yet to learn what consecration
means, what is the import of the blood which consecrates, and for what end we
were chosen in Christ and called by his grace (Eph.
1: 5-7).
The thing which man calls sin may be easily
obliterated or toned down into goodness.
It deserved no expulsion from Paradise, no deluge, no Sodom-fire; it is
a thing which the flames of Sinai greatly exaggerate, and of which
He who would know holiness must understand
sin: and he who would see sin as God sees it, and think of it as God does,
must look at the cross and grave of the Son of God, must know the meaning of
Gethsemane and Golgotha.*
* Am I
bound to think of sin as God thinks?
Most certainly. Have I no
liberty of thinking otherwise?
None. You may do so, if you choose to venture, but the consequences are
fearful, for error is sin. We are not
bound to think as man thinks. In
this respect we have entire liberty; not tradition, but free thought may be our
formula here. But we are bound to
think as God thinks, not in one thing but in everything. Woe be to him that presumes to
differ from God, or reckons it a light matter to be of one mind with him, or
tries to prove that the Bible is inaccurate or unintelligible, or but half
inspired, in order to release himself from the responsibility of receiving the whole
truth of God, and afford him license to believe or disbelieve at pleasure,
freed from the trammels of a fixed revelation.
The tendency of the present day is to underestimate sin and to
misunderstand its nature. From the cross
of Christ men strike out the very elements which intimate the divine opinion of
its evil; and that accursed tree is not recognized as a condemnation of sin.,
but simply as an exhibition of self-surrender in a noble sufferer. It is admitted to be an evil, greater or
less according to circumstances; a hereditary poison, which time and
earnestness will work out of the constitution; an unruly but inevitable
appetite, which is to be corrected gradually by moral discipline and wholesome
intellectual diet, rendered medicinal by a moderate infusion of the “religious element;” a sickening pain, sometimes
in the conscience, sometimes in the heart, which is to be soothed by the dreamy
mysticism, which, acting like spiritual chloroform, dulls the uneasiness without
touching its seat; this is all! Why a loving God should, for so slight and curable an evil, have given
over our world for six thousand [Page 20] years, to such sorrow, pain, tears, weariness, disease, and
death, as have overflowed it with so terrible a deluge, is a question which
such a theory of evil leaves unanswered.
Yet such are the representations of sin with which we find a large
amount of the literature and the religion of our day penetrated. Humanity is struggling upward, nobly
self-reliant! The race is elevating
itself (for the Darwinian theory has found its way into religion); and
Christianity is a useful help in this process of self-regeneration, this
development of individual constitutions, by which perfection is to be reached
at last and the kingdom won! Thus
does many a [false] prophet speak peace when there is none; bent on
“healing the hurt” by the denial
of its deadliness. Of what
avail this calling evil good and good evil is now or will be in the great day
of reckoning, a coming hour will show.
“Awake to righteousness and sin
not” is God’s message to us -
[His redeemed people] (1 Cor. 15: 34).
“Be ye holy, for I am holy” (1
Peter 1: 15, 16). “Present your bodies a living sacrifice,* holy, acceptable unto God” (Rom. 12: 1). “Purge out
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump” (1 Cor.
5: 7). “Let every one that nameth
the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2: 19). “Deny
ungodliness and worldly lusts, live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world” (Titus 2: 12). “Be
diligent that ye may be found of him in
peace, without spot and blameless” (2 Peter 3: 14). “Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ” (Phil.
1: 27). “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but
rather reprove them” (Eph. 5: 11). “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the
flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13: 14). “I beseech
you as [Page 21] strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war
against the soul” (1 Peter 2: 11).
[* “In this respect we have had in Communist countries very big
surprises. There have been
preachers and writers of Christian books who have become traitors. The composer of the best hymnal of
- (Richard Wurmbrand,
‘The Triumphant Church,’
p. 13.)]
From sin, then, in every sense and aspect, God is calling
us. As exceeding sinful, the
abominable thing which he hates and will avenge, he warns us
against it. He speaks to us as “shapen
in iniquity and conceived in sin,” carrying evil about with us, nay,
filled with it and steeped in it; not merely as diseased and requiring
medicine, or unfortunate and requiring pity, but as guilty, under law, under
sentence, dead in trespasses and sins, with inevitable judgment before
us. He neither palliates nor aggravates
our case, but calmly tells us the worst; showing us what we are,
before calling us to be what he has purposed to make us. From
all unholiness and unrighteousness, from all corruption, from all crooked ways,
from all disobedience,* from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, He is calling us
in Christ Jesus his Son.
[* NOTE. There is no remedy for wilful sin,
‘crooked ways’ and ‘disobedience’ in the lives of God’s redeemed
people but in His long-suffering, forgiveness, grace and mercy, coupled with our
daily repentance and the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in our
daily lives: Heb. 10: 26.
Therefore, “let us hold fast the
confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised: and let us consider one
another to provoke unto good works” – (not to attempt to hold
on to what we presently have -
the “free gift” of “eternal life”
Rom. 6: 23, but to be “accounted worthy”
to be
with Him in the “age” yet to come, Luke
20: 35 cf Matt.
7: 21-27) - “not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together … but exhorting
one another; and so much the more, as ye see the DAY
drawing near:” (vv. 23-25, R.
V.).]
* * *
[Page 22]
Chapter 2
CHRIST FOR US, THE SPIRIT IN US
John 7:38, 39. 1 Cor. 6: 11, 19. Eph. 1:
13.
We noticed, in our last chapter, the difference between the divine and the human sides of Bible truth;
we would, in this, advert to another distinction, of no less importance, that
between Christ’s work for us and the Holy Spirit’s
work
in us; between the legal or substitutionary and the moral or curative.
This is not the distinction between a divine element and a
human one, but between two elements which are both equally divine, yet each of
them, in its own way, bearing very directly on the sinner.
The two things are sometimes put in another form, Christ for
us, and Christ in us; the same, however, being the meaning in both cases; for
“Christ in us” (Col. 1: 27) is also “the Holy Spirit in us;” Christ having the Spirit without
measure for himself (John 3: 34), and for us
according to our need. An
indwelling Christ, and an [Page 23] indwelling Spirit are, though not the
same thing, yet equivalent
things. He who has the Son has the
Spirit; nay, and the Father also (John 14: 23).
CHRIST FOR US is our one resting-place. Not works, nor feelings, nor love, even though
these may be the creation of the Spirit in us; not these in any sense; no, nor
yet faith, whether as an act of our mind, or as the production of the Spirit,
or as a substitute for righteousness; none of these can be our resting-place.
This great truth is well brought out in a correspondence
between Melancthon and Brentius in the year 1531, which we
translate and abridge. Brentius had
been much perplexed on the subject of faith. It puzzled him. Christ justifies; faith
justifies; how is this? Is faith a
merit? Is it a work? Has it some justifying virtue in
itself? Does it justify because it
is the gift of God and the work of the Holy Spirit? Perplexed with these questions, he wrote
to Melancthon and Luther. The
replies of both are extant; neither of them long; Luther’s very
short. They go straight to the
point, and deserve to be quoted as clear statements of the truth, and as
specimens of the way in which these men of might dealt with the burdened
spirits of their time. “I see,” writes Melancthon, “what is troubling you
about faith. You stick to the fancy of Augustine, who, though right in rejecting
the righteousness of human reason, imagines that we are justified by that
fulfilling of the law which the Holy Spirit works in us. So you imagine that men are justified by
faith, because it is by faith that we receive the Spirit, that thereafter we
may be able to be just by that fulfilment of the law which the Spirit works.
This imagination places justification in our fulfilment of the law in our purity
or perfection, although this renewal ought to follow faith. [Page 24] But do ye
turn your eyes from that renewal, and
from the law altogether, to the promise and to Christ, and think that it is on
Christ’s account that we become just, that is, accepted before God, and
that it is thus we obtain peace of conscience, and not on account of that
renewal. For even this renewing is
insufficient (for justification). We are justified by faith alone, not because
it is a root, as you write, but because it apprehends Christ, on account of
whom we are accepted; this renewing, although it necessarily follows, yet does
not pacify the conscience.
Therefore not even love, though it is the fulfilling of the law,
justifies, but only faith; not because it is some excellence in us, but only
because it takes hold of Christ; we are justified, not on account of love, not
on account of the fulfilling of the law, not on account of our renewal,
although these are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but on account of Christ; and
him we take hold of by faith alone. Believe me, my Brentius, this controversy
regarding the righteousness which is by faith is a mighty one, and little
understood; and you can only rightly comprehend it by turning your eyes
entirely away from the law and from Augustine’s idea about our fulfilling
the law, and fixing them wholly upon
the free promise, so as to see that it is on account of that promise, and for
Christ’s sake, that we are justified, that is, accepted and obtain
peace. This is the true doctrine, and
that which glorifies Christ and wonderfully lifts up conscience. I endeavoured to explain this in my Apology,
but on account of the misrepresentations of adversaries, could not speak out so
freely as I do now with you, though saying the very same thing. When could the conscience have peace and
assured hope, if we are not justified till our renewal is perfected? What is this but to be justified [Page 25] by the law, and not by the free promise? In that discussion I said that to
ascribe our justification to love is to ascribe it to our own work;
understanding by that a work done in us by the Holy Ghost. For faith justifies,
not because it is a new work of the Spirit in us, but because it, apprehends
Christ, on account of whom we are accepted, and not on account of the gifts of
the Holy Spirit in us. Turn away
from Augustine’s idea, and you will easily see the reason of this; and I
hope our Apology will somewhat help you, though I speak cautiously
respecting matters so great, which are only to be understood in the conflict of
the conscience. By all means preach
law and repentance to the people, but let not this true doctrine of the gospel
be overlooked.”
Writes Luther:
“I am accustomed, my Brentius, for the better
understanding of this point, to conceive this idea, that there is no quality in
my heart at all, call it either faith or charity; but instead of these I set
Christ himself, and I say this is my righteousness, he is my quality and my
formal righteousness as they call it, so as to free myself from looking into
law or works; nay, from looking at Christ himself as a teacher or a giver. But I look at him as a gift and as a
doctrine to me, in himself, so that in him I have all things. He says, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’; He says not, I give thee the way, and the truth,
and the life, as if he were working on me from without. All these things he must be in me; abiding, living, and speaking in me, not through me or to me; that we may be ‘the righteousness of God in him’ (2 Cor. 5: 21); not in love, nor in the gifts and graces which follow.”
To these letters Brentius
replies, unfolding his conflicts to his beloved Philip. “Is not
faith itself a work? [Page 26] Does not the Lord say, ‘This is the work of God that ye believe’? ... Justification then cannot be either by works or
by faith ... Is it so? ... Therefore justification must be on account of Christ
alone, and not the excellence of our works. ... But how can all this be? ...
From childhood I had not been able to clear my thoughts on these points. Your letter and that of Luther showed me
the truth. ... Justification comes to us neither on account of our love nor our faith, but solely
on account of Christ; and yet it comes through (by means of) faith.
Faith does not justify as a work of goodness, but simply as a receiver
of promised mercy ... We do not merit, we only obtain justification. ... Faith is but the organ, the instrument, the
medium; Christ alone is the satisfaction and the merit. Works are not
satisfaction, nor merit, nor instrument; they are the utterance of a
justification already received by faith.”* Thus does the disciple expound
the Master’s letter, and then adds some thoughts of his own. He fears lest, as popery, perverted love, so the Reformation might come to
pervert faith; putting it in
the room of Christ, as a work or merit or quality; something in itself.
Having finished the letter to his “most
beloved Philip,” and signed it “thy
Brentius,” he starts another thought, and adds a postscript, which
is well worth the translating.
“Just as I was finishing my letter, I
remembered an argument of yours about works, to the effect that if we are
justified by love, we can never have assurance, because we can never love as we ought. In like manner I argue regarding faith as a work; if justification come to us
through faith as a work, or merit, or excellence, we can never be assured about
it because we can never believe as we ought.”
[* NOTE.
In the above, the justification is “by faith,”
based upon Christ’s righteousness imputed (accredited) to the
believer. But in the
Book of James (2:
21) the justification spoken of is “by works,”
based upon the regenerate
believers’ righteousness.
We receive the
“Free gift” of “eternal life in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 6: 23, R.V.) by
faith alone in our Saviour’s righteousness: all works, before or
after conversion, are excluded. However, the reward of the “crown” and an inheritance in the
“age” to come (Rev. 3: 11; Eph. 5: 5; Luke 20: 35), will be
decided at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and before the time of “First Resurrection” (Heb.
9: 27; Rev. 20: 4, 5.). It
is this undisclosed standard of the regenerate believers’
righteousness, which will determine whether or not their entrance into
the coming Messianic Era will have been attained:
Matt. 5: 10, 20; 7: 21; Mark 10: 29-31; Luke 22: 28, 29; Phil. 3: 11,
etc.).
“Who bears no cross wins no rewards
Unworthy he of Me his Lord.
So let us then our dearest Lord
With soul and body follow
With cheerful courage, well assured,
Bear willingly all sorrow.
For he who shuns the bitter strife
Shall never wear ‘the crown of life.’”]
We have given
some space to these extracts, because [Page 27] the importance of the truth which
they contain can hardly be overrated.
They not only exhibit the distinction between Christ’s work and
the Spirit’s work, but they do so with
special reference to that point at which they are so often made to run into
each other, to the darkening of many minds and the confusion of all Reformation
theology. For how often did Luther reiterate that statement, “Faith
justifies us, no, not even as a gift of the Holy Ghost, but solely on account of its reference to Christ,”
... “faith does not justify for its own sake, or
because of any inherent virtue belonging to it.” So long as this confusion exists; so
long as men do not distinguish between Christ’s work and the [Holy] Spirit’s
work; so long as they lay any stress upon the quality or quantity of their act
of faith, there can be not only no peace of conscience, but no progress in
holiness, no bringing forth of good works.
Of this confusion, Arminianism, in its subtlest form, is the necessary
offspring. For while men think to
be Justified by faith as a work, or as an act of their mind, or as a gift of
the Spirit, they are seeking Justification by something inherent. not by something imputed; and to deny that it is
inherent, because infused
into them by the [Holy] Spirit, is simply to cheat themselves with a play
upon words; to cheat themselves all the more effectually, because professing to
honour the [Holy]
Spirit by ascribing to Him the infused quality or act out of which they seek to
extract their justification. In
seeking justification or peace of conscience, from something wrought in them by
the Spirit, they are seeking these from that which is confessedly imperfect,
and which God never gave for such a purpose; nay, they are rejecting the
perfect righteousness of the Substitute, and so preventing the possibility of
their doing any acceptable [Page 28] work at all. For if “the righteousness of the law can only be fulfilled in us,”
through our acceptance of the imputed righteousness of the Son of God, then
there can be no righteous thing done by us till we have reached the position of men to whom the great truth
of “Christ for us,” “Jehovah our righteousness,” has become the basis
of all reconciliation with God.
This form of error is the more subtle, because its victims are not
walking in sin, but doing all manner of outward service, and exhibiting outward
goodness in many forms, regarding which we shall only say “that they are not pleasant to God,” ... and as
“they are not done as God hath willed and commanded
them to be done, we doubt not
but they have the nature of sin” (Art. XIII. of the Church of
England).
Some of the soundest Christian divines have left on record
their complaint as to the mistakes in this matter of faith, prevailing in their
day, and as to the charge of Antinomianism brought against those who, in
stating justification, refuse to qualify the apostolic formula, “to him that worketh not, but believeth.” Traill thus
wrote, now nearly two centuries ago, “we say
that faith
in Jesus Christ is neither work, nor condition, nor qualification in justification, and that in its very
act it is a renouncing of all things but the gift of grace, the fire is
kindled; so that it is come to this, that he that will not be antichristian
must be called an Antinomian.”*
* How
strongly does this same divine state the truth in another place. When addressing a perplexed inquirer, he
says, “If he say that he cannot believe on Jesus
Christ, ... you tell him that believing on Jesus Christ is no work, but a
resting on Jesus Christ.” How
sharply does he rebuke those who would mix up the imputed and the infused;
“they seem to be jealous lest God’s grace and Christ’s
righteousness have too much room, and men’s works too little in the
business of justification.”
See the whole of Traill’s letter on
“Justification vindicated from the charge of Antinomianism.” An old anonymous writer, a little later
than Traill, uses this expression: “The Scriptures consider faith not as a work of ours, but set
in opposition to every work, whether of body or mind, - ‘to him that worketh not, but believeth.’”
[Page 29]
That we “believe through grace;”
that faith is “the gift of God” does not prove faith to be a work of ours, any more than Christ’s
raising Lazarus proved resurrection to be a work of the dead
man. The divine infusion of life in the one case, and the
divine impartation of faith in the other, so far from showing that there must
be a work in either, indicates very plainly that
there could not be any such thing.
The work comes after the believing, and as the fruit of it. “Faith
worketh by love,” that is, the believing soul shows its faith by
works of love.
Yes, faith worketh; so also does love, so also does hope. These all work; and we read of “the work of faith,”
that is, work to which faith prompts us; the “labour
of love,” that is, the toil to which love impels us; the
“patience of hope,” that is, the patience which hope enables us to
exercise. But is faith a work
because it worketh? Is love a toil
because it toileth? Is hope patience because it makes us
patient?
[*
NOTE. The argument above continues
to be centered upon the “free gift”
of eternal
life and the salvation received by faith in the gospel [good news] of
God’s grace, (Eph. 2: 8, 9). But the “rest”
which we have as a gift of God, is not synonymous with the
“Sabbath-rest for the people of God”
(Heb. 4: 11. cf. Psa. 95: 11):
which we are being warned “lest haply, a promise being
left of entering into his [God’s] rest
[in the coming “age”] any one of you [My redeemed people] should seem to have come short of it” (Heb. 4: 1).
This future “Sabbath-rest”
has nothing at all to do with our present “rest”
and “salvation” purchased in full by
our Lord Jesus Christ: but it has everything to do with the future reward
of the inheritance when “all the earth shall
be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num. 14: 21, R.V.).]
That there are works done before faith we know; but we are
assured that they profit nothing, “for without faith it is impossible to please God.” That there are [Page 30] works done after faith we also know; and they are all well-pleasing to God,
for they are the works of believing men. But, as to any work intermediate between these two,
Scripture is silent; and against transforming faith into a work the whole
theology of the Reformation protested, as either a worthless verbal quibble, or
as the subtlest dregs of popery.
Truly faith comes from God. The revelation which we believe,
and the power by which we believe it, are both divine. The Holy Spirit has
written the Scriptures, and sent them to us to be believed for salvation;.
