ONE JOHN
PARTS 21 - 30
XXI. THE SECRET OF
SINLESSNESS - ABIDING IN THE SINLESS ONE AS MANIFESTED TO TAKE AWAY
OUR SINS.
"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is
the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away
our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever
sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him."--1 John 3: 4-6.
FOUR arguments against committing sin, or transgressing the law, are here
suggested; all of them connected with him whose essential purity is to be our
model in purifying ourselves:
I. The
end or design of his manifestation, - "to take away our sins;"
II. His own sinlessness, - "in him is no
sin;"
III. Our oneness with him, -
whosoever abideth in him sinneth not ;"
IV. The incompatibility of sin with any real acquaintance with him,
- whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him." The four may
be reduced to two: the first and second being, as it were, doctrinal; the third
and fourth experimental: the former turning on what he is to us, as our
Saviour; the latter, on what we are in him as his saved ones.
I."Ye know that he was manifested to take away our
sins; and in him is no sin" (ver. 5). Let us consider, in the first place, for
what end he was manifested; it was to take away our sins." Some would
understand this phrase as denoting here exclusively the cleansing of our nature
from its sinful lusts and habits; and as having no distinct reference at all to
the removal of contracted guilt. It is admitted that when the phrase occurs
elsewhere it is the taking away of guilt by means of atoning blood that is
meant; as in the Baptists testimony,"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29). But it is contended that here that
thought is somewhat irrelevant, since it is moral purification, and not legal
satisfaction or legal purging, sanctification in a moral, and not in a legal or
sacrificial sense, that John is speaking of; and since, moreover, he seems to
make that depend rather on what the Son is manifested to be, than on what he is
manifested to do ; on his person rather than on his work. There is no doubt
truth in these :remarks. But I cannot help thinking that they have led to an
unnecessary and undue limitation of the force and fullness of this pregnant
phrase. I would not, in that other passage, restrict it to the mere legal
removal of the guilt of the worlds sin, without including in it also the
removal of the sin itself, in its moral pollution and power. Nor am I inclined
here to shut out the idea of the expiation of the gulls of our sins, though the
other idea of moral purification from them is confessedly the uppermost or
leading one. In fact, the two are inseparable: they are really one. I can
scarcely conceive of John pointing to the manifestation of him in whom is no
sin, as a source of moral purity, as taking away our sins out of our nature,
without having in his mind, and wishing us to have in our mind, as a material
part of the process by which that object is attained, his taking away our sins
out of the record of their guilt,"the book of Gods
remembrance."
It confirms this view to remember that John has just
described sin as"the transgression of the law" (ver. 4). He has fastened upon
this as constituting the essence of sin, that it is against law. He is of the
same mind with Paul, in that saying of his, - The carnal mind is enmity
against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be"
(Rom. 8: 7). He, like Paul, knows that as our sins are against the law, so the
law is against our sins. It is against our sins, in such a sense and to such an
effect as to keep us, on account of them, helplessly under condemnation. We are
under the laws just sentence of death, Nay, more, the law, of which our
sins are the transgression, is so against our sins as by a natural reaction to
stir up in us more and more, the more closely it is brought to bear upon us,
that very opposition to itself, and rebellion against itself, in which the
sinfullness of our sins consists. In the grasp and under the power of the law,
as condemned criminals, we are fettered; and can no more get rid of our sins
than a doomed felon can shake off his irons.
If we are spiritual men at
all, we know this well. We know and have felt, that the more the law approves
itself to us, as"holy, and just, and good;" the more it comes home to us, by
the power of the Holy Spirit, in its high excellency and deep spirituality; the
more our conscience and our heart are on its side; the more we see and
apprehend of its just authority and holy beauty; the more we strive after
complete conformity to it; the more we"would do good :" so much the more, while
we are thus under the law, is"evil present with us" (Rom. 7) An impotent sense
of failure deadens and depresses us, while the feeling of our prostrate bondage
in our sins irritates our natural enmity against God. And if we do not relapse
into indifference, or take refuge in formality, or sink into sullen gloom, we
are shut up to the one only effectual way of ending this miserable struggle
between the law and our sinful nature ; the way of free grace and sovereign
mercy; the way of embracing him whom"God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood;""in whom we have redemption through his blood, even
the forgive. ness of sins." Then indeed"sin shall no more have dominion over
us, when we are not under the law but under grace ;" when"there is now to us no
condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus ;" when we know him as"his own self
bearing our sins in his own body ,on the cross, that we being dead to sin might
live unto righteousness."
All this, I think, must be held to be
comprehended in the fact stated "he was manifested to take await our sins." And
it is all consistent with the object for which John reminds us of it; our
purifying ourselves, as he is pure. He was manifested to take away our sins,
root and branch. The very completeness of that work of atonement by which he
takes them away, in respect of the condemnation and punishment which as
transgressions of the Law they bind upon us, secures also his completely taking
them away, in respect of the carnal mind in us, of whose enmity against God and
insubordination to his law they are the fruits. His purging our conscience from
the guilt of them, is the very means of his purging our hearts from the
pollution of them. Their power to condemn us he takes away; and so he takes
away also their power to rule over us. They can never again subject us to the
laws curse; and therefore they can never again provoke in us resistance
or resentment of the laws authority. Nor is this all. In virtue of his
being manifested to take away our sins, we receive the Holy Spirit. The
obstacle which our sin, as a breach of the law, interposed to his being
graciously present with us and in us is taken away. The Divine Spirit dwells
and works in us; causing us to love the law which is now magnified, not in our
destruction but in our salvation, not in our death but in our life; and to hate
the thought of transgressing it any more. A new nature, a new heart, a new
spirit, as respects the law of God and God the lawgiver, a new character as
well as a new state, is the result of Christ being manifested to take away our
sins. We know that, personally, practically, experimentally; and our knowledge
of it is what enables as well as moves us to purify ourselves as Christ is
pure.
It is so all the rather because, secondly, we are to consider that
he is manifested as himself the sinless one:"In him is no sin." Here again let
us remember that sin is viewed in the light of the law: it is the transgression
of the law: it is against law. The precise point of this declaration concerning
the sinless one lies in that declaration concerning sin. In him is no sin,
because in him is no lawlessness; nothing that is against the law. It is his
being manifested as in that sense without sin, that makes his manifestation to
us, - -or our looking to what he is, as well as our looking to what he does, -
effectual towards the taking away of our sins out of our heart and nature. In
him, as"manifested to take away our sins," there is no sin;" nothing of
what needs to be taken away from us; nothing of that sin which is the
transgression of the law.