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. He quickens the dead soul that it may
believe; and after it has believed he comes in and dwells. Hence we are said to receive the [Holy] Spirit by
“the hearing of faith” (Gal. 3: 2).
He opens our hand to receive the gift; and he places the gift in our
hand when thus opened by Himself.
Never let us forget that while faith is the result of the [Holy] Spirit’s
work in us, it is as truly the receiver of Himself as the indwelling Spirit; and that in proportion to our
faith will be the measure of the Spirit we shall possess. This is another of the many twofold
truths or processes of Scripture; the [Holy] Spirit works to enable us to believe, and we in
believing receive him and all his [bestowed] gifts, in greater or less abundance, according to
our faith.
This twofold, sometimes threefold, aspect of a truth ought not
to perplex us; still less should it lead us to magnify one aspect at the
expense of the others, and to attempt a reconciliation of these by a denial or
evasion of one of them and a distortion of texts that stand in our way. Let us admit the whole, and accept the
passages as they stand. Sometimes,
for example, our renewal is connected with the [Holy] Spirit (Tit. 3: 5);
sometimes with [Page 31] Christ’s resurrection (1 Peter 1: 3); sometimes with the word of the
truth (Eph. 1: 13); and sometimes with faith
(John 1: 12); sometimes it is spoken of as
God’s work (Ps. 51: 10); sometimes as
our own (Ezek. 18: 31; Eph. 4: 24);
sometimes as the work of ministers (Philem. 10); sometimes as the effect of the gospel (I Cor. 4: 15). So is it with conversion, with
salvation, and with sanctification.
These are all spoken of in connection with God, with Christ, with the [Holy] Spirit, with
the word, with faith, with hope; and each of these aspects must be studied, not
evaded.*
But manifold as are, these aspects, they all bear upon us
personally; directly or indirectly affecting and carrying out our quickening,
our healing, our joy, our comfort, and our holiness. There is no speculation in any of them;
and it is truth, not opinion, that they present to us. Whatever amount of unreal religion may
be in us, it is not because of any defect in the word, any cloudiness in the
gospel, any scantiness or straitness in the divine liberality, any lack in the
fullness of him in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fullness should
dwell. He has made provision for
our being made like himself, and therefore he calls us to this likeness. The standard is high, but it does not
admit of being lowered. The model
is divine; but so is the strength given for conformity to it. Our responsibility to be holy is
great, but not greater than the means provided for its full attainment.
* Calvin does not
hesitate to speak of regeneration and repentance being the result of faith, regeneration
per fidem
(Inst. B. III. 3:1. See the
whole third book). And Latimer writes, “We be born again.
How? Not by a mortal seed,
but by an immortal. What is this
immortal seed? The word of the
living God. Thus cometh our new
birth.” In stating one
side of the truth, these divines did not set aside the other. They taught renovation, through the
truth and through faith; and they also taught renovation by the power of the
Holy Ghost. They taught man’s need of the Spirit in order to faith, and
they proclaimed the gift of the Spirit as the result of faith.
In Christ dwells all the fullness of Godhead bodily. [Page 32] He has the Holy Spirit for us, and
this Spirit he gives freely and plenteously; for that which we receive is
“grace, according to the measure of the gift of
Christ.” The early
saints were “filled with joy and with the Holy
Ghost” (Acts 13: 52); and we
are to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5: 18); for it is the Holy Ghost himself, not
certain influences that are
“given unto us” (Rom. 5: 5).
He “falls” on us (Acts 8: 16; 11: 15); He is shed forth on us (Acts 2: 33); He is poured out on us (Ezek. 39: 29; Acts 10: 45); we are “baptized with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 11: 16).
He is “the earnest of our inheritance”
(Eph. 1: 14); He “seals” us (Eph. 1:
13); imprinting on us the divine image and superscription; He “teaches” (1 Cor. 2: 13); He “reveals”
(1 Cor. 2: 10); He
“reproves” (John
16: 8); He “strengthens” (Eph. 3: 16); He makes us fruitful (Gal. 5: 22); He “searches”
(1 Cor. 2: 10); He
“strives” (Gen.
6: 3); He “sanctifies” (1 Cor. 6: 11); He
“leads” (Rom.
8: 14; Ps. 143: 10); He “instructs”
(Neh. 9: 20); He “speaks”
(1 Tim. 4: 1; Rev. 2: 7); He demonstrates
(or proves) (1 Cor. 2: 4);
“intercedes” (Rom. 8: 26); “quickens”
(Rom. 8: 11); “gives utterance” (Acts 2: 4);
He “creates” (Ps. 104: 30); He “comforts”
(John 14: 26); He “sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts” (Rom. 5: 5); He “renews”
(Tit. 3: 5). He is the “Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1: 4);
the Spirit “of wisdom and understanding”
(Isa. 11: 2; Eph. 1: 17); the Spirit “of truth” (John 14:
17); the Spirit “of knowledge”
(Isa. 11: 2); the Spirit “of grace” (Heb. 10:
29); the Spirit “of glory” (1 Peter 4: 14); the Spirit “of our God” (1 Cor. 6: 11); the Spirit of “the living God” (2 Cor. 3: 3); the “good
Spirit” (Neh. 9: 20); the Spirit “of Christ” (1 Peter
1: 11); Spirit “of adoption”
(Rom. 8: 15); [Page 33] the Spirit of life (Rev. 11: 11); the Spirit of his Son (Gal. 4: 6).
Such is the Holy Spirit by whom we are sanctified (2 Thess. 2: 13); “the eternal Spirit by whom Christ offered himself without
spot to God” (Heb. 9: 14). Such is the Holy Spirit by whom we are
“sealed unto the day of redemption”
(Eph. 4: 30); the Spirit who makes us his
habitation (Eph. 2: 22), who dwelleth in us
(2 Tim. 1: 14), by Whom we are
kept looking to and looking for Christ; by whom we are made to “abound in THE HOPE” (Rom. 15: 13).
On the right receiving and entertaining of this heavenly
guest, much of a holy life depends.
Let us bid him welcome; not vexing, nor resisting, nor grieving, nor
quenching him; but loving him and delighting in his love; (“the love of the Spirit,” Rom. 15: 30); that our life may be a “living”
in the Spirit (Gal. 5: 25); a “walking” in the Spirit (Gal.
5: 16); a “praying” in the
Spirit (Jude 20); the life of men, who,
while distinguishing Christ’s work
for us and the Spirit’s work in us, and so preserving their conscious
pardon unbroken, yet do not separate the two by any interval; but allowing both
to do their work, “follow peace with all men, and holiness,
without which no man can see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14); keeping their hearts in “the fellowship of
the Spirit” (Phil. 2: 1), and
delighting themselves in “the communion of the
Holy Ghost” (2 Cor.
13: 14).
The double form of expression, bringing out the mutual or
reciprocal indwelling of Christ and of the Spirit in us is worthy of special
note. “Christ in us [the HOPE OF
GLORY]” (Col. 1:27) is the one side, we “in Christ” is the other (2 Cor. 5: 17; Gal. 3: 28); the Holy
Spirit in us (
It would seem as if no figure, however strong and full, could
adequately express the closeness of contact, the nearness of relationship, the
entire oneness into which we are brought, in receiving the divine testimony to
the person and work of the Son of God.
Are we not then most strongly committed to a life of holiness, as well
as furnished with all the supplies needful for carrying it out? With such a fullness of strength
and life at our disposal, what a responsibility is ours! “What manner of persons ought we to be in all
holy conversation and godliness!” And if to all this we add
the prospects presented to us, the hope of the advent and the [millennial] kingdom, and the glory, we shall feel ourselves
compassed on every side with the motives, materials, and appliances best fitted
for making us what we are meant to be, “a
royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;”* “zealous of good works” here, and
possessors of “glory, and honour, and immortality”
(Rom. 2: 7) hereafter.
* 1 Pet. 2: 9. It is remarkable that these words were first used regarding Israel (Exod. 19: 5, 6; Deut. 7: 6), showing us that Old
Testament saints did not stand on a lower level than New Testament ones. Most of the expressions used concerning
the Church’s privileges are Old Testament ones, borrowed from
* * *
[Page 35]
Chapter 3
THE ROOT AND SOIL OF HOLINESS
Ps. 130: 4
Tim. 1: 9 1 Peter 2:
24
John 15: 4, 5 Tit. 2: 11 2 Peter 3: 14
Rom. 12: 1 Tit. 3:
8
1 John 4: 16-21
Every plant must have both soil and root. Without both of these there can be no life, no growth, no fruit.
Holiness must have these.
The root is “peace with God;”
the soil in which that root strikes itself, and out of which it draws the vital
sap, is the free love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. “Rooted in
love” is the apostle’s description of a holy man. Holiness is not austerity nor gloom;
these are as alien to it as levity and flippancy; nor is it the offspring of
terror, or suspense, or uncertainty, but of peace, conscious peace; not future or probable or possible peace, but
present; and this peace must be rooted in grace; it must be the consequence of
our having ascertained, upon sure evidence, the forgiving love of God. He who would lead us unto holiness [Page 36] must “guide our feet into the way of peace”
(Luke 1: 79); must show us how we, “being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, may serve
God without
fear, in holiness and righteousness,
before him, all the days of our life” (Luke
1: 74, 75); and he who would do this must “give us the knowledge of salvation, by the remission of sins;”
must tell us how, through “the tender mercy of
our God, the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them
that sit in darkness” (Luke 1: 78).
In carrying out the great work of making us holy, God speaks
to us, as “the God of peace” (Rom. 16:
20); “the very God of peace” (1 Thess. 5: 23); as being himself “our peace” (Eph. 2: 14). That which we receive from him, as such,
is not merely “peace with God” (
In this “peace with God”
there is, of course, contained salvation, forgiveness, deliverance from the
wrath to come. But these, though
precious, are not terminating points;
not ends, but beginnings; not the top but the bottom of that ladder which rests
its foot upon the new sepulchre wherein never man was laid, and its top against
the gate of the holy city. He,
therefore, who is contenting [Page 37] himself with these, has not yet learned the true purport of the gospel, nor the
end which God, from eternity, had in view, when preparing for us such a
redemption as that which he has accomplished for the sons of men, through his
only begotten Son, “who gave himself for US, THAT HE MIGHT REDEEM US FROM ALL
INIQUITY.”
Without these, holiness is impossible; so that we may say this
at least, that it is through them that holiness is made practicable; for the
legal condition of the
sinner, as under wrath, stood as a barrier between him and the possibility of
holiness. So long as he was under
condemnation, the law prohibited the approach of everything that would make him
holy. The law bars salvation,
except on the fulfilment of its claims; so it bars holiness, until the great
satisfaction to its claims has been recognized by the individual; that is,
until he has believed the divine testimony to the atonement of the cross, and
so been personally set free from condemnation. The law pronounces against the idea of
holiness in an unforgiven man. If
protests against it as an incongruity, and as an injury to righteousness. If, then, a pardoned man’s
remaining unholy seem strange, much more so a holy man remaining
unpardoned. The sinner’s legal
position must be set to right before his moral position can be touched.
Condition is one thing, character is another. The sinner’s standing before God,
either in favour or disfavour, either under grace or under wrath, must first be
dealt with ere his inner renewal can be carried on. The judicial must precede
the moral.
Hence it is of pardon that the gospel first speaks to us; for
the question of pardon must be settled before we proceed to others. The adjustment of the relationship
between us and God is an
indispensable preliminary, [Page 38] both on God’s part and on ours.
There must be friendship between us, ere he can bestow or we receive his indwelling Spirit; for, on the one hand, the Spirit
cannot make his dwelling in the unforgiven; and on the other, the unforgiven
must be so occupied with the one question of forgiveness, that they are not at
leisure to attend to anything till this has been finally settled in their
favour. The man who knows that the
wrath of God is still upon him, or, which is the same thing practically, is
not sure whether it has been turned away or not, is really not in a condition to consider other questions, however
important; if he has any true idea of the magnitude and terribleness of the
anger of him who is a consuming fire.
The divine order then is first pardon, then holiness; first peace
with God, and then conformity to the image of that God with whom we have been
brought to be at peace. For as
likeness to God is produced by beholding his glory (2
Cor. 3: 18), and as we cannot look upon him
till we know that he has ceased to condemn us, and as we cannot trust him till
we know that he is gracious, so we cannot be transformed into his image till we
have received pardon at his hands.
Reconciliation is indispensable to resemblance; personal friendship must
begin the holy life.
If such be the case, pardon cannot come too soon, even were
the guilt of an unpardoned state not reason enough for any amount of urgency in
obtaining it without delay. Nor can
we too strongly insist upon the divine order above referred to; first peace, then holiness; peace as the
foundation of holiness, even in the case of the chief of sinners.
Some do not object to a reputable man obtaining [Page 39] immediate peace; but they object to a profligate getting it at once! So it has always been; the old taunt is
still on the lip of the modern Pharisee, “He is
gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner”; and the Simons of
our day speak within themselves, and say, “This
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this
is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7: 39).
But what then of Manasseh, and Magdalene, and Saul, and the woman of
Sychar, and the jailer, and the men of
Some speak as if it were imperilling morality to let the
sinner obtain immediate peace with God.
If the peace be false, morality may be compromised, by men pretending to
the possession of a peace which is yet no peace. But, in that case, the evil
complained of is the result of the hollowness, not the suddenness, of the peace, and can afford no ground for objecting to speedy
peace, unless speedy peace is, of necessity, false, and unless the mere
length of the process is security for the genuineness of the result. The existence of false peace is no
argument against the true; and what we affirm is that true peace can neither be too speedy nor too sure.
Others speak as if no sinner could be trusted with pardon till
he has undergone a certain amount of preliminary mental suffering, more or less
in duration and in intensity, according to circumstances. It would be dangerous to the interests
of morality to let him obtain an immediate pardon; and especially to be sure of
it, or to rejoice in it! If the man
has been previously moral in life, they would not object to this; but they
question the [Page 41] profligate’s right to present
peace, and protest against the propriety of it in the name of morality. They argue for delay, to give him time
to improve before he ventures to speak of pardon; they insist upon a long
season of preparatory conflict, years of sad suspense and uncertainty, in order
to qualify the prodigal for his father’s embrace, and to prevent the
unseemly spectacle of a sinner this week rejoicing in the forgiveness of his
sins, who last week was wallowing in the mire. This season of delay, during which they
would prohibit the sinner from assuring himself of God’s free love, they
consider the proper safeguard of a free gospel, and the needful guarantee for
the sinner’s future humility and holiness.
Is not, then, the position taken up by these men substantially
that adopted by the scribes, when they murmured at the Lord’s gracious
familiarity with the unworthy, saying, “This man
receiveth sinners, and eateth with them”? And is it not in great measure
coincident with the opinion of popish divines respecting the danger to morality
from the doctrine of immediate justification through simple faith in the
justifying work of Christ?*
* When
Bishop Gardiner, the popish persecutor, lay dying in 1555, Day Bishop of
Chichester, “began to comfort him,”
says Foxe, “with words
of God’s promise, and free justification by the blood of Christ.” “What!”
said the dying Romanist, “will you open that gap?”
meaning that inlet of evil. “To me and others in my case you may speak of it, but once
open this window to the people, then farewell all good.”
The apostles evidently had great confidence in the gospel [of God’s grace]. They gave it fair play, and spoke it out
in all its absolute freeness, as men who could trust it for its moral
influence, as well as for its
saving
power; and who felt that the
more speedily and certainly its, good news were realized by the sinner, the
more would that moral influence come into play. They did not hide it, nor trammel it,
nor fence it round with conditions, as if doubtful [Page 42] of the policy of preaching it freely.
“Be it
known unto you.” they
said, “men and brethren, that through this man [Christ Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him ALL THAT BELIEVE ARE
JUSTIFIED” (Acts 13: 38). They had no misgivings as to its bearings
on morality; nor were they afraid of men believing it too soon, or getting too
immediate relief from it. The idea
does not seem to have entered their mind, that men could betake themselves to
Christ too soon, or too confidently, or without sufficient preparation. Their object in preaching it was, not to
induce men to commence a course of preparation for receiving Christ, but to receive him at once and on the spot; not to lead them
through the long avenue of a gradually amended life to the cross of the
Sin-bearer; but to bring them at once into contact with the cross, that so sin
in them might be slain, the old man crucified, and a life of true morality
begun. As the strongest motive to a
holy life, they preached the cross.
They knew that
“The cross
once seen is death to every vice.”
And in the interests of holiness they stood and pleaded with men to
take the proffered peace.
It is no disparagement to morality to say that good works are
not the way to Christ; it is no slighting of the sacraments to say that they
are not the sinner’s resting-place; so neither is it any depreciation of
devotion, or repentance, or prayer, to say that they are not qualifying
processes which fit the sinner for approaching the Saviour, either as making
the sinner more acceptable, or Christ more willing to receive. Still less is it derogating from the
usefulness or the blessedness of these exercises or feelings, to say that they
are often transformed into the [Page 43] refuges of self-righteousness,
pretexts which the sinner makes use of to excuse his guilt in not at once
taking [eternal] salvation
from the hands of Jesus. We do not
undervalue love because we say a man is not justified by love, but by
faith. We do not discourage prayer,
because we preach that a man is not justified by prayer, but by faith. When we say that believing is not
working, but a ceasing from work, we do not mean that the
believing man is not to work; but that he is not to work for pardon, but to
take it freely, and that he is to believe before he works, for works done
before believing are not pleasing to God.
Is it the case that the sinner cannot be trusted with the
gospel?
In one sense this is true. He cannot be trusted with anything. He abuses everything. He turns everything to bad account. He makes everything the minister of sin.
But if he cannot be trusted with the gospel, can he be trusted with the law? If he cannot be trusted with grace, can
he be trusted with righteousness?
He cannot be trusted with an immediate pardon; can he be trusted with a
tardy one? He cannot be trusted
with faith; can he be trusted with doubt?
He cannot be trusted with peace; can he be trusted with gloom and
trouble? He cannot be trusted with
assurance; can he be trusted with suspense? And will uncertainty do for him what certainty cannot?
That which he can, after all, best be trusted with, is the
gospel.