I do not ask you now to dwell on the thought
that this sinlessness of his, his being himself free from all liability to the
law as a transgressor, was an essential condition of his taking upon himself
our liabilities, so as to take them away from us. I ask you rather to consider
the mighty moral power which his being manifested as the sinless one has, in
itself and of itself, to take away our sins; not merely to take away their
guilt lying upon us, but to take them bodily, as it were, as to their very
substance and spirit, from within us. In that view, it is allimportant that we
look at his sinlessness in strict and definite connection with the law. How do
we conceive of him as without sin? He is before us as one in whom there is no
sympathy with what is vile and polluting; or with what is mean and base; or
with what is unfair and untrue; or with what is dishonour-able and unhandsome;
or with what is unkind, ungenerous, unloving. Not a thought, not a feeling, not
an affection is in him that could offend the purest taste, the most fastidious
delicacy. Benevolence without the slightest alloy of selfishness; integrity
such as the breath of suspicion cannot touch; seraphic mildness, sweetness,
calmness, that no storm of passion has ever ruffled; a soul attuned to all the
melodies of heaven, on which no jarring note of earths discord can ever
strike; a divine dignity; a divine gracefullness in look and being, in air and
carriage, infinitely removed from mans uncertain temper and the rude
strife of tongues - some such ideal, some such picture, rises before our eye.
And the contemplation of it may be profitable as well as pleasant; for all
these representations of the one only perfectly sinless man are true; and
contemplating them, we may to some extent be moved to imitate as well as
admire. But we do not thus,"with open face, behold as in a glass the glory of
the Lord," so as to be really changed into the same image, from glory to
glory." For the glory of the Lord, manifested in and by him as the sinless one,
is his never "transgressing the law." In him is no sin; nothing of what is
against the law; against the law under which he was made when he was made of a
woman. It is into the image of that glory that we, beholding it, are to be
changed "by the Spirit of the Lord." Does this seem to be a lowering of our
high ideal of perfect sinlessness, as exemplified in him Does it sound strange
to hear it spoken of as his glory? Do we feel it to be almost a sort of outrage
and offence to speak of this as his moral glory, that he never broke the law,
and never wished to break it? What glory, what moral grandeur, is there in
that? Much, I answer; much every way. It is mans highest glory. It is the
highest glory of angels. It is the highest glory of the Son himself, manifested
to take away our sins, that in him, in this sense, is no sin."He learned
obedience," I repeat,"by the things which he suffered." And he learned it
perfectly; for in him is no sin; no possibility of any thought adverse to the
learning of obedience, entering into, or rising up in, his mind. That is his
essential impeccability; his being incapable of even the faintest surmise of
impatience under the law of his God and Father, or the most remote approach to
a desire that it were anything else than obedience, anything less or anything
more, that he had to learn. Is not that"a glory which excels ? Is it not
worth while to behold it, - and to aim at being changed into the same image
with it, from one degree of it to another, from glory to glory, by the Spirit
of the Lord? Behold it! See! It is no mere negation; no mere abstinence from
evil, or absence of evil. Nor is it any mere spontaneous development of native,
innate good. It is positive, practical, perfect obedience to Gods holy
law. It is the doing of his will with the whole heart. It is to live for no
other end but that his will be done. So in his life did he manifest his
sinlessness who said,"I must be about my Fathers business:""The cup which
my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it? Thus it is seen that"in him is
no sin."
II. With this sinless
person we are one; "abiding in him as the sinless one manifested to take away
our sins."
And that is our security against sinning - " Whosoever abideth in
him sinneth not." This is the statement of a fact. It is not the enforcing of a
duty, as if it were said, - whosoever abideth in him should not sin, and must
not sin; let him not sin. It is :not even the drawing of an inference or the
announcement of what will probably be, and may be expected to be, the issue of
oneness with the Lord, as if it ran thus, - whosoever abideth in him will not
sin, or is not likely to sin. It is the broad statement of a present fact, - "
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not;" as is also the converse -" Whosoever
sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him." Between abiding in Christ and
sinning there is such an absolute incompatibility, that whosoever sinneth is
for the time not merely in the position of not abiding in Christ, but in the
position of not having seen or known him. In so far as he is sinning, his is
virtually the very same case with that of the man who has never either seen or
known Christ. The statement is very emphatic and very categorical. It is more
than a mere assertion of a sort of moral inconsistency or incongruity, a
certain manifest unsuitable-ness, in the view of common-sense and right
feeling. It is an assertion of absolute incompatibility, in the nature of
things; and it is a very strong assertion of that, put in two forms, positively
and negatively, to make it all the stronger. Let us see how it must be
so.
I. We abide in Christ by faith;
by that. faith, wrought in us by the Spirit, which unites us to Christ. Our
abiding in him by this faith implies oneness; real and actual oneness; not
oneness only in the eye of the law, so that we are regarded and treated as one,
in .the Judges dealings with him for us, and with us in him; not oneness
merely in the sense of au ordinary alliance or partnership, with a community of
goods and interests, of lives and fortunes ; but real and actual oneness of
nature. As the husband and the wife are made of twain one flesh; so Christ and
we are one spirit."He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." Our abiding
in him is our realising this oneness. It is our apprehending ourselves to be
consciously one with him, of the same nature, of the same mind, with him, of
the same way of thinking and feeling with him. It implies our taking the same
view that he does of all things, of God and his law, of righteousness and sin,
of guilt and judgment, of holiness and grace and love; our entertaining the
same sentiments with reference to them all. It is this which secures our
closing with him at first as our Saviour, and carries our consent to his saving
us in his own way and on his own terms, so glorifying to the Father, so costly
to him, so gracious to us. It is this also which ever after secures our not
sinning. We cannot be thus abiding in Christ, realising our oneness of mind and
nature with him, and at the same time sinning. The thought or feeling of
opposition to the law, or of impatience under it; the wish that we were more
free to act as we choose; is no thought or feeling or wish of his: for"in him
is no sin." When we sin, when we suffer any such thought or feeling or wish to
find harbour in our breasts; we cease for the time to be abiding in him.
Between him and us, not then and there abiding in him, there is really as
entire a separation as if we had never seen or known him: as wide and deep a
gulf as that which lay between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in
Abrahams bosom. It is not fixed like that gulf; not yet. But let us
beware lest it become fixed. Let us be thankful that it may still be made to
disappear. And let us remember that this can only be through our repenting
again, as at the beginning, - believing again, as if we had never believed
before, - embracing the Lord Jesus, as if now for the first time we saw and
knew him, - "doing the first works,, - becoming anew and afresh, by the grace
of the Spirit,"members of Christs body, of his flesh and of his
bones, - getting shut up into him anew and afresh, so as to be again of
one mind and heart with him, abiding once more in him in whom is no sin. For we
may be very sure that when we sin, we are none the better for all that we have
seen or known of Christ; none the safer. It is the same thing to us as if we
had never seen him, neither known him at all.
2. We abide in Christ by his Spirit abiding in us. That is a filial
spirit - the Spirit of Gods Son in us crying Abba Father - the Spirit of
adoption whereby we cry Abba Father. A servile frame of mind grieves and vexes
the Holy Spirit, and hinders his continuing to dwell in us. He dwells in us
only when we cry Abba Father, and therefore sin not. Sin is ever the fruit of
that servile frame of mind which is characteristic of one that has not seen or
known the Son. Abiding in him, through his Spirit abiding in us, we have a
filial heart towards God. And a filial heart"sinneth not." For a filial heart
has no temptation and no desire to go against the will, or the law, of the
righteous Father.
From all this we may see how the stress of practical
exhortations against sin is to be brought to bear upon a child of God; upon us,
who are children in the Son. For it is very important that there should be
exhortation, direct and pointed. It is not enough to put the matter in the form
of doctrinal statement or anticipated consequence; as :if we said: Being
Gods children in Christ you do not sin; or you will not sin. It is good
for you to hear a voice of authority and command: Sin not. And yet that is not
the way in which the matter is put here. It is not an order issued, but a fact
announced;"whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." What then? Is the hortatory
method to be given up? Nay; it is only necessary to shift a little, as it were,
the point of its application. I state it as a fact that whosoever abideth in
him sinneth not. And therefore I issue the command: Abide in him, It is his own
command "Abide in me." And that is the right position for the hortatory or
commanding mode of appeal. If you would not sin; that you may not sin; that it
may be impossible for you to sin - "abide in him who was manifested to take
away your sins, and in whom is no sin." Cleave to him ; grow up into him; get
into his mind; drink into his spirit. Enter into the design of his being
manifested, and into the way in which, being manifested, he accomplishes that
design. Enter into the secret of his sinlessness. Keep close to him, abide in
him, and sin not.
And forget not the positive, any more than the
negative, result of your abiding in him; your"bringing forth much fruit" (John
15: 5). For it is only in the line of the positive, in the line of bearing
fruit, that you can be sure even of the negative, - not sinning. Nay, if your
negatively not sinning is the effect of your abiding in Christ, it really
resolves itself into your actually and positively bearing fruit, and becomes
identical with it."In him is no sin;" no rebellion against that will of God
which he comes to do; no insubordination to that law of God which is within his
heart; nothing that hinders, or possibly can hinder, his doing that will and
keeping that law always and thoroughly. You"abide in him and sin not." You have
in you now nothing more than he had, in so far as you abide in him, of that
sullen, slavish, selfish frame of mind; bent on getting its own way, and doing
its-own pleasure; grudging God and men their due; which hinders all cheerful,
loyal obedience. You therefore, abiding in him, in whom is no sin, that there
may be no sin in you, go about with Into doing good. Yours is that"pure
religion and undefiled before God and the Father," which is this,"to visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction," as well as to keep "yourselves
unspotted from the world."
XXII. THE SECRET OF
SINLESSNESS - OUR ABIDING IN CHRIST - THE SEED OF GOD ABIDING IN US
- OUR BEING BORN OF GOD.
"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever
sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. . . Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin; for his seed remaineth [abideth] in him: and he cannot sin,
because he is born of God." - 1 John 3: 6 and 9.
These strong statements -
that one abiding in Christ does not sin, and that one born of God cannot sin ;
- are often perplexing, not to say distressing, to serious minds. How is it if
I am forced to ask. I sin, every day, every hour, every moment, I may say, in
thought or word or deed. Must I therefore conclude that I am not in Christ; not
born of God? It is a real practical difficulty. Let us fairly grapple with
it.
I. These texts do not teach,
either the doctrine of perfection, or that other doctrine which is apt to usurp
its place; the doctrine that God sees no sin in his people, or that what would
be sin in others is not sin in them. When I say that this latter doctrine is
apt to supplant the other, I do not mean that all who believe in the perfection
or perfectibility of the saints on earth are antinomians. I speak simply of
what I hold to be a strong tendency in the nature of things I am told that it
is possible for a Christian to live without sinning; that he may be so
sanctified as to be incapable of sinning; that such holiness is attainable;
nay, that no one can be long a Christian without attaining it; that no one can
be sure of his Christianity unless he has attained it. But I see in the most
Christian ,of men, I feel in myself in my most Christian mood, much that is not
easily reconcilable with this immaculate sinlessness, unless I can persuade
myself that what looks very like sin is not really sin. I am tempted to do so;
to defend, on the ground of Christian character, what otherwise : would give
over to just condemnation; to stand up for the harmlessness in a believer of
ways that would confessedly hurt or ruin the unconverted. And so I really open
the door to those perversions of such texts as,"He that is spiritual is judged
of no man,""To the pure all things are pure," which have wrought sad havoc with
the plain morality of the Bible.
II. There is another mode of dealing with the statements before us
which I cannot feel to be satisfactory. It is to limit or restrict their
comprehensiveness; and to understand the apostle as speaking, not of sin
absolutely and universally, but of sin more or less voluntary and presumptuous,
According to this view, one abiding in Christ and born of God does not and
cannot sin deliberately, intentionally, knowingly. He may be overtaken in a
fault; he may be compassed about with infirmities; he may have his occasional
aberrations and failings. But he does not lay plans and go into evil with his
eyes open.
Is that true? Was it true of David? Or of the man in Corinth
who was excommunicated for incest, and upon repentance restored? Is it any
relief to me, when I am staggered by the hard saying that the true Christian
does not and cannot commit sin, to be told that it may be so modified as to
mean that he does not and cannot sin voluntarily.
Will that
modification meet my case? Alas! no. For I dare not persuade myself that I
never sin voluntarily. The saying excludes me, and tells against me, as much as
ever. And then, is it safe to make such a distinction as this between two sorts
of sin: and to make it for such a purpose as this? May it not again let in the
notion of some evil being tolerable and venial after all in a child of God?
Where and how is the line to be drawn.
III. It may help us out of the difficulty if we first look at the
statements before us in the light, not of what we are now by grace, but of what
we are to be in the future state of glory. It will be true then that we sin
not; it will be impossible for us then to sin. What will make it true that we
sin not? What will make it impossible for us to sin.
Simply, our abiding
in Christ; our being born of God; his seed abiding in us. It is most important
that we should endeavour to form some distinct idea of this feature or
characteristic of heavens holiness; its absolute inviolability; its being
perfectly secure against the possibility of sin ever marring it. Saints in
glory do not and cannot sin. Wherein consists this impossibility of sinning? Of
what sort is it? Plainly it cannot be a merely physical or natural inability;
it must be of a moral kind. It is not outward coercion or prevention; it is not
enforced sinlessness, which would be no sinlessness at all. Neither is it
sinlessness dependent on external circumstances; such as want of opportunity or
absence of temptation. The impeccability is and must be an attribute of the
inner man; of the saint himself, as perfectly sanctified in his whole nature.
If in the heavenly world I am not to sin; to be incapable of sin that cannot be
in consequence of any mere change in. my outward position; any mere translation
from one locality to another, from one system of things to another. It was not
his expulsion from Paradise that made Adam peccable, or capable of committing
sin. He was so from the first in Paradise, for there he sinned. It is not his
return to Paradise, nor his promotion to a Better state than that of Paradise,
that will make him impeccable. His impeccability must be otherwise attained and
secured.
It is true that change of place and of circumstances may do
much; and it is a great change that is before us."We look for new heavens and a
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." It will, indeed, be a very
different atmosphere that we breathe in heaven from what so often deadens,
stupifies, and paralyses our Christian life on earth. We shall be there under
other influences and in the midst of other companionships. No more is there any
course of this world for us to walk after; no more any prince of the power of
the air to intoxicate us with the poisonous vapour of his ungodliness; no more
any children of disobedience, seducing us to have our conversation among them.