He has abused
it, he may abuse it; but he is less likely to abuse it than anything else. It appeals to deeper, stronger, and more
numerous motives than all other things together.*
* The teaching of some in the present
day seems fitted, of others intended, to hinder assurance. Assurance, say some,
is impossible; not impossible, say others, but very hard of attainment; not
only very hard, but very long of being reached, requiring at least some thirty
or forty years of prayer and good works; very dangerous, say others,
introducing presumption, and sure to end in apostasy. I confess I do not see how my being
thoroughly persuaded that a holy God loves me with a holy love, and has
forgiven me all my sins, has a tendency to evil; even though I may have reached
that conclusion quickly. It seems,
of all truths, one of the likeliest to make me holy, to kindle love, to stimulate
to good works, and to abase all pride; whereas uncertainty in this matter
enfeebles me, darkens me, bewilders me, incapacitates me for service, or, at
the best, sets me striving to work my way into the favour of God, under the
influence of a subordinate and mercenary class of motives, which can do nothing
but keep me dreading and doubting all the days of my life, leaving me, perhaps,
at the close, in hopeless darkness.
[Page 44]
Hence the apostles trusted the gospel with the sinner, and the
sinner with the gospel, so unreservedly, and (as many in our day would say)
unguardedly. “To him, that WORKETH
NOT, BUT BELIEVETH, his faith is counted for righteousness,”
was a bold statement. It is that of
one who had great confidence in the gospel [of
God’s grace] which he preached who had no
misgivings as to its unholy tendencies, if men would but give it fair
play. He himself always preached it as one who believed it to
be the power of God unto holiness no less than unto
salvation.*
[* That is, not only to the eternal ‘salvation’ which all the redeemed of God
presently possess; but also to that future ‘salvation’ – the “salvation of souls” (1
Pet. 1: 9) “and the glory that should follow”
(vese 11), in the “Age”
yet to come!]
That this is the understanding of the New Testament, the
“mind of the Spirit,” requires no
proof. Few would in words deny it
to be so; only they state the gospel [of grace] so timorously, so warily, so guardedly, with so
many conditions, terms, and reservations, that by the time they have finished
their statement, they have left no good news in that which they set out with
announcing as “the gospel of the grace
of God.”
The more fully that the gospel is preached in the grand old
apostolic way, the more likely is it to accomplish the results which it did in
apostolic days. The gospel is the
proclamation of free love; the revelation of the boundless charity of God. Nothing less than this will suit our
world; nothing else is so likely to touch the heart, to go down to the lowest
depths of depraved humanity, as the assurance that the sinner has been loved;
[Page 45] loved by God; loved with a righteous love; loved with a free
love that makes no bargain as to merit, or fitness, or goodness. “Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us!” As the Lord of the vineyard, after
sending servant upon servant to the husbandmen in vain, sent at last his
“one son, his well-beloved” (Mark 12: 6); so law having failed, God has
dispatched to us the message of his love, as that which is by far the likeliest
to secure his ends. With nothing
less than this free love will he trust our fallen race. He will not trust them with law, or
judgment, or terror (though these are well in their place) ; but he will trust
them with his love! Not with a
stinted or conditional love; with half pardons, or an uncertain [eternal] salvation,
or a tardy peace, or a doubtful invitation, or an all but impracticable amnesty
- not with these does he cheat the heavy laden; not with these will he mock the
weary sons of men. He wants them to
be holy, as well as safe; and he knows that there is nothing in heaven or earth
so likely to produce holiness, under the teaching of the Spirit of holiness, as
the knowledge of his own free love.
It is not law, but “the love of Christ,”
that constraineth! “The strength of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15: 56); so the
strength of holiness is “deliverance from the law”
(Rom. 7: 6); yet are we not “without law”
(1 Cor. 9: 21);
neither yet “under the law” (Rom. 6: 14); but “under
grace,” that
we should “serve in newness of spirit, and not in
the oldness of the letter.”*
* Thus Calvin writes: “Consciences obey the law, not constrained by the necessity of
law, but, being made free from the yoke of law, they voluntarily obey the will
of God. They are in perpetual
terror as long as they are under the dominion of the law, and are never
disposed to obey God with delighted eagerness unless they have first received
this liberty” (Inst. III. 19: 4). “Not
to be under the law [says Luther]
is to do good and abstain from evil, not through the compulsion of law, but by
free love and with gladness.”
“If any man ask me [says Tyndale], seeing
faith justifies me, why I work, I answer love compelleth me; for as long as my
soul feeleth what love God hath showed me in Christ, I cannot but love
God again, and his will and commandments, and of love work them; nor can they
seem hard to me” (Pref. to Exodus). “When
faith had bathed a man’s heart in the blood of Christ, it is so mollified
that it quickly dissolves into tears of godly sorrow; so that if Christ but
turn and look upon him, oh then, with Peter he goes out and weeps bitterly. And this is true gospel-mourning; this
is right evangelical repenting.” - (Fisher’s Marrow of
Modern Divinity.)
[Page 46]
But so many (it is said) of those who were awakened under the
preaching of this very free gospel have gone back, that suspicions arise as to
whether it may not be the ultra-freeness of the gospel preached that has produced the evil. It is suggested that had the gospel been
better guarded both before and behind, we should have seen fewer falls and less
inconsistency. To this our answer
is ready. Multitudes “went back” from our Lord, yet no one could blame
his preaching. There were many
grievous corruptions in the early church, yet we do not connect these with
apostolic doctrine.* Our
Lord’s parable of the sower implies that,
however good the seed might be, and careful the sower,
there would be stony-ground hearers, and
thorny-ground hearers, going a certain length and then turning back. So that the backslidings complained of
are such as the apostles experienced; such as our Lord led us to anticipate, under
the preaching of his own full gospel.
[* NOTE. One such ‘corruption’ stems from the failure to
distinguish the “gift” from the
“prize”; the “gospel” of God’s “grace” from “the gospel of the Kingdom.” Rewards for suffering “with Him” in the coming ‘Kingdom’ consist in the redeemed people of God
being “accounted worthy” to enter
in, (Luke 20: 35). In the coming kingdom - unless
repentance is forthcoming - many will be deprived from occupying any position
in it, because of their unfaithfulness and disobedience here! Our faithfulness and obedience to the
precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ here and now, will be the
determining factor for our entrance and position of honour then.]
Further than this, however, we add, that while the preaching
of a guarded gospel may lead to no backslidings, it will accomplish no
awakenings; so that the question will come to be this, Is it not better to have
some fallings away, when many are aroused, than to have no fallings away, because
none have been shaken? The question as to what kind of
teaching results in fewest backslidings is, no doubt, an important one; but
still it is subordinate to the main one, What preaching produces upon the whole
the most conversions and brings most glory to God? Apostasies will occur in the
best of [Page 47] churches, bringing with them scandal to the name
of Jesus, and suspicion of the gospel as the cause of all the evil. But is this a new thing in the
earth? Is it not one of the things that strikingly identify us with Corinthian
and
* The
whole
Some ask the question, Is it not a suspicious sign of your
gospel that any of the hearers of it should say, May we continue in sin that
grace may abound? On the contrary,
it is a safe sign of it. Had it not
been very like Paul’s gospel,
it would not have led to the same inquiry with which the apostle’s
preaching was met. The [Page 48] restricted, guarded, conditional gospel, which some give us, as the
ultimatum of their good news, would have suggested no such thought as that
which the sixth chapter of the Romans was written to obviate.
The argument of the apostle, in such a case, becomes unmeaning and
superfluous; and hence that very statement which gives occasion to some
caviller to ask, “Shall we sin because we are not
under the law but under grace?” (Rom.
6:15), is not at all unlikely to be the authentic Pauline gospel, the
genuine doctrine of apostolical antiquity.
* * *
[Page 49]
Chapter 4
STRENGTH AGAINST SIN
Rom. 7: 24, 25 Gal. 2:
19 1
John 5: 4
Men live in sin, and yet they have the secret thought that
they ought not so to live; that they ought to get rid of it. Even those that have not the law, in this
respect “are a law unto themselves;”
or “the work of the law (that is, each
thing the law enjoins us to
do) is written in their hearts; their conscience also
bearing witness, and their thoughts struggling with each other, either accusing
or excusing” (Rom. 2: 15. See
Greek).
The groan of humanity, as well as the groan of creation, by
reason of sin, has been deep and long.
Not loud always; often an under-tone; oftener drowned in laughter; but
still terribly real.
Sin as disease, infectious and hereditary; sin as guilt, inferring divine condemnation and doom,
has been acknowledged; and along with the acknowledgment, the sad consciousness
has existed that the race was not made for sin, and that man himself, not God,
had wrought the [Page 50] wrong. Men in all ages, and of all religions, have, in some poor way, put in their
protest against sin, “knowing the judgment of
God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death” (Rom. 1: 32).
The fallen sons of Adam, though haters of God and of his law (Rom. 1: 30), have thus unconsciously become
witnesses against themselves, and unwittingly taken the side of God and of his
law.
All through the ages has this struggle gone on, between the
love and the dread of sin, the delight in lust and the sense of degradation
because of it; men clasping the poisoned robe, yet wishing to tear it off;
their life steeped in the evil, yet their words often lavished upon the good.
With much warmth did the ancient pagan wisdom of
Romish devotees, with fastings and flagellations, in addition
to earnest words, have tried to extirpate the wrong and nourish the right. Groping after righteousness, yet not
knowing what righteousness is, nor how it comes to us, they have built
themselves up in self-righteousness.
Professing to seek holiness, without understanding its nature, they have
snared themselves in delusions which bring no purity. Bent, as they say, upon “mortifying the [Page 51] flesh;” falsely identifying “the flesh” with the mere body; and `working upon the theology which
teaches that it is the body which ruins the soul; they lay great stress on
weakening and macerating the corporeal frame, not knowing that they are thus
feeding sin, fostering pride, making the body less fit to be the helpmeet of
the soul, and thereby producing unholiness of the darkest type in the eye of
God. By rules of no gentle kind; by terror, by pain, by visions of death and
the grave, by pictures of a fiercely flaming hell, by the denial of all
certainty in pardon, they have sought to terrify or force themselves into
goodness. By long prayers, by
bitter practices of self-denial, by slow chants at midnight or early morn in
dim cathedrals, by frequent sacraments, by deep study of old fathers, by the
cold of wintry solitudes, by multiplied deeds of merit and will-worship, they
have thought to expel the demon, and to eradicate “the ineradicable taint of sin.”
But success has not come in this way. The enterprise was a high but a fearful
one; and the men knew not how terrible it was. They had quite underrated the might of
the enemy, while over-estimating their own. The resources of the two sides were
indeed unequal. Not Leonidas against the myriads of
In all this there is not one thought of grace or divine free-love; no recognition of forgiveness as the root of
holiness. Man’s philosophy
and man’s religion have never suggested this. It would seem as if man could not trust
himself with this, and could not believe that God would trust him with it. He has no idea of barriers against sin,
save in the shape of walls, and chains, and bars of iron; of torture, and threats,
and wrath. On these alone he
relies. He is slow to learn that
all legal deterrents are in their very nature irritants, with no power to produce or enforce
anything but a constrained externalism.
The interposition of forgiving love, in absolute completeness and
freeness, is resisted as an encouragement to evil-doing; and, at the most,
grace, only in a very conditional and restricted form, is allowed to come into
play. The dynamics of grace have
never been reduced to a formula; they are supposed incapable of being so set
down. That God should act in any
other character than as the rewarder of the deserving and the punisher of the
undeserving; that he should go down into the depths of a human heart, and there
touch springs which were reckoned inaccessible or perilous to deal with; that
his gospel should throw itself upon something nobler than man’s fear of
wrath, and begin by proclaiming pardon as the first step to holiness; this
is so incredible to man, that, even with the Bible and the cross before his
eyes, he turns away from it as foolishness.
Nevertheless, this is “the more
excellent way;” nay, the true and only method of getting rid of
sin. Forgiveness of sins, in
believing God’s testimony to the finished propitiation of the cross, is not
simply indispensable to [Page 53] a holy life, in the way of removing
terror and liberating the soul from the pressure of guilt, but of imparting an
impulse, and a motive, and a power which nothing else could do. Forgiveness at the end or in the middle; a partial forgiveness, or an uncertain
forgiveness, or a grudging forgiveness, would be of no avail; it would only
tantalize and mock; but a complete forgiveness, presented in such a way as to
carry its own certainty along with it to every one who will take it at the
hands of God - this is a power in the earth, a power against self, a power against sin, a power
over the flesh, a power for holiness, such as no amount of suspense or terror
could create.
It is to this that our Lord refers, once and again, when
dealing with the Pharisees, those representatives of a human standard of
goodness as contrasted with a divine.
How deep the significance of such statements as these: “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”
(Luke 7: 42); “her sins, which are many, are forgiven” (Luke 7: 47); “the
Lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him
the debt” (Matt. 18: 27);
“neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more”
(John 8: 11); “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”
(Luke 5: 32); “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost”
(Luke 19: 10); “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son”
(John 3: 16); “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12: 47).
It is to this also that the apostles so often refer in their discourses
and epistles: “who his own self bare our sins in
his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness” (1 Peter 2: 24);
“through this man is preached unto you the
forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13: 38);
“God commendeth his love toward us, in [Page 54] that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom.
5: 8); “herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us” (1 John 4:
10); “we love him because he first loved
us” (1 John 4: 19). To this, also, all the prophets had
given witness; thus, “I will pardon all their
iniquities” (Jer. 33: 8); “there is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared” (Ps. 130: 4); “as far
as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us”
(Ps. 103: 12); “I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa. 43: 25).
Yet it is not a question of motives and stimulants merely that
is indicated in all this. It is one
of release from bondage; it is the dissolution of the law’s curse. Under law and its curse, a man works for self and Satan; “under
grace,” he works for God. It is forgiveness that sets a man working
for God. He does not work in order
to be forgiven, but because he has been forgiven; and the consciousness
of his sin being pardoned makes him long more for its entire removal than ever
he did before.
An unforgiven man cannot work. He has not the will, nor the power, nor
the liberty. He is in chains.
A forgiven man is the true worker, the true law-keeper. He
can, he will, he must work for God.
He has come into contact with that part of God’s character which
warms his cold heart. Forgiving
love constrains him. He cannot but
work for him who has removed his sins from him as far as the east is from the
west. Forgiveness has made him a
free man, and given him a new and most loving Master. Forgiveness, received freely from the
God [Page 55] and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, acts as a Spring, an
impulse, a stimulus of divine potency.
It is more irresistible than law, or terror, or threat. A half-forgiveness, an uncertain
justification, a changeable peace, may lead to careless living and more
careless working; may slacken the energy and freeze up the springs of action
(for it shuts out that aspect of God’s character which gladdens and
quickens); but a complete and assured pardon
can have no such effect. This
is “the truth which is after godliness”
(Titus 1: 1). Its tendencies toward holiness and consistency
of life are marvellous in their power and certainty. Irrepressible we may truly call the
momentum thus imparted to the soul; a momentum which owes its intensity to the entireness
and sureness of the pardon; a momentum on which some, in their ignorance
of Scripture, as well as of the true deep springs of human action, would fasten
their drag of doubt and uncertainty, lest what they call the interests of
morality should be compromised. As
if men could be made unholy by knowing certainly with what a holy love they have been freely loved; or made holy by
being kept in suspense as to their own personal reconciliation with God. As if pardon, doled out in crumbs or
drops, and even these so cautiously held out, or rather held back, that a man
can hardly ever be sure of having them, were more likely to be fruitful in good
works than a pardon given at once, and given in such a way as to be sure even
to the chief of sinners; a pardon worthy, both in its greatness and its
freeness, of the boundless generosity of God.*
* It
would he well for many if they would study Mr. Robert Haldane’s
Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, especially the second volume. It is a noble protest against the meagre
teaching of many so-called Protestants, on the subject of justification by
faith. Its faithful condemnation of
the false, and vindication of the true may be reckoned too “decided,” perhaps “extreme,” by “advanced”
theologians; but the
* * *
[Page 57]
Chapter 5
THE CROSS AND ITS POWER
Isa. 44:
22
Zech. 13: 1 1 Cor. 1: 23-30
Dan. 9: 24 Matt. 10:
38
Gal. 5: 24
Before I can live a Christian life, I must be a Christian
man. Am I such? I ought to know this. Do I know it,
and, in knowing it, know whose I am, and whom I serve? Or is my title to the name still
questionable, still a matter of anxious debate and search?
If I am to live as a son of God, I must be a son, and I must know it; otherwise my life will be an artificial imitation, a piece of
barren mechanism, performing certain excellent movements, but destitute of
vital heat and force. Here many
fail. They try to live like sons, in order to make themselves sons, forgetting God’s simple plan for attaining sonship at
once, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become
the sons of God” (John 1:12).*
[* NOTE. This “power” is
conditional upon our obedience and the continuance of the Holy Spirit in the
lives of regenerate believers. See Rom. 8: 19 and Acts 5:
32.]
The faith of many among us is, after all, but a trying to believe,
their repentance but a trying to repent; and, in so doing, they but use words
which they have learned from others.
It is not the love
of holiness that actuates [Page 58] them, but (at best) the love of
the love of holiness; it is not the love of God that fills them, but the love
of the love of God.*
* In
many, the love of the truth is but partial. In some, it is but the sentimental side
of the truth that is loved; in others, the logical; in others, the traditional;
in others, the pictorial; in others, the poetical; in others, the
beautiful. Very far short does this
fall of what the apostle calls “receiving the
love of the truth that they might be saved”
(2 Thess. 2: 10):
nay, it is not inconsistent with the “strong
delusion” and the “belief of the lie,”
against which he warns us (ib.
2: 11).
It is often out of such men and such materials that are formed the
“wells without water,” the “clouds carried about with a tempest,” the
“trees twice dead,”
the “wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness for ever [lit, ‘for an age’]”
(2 Peter 2: 17; Jude 13).
God’s description of a Christian man is clear and
well-defined. It has about it so
little of the vague and wide that one wonders how any mistake should have
arisen on this point, and so many dubious, so many false claims put in.
A Christian is one who “has
tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1
Peter 2: 3); who has been “begotten again unto a lively hope” (ib.
1: 3); who “has
been quickened together with Christ” (Eph.
2: 5); “made partaker of Christ”
(Heb. 3: 14); “partaker of the divine nature” (2
Peter. 1: 4); who “has been delivered from
this present evil world” (Gal. 1: 4).
Such is God’s description of one who has found his way to
the cross, and is warranted in taking to himself the Antiochian name of “Christian,” or the apostolic name of “saint.”
Of good about himself, previous to his receiving the record of the free
forgiveness, he cannot speak. He
remembers nothing lovable that could have recommended him to God; nothing fit
that could have qualified him for the divine favour, save that he needed
life. All that he can say
for himself is that he “has known and believed
the love that God hath to us” (1 John
4: 16); and, in believing, has found that which makes him not merely a happy, but a holy man. He has discovered
the fountain-head of a holy life.
[Page 59]
Have I then found my way to the cross? If so, I am safe. I have the everlasting life.
The first true touch of that cross has secured for me the eternal
blessing. I am in the hands of
Christ, and none shall pluck me thence (John 10: 28).
The cross makes us whole; not all at once indeed, but it does
the work effectually. Before we
reached it we were not “whole,” but
broken and scattered, nay, without a centre toward which to gravitate. The cross forms that centre, and, in
doing so, it draws together the disordered fragments of our being; it “unites our heart”
(Ps. 86: 11), producing a wholeness or unity
which no object of less powerful attractiveness could accomplish:* a wholeness
or unity which, beginning with the individual, reproduces itself on a larger
scale, but with the same centre of gravitation, in the Church of God.
* “Colligis nos” (thou gatherest us together), says Augustine (Conf. I. 3. 1); and again,
“Colligens me a dispersione in
qua frustratim discissus
sum; dum ab uno te aversus,
in multa evanui”
(Conf. II. 1. 1).
Of spiritual health, the cross is the source. From it there goes forth the “virtue” (dunamis, the power, Luke 6:
19) that heals all maladies, be they slight or deadly. For “by his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53: 5);
and in him we find “the tree of life,”
with its healing leaves (Rev. 22: 2). Golgotha has become
[*This is the point of Romans 5: 3, 4. “We glory
in tribulations, also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and
patience, experience; and experience, hope.” And so Paul chooses a life of
suffering for ‘that peace and truth’ of God, which would appear foolish and pitiable without having the ‘hope’ of “a better
resurrection” (Heb. 11: 35. cf.
Luke 20: 35; Phil. 3: 11) and a share in
the ‘glory’ and ‘the abundance of peace’
with Messiah beyond the grave after His Second
Advent.]
The cure is not perfected in an hour. But, as the sight of the
cross begins it, so does it complete it at last. The pulses of new health now beat in all
our veins. Our whole being
recognizes the potency of the divine medicine, and our diseases yield to it.
Yes, the cross heals.
It possesses the double virtue of killing sin and quickening
holiness. It makes all the fruits
of the flesh to wither, while it cherishes and ripens the fruit of the Spirit,
which is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5: 22).
By this the hurt of the soul is not “healed
slightly,” but truly and thoroughly. It acts like the fresh balm of southern
air to one whose constitution the frost and damp of the far north had
undermined. It gives new tone and
energy to our faculties, a new bent and aim to all our purposes, and a new
elevation to all our hopes and longings.
It gives the death-blow to self, it mortifies our members which are upon
the earth, it crucifies the flesh with its affections and lusts. Thus, looking continually to the cross,
each day, as at the first, we are made sensible of the restoration of our
soul’s health; evil loosens its hold, while good strengthens and ripens.
It is not merely that we “glory
in the cross” (Gal. 6: 14), but
we draw strength from
it. It is the place of weakness, for there “Christ was crucified through [Page 61] weakness” (2 Cor. 13: 4); but it is, notwithstanding, the
fountain-head of power to us; for as out of death came forth life, so out of
weakness came forth strength. This
is strength, not for one thing, but for everything. It is strength for activity or for
endurance, for holiness as well as for work. He that would be holy or useful
must keep near the cross. The cross
is the secret of power, and the pledge of victory. With it we fight and overcome. No weapon can prosper against it, nor
enemy prevail. With it we meet the fightings without as well as the fears within. With it we war the good warfare, we
wrestle with principalities and powers, we “withstand”
and we “stand” (Eph. 6: 12, 13); we fight the good fight, we
finish the course, we keep the faith (2 Tim. 4: 7).
Standing by the cross, we become imitators of the crucified
One. We seek to be like
him, men who please not themselves (Rom. 15: 3);
who do the Father’s will, counting not our life dear to us, who love our
neighbours as ourselves, and the brethren as he loved us; who pray for our
enemies; who revile not again when reviled; who threaten not when we suffer,
but commit ourselves to him that judgeth righteously; who live not to
ourselves, and who die not to ourselves; who are willing to be of “no reputation,” but to “suffer shame for his name,” to take the place
and name of “servant,” nay, to count
“the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11: 26). “Forasmuch,
then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same
mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin”
(has “died to sin,” as in Rom. 6: 10), “that he
no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of God” (1 Peter 4: 1,
2).
Standing by the cross, we realize the
meaning of such [Page 62] a text as this, “Our old man is [was] crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should
not serve sin” (Rom. 6: 6);
where the crucifixion of our old man, the destruction of the body of sin, and
deliverance from the bondage of sin, are strikingly linked to one another, and
linked, all of them, to the cross of Christ. Or we read the meaning of another,
“I am [have been] crucified
with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal.
2: 20). Here the
one Paul (not two Pauls, or two persons), speaks throughout, as completely
identified with Christ and his cross.
It is not one part of Paul in this clause and another in that; it is the
one whole Paul throughout, who is crucified, dies, lives! Like Isaac, he has been “received from the dead in a figure;” and as
Abraham would, after the strange Moriah transaction, look on Isaac as given
back from the dead, so would Jehovah reckon and treat this Paul as a risen
man! Isaac would be the same Isaac,
and yet not the same; so Paul is the same Paul, and yet not the same! He has passed through something which
alters his state legally, and his character morally; he is new. Instead of the first Adam, who was of
the earth earthy, he has got the last Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, for
his guest; “Christ liveth in him;”
“I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”
(just as he says, “yet not I, but the grace of
God in me”); and so he lives the rest of his life on earth,
holding fast his connection with the crucified Son of God and his love. Or again, we gather light upon that
text, “They that are Christ’s have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5: 24); and that, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world”
(Gal. 6: 14).
Standing by the cross, we realize the death of the surety, and discover more truly the meaning of passages
such as these: Col. 3: 3, “Ye are dead [ye died], and your life is hid with
Christ in God;” Col. 2: 20, “Ye died with
Christ from the rudiments of the world;” his death (and yours with
him) dissolved your connection with these; 2 Cor. 5: 14, “If one died
for all, then were all dead [all died]; and he
died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him who died for them and rose again;” Rom. 14: 9, “To this
end Christ both died and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the
dead and living;” Rom. 6: 7, 8,
“He that is dead [has died] is freed [justified] from sin
[i.e. he has paid the penalty]; now, if we be dead with Christ [or since we died with
Christ], we believe that
we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ being [having been] raised from the dead, dieth no more [he has no second penalty to pay, no second death to
undergo, Heb. 9:27, 28], death hath no more dominion
over him; for in that he died, he died unto sin once [his death finished
his sin-bearing work once for all]; but in that he
liveth, he liveth unto God; likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord; let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body [even in your body, chap. 12: 1], that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”
There is something peculiarly solemn about these
passages. They are very unlike,
both in tone and words, the light speech which some indulge in, when speaking
of the gospel and its forgiveness.
Ah, this is the language [Page 64] of one who has in him the profound
consciousness that severance from sin is one of the mightiest, as well as most
blessed, things in the universe. He
has learned how deliverance from condemnation may be found, and all legal
claims against him met. But, more
than this, he has learned how the grasp of sin can be unclasped, how its
serpent-folds can be unwound, how its impurities can be erased, how he can defy
its wiles and defeat its strength - HOW
HE CAN BE HOLY! This is, to
him, of discoveries one of the greatest and most gladdening. Forgiveness itself is precious, chiefly
as a step to holiness. How any one,
after reading statements such as those of the apostle, can speak of sin, or
pardon, or holiness without awe, seems difficult to understand. Or how any one can feel, that the
forgiveness which the believing man finds at the cross of Christ is a release
from the obligation to live a holy life, is no less incomprehensible.
It is true that sin remains in the saint; and it is equally
true that this sin does not bring condemnation back to him. But there is a way of stating this which
would almost lead to the inference that watchfulness has thus been rendered
less necessary; that holiness is not now so great an urgency; that sin is not
so terrible as formerly. To tell a
sinning saint that no amount of sin can alter the perfect standing before God,
into which the blood of Christ brings us, may not be technically or theologically
incorrect; but this mode of putting the truth is not that of the Epistle to the
Romans or Ephesians; it sounds almost like, “Continue
in sin because grace abounds;” and it is not scriptural
language. The apostolic way of
putting the point is that of 1 John 1: 9,
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins ... [Page 65] If any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”
(1 John 2: 1).
Thus, then, that which cancels the curse provides the
purity. The cross not only pardons,
but it purifies. From it there
gushes out the double fountain of peace and holiness. It heals, unites, strengthens, quickens,
blesses. It is God’s wing
under which we are gathered, and “he that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of
the Almighty” (Ps. 91: 1).
But we have our cross to bear, and our whole life is to be a
bearing of it. It is not
Christ’s cross that we are to carry; that is too heavy for us, and
besides, it has been done once for all.
But our cross remains, and much of a Christian life consists in a true,
honest, decided bearing of it. Not indeed to be nailed to it, but to take it up and carry it - this is
our calling. To each of
us a cross is presented when we assume the name of Christ. Strange will it be
if we refuse to bear it; counting it too heavy or too sharp, too much
associated with reproach and hardship.
The Lord’s words are very uncompromising, “If any man will
come after me, let him deny HIMSELF,
and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt.
16: 24). Our refusal to do
this may contribute not a little to our ease and reputation here; but it will not add to the weight of the
glory which the resurrection of the just shall bring to those who have
confessed the Master, and borne his shame, and done his work in an evil world.
With the “taking up of the cross
DAILY” (Luke 9: 23), our Lord connects the denial of self and
the following of him. He “pleased not himself;” neither must we, for the servant is not
above his master. He did not his
own will; neither must we, for the disciple is not above his [Page 66] Lord. If we endure no hardness,
but are self-indulgent, self-sparing men, how shall we be followers of
him? If we grudge labour, or sacrifice,
or time, or money, or our good name, are we remembering his example? If we shrink from the weight of
the cross, or its sharpness, or the roughness of the way along which we have to
carry it, are we keeping his word in mind, “Ye
shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with” (Matt. 20: 23)?
The cross on which we are crucified with Christ, and the cross which we carry, are
different things, yet they both point in one
direction, and lead us along one way. They both protest against sin, and summon
to holiness. They both “condemn the world,” and demand separation from
it. They set us upon
ground so high and so unearthly, that the questions which some raise as to the
expediency of conformity to the world’s ways are answered as soon as they
are put, and the sophistries of the flesh, pleading in behalf of gaiety and
revelry, never for a moment perplex us.
The [coming millennial] kingdom is in view,* the way is plain, the cross is on our shoulders;
and shall we turn aside after fashions, and frivolities, and pleasures, and
unreal beauties, even were they all as harmless as men say they are? It may seem a small thing now to
be a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God, but it will be found a fearful
thing hereafter, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his holy
angels with him. It may seem a possible thing just now, by avoiding all extremes and all
thoroughness, either in religion or
in worldliness, to conjoin both of these, but in the day of the separation of
the real from the unreal, it will be discovered to have been a poor attempt to
accomplish an impossibility; a failure - a failure for eternity, a failure [Page 67] as complete as it is disastrous
and remediless.
[* 2 Thess
1: 4, 5; Rev. 2: 10. Cf. Tit. 2: 13.]
The cross, then, makes us decided men. It brings both
our hearts
and our wills to the side of God.
It makes us feel the cowardice, as well as guilt, of indecision, bidding us be bold and stable, “holding faith and a good conscience;” all the
more because the wide “liberality” of
modern free-thinking has confounded skepticism with candour, and recognizes in
religious indifference a virtue and a grace.
Not to take any side strongly is no evidence of a large soul
or a great purpose. It is generally
an indication of littleness.
The furrows drawn by a firm hand are strongly and deeply
drawn. It is no surface work; soil
and subsoil are turned over with a decision which implies that, if the work is
worth doing at all, it is worth doing well. The man of true purpose and strong mind
handles his plough resolutely, from end to end of the longest furrow, till the
whole field be wrought. Thus do men
of true will and aim proceed, both in belief and action. Having put their hand to the plough,
they do not so much as look back.
The thoughts and purposes of men bear the impress of the mind
from which they emerge, as much in their decision, as in their general character. As earth’s streams are decided in their flow, and owe the measure
of their decision to the elevation of the mountain-range down [Page 68] whose steeps they pour, so is it with the opinions and actings of
men. Decision is no proof of
weakness; it is not bigotry, nor intolerance, nor ignorance, though it has
sometimes been the emanation of these, and identified with them.
Every thing in the Bible is decided; its statements of fact,
its revelations of truth, its condemnation of error, its declarations
respecting God and man, respecting our present and our future. Its characters are decided men -
Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Paul.
It speaks always with authority, as expecting to be implicitly credited.
It reckons on our receiving its teaching, not doubtfully but certainly; and it
leaves us only the alternative of denying its whole authenticity, or of
accepting its revelations, without a qualification and without a subterfuge. To
excuse ourselves for doubt and indecision, and oscillation of faith, by
pointing to differences of creed, is to suggest either that Scripture is not
infallible, or that it is not intelligible. The Bible is God’s direct
revelation to each man into
whose hands it comes; and, for the reception of all that it contains, each man
is responsible, though all his fellows should reject it. The judgment day will decide who is
right; meanwhile it is to God and not to man that we are to listen. For the understanding of God’s
revelation, each one is accountable.
If it can be proved that the Bible is so uncertainly written as to
render diversity of thought a necessity, or so obscurely expressed as to keep
men in ignorance, then, when the day of reckoning comes, the misled man will
have opportunity of substantiating his charges against God, and claiming
deduction from his penalty, on the plea of the ambiguity of the statute. Meanwhile we are responsible for decision
- decision, in thought and action, on every point [Page 69] which the Holy Spirit has written;
and it is not likely that the Spirit
of wisdom and love, in writing a book for us, would write so darkly as to be
unintelligible, or should give such an uncertain sound that no man could be
sure as to which, out of a score of meanings suggested by man, was the genuine.
Man’s usual thought is that the want of explicitness in
the Bible is the cause of diversity of opinion, and that a little more fullness
of statement and clearness of language would have prevented all sects and
confusions. The answer to this is
twofold: (1) That greater fullness would have only opened new points of
divergence and variance, so that, instead of a hundred opinions, we should, in
that case, have a thousand; (2) That the real cause of all the divergence and
unsettlement is to be found in man’s moral state; that there is not a
veil upon the Bible, but scales on human eyes; and that, were that spiritual
imperfection entirely removed, the difficulty would be, not how to believe, but
how not to believe; and the wonder would be how it was possible for us to
attach more than one meaning to words so significant and simple.
* * *
[Page 70]
Chapter 6
THE SAINT AND THE LAW
Ps. 19: 7-11 Matt. 7: 12
Eph. 6: 1-3
Prov. 3: 1
Rom. 7: 22
James 2: 8
Prov. 7: 14
Jer. 31: 33,
34
“God imputeth righteousness
without works,” says the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul (
This righteousness is at once divine and human, “the righteousness of God” (Rom 1: 17); the “righteousness
of him who is our God and Saviour” (2
Peter 1: 1; see Greek); the righteousness of him whose name is “Jehovah our righteousness” (Jer. 23: 6). It is “righteousness
without the law” (Rom. 3: 21);
yet righteousness which has all along been testified to by “the law and the prophets.” It is the “righteousness which is of faith” [i.e. which is got by
believing, Rom. 10: 6], “without the deeds of the law” (Rom. 3: 28), yet arising out of a fulfilled
law. It is the righteousness, not
of the Father or of Godhead, but of the Son, the Christ of God, the [Page 71] God-man; of him who, by his obedient life and death, magnified the law and
made it honourable.
Thus, then, on believing the divine testimony concerning this
righteousness, we are no longer “under the law,
but under grace” (Rom. 6: 14);
we are “dead to the law by the body [the
crucifixion, or crucified body] of Christ;”
we are “delivered from the law; that being dead
[viz., the law] wherein we were held” (Rom. 7: 6).
It appears, then, that the gospel does not change the law
itself, for it is holy, and just, and good; that grace does not abate the
claims, nor relax the penalties of law.
The law remains the same perfect code, with all its old breadth about
it, and all its eternal claims. For
what is the purport of the gospel, what is the significance of grace? Is it perfect obedience on our part to
the perfect law? That would be
neither gospel nor grace. Is it
perfect obedience to a relaxed, a less strict law? That would be the ruin of law on the one
hand, and the exaction of an obedience on the other, which no sinner could
render. Is it imperfect obedience
to an un-relaxed, unmodified law?
That would be salvation by sin, not by righteousness. Or, lastly, is it
imperfect obedience to a relaxed and imperfect law? That would be the destruction of all
government, the dishonour of all law; it would be the setting up “the throne of iniquity,” and “framing mischief by law” (Ps. 94: 20).
The demand of the law is perfection. Between everything and
nothing the Bible gives us our
choice. If we are to be saved by
the law, it must be wholly by the law; if
not wholly by the law, it must be wholly without the law.
But while it is clear that the law is not changed, and cannot
be changed, either in itself or in its claims, it is as clear that our
relations to the law, and the law’s [Page 72] relations to us, are altered, upon
our believing on him who is “the end [or
fulfilling] of the law, for righteousness to every one
that believeth!” If,
indeed, the effect of Christ’s death had been to make what is called
“evangelical obedience to a milder law,”
our justifying righteousness, then there would be a change in the law itself,
though not in our relation to it, which would in that case remain the same,
only operating on a lower scale of duty.
But if the end of Christ’s life and death be to substitute his
obedience for ours entirely, in the matter of justification, so that his doings
meet every thing in law that our doings should have met, then the relationship
between us and law is altered; we are placed upon a new footing in regard to
it, while it remains unchanged and un-relaxed.
What, then, is this new relationship between us and the law,
which faith establishes?
There are some who speak as if in this matter there is the
mere breaking up of the old relationship, the cancelling of the old covenant,
without the substitution of anything new.
They dwell on such texts as these: “Not
under the law,”
“delivered from the law,”
“without the law,” affirming that a believing
man has nothing more to do with law at all. They call that “imperfect teaching” which urges obedience to
law in the carrying out of a holy life; they brand as bondage the regard to law
which those pay who, studying Moses and the prophets, and specially the psalms
of him who had tasted the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth
righteousness without works (Psalm 32: 1),
are drinking into the spirit of David, or more truly, into the spirit of the
greater than David, the only begotten of the Father, who [Page 73] speaks, in no spirit of bondage, of the laws and statutes and judgments
and commandments of the Father.