It will, unquestionably, be a blessed relief. To be rid of Satan and of
Satans wiles; to be for ever quit of those worldly ways and habits around
us here that are so apt to draw us into conformity with themselves; to be where
there is no more any antagonism between what is and what ought to Be; to be
where God is all in all ; - it may well be imagined to be like"a bird escaping
out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is Broken; and we are escaped!""Oh!
that I had wings like a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest!""Woe is me
that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" But let me
Beware. If I imagine that it is my being in heaven that is to make me pure and
sinless, or render it impossible for me to sin, I am under a sad and most
unsafe delusion. Let it be granted that then all I come in contact with will be
holy, and all conducive to holiness; with"nothing to hurt or to destroy in all
Gods holy mountain." Still, place me there, continuing simply such as I
am here; and not only is it not true of me that I cannot sin; but it is true of
me that I cannot but sin. Evidently, therefore, its being impossible for me to
sin in the future state, must depend upon something else than mere change of
scene. And what follows? It must depend upon something that may be actually
realised more or less perfectly here. It must depend upon what may be and must
be realised here, in the inner spiritual history and experience of every child
of God.
Let me remind you that this impeccability lies in the will; the
seat of it is the will. It is because, in the state of glory, my will is
made"perfectly and immutably free to do good alone," that my will is, or that I
myself am, incapable of doing evil. And let me also remind you that sin, the
sin which it will then be impossible for me to commit, is "the transgression of
the law ;" of the law of God which is the expression of his will. His will is
perfectly and immutably free. His law is its free utterance; the free
forth-going of his free will. Your impeccability, - its being impossible for
you to sin, - is its being impossible for you to will otherwise than he wills;
to think or feel otherwise than he does, as to that law of his which is his
will. And if it is your will that is to be thus free; free, as his will is
free, to do good alone; and therefore incapable of an evil choice; then your
impeccability must be, if I may say so, itself voluntary; voluntarily accepted
and realised. The position in which I find it impossible to sin must be
attested by my own consciousness as a position that is freely and voluntarily
mine.
Let me try to imagine myself as regards this matter in the
heavenly state. I cannot sin. Why not? What hinders me? Is it that my hands are
tied? Is it that my will is fettered? Am I not free? Yes; I am free as God is
free. And therefore I can no more sin than God can sin. In the very same sense
in which God cannot sin, I cannot sin. My will can no more go against his law
than his own will can go against it. For why is it that God cannot sin? - -that
his will cannot go against his law? Is it not because the law is his will? Is
it not because the law is his nature? Yes. The law is his will, his spontaneous
will. And it is his nature; the very essence of his moral character and being
is in his law. For the law is love; and God is love. The law is holy; and God
is holy. He cannot sin, or transgress the law, because he cannot go against his
own will, or against his nature. Sin in him, were the thought admissible, would
be selfcontradictory; suicidal. "He cannot deny himself." Now in heaven am I in
this respect such as he is? - really, literally, absolutely such as he is? Yes,
that is my heaven! It is my being thus like him when I see him as he is. When,
clear from the darkness in which now he hides himself in a world that knows him
not, his glory shines unclouded; then I"see him as he is" so as to be
"satisfied when I awake with his likeness." It is the likeness of him who
cannot sin.
IV. Let me try to bring
out more clearly this principle as one that must connect the future with the
present. Why is it that in heaven, my will being free as Gods will is
free, I can no more sin than he can sin? What answer would John give to that
question if you could put it to him now? As thus ; - " In whatever sense, and
with whatever modifications, thou didst, in thy experience when here, find that
to be true which thou hast so emphatically put, - as the test, apparently, of
real Christianity, - it is all true of thee there, where thou art now! How is
it so Why is it so?" "Because I abide in the Son of God, and Gods own
seed abides in me, as being born of God;" is not that his reply? What other
reply can he give? No doubt he may also say,"I am no more in a world that knows
not God; exposed to its flattery or its rage. I have nothing now to apprehend
from Satans subtilty. I have laid aside the body of corruption that used
to weigh me down. The lusts of the flesh solicit and trouble me no more. Evil
propensities, the remains of my old original and inveterate depravity, are all
thoroughly put away. Not a vestige of any root of bitterness remains in me; nor
is there any exposure to trial or temptation from without." These are great and
inestimable advantages."But," he would add,"not one of them secures, nor do
they altogether secure, my impeccability; or its being impossible for me to
sin. Excepting only immunity from Satans subtilty, man in Paradise
enjoyed them all; and yet he was peccable; he sinned. Without any exception,
the unfallen angels enjoyed them all; and yet they showed themselves peccable;
some of their number fell. My heaven is no heaven at all, if in respect of this
matter of my not sinning, or its being ira-possible for me to sin, I am no
better off than Adam was in the garden, or the angelic hosts in their first
estate. But I am better off. And what, you ask, makes me better off? My abiding
in the Son of God, and having Gods own seed abiding in me, as being born
of him. First, I"abide in the Son of God" evermore, uninterruptedly; and
therefore I see God as his Son sees him; I feel towards God as his Son feels.
Secondly, as born of God, I have"his seed abiding in me," evermore,
uninterruptedly; his seed, conveying and imparting to me his nature, as truly
as a plants seed imparts its nature to its successor, or a mans
seed imparts his nature to his child."
"These two causes combined," John
might say, "ensure my not sinning; make it impossible for me to sin by
transgressing the law. For, in virtue of the first, the law is to me what it is
to the Son of God, the God-man; not merely an enforced rule; far less a yoke of
bondage; but an inward principle also of free, spontaneous choice. It is within
my heart, as it is within his. There can no more spring up in my heart than
there can spring up in his, the slightest or faintest feeling of impatience
under it, or of a longing to be without it or above it. And then, in virtue of
the other, the law is to me what it is to God himself. It. is the expression of
my nature, as it is of his. Being what I am, as born of him, his seed abiding
in me, I can no more go against it than he, being what he is, can go against it
himself." Is this the secret of the saints impeccability in heaven Is it
at all a true and fair account of his not sinning, of its being impossible for
him to sin.
Then does it not follow that it is an impeccability that
may be realised on earth? For the causes of it are realised on earth; first,
your abiding in the Son of God; secondly, your being born of God so as to have
his seed abiding in you. And so far as they are realised on earth, they cannot
but make it impossible for you to sin here, in the very same way in which, when
realised perfectly in heaven, they will make it impossible for you to sin
there. For they are causes whose efficacy does not at all depend on time or
place or circumstances. They act here and now as they will act then and there.
They make Gods will be done on earth, even as it is in
heaven.
V. Viewed thus in the light
of"what we shall be," and of the bearing of what we shall be on what we are,
Johns statements assume a somewhat different aspect from what they are
apt to wear when taken by themselves. They become not one whit less solemn but
greatly more encouraging.
For one thing, you may now regard them as
describing a precious privilege, as well as imposing a searching test. They
show you the way of perfect holiness; how you are to be righteous, even as
Christ is righteous, - even as God is righteous. I suppose that it is your
desire to be so; if it is not, you are none of Christs, and are not
children of God. Your earnest longing is, I assume, that you were placed in
such circumstances, or that there were wrought in you such a frame of spirit,
as would make it impossible for you ever to sin any more.