Our old relationship to law (so long as it continued) made
justification by law a necessity.
The doing was
indispensable to the living, so long as the law’s claims over us personally were in
force. We strove to obey, in order
that we might live; for this is law’s arrangement, the legal
order of things; and so long as this order remained there was no
hope. It was impossible for us to
“obey and live”; and as the law
could not say to us, “live and, obey,”
it could do nothing for us. Only
that which could reverse this order in our case, which could give life
in order to obedience, would
be of any service to us. This the
gospel steps in to do. Not first
obedience and then life, but first life and then obedience.
This argues no weakness or imperfection in the law. For if any law could have given life,
this law would have done it (Gal. 3: 21). But law and life, in the case of the
sinner, are incompatible. It is the
very perfection of the law that makes life impossible under it, unless in the
case of entire and ceaseless obedience, without a flaw. “By the law is the knowledge of sin;”* and where
sin is, material law proclaims death, not life.
* This
text does not apply merely to the operation of law upon the sinner’s
conscience, convincing him of his guilt; it points also to the instruction
which law gives us regarding sin all the days of our life. We learn sin and its details from the
law; we learn the penalty elsewhere.
So long, then, as the old relationship continued between us
and law; or, in the apostle’s words, so long as we were “under law,” there was nothing but condemnation
and an evil conscience, and the fearful looking for of judgment. But with the change of relationship
there came pardon and liberty and gladness. “Christ
hath [Page 74] redeemed us
from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Gal. 3: 13); and so we are no longer under law,
but under grace. The law is the
same law, but it has lost its hold of us, its power over us. It cannot cease to challenge perfect
obedience from every being under heaven, but to us its threat and terror are
gone. It can still say “Obey,” but it cannot now say “Disobey and perish.”
Our new relationship to the law is that of Christ himself to
it. It is that of men who have met
all its claims, exhausted its penalties, satisfied its demands, magnified it,
and made it honourable. For our
faith in God’s testimony to Christ’s surety obedience has made us
one with him. The relation of the
law to him is its relation to us who believe in his name. His feelings toward the law ought to be
our feelings. The law looks on us
as it looks on him; we look on the law as he looks on it. And does not he say, “I delight to do thy will, 0 my God; yea thy law is within my
heart” (Ps. 40: 8)?
Some speak as if the servant were greater than the Master, and
the disciple above his Lord; as if the Lord Jesus honoured the law, and his
people were to set it aside; as if he fulfilled it for us, that we might not
need to fulfil it; as if he kept it, not that we might keep it, but that we
might not keep it, but something else in its stead, they know not what.
The plain truth is, we must either keep it or break it. Which of these men ought to do, let
those answer who speak of a believer having nothing more to do with law. There is no middle way. If it be not a saint’s duty to
keep the law, he may break it at pleasure, and go on sinning because grace
abounds.
[Page 75]
The word duty is objected to as
inconsistent with the liberty of forgiveness and sonship. Foolish and idle cavil! What is duty? It is the thing which is
due by me to God; that line
of conduct which I owe to God. And do these objectors mean to say
that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, therefore we owe him
nothing, we have no duty now to him? Has not redemption rather made us doubly
debtors? We owe him more than ever; we owe his holy law more than ever; more
honour, more obedience. Duty has
been doubled, not cancelled, by our being delivered from the law;
and he who says that duty has ceased, because deliverance has come, knows nothing of duty, or law, or deliverance. The greatest of all debtors in the
universe is the redeemed man, the man who can say, “The life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” What a strange sense of gratitude these
men must have who suppose that because love has cancelled the penalties of law,
and turned away its wrath, therefore reverence and obedience to that law are no
longer due! Is terror, in their estimation, the only
foundation of duty; and when love comes in and terror ceases, does duty become
a bondage?
No, they may say; but there is something higher than duty,
there is privilege; it is that we contend for.
I answer, the privilege of what? Of obeying the law? That they cannot away with; for they say they are no longer under law,
but under grace. What privilege,
then? Of imitating Christ? Be it so. But how can we imitate Him whose life
was one great law-fulfilling, without keeping the law? What privilege? again we ask. Of doing
the will of God? Be it so. And what is law but [Page 76] the revealed will of God? And
has our free forgiveness released us from the privilege of conformity to the
revealed will of God?
But what do they mean by thus rejecting the word duty, and
contending for that of privilege?
Privilege is not something distinct from duty, nor at variance with
duty, but it is duty and something more; it is duty influenced by higher
motives; duty uncompelled by terror or suspense. In privilege the duty is all there; but there
is something superadded, in shape of motive and relationship, which exalts and
ennobles duty. It is my duty to
obey government; it is my privilege to obey my parent. But in the latter case is duty gone,
because privilege has come in? Or
has not the loving relationship between parent and child only intensified the
duty, by superadding the privilege, and sweetening the obedience by the mutual
love? “The love of Christ constraineth.”
That is something more than both duty and privilege added.
Let men who look but at one side of a subject say what they
will, this is the truth of God, that we are liberated from the law just in
order that we may keep the law; we get the “no
condemnation,” in order that “the righteousness
of the law may be fulfilled
in us” (Rom. 8: 4); we are
delivered from “the mind of the flesh,”
which is enmity to God, and not subject to his law, on purpose that we may be subject
to his law (Rom. 8: 7), that we may
“Delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7: 22); nay, that we may “with the mind serve the law of God” (Rom. 7: 25);
that we may be “doers of the law” (James 4:
11). These objectors may
speak of obedience to the law as bondage, or of the law itself being abolished
to believers; here are the words of the Holy Ghost; the law of God is just the law of God; [Page 77] that very law which David loved, and in which David’s Son delighted;
and what delighting in it, serving it, doing it are, it would be well for such
men meekly and lovingly to learn.
“Do we make void the law by
faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Rom. 3: 31); that is, we set it on a firmer basis
than ever. That law, “holy, and just, and good,” thus doubly
established, is now for us, not against us. Its aspect toward us is that of
friendship and love, and so we have become “the servants of righteousness” (Rom. 6: 18), “yielding
our members servants to
righteousness” (Rom. 6: 19). We are not men delivered from service
but delivered from one kind of service,
and by that deliverance introduced into another, “that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7: 6); as “the
Lord’s freemen” (1 Cor. 7: 22), yet Christ’s servants (1 Cor. 7: 22).
Thus, obligation, duty, service, obedience still remain to the believing
man, though no longer associated with bondage and terror, but with freedom, and
gladness, and love. The law’s
former bearing on us is altered, and, with that, the nature and spirit of the service are altered,
but the service itself remains, and the law which regulates that service is
confirmed, not annulled.
Some will tell us that it is not service they object to, but service regulated
by law.
But will they tell us what it is to regulate service, if not
law? Love, they say. This is a
pure fallacy. Love is not a rule, but a motive.
Love does not tell me what to do; it tells me how to do it. Love
constrains me to do the will of the beloved one; but to know what the will is,
I must go elsewhere. The law of our God is the will of the beloved one, and were that
expression of his will withdrawn, love would be utterly [Page 78] in the dark; it would
not know what to do. It might say,
I love my Master, and I love his service, and I want to do his bidding, but I
must know the rules of his house, that
I may know how to serve
him. Love without law to guide its
impulses would be the parent of will-worship and confusion, as surely as terror
and self-righteousness, unless upon the supposition of an inward miraculous
illumination, as an equivalent for law.
Love goes to the law to learn the divine will, and love
delights in the law, as the exponent of that will; and he who says that a
believing man has nothing more to do with law, save to shun it as an old enemy,
might as well say that he has nothing to do with the will of God. For the divine law and the divine will are substantially
one, the former the outward manifestation of the latter. And it is “the
will of our Father which is in heaven”
that we are to do (Matt. 7: 21); so proving by loving obedience what is that
“good, and acceptable, and perfect will
of God” (Rom. 12: 2).
Yes, it is “he that doeth the will of God that abideth forever” (1 John 2: 17); it is to “the will
of God” that we are to live (1 Peter 4: 2); “made
perfect in every good work to do his will” (Heb. 13:
21); and “fruitfulness in every good work”
springs from being “filled with the knowledge of his
will” (Col. 1: 9, 10).
As to the oneness between divine will and divine law, I need
only quote the words of him who came to fulfil the law, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I
delight to do thy will, 0 my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”
(Ps. 40:7, 8; Heb. 10: 7).
If law be not will, what is it? And if will has not uttered itself in
law, in what has it spoken? Truth is
the utterance of the divine mind, but law is the utterance of the divine will. When a father teaches his child, we see [Page 79] simply mind meeting mind; but when he commands or gives rules, we
see will
meeting will. When
parliament publishes reports of proceedings, or the like, there is simply the
expression of its mind; when it passes
an act, here is the declaration of its will.
I ask attention to this the real meaning of law, because it is
the key to the solution of the question before us. That question is really not
so much concerning the law of God as concerning his will; and the theology
which would deny the former would set aside the latter. Conformity to the will of God can only
be carried out by observance of his law, for we know his will only through his
law.
I do not see how a crooked will is to be straightened unless
by being brought into contact with “the perfect
will of God;” nor do I see how that will is to be brought to bear
upon us, for the rectification of our will, unless by the medium of the
revealed law. Will must be brought to
bear upon will, the divine upon the human will, and this must be through
that part of revelation which embodies will, unless some miraculous power
be put forth in us apart altogether from the truth of God; and he who affirms
this may also affirm that peace is to be dropped into us apart from the gospel
of peace. The divine volition,
embodied in a force or power which we call gravitation, rules each motion of
the unconscious planets, and this same divine volition or will, embodied in
intelligible law, is that which regulates the movements of our conscious wills,
straightening them and keeping them straight, though without wrong done to
their nature, or violation of their true freedom.
Should it be said that will and law are now embodied in CHRIST; and that it is to this model
that we are to [Page 80] look; I ask, What do we see in
Christ? The fulfiller of the
law. He is the embodiment and
perfection of law-fulfilling. We
cannot look at him without seeing the perfect law. God has given us these two things in
these last days, the law and the living model; but was the living model meant
to supersede the law? Was it not to illustrate and enforce
it? We see the law now, not merely
in the statute-book, but in the person of the King himself. But is the statute-book thereby
annihilated, and its statutes made void?
Were Christ’s expositions of the law, in the fifth, sixth and
seventh chapters of Matthew, intended to overrule or abrogate the law
itself? No; but to show its breadth
and purity. And when he thus
expounded the law, did he say to his disciples, “But
you have nothing to do with this law; it is set aside for all that shall
believe in my name”?
Did he not liken to a wise man every one who should hear these sayings
of his and do them (Matt. 7: 24); nay, did
he not say. “Think not that I am come to destroy the
law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
... Whosoever,
therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall
teach men so, he shall be
called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5: 17-19).
Now one would think that this should settle the question. For the Lord is speaking of the law and
its commandments, lesser and greater, and he
is speaking of it as binding on them who are [destened to be] heirs* of the kingdom of heaven.
[* See 1 Cor. 6: 8, 9; Gal. 5: 19-21; Eph.
5: 5. cf. Rev. 20: 6.]
Should it be said that it is only exemption from obligation to
the moral law or Ten Commandments that is pleaded for, and not the law or will
of God in general, I answer, the Ten Commandments are the summary or [Page 81] synopsis of God’s will as to the regulation of man’s life; and
every other part of the Bible is in harmony with this moral law.* So that exemption from compliance with any
Bible statute, or from the
obligation of submitting ourselves to any Bible truth, might be pleaded for as properly as exemption from the law. For the law cannot be cut out of the Bible
and set aside by itself, while all else remains in force. Either all must go or none.
* Besides,
the Ten Commandments were for redeemed
If the objection is to the use of the
word “law” or commandment, - as
implying bondage, I answer, obedience to law is true liberty; perfect obedience
to perfect commandments is perfect liberty. And there must be some dislike of the
law’s strictness where this dislike of obligation to it is felt; nay,
there must be ignorance of gospel, as well as law, in such a case, ignorance of
that very redemption from the curse of the law for which the objectors profess
such zeal, ignorance of the complete “righteousness
without the law” which we have in Christ. I am persuaded of this, that where there
is this shrinking from the application of law as our rule of life, there is a
shrinking from perfect conformity to the will of God; nay, more, there is unbelief in the gospel, the want of a full consciousness of the perfect
forgiveness which the belief of that gospel brings; for were there this full consciousness of pardon, there would be
no dread of law, no shrinking from Sinai’s thunders, no wish to be
exempted from the broadest application of Sinai’s statutes. [Page 82] In all Antinomianism, whether
practical or theological, there is some mistake both as to law and gospel.
But why object to such words as law, and commandment, and
obedience? Does not the apostle
speak of “the law of the Spirit of life”? Does he not say, “This is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ”
(1 John 3: 23)?; and is not “the new commandment” said to be only a repetition of “the old commandment, which we have heard from the beginning” (1 John 2: 7)?; and does he not speak of “obedience unto righteousness”
(Rom. 6: 16), and of “obedience to the faith”
(Rom. 1: 5)?
When the apostle is exhorting Christians in the 12th and 13th
of the Romans, is he not giving precepts and
laws? Nay, and does he not found
his exhortations on the Ten Commandments?
“For this thou shalt not kill, thou shalt
not steal, thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in the
saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour,
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (
In other epistles the same reference occurs to the Ten
Commandments, as the basis of a true and righteous life. Thus, in speaking of
the family relationship, the apostle introduces the moral law as the foundation
of obedience, “Children, obey your parents in the
Lord: for this is right; honour thy father and mother, which is the first
commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live
long on the earth” (Eph. 6: 1-3),
where, writing to those who are in the Lord, and not Jews, but Gentiles, he demands obedience and honour, in
the name of the fifth commandment. Yet surely, if any duty might have
been left to the impulses of Christian love, without reference to law, it would
be that of a believing child to its parent. Was the apostle then a legalist when he
referred the Ephesians to the law as a rule of life? Did he not know that they were “not under the law, but under grace”?
In the Epistle of James we find similar appeals to the moral
law as the rule of Christian life.
That he is speaking of the Ten Commandments is evident, for he quotes two
of them (chap. 2: 11), as specimens of what he calls the
law. This law he bids his Christian
brethren “look into” (1: 25), “continue in”
it (1: 25), “fulfil”
it (2: 8), “keep”
it (2: 10), be “doers” of it (4: 11). And this law he calls “the law of liberty” (2:
12); nay, “the perfect law of liberty” (1: 25),
carrying us back to the psalmist’s experience, “I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts” (Ps.
119: 45); for law is bondage only to the [Page 84] unforgiven; all true obedience is
liberty, and all true liberty consists in obedience to law. This law, moreover, the apostle so
delights in that he calls it “the royal law”
(2: 8), the “perfect
law” (1: 25), pronouncing those
blessed who are “not forgetful hearers, but doers of the work” (1: 25).
Had this apostle forgotten that we were “not
under the law, but under grace”? But he was writing to Jews, some
say. Yes, but to believing
Jews, just as Paul was when
writing to “the Hebrews,” and when
writing to “the Romans” also (Rom. 2: 17-29). And do men mean to say that there is one
gospel for the Jew and another for the Gentile; that the Jew is still “under the law, and not under grace; and that in Christ Jesus all nations of men are not entirely ONE”? (Eph. 2: 14-22; 1 Cor. 12: 12,
13; Gal. 3: 28).
If the objection to the believer’s use of the law be of any weight, it must apply to everything
in the form of precept; for
the reasons given against our having anything to do with the moral law are
founded upon its preceptive or commanding character. The law, in itself, is admitted to be
good, and breaches of it are sin, as when a man steals or lies; but then, the
form in which it comes, of do or do not, makes it quite unsuitable for a
redeemed man! Had it merely said
“stealing is wrong,” it might have
been suitable enough; but when it issues its precept, “Thou shalt not steal,” it becomes unmeet;
and one who is “not under the law, but under grace,” must close his
ears against it, as an intruder and a tyrant!
Of angels this is said to be the highest felicity, that
“they do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word” (Ps. 103: 20); just as of those from whom the Lord
has “removed transgression as far as the east [Page 85] is from the west,” it is said that “they
remember his commandments to do them”
(Ps. 103: 12, 18). But if this theory of the total
disjunction of the law from believers be true, then angels must be in bondage,
and they also to whom Paul refers as specimens of the blessed men whose
transgressions are forgiven by the imputation of “righteousness without works” (Rom.
4: 6). To unforgiven men law
is bondage; but is it so to the forgiven? Do pardoned men hate or love it? Do they dread it or delight in it? Do they disobey it or obey it? Do they dismiss it from their thoughts
and consciences, or do they make it their “meditation
all the day”? Yet
there are men who speak of law as abrogated to a believer, who look with no
favour on those who listen to it, but pity them as ill-taught, ill-informed
men, who, if in Christ at all, are only Christians of the lowest grade, the
least in the kingdom of heaven.
And this is said to be the proper result of a believed
gospel! This is called an essential
part of higher Christianity; and is reckoned indispensable to the right
appreciation of a saint’s standing before God. The realizing of it is a proof of true
spirituality, and the denial of it an evidence of imperfect knowledge and a
cramped theology!
We can find no such spirituality, no such Christianity in the
Bible. This is license, not
liberty; it is freedom to sin, not freedom from sin. It may be spiritual sentimentalism, but
it is not spirituality. It is
sickly religionism, which, while professing a higher
standard than mere law, is departing from that healthy and authentic conformity
to the will of God which results from the love and study of his statutes. It is framing a new and human standard, [Page 86] in supplement, if not in
contradiction, of the old and the divine.*
* “Not without law to God,”
says the apostle; nay, “under the law to Christ”
(1 Cor. 9: 21, not
anomos, but
ennomos); and
yet he understood well enough what it is to be “not
under the law, but under grace.”
This dislike of the law as a rule of life, and a guide to our
knowledge, both of what is right and what is wrong, bodes nothing good. It bears no resemblance to the
apostle’s delight in the law of God after the inner man, but looks like
dread of its purity and searching light.
Nay, it looks more like the spirit of antichrist than of Christ: the
spirit of him whose characteristic is lawlessness (anomia,
“without law”) than that of him
who, as the obedient Son, ever did the Father’s will, in accordance with
the holy law. “I delight to do thy will, 0 my God: yea, thy law is within my
heart” (Ps. 40: 8). It is granted that “the law worketh wrath” (Rom.
4: 15), and yet that to a believing man legal threats of condemnation
have no terror. It is granted that
in the matter of forgiveness and acceptance law is to him nothing save as seen
fulfilled in his Surety; that law has no claim upon him which should break his
peace, or trouble his conscience, or bring him into bondage; that law can only
touch him and deal with him in the person of his substitute; that the
righteousness in which he stands before God is a “righteousness without the law,” and “without the deeds of the law;” that the sin
which still remains in him does not give the law any hold over him, or any
right to enforce its old claims or threats. It is granted that it is in grace alone
that he stands, and rejoices in hope of the glory of God, in a condition at all
times to take up the challenge, “Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect?” “Who is he
that condemneth?” But
admitting fully all of this, we ask, What is there in [Page 87] this to disjoin him from the law, or exempt him from obedience to it? Are not all these things done to him for
the purpose of setting him in a position wherein he may love and keep the
blessed law which Jesus kept? And
should he not feel and cry, as did the redeemed men of other days, “Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes”?
(Ps. 119: 5); “Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments” (ib. 10); “I have
rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies” (ib. 14); “my soul
breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments” (ib. 20); “make me to
understand the way of thy precepts” (ib. 27); “I will run the
way of thy commandments when
thou shalt enlarge my heart” (ib. 32).*
* The 19th and 119th Psalms must be very uncomfortable
reading to those who think that a saint has nothing to do with the law. Will it be said that much legal Psalms
were only for Old Testament saints?
Should any one say that it is not to service, but to bondage they object, I
answer, no one contends for bondage. It is in the spirit of adoption and filial
love that we obey the law, even as the Son of God obeyed it. But it is somewhat remarkable that the
word which the apostle uses, in reference to his connection with law, is not that for priestly service or ministration, but for menial offices; “that we
should serve [douleuo, be a slave] in newness of spirit”
(Rom. 7: 6); “with
the mind I myself serve the law of God” (ib.
25); “yield your members servants
to righteousness” (Rom. 6: 19);
so that, as the strictest conformity
to the law was that in which he delighted, so it is that in which he calls on
us to delight.
When he speaks of not being “under the law,” but “delivered from the law,” his meaning is so
obvious that it is somewhat difficult to misunderstand him. His whole argument is to show how the law
affected a sinner’s standing before God, either in condemning or in [Page 88] justifying. He shows that it
cannot do the latter, but only the former; and that, for justification, we must
go to something else than law; for “by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified.” In everything relating to our
justification, everything connected with pardon or the giving of a “good conscience,” we are not under law. But does this release us from conformity
to the law? Does this make it less a duty to walk according to its precepts, or
make our breaches of law no longer sin? Does our being, in this sense “delivered from the law” cancel the necessity of
loving God and man? The summing up
of the law is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.” Is a saint not under
obligation so to love? Would the
fulfilment of this be bondage, and inconsistent with the spirit of
adoption? Is liberty claimed for a
Christian either to love or not to love, as he pleases? If he does not love, is he not
sinning? Or does his not being
under law, but under grace, make the want of love no crime? Is obedience a matter of option, not of
obligation? If it is answered, No;
we will love God with all our heart, but not because the law enjoins; I answer,
this looks very like the spirit of a forward child, who says to a parent, I
will do such and such a thing because I please, but not because you bid me.
As the common objections to the observance of the Sabbath take
for granted that that day is a curse and not a blessing - bondage, not liberty
- so the usual objections to the keeping of the law assume that it is in itself
an evil, not a good - an enemy, and not a friend. I Say what men will, obedience to law is
liberty, compliance with law is harmony, not discord. The force of law does not need always to be felt, but its object, whether felt or unfelt, is to keep everything in
its proper [Page 89] place, and moving in its proper
course, so that one man’s liberty may not interfere with another
man’s, but each have the greatest amount of actual freedom which
creaturehood is capable of, without harm to itself or others. Law does not interfere with true
liberty, but only with that which is untrue, promoting and directing the former,
discouraging only the latter.
As with the orbs of heaven, so with us. Obedience to their ordered courses is
not simply a necessity of their being, but of their liberty. Let them snap their cords,
and choose for themselves the unfettered range of space; then not only is order
gone, and harmony gone, and beauty gone, but liberty is
gone; for that which keeps them in freedom is obedience to the forces of
their constitution, and non-departure from their appointed orbits. Disobedience
to these, departure from these, would bring about immediate collision of star
with star, the stoppage of their happy motions, the extinction of their joyful
light, havoc and death, star heaped on star in universal wreck.
* * *
[Page 90]
Chapter 7
THE SAINT AND THE SEVENTH
OF ROMANS
Gen. 3:15 Ps. 119:
25 1 Cor. 11: 31, 32
Ps. 19:12, 13 Isa. 6: 5 Gal. 5: 17
Ps. 65: 3 Rom. 7:
14-24
1 John 1: 8-10
I do not see how any one, with a right insight into the
apostle’s argument, without a theory to prop up, or with any personal
consciousness of spiritual conflict, could have thought of referring this
chapter to a believer’s unregenerate condition, or to his transition
state, while groping his way to rest.*
[* It is here necessary to distinguish the rest which
God’s redeemed people presently have - by grace through faith in
Christ alone - from His remaining “sabbath-rest”
mentioned in (Heb. 4: 9): “For if Joshua had given them [redeemed Israel] rest, then would he afterward have spoken of another day”
– that is, Messiah’s day of “a
thousand years” (Rev. 20: 2, 3):
His future ‘Sabbath rest’ which we must
labour to enter into, (Heb. 4: 11).]
It furnishes a key to an experience which would otherwise have
seemed inexplicable, the solution of perplexities which without it would have
been a stumbling-block and a mystery.
It is God’s recognition of the saint’s inner conflict as an
indispensable process of discipline, as a development of the contrast between
light and darkness, as an exhibition of the way in which God is glorified in
the infirmities of his saints, and in their contests with the powers of
evil. Strike out that chapter, and
the existence of sin in a soul after conversion is unexplained. [Page 91] It accounts for the inner warfare of
the forgiven man, and gives the apostle’s experience as a specimen of the
conflict.
The previous chapters show the man forgiven, justified, dead,
and risen with Christ. Is not sin, then, extirpated? The seventh chapter answers, No. It no longer reigns, but it fights.
It does not, indeed, bring back condemnation or bondage or doubt,
but it stirs up strife, strife which the completeness of the justification does
not hinder, and which the saint’s progress in holiness does not arrest,
but rather aggravates, so that at times there seems to be
retrogression, not advancement in the spiritual life.
“I delight in the law of God
after the inner man,”* are the words, not of an inquirer, or doubter, or semi-regenerate
man, but of one who had learned to say, with saints of other days, “Oh, how love I thy law” (Ps. 119: 97); nay, with Messiah himself, “I delight to do thy will, 0 my God; yea, thy law is within my heart” (Ps. 40: 8).
* Kata ton eso anthropon, as in Eph. 3: 16. “Strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man;”
and in 2 Cor. 4: 16
(where it is ho esothen),
“the inner man is renewed day by day;”
showing that this “inner man” is not
perfected at once, but that its renewal is a gradual daily process.
“With the mind I myself serve the law of God”
is the language of one to whom obedience had become blessedness, and who was
not only looking into the perfect law of liberty, but continuing therein (James 1: 25), in whose estimation “serving righteousness” (Rom.
6: 18), “serving God” (Rom. 6: 22),
“serving the Lord,” and “serving the law of God,” were equivalents. But then he who thus speaks, this very
Paul, who had died and risen with Christ, who had been in the third heaven,
adds, “I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin,
which is in my members; 0 wretched man that I [Page 92] am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? ... So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” This is not the language of an
unregenerate or half-regenerate man.
When, however, he adds, “I am carnal, sold
under sin,” is it really Paul, the new creature in Christ, that he
is describing? It is; and they who
think it impossible for a saint to speak thus must know little of sin, and less
of themselves. A right apprehension
of sin, of one sin or fragment of a sin (if such a thing there be), would
produce the oppressive sensation here described by the apostle, a sensation
which twenty or thirty years’ progress would rather intensify than
weaken. They are far mistaken in
their estimate of evil, who think that it is the multitude of sins that
gives rise to the bitter outcry, “I am carnal.” One sin left behind would produce the
feeling here expressed. But where is the saint whose sins
are reduced to one? Who can say, I
need the blood less and the Spirit less than I did twenty years ago?
It is to be feared that some are carrying out the idea of
“no condemnation,” of resurrection
with Christ, and of the perfection of the new man, to such an extreme as to
leave no room for conflict after conversion. They do not see that while conversion
calms one kind of storm it raises another, which is to be life-long. To such this seventh of the Romans is as
great a vexation as is the ninth to the deniers of divine sovereignty, both
parties being conscious that their theology would be more manageable without
the explanations and modifications which these chapters force upon them.
They seem to teach that the regenerate man is made up of two
persons, two individuals, the old man and the [Page 93] new man, constituting two separate and
independent beings, an angel and a devil linked together - the old man
unchangeably evil, the new perfect and impeccable. In this case one is disposed to ask:
1. Who is responsible for sin
committed? Not the new man, for he
is “perfect;” and unless he either
sins himself, or helps the old man to sin, he cannot be accountable for the
evil done. A good man and a bad
one, shut up in one prison, would not agree; but the former, however
uncomfortable, would not feel responsible for the sins of the latter. Like David, he might mourn that he dwelt
in Meshech, or like
2. Who gets the pardon? Is it the old man or the new? Not the new, for he is perfect: and it
will hardly be affirmed that it is he who gets pardon for the sins of the old
man. It must then be the old man that
confesses the sin and gets the forgiveness, and is washed in the blood! Or is there no pardon needed, or none possible, in such a case? Are the sins of the old man unpardonable? If not unpardonable, why is he said to
be hopelessly bad?
3. What becomes of the old man at death? Is he cast into hell? Or, if not, what becomes of him? Is he annihilated? If he be the sinner, and if his sins are not pardoned, what is to be
done with him and with his sins?
4. For whom did Christ die? Not for the new man, seeing he is perfect from his creation. It must, then, have been for the old man,
and for him alone, seeing it is he only that sins!
5. Who is it that dies, is buried, rises, and ascends with [Page 94] Christ? Not the old man, surely? He does not rise again, and sit in
heavenly places. Not the new
man. He does not die, nor is he
buried.
6. Who was it that was born again? Not the new man; he did not need that change. Not the old man; he was incapable
of it.
7. Who is it that makes progress? Not the old man. He is beyond improvement. Not the new man, for he is perfect. So that there is no room for “the inner man being renewed day by day.” Scripture teaches that the whole
man advances, “increases in the knowledge of God,” the old
element becoming weaker, and the new stronger, and the individual growing in hatred of sin, love to God
and Christ, the righteous law, and every holy thing. But how those who insist on the
perfection of the new man, and the unchangeableness of the old, can teach progress,
we do not see.
These questions, thus asked and answered, lead us to the
simple conclusion, that the language of the apostle is figurative. “Not
figurative at all,” said a friend to us, “there is no figure in the matter. Only a rationalist would say so. Bible words are all real and literal.” Real I grant; not always literal.
There are figures in Scripture. When the Lord
said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” he used
a figure; and his disciples were wrong in accepting his words literally.
They were the
rationalists. When he said, “Ye must be born again,” he used a figure; and
Nicodemus was mistaken in construing his language literally. He was the rationalist. The disciples and Nicodemus, by their
literalities, turned our Lord’s words into foolishness. So do some among us, by their teaching
as to the old and new man. If there
be no figure, then there must be two bodies, two
souls, two spirits, those of [Page 95] the old man and the new; for a man is
a being made up of body, soul, and spirit.
If there be no figure here, there will be no figure in Ezek. 36: 26; and it must be maintained that God
literally takes out one heart and puts in another; takes out a stone, and
inserts flesh; in which case, the old nature disappears entirely, and the new
reigns alone.
We know that there is conflict in the soul. But this is not between two persons or
personalities, or separate individuals, but between two parts of one
person. In the case before us, the one
person is Paul - once Saul, now Paul.
He feels himself responsible for the sins of the old man; he gets the pardon for the old man’s
sins; for the old man is but another name for a part of his own very self. It was Paul who was born again, who died
and rose with Christ. He was
“begotten again,” not by the
insertion of a foreign substance called “the new
creature” into him, but by his becoming a new creature.
The whole man is converted,
puts on Christ, is washed in blood, and clothed with the righteousness of God;
soul, spirit, conscience, intellect, and will. These are not perfect at once, but the
transformation begins at regeneration; and though there are two conflicting
elements, there is one responsible self
or Person.
This mysticism as to the old and new man proceeds on a confusion
similar to that which mixes up justification and sanctification. The “old
man,” in the apostle’s figure, evidently means sometimes our
former legal condition, and
at other times our former moral state. In the first
sense, the old man is “crucified,”
“put off”, once for all, in
believing, when we cease to have “confidence in the
flesh” (Phil. 3: 3). Thus far it is true that it is not amended, but set aside entirely. In the second sense [Page 96] there is a daily putting off what is old, and putting on what is new. It is like our putting on Christ, which
is done once for all, at
justification, but also gradually, in the process of renewing, so that in one place we read, “Ye have put on Christ” (Gal.
3: 27), and in another, “Put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13: 14). The mixture of these two things is the
chief source of the errors we have been exposing.
This mysticism or confusion is a serious thing. It has been sometimes taught in such a way,
as to lead men to believe that their peace rested on the perfection or
impeccability of the new man. They
were taught that the new man could not sin; that all sin came from the old man,
whom they had put off; and that, therefore, they did not need to trouble
themselves about sin. No doubt the
consciences of some of these misled individuals shrank from the full
application of this antinomianism, but others went on in sin, not so much because grace abounded, as because
they were not responsible for the sins indulged in. The new man in them did not commit the
sin, it
was the old man who did it all; and
what better could be expected of one who was totally incorrigible!
Thus the foundations were destroyed; the ground of
reconciliation was not the blood of the sin-bearer, but the new man; the
foundation of peace was a perfect self, and not a perfect Christ. Nay, Christ was made
the minister of sin, and all manner of evil was justified, on the plea that the
new man could not sin.
This doctrine, as sometimes stated, reads not amiss. It looks plausible, as professing to
rest on the very words of Scripture.
But it only needs a slight analysis, a little taking to pieces, to show
that its effect, if carried out, would be to destroy the feeling of
responsibility, to [Page 97] weaken the sense of sin, to blunt the
edge of conscience, too shift the foundation of a sinner’s peace from
Christ to self, to render the blood of sprinkling unnecessary, to hinder
personal holiness, and to supersede the work of the Holy Spirit in the
soul. For, as to this last, if the
doctrine be true, there is no room for the Spirit’s operation, any more
than for the blood, as he cannot work in the old man, and does not need to work
in the new.
That the Christian is not responsible for sin committed
against his better will, nay, that sin in the Christian is not sin at all, has
been maintained from Romans 7: 17, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me!”
In this, however, the apostle is not shaking off responsibility from himself,
but explaining a fact, giving the solution of a difficulty; and the verse
contains one of those peculiar Oriental negatives which the imperfection of
human speech renders necessary, in order to bring out the whole of a great but complex truth, which, in less peculiar language,
could not be perfectly enunciated.
The passage is only one out of several, exhibiting the same apparently
contradictory form of assertion.
The others are as follows: Gal. 2: 20,
“I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me!”
1 Cor. 7: 10,
“Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord.” 1 Cor. 15: 10, “I laboured, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Matt. 10: 20, “It is not
ye
that speak, but the Spirit of your Father
which speaketh in you!” 2 Cor. 12: 5, “Of such
an one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory!”
From these examples it is plain that the apostle, in Rom. 7: 17, did not intend to disavow either
personality or responsibility or free agency, but simply to affirm the
existence in himself of an overmastering element or power of evil, the
consciousness of which leads to the statement, [Page 98] “I am
carnal, sold under sin,” and to the exclamation, “0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?”
The dislike which some have to consider this chapter as
expository of a saint’s daily conflict is by no means a safe sign of
their religion or their theology.
That peace with God through the blood of Christ should be the beginning
of warfare
seems to us one of the most inevitable conclusions from the gospel,
whether of Christ or of Paul; nay, and further back than this, from the first
promise regarding the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent; and this
warfare, internal no less than external, has filled up the life of every saint
from the beginning. Apostolic
conflict is but a reproduction of patriarchal. Abel and Stephen, Noah and Peter, Abraham
and Paul, move over the same battlefield; for the church is one, her covenant
one, her warfare one, her victory and glory one. Each saint has “groaned, being burdened;” the groan has deepened
as the light increased, and the New Testament fullness of liberty, instead of
diminishing, has intensified the conflict.
One can imagine David or Elijah perplexed about this unending war. How thankful they would have been for
the seventh of the Romans, as the clearing up of the mystery? Yet they fought on, as men fight
in the twilight or the mist; they finished their course and won their
crown. And shall we, in these last
days, fling away the key to the mystery which the Holy Spirit has given us by
Paul? Or shall we get rid of the
mystery by denying the existence of the conflict? Shall we stifle conscience by calling
that no sin which is sin? Shall we
extenuate trespass because found in a saint? Shall we sit easy under evil, because
done by the old man, not the new; by the flesh, and not the spirit? Shall we [Page 99] nurse our spiritual pride by calling
the internal conflict an abnormal and unnecessary phase of Christian life,
ascribing it to imperfect teaching, or meagre faith, or the retention of the
beggarly elements of Jewish bondage?*
* We may
notice here 1 John 3: 9. “Whosoever
is born of God doth not commit sin.” This cannot mean that a man, once born
again, never commits sin; in that case there is no Christian upon earth. The apostle, in chap.
1: 7, 8, takes for granted that the Christian does commit sin; nay, that
he cannot say he has no sin without making God a liar, and showing that the
truth is not in him. He means to
affirm that the being born of God is the only way of deliverance from sin, and
that holiness is the true and natural result of being born of God. This kind of affirmation is common. See
* * *
[Page 100]
Chapter 8
THE TRUE CREED AND THE
TRUE LIFE
Matt. 12: 49, 50 Rom. 12:
1
Eph. 4: 13-16
John 14: 21-23 1 Cor. 1: 7 Phil. 3:
10-4
John 17: 17-19 1 Cor. 13: 1-13
Phil. 4: 8
The alphabet of gospel truth is that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15: 3). “By this
we are saved,” obtaining peace with God, and “access into THIS GRACE
wherein we stand” (
But he who thus believes is also made
“partaker of Christ” (Heb. 3: 14); “partaker
of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1: 4);
“partaker of the heavenly calling” (Heb. 3: 1); “partaker
of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. 6: 4);
“partaker of his holiness” (Heb. 12: 10).