Well, if it is
so, should it not be matter of satisfaction to you to be told that you have
even now within your reach, realisable in your experience, the elements or
conditions, so to speak,, of that very state of things which you so warmly
covet? John takes it for granted, that"having this hope in God ;" - the hope
that when"it does appear what you shall be," it will imply your being"like him
whose children you are, because you shall see him as he is" -"you purify
yourselves even as his own Son is pure." And surely in that view he does you a
kindness when he tells you how this purifying of yourselves as Christ is pure
may become possible, even to the extent of its being as impossible for you as
for him to commit sin or to transgress the law. He does no sin; he can do no
sin; he cannot have a thought or wish to transgress the law. Why? Because he is
the Son of God, his only begotten Son, of one nature with the Father. Even when
he takes your nature, he is, on that account, sinless and impeccable. And the
good news here is, that you also are becoming impeccable in him. Of course, it
is good news to you only if impeccability is really the object of your desire;
your hope; your heaven. Is it so? Would it be heaven to you not to sin; to be
incapable of sinning; to be so situated and so minded, that for you to sin
would be as truly anti really an impossibility as for Christ or for God? Then
these texts are for you. They let you into the secret of this impeccability;
they show you wherein it consists. They set it before you, not as something to
be reached some time, somewhere, somehow, in some other world, through some
mysterious unknown processes to be gone through at death and the resurrection;
but as what you may have experience of, and must have experience of, in this
present world, and under this present dispensation of the Holy Spirit. For the
Holy Spirit makes you really one with the Son of God, so that, abiding in him,
you par. take of his sonship; his filial relation to the Father and filial
heart towards the Father. And the Holy Spirit also implants in you and puts
within you the seed of God, the germ of Gods own nature and Gods
own life, so that you are in very truth born of God. When thus in your
adoption, rightly viewed, and in your regeneration, the Holy Spirit unites you
to the Son, and assimilates you to the Father ; - when thus you abide in the
Son, in whose son-ship you share, and the seed of God your Father, of whom you
are born, abides in you ; - you have already, in present possession and for
present use, all that is essential to impeccability.
VI. Taking this view, I confess I do not feel so
much concern as otherwise I might feel about reconciling such strong statements
as that one abiding in Christ sinneth not, or that one born of God cannot sin,
with the acknowledged and lamented fact that he does sin. John has dealt with
that fact already, and told us how to deal with it. It is not his business here
to be making allowance for it. It would be beside his purpose altogether, and
indeed against it, to be qualifying his high and bold appeal to honest
aspirants after perfection, by concessions to those whose object would seem to
be to ascertain, not how, and how far, perfection may be reached, but how far
they may stop short of it. John has not any such Christians in his eye. Or if
he has, it is to bring to bear upon them the whole artillery of these startling
statements, in all their strictest and most literal force. They are to be
solemnly warned that sin is absolutely incompatible with abiding ia Christ and
being born of God - all sin, any sin, every sin; that"whosoever sinneth hath
not seen Christ, neither known him." To them John has nothing else to say. He
cannot otherwise meet their question as to the extent to which sin, still
cleaving to a child of God, may be admitted not to vitiate his title. For
indeed it is most dangerous to be considering the matter in that light or on
that side at all. It is almost sure to lead, first to calculations, and then to
compromises, fatal to singleness of eye and the holy ambition that ought to
fire the breast; calculations first, about the quantity and quality of the
residuum of old corruption which we must lay our account with finding in the
purest God-born soul; and then compromises, under the sort of feeling that, as
the proverb says, what cannot be cured must be endured.
I beseech you
to turn from that downward, earthward way of looking at this great theme; and
to look upward and heavenward. I speak to you as believing you to be in earnest
about purifying yourselves even as Christ is pure. I tell you that the gospel
makes full provision for holiness; and no provision at all for sin. It
contemplates, not your sinning, but your not sinning; nay, its being impossible
for you to sin. If it did not, it would be no gospel to you. For you are weary
of sinning; weary of finding it always so possible, so easy to sin. The risings
of a rebellious spirit in you against God, and his will, and his law ; your
feelings of irksomeness, as if his commandments were grievous, his ways dark,
his sayings harsh, his service hard, himself austere; are a continual grief to
you. Well, may it not be some consolation, some encouragement, to know, that
you have within you, if you will but stir up the gift that is in you, the
elements of a holier and happier life? For these are indeed, when rightly
considered, most precious assurances; "Whosoever abideth in Christ sinneth
not;""Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for Gods seed
remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Let a few
practical inferences be suggested.
I. I think the texts
teach, or imply, the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints; the
impossibility of their either wholly or permanently falling away from a state
of grace. I cannot understand statements so strong as"sinneth not," or"cannot
sin," especially when taken in connection with the reasons given," abiding in
Christ; :"being born of God;""the seed of God abiding in him," - in any
sense consistent with the idea of one who by faith has been united to Christ,
and by adoption and regeneration made a child of God, proving ultimately a
castaway. It may be quite true that it is not Johns immediate design to
dwell on that tenet. But nevertheless he uses words that seem very plainly to
assume it. It is not easy to see how any one could be called upon to recognise
in himself, as actually his now in possession and experience, the principle, if
I may so speak, of impeccability, excepting upon grounds precluding the risk of
his losing altogether his character and standing in Christ.
2. The texts teach however, very plainly, that this
doctrine, whatever may be its practical use and value in its right place, and
when turned to legitimate account, cannot give to any man security in sin;
cannot make him safe when he is sinning, when he is committing sin or
transgressing the law. When he is sinning, he can draw no assurance whatever
from his"having seen and known Christ." Virtually, to all intents and purposes,
he is exactly in the same position with one who"has not seen him, neither known
him" (ver. 6). Never, at any moment, may I reckon on a past act of God towards
me, - his calling me, justifying me, adopting me in his Son; or a past work of
God in me, - his regenerating me by his Spirit ; - as giving me any present
confidence, if my present state is one of sin. Not only is this not right; I
believe it to be impossible. I believe that no man ever yet felt himself secure
in sinning now, on the ground of his having been brought to"see and know"
Christ long ago. His feeling of security, in so far as he has such a feeling,
does not really spring from that belief as to the past, but from ignorance now
of Christ and of God; from present unbelief. For the present, he is an
unbeliever, not seeing or knowing Christ; no better than if he had never seen
or known him. The moment he comes again to believe, and has his eyes opened to
see and know Christ; Christ looking on him when he is sinning as he looked on
Peter ; - security there is none; confidence there is none; only bitter
weeping. He repents, and does the first works. He believes, as if he had never
believed before. He realises again, as at the first, his abiding in Christ and
Gods seed abiding in him. Our sinning, therefore; our feeling it to be
possible for us to sin; is in fact, and as a practical matter, absolutely
incompatible with our abiding in Christ and being born of God. We are only
really abiding in Christ, and consciously and influentially, if I may say so,
born of God so as to have his seed abiding in us, - in so far as we do not sin,
- in so far as we cannot sin.
3.