In the person of his Surety he has risen as well as died; he has
ascended to the throne, is “seated with Christ in
heavenly places” (Eph. 2: 6);
his “life is hid with Christ in God”
(Col. 1: 3). That which he is to be in the
day of the Lord’s appearing, he is regarded as being now, and treated by
God as such. Faith, in one aspect,
bids him look forward to the glory; in another, it bids him look back upon this
[Page 101] weary land as if he had already finished his pilgrimage. “Ye are
come to
Surely, then, a Christian man is called to be consistent and
decided, as well as joyful; “not conformed to
this world” (Rom. 12: 2), but
to that
“world to come,” in which he already
dwells by faith. “What manner of person ought he to be in all holy conversation
and godliness!” (2 Peter 3: 11).
It has been matter of complaint once and again that some of
those who were zealous for these “higher
doctrines,” as they have been called, were not so careful to
“maintain good works,” nor so
attentive to the “minor morals” of
Christianity as might have been expected; not so large-hearted, not so
open-handed, nor so generous, nor so humble, as many whose light was dimmer;
also that they were supercilious; inclined to despise others, as dark and
ill-instructed; given to display their consciousness of spiritual superiority
in ungentle ways or words.
This will not do.
Greater knowledge, lesser love!
Higher doctrines, lower morals!
Professing to be seated with Christ in heavenly places, yet walking in the
flesh, as if proud of their elevation to the right hand of God. Speaking of the
perfection of the new man in them, yet exhibiting some of the worst features of
the old. Certainly, one who is “risen with Christ”
ought to be like the Risen One. He
will be expected to be meek and lowly, gentle and loving, simple and frank,
kind and obliging, liberal and generous, not easily provoked or affronted,
transparent and honest, not selfish, narrow, covetous, conceited, worldly,
unwilling to be taught.
Scripture is wonderfully balanced in all its parts; let our study of it be the same, that we may be well-balanced [Page 102] men. The study of the prophetic word must not
supersede that of the Proverbs, nor
must we search the latter merely to discover the traces of the “higher doctrines” which may be found in that
book. We must not overlook the
homely, and the little, and the common; we must stoop to the petty moralities,
and courtesies, and honesties of tamer life; not neglecting those parts of
Scripture which treat of these, as vapid or obsolete, but bringing them to bear
upon each step of our daily walk, and delighting in them as the wisdom of the
God only wise. There is a vitiated literary
taste, arising not so much from reading what is bad, as from exclusive study
of one class of books, and these perhaps the more exciting. There is also a vitiated spiritual taste, not necessarily growing out of
error or the study of unsound books, but arising from favouritism in the reading of Scripture, which
shows itself both in the preference of certain parts to others, and in the
propensity to search these others only for their references to certain
favourite truths. Let the whole
soul be fed by the study of the whole Bible, that so there may be no irregularity nor inequality in the growth
of its parts and powers. Let us
beware of “itching” ears and
eyes. True, we must not be “babes,” unable to relish strong meat, and
“unskilful in the word of righteousness”
(Heb. 5: 13). But we need to beware of the soarings of an ill-balanced theology and an ill-knit
creed. True Christianity is healthy
and robust, not soft, nor sickly, nor sentimental; yet, on the other hand, not
hard, nor lean, nor ill-favoured, nor ungenial.
“Brethren, be not children in
understanding; howbeit, in malice be ye children, but in understanding BE MEN” (1 Cor. 14: 20).
[Page 103]
We want not merely a high and full theology, but we want that
theology acted out in life; embodied nobly in daily doings, without
anything of what the world calls “cant”
or “simper.” The higher the theology, the higher and
the manlier should be the life resulting from it. It should give to the Christian
character and bearing a divine erectness and simplicity; true dignity of
demeanour, without pride, or stiffness, or coldness; true strength of will,
without obstinacy, or caprice, or waywardness. The higher the doctrine is, the more
ought it to bring us into contact with the mind of God, which is “the truth,” and with the will of God, which is “the law.”
He who concludes that, because he has reached the region of the “higher doctrines,” he may soar above the law,
or above creeds, or above churches, or above the petty details of common duty,
would need to be on his guard against a blunted conscience, a self-made
religion, and a wayward life.
Though “set on high,”
we “regard the things that are lowly;”
we prize the lofty teaching of the epistles, but we prize no less “the law and the prophets.” We listen to the apostolic doctrine, and
learn to say, “I am crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2: 20); yet we do not turn away from the
apostolic precepts, as beneath
us: “put away lying;” “speak every man truth with his neighbour;”
“let him that stole steal no more;”
“let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice;”
“uncleanness and covetousness let it not be once
named among you, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting;”
“put off all these, anger, wrath, malice,
blasphemy, filthy communication;” [Page 104] “lie not
one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds.” If it seem strange to some to be told
that a redeemed and risen man must be a doer of the law, does it not seem still
more strange that one entrusted with the ministry should have such minute
precepts as these enjoined, “not given to wine,
no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, not a brawler, not covetous.” These are the commandments of the Holy Ghost, and they are LAW just as truly as that which was
proclaimed in Horeb amid fire and darkness. And the true question with us (as we
have seen) is not whether we are to obey this law or that law, but any
law at all. If obedience to
apostolic law be not legalism, then neither is obedience to the moral law; and
if our oneness with Christ exempts or disjoins us from the moral law, it
exempts and disjoins us from all law whatsoever, for everything in the shape of law, or
precept, or commandment contained in Scripture, is from the one Spirit of God,
whether in the Book of Exodus or the Epistle to the Romans. We know, indeed, that what is merely
ritual or ceremonial is gone, being exhausted or put away by Christ; but what
is moral and spiritual remains, and must remain forever; not one jot or tittle
of it can fail. What was moral or
immoral four thousand years ago is the same still. What was moral or immoral to the Jew is
so to the Gentile still. An Old
Testament and a New Testament saint rest on the same rock, are washed in the
same blood, eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink (1 Cor. 10: 3), have put
on the same Christ, are doers of the same law, are members of the same body,
are heirs of the same crown (Matt. 8: 11; 21: 43,
Luke 13: 28; Rom. 11: 18; Heb. 11: 40; Rev. 7: 9-15).
“The law is good if a man use it lawfully,” says
the [Page 105] apostle, but according to some, the only lawful way of using
it is not to use it at all.*
* True,
“the law is not made for the righteous man,”
but for “unholy and profane, for murderers and
manslayers” (1 Tim. 1: 9); and
as a traveller who keeps the middle of the way never comes into collision with
the fences on either side, so a quiet citizen has no need to concern himself
about the laws against murder. Man’s law does not touch him who keeps it,
but him who breaks it; yet it speaks to every one, it is a guide to every one,
and the principle, or moralities of law are wrought into every one, and wrought
the most into those for whom it was “not made;”
so that they who never come into collision with it are just those who are
unconsciously, yet thoroughly, obeying it.
The higher life, then, is not a life against law, nor a life
without law, nor a life above law, but a life like that of the great
law-fulfiller, a life in which the law finds its fullest and most perfect
development. It was so in Jesus; it is so in us, in
so far as we resemble him in spirit and in walk. It is a thoroughly conscientious,
upright, honourable life. Some,
indeed, seem to identify conscientiousness with bondage; but between the two
there is no resemblance, save when, the conscience is unenlightened, or has
become diseased and weak. When the
nervous system of the body falls into disorder, then often does Satan (through
this inlet) enter the soul and perplex the conscience; magnifying fancied sin,
and palliating real sin; making men mistake a diseased for a tender conscience. But this ought not to lead to the
disparagement of thorough conscientiousness in one who has died and risen with Christ;
conscientiousness in little things as well as great, in
business, in the ordering of our households, in the laying out of our time and
our money, in fulfilling engagements, in keeping promises, in discharging
duties, in bearing witness for Christ, in non-conformity to the world.
The man who knows that he is risen with Christ, and has set
his affection on things above, will be a just, trusty, ingenuous, unselfish,
truthful man. He will “add to his [Page 106] faith virtue, and to virtue
knowledge, and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience, and to
patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly
kindness charity” (2 Peter 1: 54). He will seek not to be “barren nor unfruitful.” “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,” these he will think
upon and do.
For there is some danger of falling into a soft and effeminate
Christianity, under the plea of a lofty and ethereal theology. Christianity was born for endurance; not
an exotic, but a hardy plant, braced by the keen wind; not languid, nor
childish, nor cowardly. It walks with strong step and erect frame; it is kindly, but firm; it
is gentle, but honest; it is calm, but not facile; obliging, but not imbecile;
decided, but not churlish. It does
not fear to speak the stern word of condemnation against error, nor to raise
its voice against surrounding evils, under the pretext that it is not of this
world; it does not shrink from giving honest reproof, lest it come under the
charge of displaying an unchristian spirit. It calls sin sin,
on whomsoever it is found, and would rather risk the accusation of being
actuated by a bad spirit than not discharge an explicit duty. Let us not misjudge strong words used in
honest controversy. Out of the heat
a viper may come forth; but we shake it off and feel no harm. The
religion of both Old and New Testament is marked by fervent outspoken
testimonies against evil. To speak smooth things in such a case may be
sentimentalism, but it is not Christianity. It is a betrayal of the cause of truth
and righteousness. If anyone should
be [Page 108] frank, manly, honest, cheerful (I do not say blunt or rude, for a Christian
must be courteous and polite); it is he who has tasted that the Lord is
gracious, and is looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.
I know that charity covereth a multitude of sins; but it does
not call evil good, because a good man has done it; it does not excuse
inconsistencies, because the inconsistent brother has a high name and a fervent
spirit; crookedness and worldliness are still crookedness and worldliness,
though exhibited in one who seems to have reached no common height of
attainment.
I know also that in this world we shall be evil spoken of, and
that it is hopeless to attempt to answer every charge. But let us not suffer an accusation to
lie upon us, under the pretext that God will take care of our good name, when
perhaps the secret reason was that there was some foundation for the evil
report against us, and that our good name had better not be brought to a too
public test. Let us clear ourselves
when the opportunity presents or the occasion demands. It is not wrong to be jealous of our
good name, and to answer frankly the fair questionings of friend or foe. It will be time enough to suffer
martyrdom when we are actually tied to the stake. It is foolish and feeble to try to
become martyrs before the time.
Paul met accusations bravely, and would not allow his good to be evil
spoken of (Acts 28: 17; 2 Cor.
8: 20, 21; 11: 9; 12:18, 19).
Our reformers met their slanderers bravely, and though they could not
stay the pen of the defamer, yet furnished materials for vindicating themselves
and their cause most amply. There
was only One who was dumb as a sheep before her shearers, who answered
not a word; and he was silent because the [Page 108] chastisement of our peace was upon
him, and to be made of “no reputation”
was one part of the penalty he was enduring.
Yet let us know when to be silent, as well as when to
speak. It is not always right or
seemly to answer a fool according to his folly. Let us learn to bear and to forbear;
“giving no offence in anything,” nor
letting “our good be evil spoken of;”
seeking the things which make for peace, and the things whereby we may edify
one another; providing for honest things (2 Cor. 8: 21, kala, things excellent or beautiful), not only in the sight
of God, but also in the sight of men;
having a “conscience void of offence toward
God and toward men” (Acts 24: 16, 20). These are memorable words, “The
With many of us the Christian life has not gone on to
maturity. “Ye did run well, who did hinder you?” It has been a work well begun, but left
unfinished; a battle boldly entered on, but only half fought out; a book with
but the preface written, no more. Is not thus Christ dishonoured? Is not his gospel thus misrepresented, his cross denied, his words slighted,
his example set at nought? Are
sunsets such as we have too often witnessed, the true endings of the bright
dawns which we have welcomed? Must suns go down at noon? Must
Did a holy life consist of one or two
noble deeds – [Page 109] some signal specimens of doing, or enduring, or suffering
- we might account for the failure, and reckon it small dishonour to turn back
in such a conflict. But a holy life
is made up of a multitude of small things.
It is the little things of the hour, and not the great
things of the age, that fill up a life like that of Paul and John, like that of
Rutherford, or Brainerd, or Martyn. Little words, not eloquent speeches or
sermons; little deeds, not miracles, nor battles, nor one great heroic act or
mighty martyrdom, make up the true Christian life. The little constant sunbeam, not the
lightning; the waters of Siloah, “that go softly” in their meek mission of
refreshment, not “the waters of the river great
and many,” rushing down in torrent-noise and force, are the true
symbols of a holy life. The avoidance
of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little
follies, little indiscretions and imprudence’s, little foibles, little
indulgences of self and of the flesh, little acts of indolence or indecision or
slovenliness or cowardice, little equivocations or aberrations from high
integrity, little touches of shabbiness and meanness, little bits of
covetousness and penuriousness, little exhibitions of worldliness and gaiety,
little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of
temper, or crossness, or selfishness, or vanity - the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy
life. And then attention to the little
duties of the day and hour, in public transactions or private dealings, or
family arrangements; to little words, and looks, and tones; little
benevolences, or forbearances, or tendernesses; little self-denials, and
self-restraints, and self-forgetfulness’s; little plans of quiet kindness
and thoughtful consideration for others: to punctuality, and method, and true [Page 110] aim in the ordering of each day -
these are the active developments of a holy life, the rich and divine mosaics
of which it is composed. What makes yon green hill so
beautiful? Not the outstanding peak or stately elm, but the bright sward which
clothes its slopes, composed of innumerable blades of slender grass. It is of small things that a great life
is made up; and he who will acknowledge no life as great, save that which is
built up of great things, will find little in Bible characters to admire or
copy.
If we would aim at a holy and useful life, let us learn to redeem time. “I am
large about redeeming time,” says Richard Baxter in the Preface to his Christian Directory, “because therein the sum of a holy, obedient life is included.” Yes; “let
us redeem the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5: 16; Col. 4: 5). A wasted life is the result of
unredeemed time. Desultory working, impulsive giving, fitful
planning, irregular reading, ill-assorted hours, perfunctory or unpunctual
execution of business, hurry and bustle, loitering and unreadiness - these, and
such like, are the things which take out the whole pith and power from life, which hinder holiness, and which
eat like a canker into our moral being, which make success and progress an
impossibility, either in things temporal or spiritual. There needs not to be routine, but there
must be regularity; there ought not to be mechanical stiffness, but there must
be order; there may not be haste, but there must be no trifling with our own
time or that of others. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might”
(Eccl. 9: 10). If the thing is worth doing at all, it
is worth doing well; and, in little things as well as great, we must show that
we are in earnest. There must be no idling, but a girding up of the loins; a running the [Page 111] race with patience; the warring
of a good warfare; steadfastness and perseverance, “always abounding in the work of the Lord.” The flowers are constant in their
growing, the stars are constant in their courses; the rivers are constant in
their flowing; they lose no time; so must our life be, not one of fits, or
starts, or random impulses: not one of levity or inconstancy, or fickle
scheming, but steady and resolute; the life of men who know their earthly
mission, and have their eye upon the heavenly goal.
A holy life in man’s estimation may be simply a life of
benevolence, or of austerity, or of punctual devotion, or of kindly geniality,
or noble uprightness, or liberal sympathy with all creeds, all sects, all
truths, and all errors. But a
holy life in God’s estimation, according to Bible teaching, must be
founded upon truth, must begin personally, in conscious peace with God
through the blood of the everlasting covenant; must grow with the increase of
truth and deliverance from error; must be maintained by fellowship with God, in
Christ Jesus, through the indwelling of the “Spirit
of holiness.” Error or
imperfect truth must hinder holiness. Uncertainty as to
reconciliation with God must cloud us, straiten us, fetter us, and so prevent
the true holiness, besides also fostering the false. Fellowship must be preserved unbroken, that
the transmission of the heavenly electricity, in all its sanctifying,
quickening power, may go on uninterrupted.
Nothing must come between; not the world, nor self, nor
the flesh, nor vanity, nor idols, nor the love of ease and pleasure.
The word must be studied in all its fullness. Over its whole length and breadth we
must spread ourselves. Above all theologies, and creeds, and catechisms, and
books, and hymns, must the word be meditated on, that [Page 112] we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts, and in assimilation to its
models. Our souls must be steeped
in it; not in certain favourite parts of it, but in the whole. We must know it, not from the report of
others, but from our own experience and vision, else will our life be but an
imitation, our religion second-hand, and therefore second-rate. Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for
us. We must do these for
ourselves. So no one [or any denominational Bible-college] can do our religion for us, nor infuse into us the
life or truth which he may possess.
These are not things of proxy or merchandise, or human impartation. Out of the book of God and by the
Spirit of God must each one of us be taught, else we learn in vain.
Hence the exceeding danger of human influence or authority. A place or influence in such a case
becomes perilous alike to the possessor of the influence and to those over whom
that sway is wielded. Even when
altogether on the side of truth, its issue may be but an unfruitful formalism,
a correct petrifaction, an intelligent orthodoxy, and both they who possess the
influence or are under its power ought to be greatly on their guard lest the
human supplant the divine, and the “fear of God
be taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13);
lest an artificial piety be the result, a mere facsimile religion, without
vitality, without comfort, and without influence.
One who has “learned of Christ,”
who “walks with God,” will not be an artificial man; not one playing
a part or sustaining a character.
He will be thoroughly natural in manners, words, looks, tones, and
habits. He will be like that most
natural of all creatures, a little child. Christianity becomes repulsive the
moment that it is suspected to be fictitious. Religion must be ingenuous. No affectation, nor pedantry, nor
conceit, nor [Page 113] set airs, nor what the world calls
“whining,” can serve the cause of
Christ, or give weight to character, or win an adversary of the cross. The “epistles
of Christ,” to be “known and read of
all men,” must be transparent and natural. In living for Christ, we must FOLLOW HIM fully, not copying a copy,
but copying HIMSELF; otherwise ours
will be an imperfect testimony, a reflected and feeble religion, devoid of
ease, and simplicity, and grace; bearing the marks of imitation and art, if not
of forgery.