For this, let me again remind you, is Johns true design and purpose; it
is to put you in the way of not sinning; of its being impossible for you to
sin. It is to let you into the secret of sinlessness, of impeccability; that
you may be successful in purifying yourselves as Christ is pure. Realise your
abiding in Christ, your being born of God, his seed abiding in you. And realise
all that, as you may realise it, not as what is to be in heaven; when it will
appear what you shall be; but as what may be, and must be, and is on earth;
even when "it doth not yet appear what you shall be." Do not imagine that you
must wait till you get to heaven until you can know what it is not to sin; to
be beyond the possibility of sinning. No doubt it is only in heaven that you
can know that perfectly. But you may know something of it on earth. You need
not imagine that if you know nothing of it on earth, you can know anything of
it in heaven. For it is not, I repeat, any change of scene that will make you
know it. Some have fancied that by getting out of the world into the wilderness
they might come not to sin; nay, might get themselves into a state in which
they could not sin. Away from societys pomps and vanities, its pleasures
and vices, in the solitude of the desert, they have sought for immaculate and
impeccable holiness; they have sought for it painfully, with tears and stripes.
Alas! they have sought for it in vain. But you may find it, in the midst of all
evil, if you seek it aright, in the way of abiding in Christ, and having
Gods seed abiding in you, as being born of him. And you will find it, if
you apprehend the force of the Lords own words:"As thou, Father, hast
sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world. And for their
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the
truth."
XXIII. THE SECRET OF SINLESSNESS - THE
CONTRASTED "DOINGS" - DOING RIGHTEOUSNESS AND DOING SIN -
THEIR
INCOMPATIBILITY IN RESPECT OF THEIR OPPOSITE ORIGINS OR PARENTAGES - GOD AND
THE DEVIL.
"Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth
righteousness is righteous, even as he [Christ] is righteous. He that
committeth [doeth] sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the
beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil." - 1 John 3: 7, 8.
These verses are
embedded, as it were, between the two already considered (6 and 9); which teach
what may be called the secret of sinlessness as a possible attainment, and one
that a child of God must apprehend and realise. They fit into that theme,
placing in marked contrast the two opposite lines of conduct, - " doing
righteousness and doing sin," - and tracing them up to their respective
sources, a righteous nature on the one hand, indicating a divine birth; and a
sinful nature on the other, betraying a devilish origin. Thus they shut out the
very idea of any mixture of the two characters, or anything intermediate
between the two. Thus also they connect the argument with the introductory
statement at the beginning of this second part of the epistle,"If ye know that
God is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of
God" (2: 29). For this doing righteousness, which at once implies and tests our
being born of him who is righteous, must evince a family likeness to him, or a
participation of nature with him. It must, therefore, be very thorough and
complete, and cannot be compatible with doing sin. For that, evincing an
opposite family likeness and participation in an opposite nature, points not to
a divine birth or our being born of God, but to a very different parentage, our
being of the devil.
The passage before us opens accordingly with a very
solemn warning:"Little children, let no man deceive you." It assumes an urgent
and serious danger. There are those who will do their utmost to deceive you,
and the point on which they will try to deceive you is a very vital one.
It is so all the rather because it is one on which your own hearts may be but
too willing to be deceived. It turns upon the indissoluble connection that
there is between being and doing; between character and conduct; between what a
man is and how he acts. The false teachers of Johns day held that one
might reach in some mysterious way a height of serene, inviolable, inward
purity and peace, such as no things without, not even his own actions, could
stain. In a less transcendental form, the same sort of notion practically
prevails in the world. It used perhaps to be more common than it is now to give
a person credit for having right principles, though his practice might be often
wrong; to admit his claim to a good heart, in spite of his habits being to a
large extent bad. But the delusion is one against which we still need to be
cautioned.
John meets it by bringing out in marked contrast the two
opposite natures, one or other of which we must all share; that of God and that
of the devil. As it is the nature of God to be righteous, so it is the nature
of every one who is born of God to be righteous also. So he who is
pre-eminently the Son of God is righteous; and we who are children of God in
him are righteous as he is righteous. But his being righteous necessitates his
doing righteousness; to imagine otherwise in his case would be a profane
calumny. So also to think that we can be righteous as he is righteous, if our
being righteous does not necessitate our doing righteousness, must be a gross
and grievous delusion. On the other hand, it is the devils, nature to be
evil; and being evil, he cannot but be doing evil. If we are doing evil, doing
sin; that proves our identity of nature with the devil; we are of the devil.
And being of the devil, the originator of sin, - sinning from the beginning, -
we cannot be children of God as Christ is his Son. For he was manifested for
this very purpose, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Let us
consider the three steps in this argument, as thus adjusted.
I."He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even
as Christ is righteous." It is clearly moral character that is here in
question, not legal standing. There is no reference to Christs vicarious
righteousness; its imputation to us through our oneness with him by faith, and
our consequent justification in the sight of God. That doctrine, so clearly
revealed elsewhere underlies, as we have already seen, the whole of Johns
teaching in this epistle. But to import it into this passage is to destroy the
sense. Of course it is equally destructive of the sense to use the passage as a
support to the doctrine of justification by works, as if it meant that the doer
of righteousness is thereby, on the ground of his personal doing of
righteousness, justified or accounted righteous before God. John is not
thinking of justification at all, but rather of sanctification; of holiness of
life being inseparable from holiness-of nature. The precise lesson taught, the
great principle asserted, is that righteousness, moral righteousness, cannot
possibly exist in a quiescent or inactive state; that it never can be a latent
power or undeveloped quality; that wherever it is it must be operative. It must
be working, and working according to its own essential nature. Moreover, it
must be working, not partially but universally; working everywhere and always;
working in and upon whatever it comes in contact with, in the mind within and
the world without. Otherwise, it is not righteousness at all ; certainly not
such as we see in Jesus; it is not"being righteous as he is righteous."
Therefore being righteous and doing righteousness are not twain, but one; one
in the very nature of things, by divine ordination and arrangement. God has
joined them; and what God has joined man may not put asunder. The attempt to
separate them on either side, or to confound them, is a fatal error.
Hence those err who would sink the being in the doing as if the doing were all
in all, - quite as much as those who would divorce the doing from the being,
and leave the being all alone.
"He cant be wrong whose life is in
the right," is a perilous half-truth. Doing righteousness, in the sense of
merely leading what is called a virtuous life, being irreproachable in manners,
and performing acts of kindness, may thus be made to constitute the sum and
substance of religion and morality. Evidently that is not Johns teaching.
On the contrary, it is with the inward frame of mind that he is chiefly
occupied; it is about the heart being right with God that he is concerned. The
very righteousness, pure and holy, which is the distinguishing characteristic
or attribute of the moral character of God, is to become the attribute of ours,
as it is of Christs. Far from undervaluing, or as it were postponing, the
inward, or being righteous; he lays on that the whole stress of his .appeal
about the outward, or doing righteousness. For the very reason of his appeal is
this, that if there be not the being there cannot be the doing ; and therefore,
on the other hand, if there be the doing, it proves and insures the
being.
This last is the important practical consideration here. But it
is so only when we rightly understand what doing righteousness, in Johns
notion of it, really is. It is not merely performing righteous actions; doing
things that are in themselves, or in their own essential nature, right and
good. The abstract form righteousness is significant and all-important. To do a
righteous deed is one thing: to be doing righteousness in the doing of it is
another. The difference may be immense.
Jesus"went about doing good."