* * *
[Page 114]
Chapter 9
COUNSELS AND WARNINGS
Ps. 15: 1-5 Matt. 5:
48
Col. 3:1-17
Prov. 2: 1-9 Rom. 12:
1-18 Jude
17-25
Mal. 2: 5,6 Eph. 6:
10-18
Rev. 2: 19
That which, among men, so frequently takes the name of
holiness, is very unlike the Bible reality. Whether used in connection with the
hardness of an unliving orthodoxy, or the genialities of a fond idealism, or
the smooth regularities of a mechanical devotion, or the religiousness of
pictorial superstition, or the austerities of self-righteous mortifications, or
the sentimentalisms of liberalized theology, or the warm dreams of an earnest pantheism,
the words “holy” and “holiness,” and “spirituality,”
have become misnomers or cyphers, as ambiguous in meaning and profane in use,
as would have been Aaron’s ephod upon the shoulders of a priest of
Baal. This retention of Bible
formulas and a Bible terminology after the expulsion or perversion of Bible
meaning is one of the sacrilegious dishonesties of the age, which are so
uncomfortably offensive to a straightforward student of the word.
[Page 115]
Holiness may be called spiritual perfection, as
righteousness is legal completeness; and both are exhibited in Christ. He is the representation, the
illustration, the model. Likeness to him is holiness.
He that is holy is conformed to his image. Every other ideal is vanity. We must learn from the four Gospels what
living
holiness is; and for a doctrinal exposition of it we must
turn to the epistles. Thus we shall
understand both what it is not and what it is.
“Abide in ME,”
“learn of
ME,” “follow ME,” are the contents and
summing up of the Christian statute-book, constituting our true directory and
guide in the pursuit of holiness.
Here we have,
1. The Life. From the Prince of Life the new life
comes to us; even out of his death and tomb; for “we are planted together in the likeness of his death, that we may be also
in that of his resurrection" (
2. The Scholarship. “Learn of ME!” His is the school of heaven, the school
of light. Here there is all truth
and no error. The tutor is as
perfect as he is “meek and lowly.” He is at once the teacher and the
lesson. With him is the perfection
of training, and discipline, and wisdom.
There is no flaw, no failure, no incompleteness
in the education he imparts. He
teaches to know, to love, to act, to endure, to rejoice, and to be sorrowful,
“to be full and to suffer want.” The range of scholarship enjoyed by his
disciples is only to be measured by his divine stores, his “treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And the end of his instruction and
discipline is to make us holy men, conformed to his likeness, and imitators or
his heavenly perfection.
3. The Walk. “FOLLOW ME.” It is not a life merely to which we are called, but a walk (a “walking about,” as
the Greek implies); not a sitting alone; not a private enjoying of religion,
but a walk; a walk in which
we are visible on all sides; a walk which fixes many eyes upon us; a walk in
which we are “made a spectacle” to
heaven and earth, and hell. It is
no motionless resting or retirement from our fellows, but a moving about in the
midst of them, a coming into contact with friends and foes, a going to and fro
upon the high-ways and by-ways of earth.
As was the master, so must the servant be. On his way to the cross, he looked round
and said, “Follow me” (John 12: 26); on his way to the throne, after he
had passed the cross, he said the same (John 21: 22).
To the cross then, and to the crown alike, we are to follow
him. It is one way to both.
He then that would be holy must be like Christ; and [Page 117] he that would be like Christ must
be “filled with the Spirit;” he that would have in him the mind of
Christ must have the same “anointing” as he had, the same
indwelling and inworking [Holy] Spirit; the Spirit of “adoption,”
of life, faith, truth, liberty, strength, and holy joy. It is through this mighty Quickener that we are quickened; it is through “sanctification of the Spirit” that we are
sanctified (2 Thess. 2:
13; 1 Peter 1: 2). It is as
our guest that he does his work; not working
without dwelling, nor dwelling without working (2
Tim. 1: 14); not exerting a mere influence, like that of music on the
ruffled soul, but coming into us and abiding with us; so that being “filled with his company” as well as pervaded by
his power, we are thoroughly “transformed;”
not merely plying us with arguments, no affecting us with “moral suasion,” but impressing us with the
irresistible touch of his divine hand, and penetrating us with his own vital
energy; nay, impregnating us with his own purity and life, in spite of resistance
and unteachableness and unbelief on our part, all the days of our life.
He that would be like Christ, moreover, must study him. We cannot make ourselves holy by merely trying to be so, any more than we can make
ourselves believe and love by simple energy of endeavour. No force can effect
this. Men try to be holy, and they
fail. They cannot by direct effort
work themselves into holiness. They
must gaze upon a holy object; and so be changed into its likeness “from glory to glory” (2
Cor. 3: 18). They must have a holy being for
their bosom friend. Companionship
with Jesus, like that of John, can alone make us to resemble either the
disciple or the Master.
He that would be holy must steep himself in the word, must
bask in the sunshine which radiates from each page [Page 118] of revelation. It is through THE
TRUTH that we are sanctified (John 17: 17). Exposing our souls constantly to this
light, we become more thoroughly “children of the
light,” and,
Like the stain’d
web that whitens in the sun,
Grow pure by being purely shone upon.
For, against evil, divine truth is quick and powerful. It acts like some chemical ingredient, that precipitates all impurities, and leaves the
water clear. It works like a spell
of disenchantment against the evil one, casting him out, and casting him
down. It is “the sword of the Spirit,” with whose keen edge
we cut our way through hostile thousands.
It is the rod of Moses, by which we divide the
Yet, he
that would be holy must fight. He must “war
a good warfare” (1 Tim. 1: 18);
“fight the good fight of [the] faith” (1 Tim. 6: 12), though not with “carnal weapons” [Page 119] (2 Cor. 10: 4).
He must fight upon his knees, “being
sober, and watching unto prayer” (1
Peter 4: 7). He must wrestle with principalities and powers, being
strong in the Lord and the power of his might, having put on the whole armour
of God, girdle, breastplate, shield, helmet, and sword (Eph. 6: 13-17).
This “battle is not to the strong”
(Eccles. 9: 11), but to the weak; it is
fought in weakness, and the victory is to them that have “no might;” for in this conflict “time and chance” do not happen to all; but we
count upon victory from the first onset, being made more than conquerors
through him that loved us, and are
cheered with the anticipation of the sevenfold reward “to him that overcometh” (Rev. 2: 7, etc.).
And though, in this our earthly course and combat, we have the hostility
of devils, we have the ministry of angels in air (Heb.
1: 14), as well as the power of the Holy Ghost (Eph.
1: 13).
He that would be holy
must watch. “Watch thou
in all things” (2 Tim. 4: 5);
“watch ye, stand
fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16: 13). Let the sons of night sleep or stumble
in the darkness, but let us, who are of the day, be sober, lest temptation
overtake us, and we be ensnared in the wiles of the devil, or the seductions of
this wanton world. “Blessed is he that watcheth” (Rev. 16: 15).
In watching, too,
let us “witness a good confession” (1 Tim. 6: 13), not ashamed of him whose badge we
bear; let us run a swift and patient race: “laying
aside every weight, and THE SIN [unbelief]
,which doth so easily beset us” (Heb. 12: 1); following after righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness” (1
Tim. 6: 11), and having our eye
upon the coming and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus.
He that would be holy must feel his responsibility
for [Page
120] being so, both as a member of Christ’s
body and a partaker of the Holy Ghost.
The thought that perfection is not to be reached here ought not to
weaken that sense of responsibility, nor to lead us to give way to aught that
would “grieve the Holy Spirit of God whereby we
are sealed unto the day of redemption.” The sevenfold fullness of the
risen Christ (Rev. 2: 1), and the sevenfold
fullness of the Holy Ghost (Rev. 5: 6),
these are the church’s birthright; and for no mess of pottage is she to
sell it; nay, for the personal possession of that fullness, insofar
as vessels such as ours contain it, each saint is responsible. We are sanctified by the blood (Heb. 13:
12), that we may be sanctified by the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6: 11), be “led
by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:18), be
“temples of the Holy Ghost,” even in
our “bodies” (1 Cor. 6: 19), “walking” in the Spirit (Gal.
5: 16), “speaking” by the
Spirit (1 Cor. 12: 3),
“living” in the Spirit (Gal. 5: 25), and having the “communion of the Holy Ghost” (2 Cor. 13: 14).*
* The doctrine of the
personality and energy of the Holy Spirit was not more offensive to the cold
infidelity of last century than it is to the more earnest and plausible
idealism of the day. It is set
aside as savouring of superstition, and at variance
with liberty and self-power.
Energies from beneath or from above are either denied, or recognized
only as “principles” or “sensations,” or developments of natural law,
not connected with personalities in either case. Supernatural personalities are exploded
relies of superstition! The thought
that there was one perfect and superhuman book, in this world of imperfect
literature, used to be cheering; but, if modern theories of inspiration be true,
this consolation is gone, and the world is left thoroughly disconsolate,
without one fragment of the superhuman or the perfect in the midst of it.
The Christian man must not trifle with sin under any pretence;
least of all on the plea that he is not “under
the law.” The
apostolic precepts and warnings are quite as explicit as the Mosaic, and much
more numerous. He that thinks
himself free from the latter will have no difficulty in persuading himself that
he may set aside the former; and he who reckons it bondage to listen to the [Page 121] Sinaitic statute, “Thou shalt not kill,”
will think it equal bondage to hearken to the Pauline commandment, “Be not drunk with wine,” or “Owe no man anything,” or “Let him that stole steal no more.”
As possessors of the Spirit of love,
we must be loving, laying aside all malice and guile,
and hypocrisies, and evil-speakings; discharging
daily the one debt that is never to be paid (Rom.
13: 8). For the indwelling
Spirit is not idle nor barren, but produces fruit, divine fruit in human
hearts, heavenly fruit on earthly soil, fruit which indicates its inner source,
and tells of the glorious Guest within; for the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
against such there is no law (Gal. 5: 22, 23).
As those whose feet have found the rock, let us be stable,
not carried about with every wind of doctrine; not vacillating nor undecided
nor compromising. As
those who have been “delivered from a present
evil world,” let us, like the saints of old, be separate from it,
standing aloof from its gaieties, as men who have no time for such things, even
were they harmless; keeping our raiment undefiled. Let us be suspicious of its foolish
talking and jesting, jealous of its light literature, which “eats as doth a canker,” vitiating the taste, and
enervating the soul. Let us
maintain un-blunted the edge of our relish for prayer and fellowship with God,
as the great preservative against the seductions of the age; for only intimacy with God can keep us from intimacy with the world. Let us not try to combine the novel and
the Bible, the closet and the ballroom; nor attempt to serve two masters, to
drink two cups (1 Cor.
10: 21), to worship two gods, to enjoy two religions, to kneel at two
altars.
Let us be on our guard
against old self in every form, [Page 122] whether it be indolence, or temper,
or coldness, or rudeness, or disobligingness, or slovenliness, or shabbiness,
or covetousness, or flippancy, or self-conceit, or pride, or cunning, or
obstinacy, or sourness, or levity, or foolishness, or love of
pre-eminence. Let us cultivate a
tender conscience, avoiding crotchets and conceits; yet watching against the
commission of little sins, and the omission of little duties; redeeming the
time, yet never in a hurry; calm, cheerful, frank, happy, genial, generous,
disinterested, thoughtful of others; and seeing we must protest against the
world on so many important points, let us try to differ from it as little as
possible on things indifferent, always showing love to those we meet with,
however irreligious and unlovable; especially avoiding a contemptuous spirit or
an air of superiority.
As disciples of Christ, let our discipleship be complete and
consistent; our connection with him exhibiting itself in conformity to his
likeness; our life a comprehensive creed; our walk the embodiment of all that
is honest, and lovely, and of good report.
Christ’s truth sanctifies as well as liberates; his
wisdom purifies as well as quickens; let us beware of accepting the liberty
without the holiness, the wisdom without the purity, the peace without the zeal
and love.
Let us be true men, in the best sense of the word; true to ourselves; true to our new
birth and our new name; true to the church of God; true to the indwelling [Holy] Spirit; true
to Christ and to the doctrine concerning him; true to that book of which he is
the sum and the burden. Let us be true to truth; loving it not because it is pleasant,
or picturesque, or ancient, but because it is true and divine.
On it let us feed, with appetite new-whetted every day; so shall we
add, not one but many cubits to [Page 123] our stature, growing in grace, and in
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.*
* There
is such a thing in the church, as poverty of blood. Hence the blotches that
discolour her. For the
removal of these, not mere medicine is needed, but a more generous diet. That diet is only to be found in the
word, which is as nourishing (Jer. 15: 16) as it is healing and purifying to the
blood; being truly what old Tyndale
calls it, “the word of our soul’s health.”
Our spiritual constitution must be braced, not only that we may be strong for work
or fight, but that we may be proof against the infection of the times, against
the poison with which the god of this world, “the
prince of the power of the air,” has impregnated our atmosphere. For this we need not only
the “strong meat” recommended by the
apostle (Heb. 5: 12-14), but the keen, fresh
mountain-air of trial, vicissitude, and hardship; by means of which we shall be
made hardy in constitution and robust in frame, impervious to the contagion around,
whether that come from ecclesiastical pictorialism or religious liberalism;
impregnable against the assaults of Satan the Pharisee, or Satan the Sadducee.
They who have slid into a creed
(they know not how), or dreamed themselves into it, or been swept into it by
the crowd, they to whom the finding of a creed has been a matter of reading,
education, or emotion; they to whom faith has been but the result of an intellectual
conflict, not a life and death struggle of conscience; these possess not the true power of resistance; they carry no
disinfecting virtue, no error-repelling power about with them; the epidemics of
the age tell sorely upon them, and even though they may have taken hold of the
truth, it becomes evident that the truth has not taken hold of them. In a time of uncertainty, skepticism,
speculation, false progress, we need to recognize the full meaning of the
apostolic “we know” (1 John 5: 19, 20), “we
believe” (2 Cor.
4: 13), “we are confident” (2 Cor. 5: 6), “we [Page 124] are persuaded”
(2 Tim. 1: 12). For that which is divine must be true; and that which is revealed must be certain; and that which is thus divinely true
and certain must be immortal. Like the results of the exact
sciences, it is fixed; not varying with men and ages. That which was true, is true, and shall be true forever. It is the more needful to recognize all
this, because the ground underneath us has been thoroughly mined and is very
largely hollow; a process of skeptical decomposition and
disintegration has been going on, the extent of which will soon be manifest
when the treacherous crust gives way.*
* “The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns,”
says the philosophic poet of the age; and the maxim seems accepted. In so far as the widening thoughts are
honest developments of revelation, the maxim will only express the apostolic
“going on unto perfection,” “increasing in the knowledge of God.” In so far as they are the results of
disengagement from the trammels of revelation, they will express nothing but
the progress of uncontrolled free-thinking.
At the same time let us beware, in the details of personal
religion, merely of repeating the past, or getting up an imitation of
religion. The genuine in life does
not thus repeat itself, nor does it need to do so. The living face of man is of a certain
type; yet each face varies from its fellow. The Holy Spirit’s work is not to
form mere statues. He produces life, and life is always varied. It is death that repeats itself. As silence is always the same, so is it
with death. The presence of life is
the security against tame monotony. The larger the infusion of life, the
greater the diversity, not of gifts merely, but of beauty, and fruit, and
power. Let us not then seek the living among the dead, nor try to revivify old
forms. Let us place ourselves simply in the hands of the quickening Spirit. He
will pour into us the fullness of a diversified, fruitful, healthful life. The
evil in us is too strong for any power save Omnipotence. The resistance
of a human [Page 125] will is too powerful for philosophy or
logic, or poetry or eloquence. The
Holy One alone can make us holy.
Life is not one battle but many. It is made up, too, of defeats as well
as victories. Let us not be unduly
troubled or grow moody when a battle is lost. There is always time to win
another; and such a thing as “flight or
demoralization” should be unknown in the army of the living
God. It is the lost battles of the
world (like
The Christian life is a great thing; one of the greatest
things on earth. Made up of daily littles, it is yet in itself not a little thing;
but insofar as it is truly lived, whether by poor or rich, by child or
full-grown man, noble throughout; a part of that great whole, in which and by
which is to be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places,
the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3: 10).
It does not need to be a long life; a short one may be as true
and holy as a long one. A short one
is not a failure. John the
Baptist’s was perhaps the shortest ministry in the church; yet it was no
failure; it was one of the greatest successes. He was a burning and shining light. We do not need to say profanely, “Whom the gods love die young;” but we may say
that it does not need the threescore years and ten to unfold the beauties of
holiness.
If the new life were the mere rubbing off the rust of the old;
if the sweetening of the Marah-well of our corrupt nature were but a common,
non-miraculous process; if all goodness be within the easy reach of any earnest
man; if a refined literature and liberalized theology, and [Page 126] the cultivation of the beautiful, and social science, and a wider range of
genial recreation, be the cure for all the evil that is in us and in our age;
then there has been much ado about trifles, the Bible is an exaggeration, and
the gift of the Holy Spirit a superfluous exhibition of power. If sin be but a common scar or wrinkle
to be erased from the soul’s surface by a few simple touches; if pardon
be a mere figure of speech, meaning God’s wide benevolence or good-natured
indifference to evil, why tell of wrath, and fire, and judgment, the
never-dying worm, and the ever-rising smoke? Does God love to torment his creatures
by harsh words, or fill their minds with images of woe which he does not intend
to realize? Or why did the Son of
God suffer, and weep, and grieve?
If error be but a trifle, a foible, a freak at worst; or if it be a
display of honest purpose and the inevitable result of free thought, why is the
“strong delusion” (literally,
“the energy of error”) spoken of so
awfully; “that they all might be damned who
believed not the truth” (2 Thess. 2: 12); and why did the Lord himself say,
once and again, in reference to false
doctrine, “WHICH THING I HATE”?
As the strongest yet calmest thing in the world is light, so should a Christian life be the
strongest and greatest, as well as the calmest and brightest. As the only perfectly straight line is a
ray of light, and as the
only pure substance is sunshine, so ought our course to be, and so should we
seek to shine as lights in the world-reflections of him who is its light - the
one straight, pure thing on earth.
Let us then SHINE! Stars indeed, not
suns; but still stars, not tapers nor meteors. Let us shine!
Giving perhaps slender light, but that light certain and pure;
enough to say to men, “It is night,”
lest they mistake; but not enough to bring day; enough to guide the seeking or
the erring in the true direction, but not enough to illuminate the world. The sun alone can do that. It is the sun that shows us the
landscape; stars show but themselves. Let us then show ourselves beyond
mistake. The day when all things
shall be seen in full warm light is the day of the great sun-rising.
“The night is far spent, the day
is at hand!” We shall
not set nor be clouded; we shall simply lose ourselves in light. And we need not grudge thus losing
ourselves, when we call to mind that the splendour in which our light is to be
absorbed is that of the everlasting Sun.
It is his increasing that is to be our decreasing; and shall we not say,
“This, my joy therefore is fulfilled”?
THE END