And in doing good he was ever doing righteousness. For he did good because he
knew that to do good is to do what is righteous in the judgment of the
righteous Father. He did good, not as doing himself a pleasure or his
fellow-men a service, but as doing the Fathers righteous will. To do good
thus is to do righteousness indeed. Viewing it in that light, we cannot err, or
go too far, in the way of identifying it with being righteous. So to do
righteousness is really to be righteous; in the highest and holiest sense;
according to the most perfect type and model;"even as Christ is righteous." It
is a vain dream, a fond imagination, for any of us to aspire to being righteous
in any other manner or after any other fashion. The humble path of obedience to
the righteous Father, - the consistent doing of righteousness as we know, and
because we know, that God is righteous (2: 29), - is practically being
righteous, So Christ, the Son of God, is the Fathers righteous servant,
doing the Fathers righteousness. So let us, as born of God, be the
Fathers righteous servants in Christ; doing righteousness as Christ does
righteousness, and being righteous as Christ is righteous.
II. As"doing righteousness," - through its being
thus associated or identified with "being righteous as the Son is righteous," -
proves our being "born of God ;" so"doing sin" proves a very different
relationship, a very different paternity."He that committeth" or doeth"sin is
of the devil." That is his genealogy or pedigree. And the reason is plain. The
devil is the author of sin; it is he who"sinneth from the beginning." The"doer
of sin" cannot, as such, have any other father than the originator of sin. And
he cannot repudiate the ancestry. It is fastenedupon him by the same law or
principle which enables"the doer of righteousness" to claim kindred with the
righteous Father, in respect of his"being righteous as his own Son is
righteous." The medium of proof is the same. It is this, that what one does is
really what one is; the doing being the index or identification of the
being."He that committeth" or doeth"sin is of the devil;" for, by doing sin, he
shows his identity of nature with him who is a sinner from the beginning. And
it is upon identity of nature, proved practically, that the question of moral
and spiritual parentage must ultimately turn.
That is the question
which John raises here, and to which he afterwards returns (ver. 10). It is
with a view to that question that he lays down the essential moral truth
involved in his two contrasted propositions or arguments; first,"He that doeth
righteousness is righteous, even as he, the Son, is righteous," and so, as"born
of God," may assert a divine paternity; secondly, "He that doeth sin is of the
devil," the original and archetypal sinner: he must consent, therefore, to
trace his genealogical line from a devilish beginning and in a devilish
stream.
And still the test is the consistency or identity of the doing
with the being. The doer of righteousness is righteous, as Christ the Son, who
is one in nature with the Father, is righteous. The doer of sin is not so, but
on the contrary is of the same nature with the devil, who"sinneth from the
beginning." He who is born of God, knowing that God is righteous, can do
nothing but righteousness, in so far as he realises his position; being himself
righteous as Christ is righteous. He that is of the devil can do nothing but
sin, as the devil has been doing all along from the beginning. So far as his
nature is allowed full development, that is its working. But that proves a
paternity the opposite of divine.
Thus two parentages are here
contrasted. Two fathers, as it were, desire to have us as children. They are
wide as the poles asunder. Of the one relationship it is the characteristic not
to sin; of the other, to be always sinning. The one father never has sinned,
never could sin, being the "righteous Father." The other has been always a
sinner; sinning from the beginning; his first act being to sin. Each father
imparts his own character to his children. The Virtue or the vice ; the
wholesome purity or the poisonous matter; the sweet charm or the sour taint;
runs in the blood. The children of the one father have infused into them the
seed or germ of his impeccability; his being of such a nature that it is
impossible for him to sin. The children of the other inherit his absolute
incapacity of not sinning; his being of such a nature that it is morally
impossible for him not to sin.
It is a terrible inheritance. It is the
devils nature to sin. When we sin we give proof of its being our nature
too. And it is a nature which we derive from him. It was he that communicated
it to us. Our relation to him, therefore, in respect of our thus sharing his
nature, is very close. It may be true that it is only in a figurative sense
that we can be called "children of the devil," or said to be"of the devil."
Still the figure has in it a sad reality. If it is natural for us to sin, he is
the father of that nature in us. His seed is in us; the seed of his nature, his
natural life, which is to sin, to do nothing but commit sin. And let us
remember Johns definition of sin (ver. 4), and Pauls (Rom. 8: 7).
The essence of sin is refusing to be subject to law, That is the sin which "the
devil sinneth from the beginning;" he sinneth by insubordination. That is his
nature, his natural life. And he put the seed of it in us when he said to
Eve,"Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?"
This phrase, therefore - "being of the devil," - as used here and elsewhere in
Scripture, does not imply what in human opinion would be accounted great
criminality or gross immorality. To call any one a devil, or a child of the
devil, is to impute to him, according to ordinary notions, an extreme
depravity. We paint the great Apostate Spirit in the blackest colours of foul
pollution, rancorous hate, and wanton cruelty; and it is only monsters of vice
among ourselves that we characterise as satanic. Thus we extricate ourselves
from the shame of so discreditable a lineage as is involved in being of the
devil. But neither John nor his Master will let us off so easily. The sin which
lost Satan heaven was neither lust nor murder. It was not carnal at all, but
merely spiritual. It was not even lying, at least not at first, - though"he is
a liar, and the father of it." It was pure and simple insubordination and
rebellion; the setting of his will against Gods; the proud refusal, at
the Fathers bidding, to worship the Son. So"the devil sinneth from the
beginning." And when you so sin, you are of your father the devil. Peter was
sinning in that way when Jesus called him Satan. There was nothing of what we
might be inclined to stigmatise as satanic in his very natural wish to arrest
his Masters fatal journey. It was an impulse of generous affection which
burst out in the expostulation,".Be it far from thee." But he was"of the devil"
then, notwithstanding. Therefore Jesus said to him,"Get thee behind me, Satan;
thou art an offence unto me" (Matt. 16: 23). Not saying it thyself, thou
wouldst hinder me from saying to my Father,"Thy will be done." And that is
devils work.
In order then to enter into the full meaning of
Johns solemn testimony, it is not needful to wait till some horrid access
of diabolic fury or frenzy seizes us. It is enough if"the tongue speaketh proud
things," or the heart conceives them."Our lips are our own; who is lord over
us?" Or, why are they not our own? May they not at least occasionally be our
own, - this once; for singing one Vain song, or uttering one idle word, or
joining in au hours not very profitable, but yet not very objectionable,
talk? Is there any rising up in us of such a feeling as this, as if it were
hard that we may not occasionally take our own way and be our own masters? It
is the devils seed abiding in us; the seed of the devils sin, and
of his sinful nature. Thus this testimony is of wide range and searching power,
when the Spirit brings it home. The law says - Thou shalt love God with all thy
heart; thou shalt not covet. Let that commandment come to me, in its real
spiritual force; and how thoroughly, how helplessly, how miserably, does it
make me out to be a very child of the devil! Many laws I cannot charge myself
with breaking; I do not feel them to be irksome; the laws of my country and of
society, for example; the laws Of just dealing between man and man; the laws of
kindness, courtesy, good breeding, good taste and feeling; the law of chivalry;
the law of honour. Of all such laws I can cheerfully acknowledge the authority.
But this law, - the law binding me by peremptory statute to love God supremely,
and not to covet, not to love at all except as he loves, me feel that I cannot
own. There is that in me which makes me rebel against what it enjoins being
made matter of law at all. I would have it left to my own discretion. I object
to love upon compulsion, or to worship, or to obey. Yes, there it is! That is
it! I have in me the seed, the root, the germ, of the satanic spirit and the
satanic nature. I cannot bring myself to be thoroughly under authority and law,
when the authority and law are Gods. And why? Why but"because the carnal
mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can be?"
III."But for this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the
devil.,
The expression "to destroy the works of the devil," - if
it is to meet the previous statement, must be understood as meaning, in
substance, that the Son of God was manifested to undo what the devil has done
and is doing; to counteract and counterwork him, in respect of all his doings
generally; but especially in respect of his imparting to us, as his children,
the germ or seed of his own sin of insubordination to the authority and law of
God. The phrase, indeed, might be taken in a wide sense; and might lead us to
consider the many various ways in which the gospel tends to redress, and has
actually to a large extent redressed, the manifold wrongs and mischiefs that
the devil, by introducing moral evil and turning it to account, has wrought in
the earth. But evidently the reference here is rather to the one inherent
quality, than to the various effects, of the devils working. The Son of
God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil - to destroy in you that
sort of doing, or working, which you have derived from the devil; that sinning,
or committing sin, which is his nature, and of which he has implanted in you
the seed.
It is a work of destruction which he is manifested to do, or
which his being manifested does; for we need not be very particular as to which
of these ways of putting the matter is to be preferred: they are virtually the
same. Execution is to be done upon what is the essence of all the devils
works, so far as our sharing in them as his children is concerned; the spirit
of suspicion, impatience, and rankling discontent, under Gods loving
rule, which the devil insinuates into our hearts, and fosters, inflames, and
irritates there. In thus destroying the works of the devil, in this sense and
to this effect, his being manifested as the Son of God was, in itself alone, a
great step. For he was manifested, in the very form, in the very position,
which the devil had himself felt, and had persuaded us to feel, to be grievous,
irksome, and intolerable. He, being the Son,"took upon him the form of a
servant." He was so manifested as to make it plain, beyond all question, that
there is no such root of bitterness as the devil would insinuate that there is,
in a creatures subjection as a servant to the law of God his Creator, in
a Sons subjection as a servant to the law of God his Father. The Son of
God is manifested as submitting to that place of subordination to authority
which the devil and his angels spurned; giving himself to a service infinitely
more humiliating than they were called to when they were commanded to worship
him. It was a great blow to the works of the devil; it cut up by the roots the
very pith and staple of his power to work at all; when the Son of God was thus
manifested; when it was made patent to all the universe that it was no
degradation or bondage for the Son himself to be the servant of the Father;
when it was seen that his being so was not incompatible with sonship, but was
in fact its very perfection.
This, however, is not all; it is only a
small part of what he does in destroying, to me and to all his people, the
works of the devil. The Son of God might have been manifested as sustaining the
very character of a servant, under authority and law, which the devil found,
and which the devil makes me find, so provocative of an inward sense of
impatience and spirit of rebellion; and he might have been manifested as
sustaining that character in such a way as to win me over to the conviction
that it is, if I can but reach it, my highest freedom and joy. But what of
that, if I cannot reach it? And I cannot reach it, unless the Son of God, thus
manifested, does two things on my behalf.
In the first place, he must
make my relation to the Father such as his own is. In order to that, and as an
indispensable preliminary to that, he must abolish and destroy the relation in
which the devil has got me, along with himself, to stand to God; the relation
of a guilty criminal to a righteous and avenging judge. Fain would the devil
keep me in that relation to my God; scowling impotent defiance, or writhing
under the lashings of despair. Or he would set me to the task of painfully
working out for myself deliverance; and all in vain. The Son of God is
manifested to make short work of all that. I see him taking my relation to God
as his, that I may take his relation to God as mine. And I have literally
nothing to do but say Yes! Yes; I allow him to take my relation to God as his,
the relation of a condemned criminal, a sentenced transgressor of the law! - to
take it, so as to exhaust all the curse of it, and destroy it, as the
devils work, for so it is, utterly and for ever! Wondrous condescension,
is it not, on my part! And I accept his relation to God, the relation of a
beloved son and faithful servant, as mine! More wondrous condescension still!
Ah! let me be ashamed to hesitate here. Let me be willing to be to the Father
all that his own Son is, in both views of this wonderful substitution and most
blessed union.
But, secondly, that I may be willing, he must put within
me his own heart towards God, as well as place me in his own relation to God.
For this purpose also the Son of God is manifested; not only that through his
entering into my guilty relation to God the righteous judge, and making an end
of it for me, I may enter into his relation to God the righteous Father, and
make full proof of it, in him; but also that, through the Spirit dwelling in
me, as in him, I may have the same heart that he has to cry, "Abba,
Father."
Let me never forget that it is for this double purpose that
the Son of God is manifested. Root and branch, the works of the devil must be
destroyed. The seed, the germ, the principle of all his works must be
eradicated. Suspicion, dislike, servile dread, criminal sullenness,
self-justifying pride, must all be scotched and killed. These are the
devils works. They must be all destroyed. Let me look to the Son of God
as he has been and is manifested; and are they not, through my so looking,
destroyed? I cannot think and feel, with reference to God and his authority and
law, as the devil does, when I look to the Son of God manifested for this very
purpose, that I may think and feel as he does; that God may be to me what he is
to him, and his law to me what it is to him; that thus in me he may "destroy
the works of the devil."
XXIV. CONNECTION OF
DOING RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH BROTHERLY LOVE AS PROVING A DIVINE BIRTH,
IN CONTRAST WITH THE UNRIGHTEOUS AND UNLOVING SPIRIT INDICATING A DEVILISH
PARENTAGE.
"In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of
the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked
one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works
were evil, and his brothers righteous." - -1 John 3: 10 - 12.
The
antagonism between the righteous Father and the great adversary, and between
their respective seeds or offsprings, is here announced in such a way as to run
it up to a very precise point. The question to which of the two you belong;
which of the two parentages or fatherhoods, Gods or the devils, is
really yours; is brought to a narrow issue. It is put negatively; and it is all
the more searching on that account. The want of righteous doing, the absence of
brotherly love, is conclusive against your being of God;"Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." These two
things are here virtually identified; or the one is represented as implying the
other. The general is now made particular; what was general and abstract,"doing
righteousness" (2: 59), is now reduced to a particular practical test,"loving
ones brother."
What sort of love is here meant will appear more
clearly as we proceed. It is, at any rate, love whose obligation is not of
yesterday; the commandment rendering it obligatory is of old standing, of
ancient date:"For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we
should love one another." And the question arises - What message or commandment
is here referred to?
The idea is apt to suggest itself, not
unnaturally, that it is our Lords commandment in the beginning of the
gospel:"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another;""This is my commandment, that ye love
one another, as I have loved you;""These things I command you, that ye love one
another" (John 13: 34, and 16: 12-17).
But may not "the beginning" be
held to date, not from Christs teaching, but from the real beginning of
the gospel, immediately after the fall? Does not the mention of Cain indicate
as much?. Is not the law or message of love in question that which was violated
in the beginning, when Cain, being of that wicked one, slew his
brother.
Gods commandment, heard from the beginning, is that we
should love another. Therefore"he that loveth not his brother doeth not
righteousness," - the righteousness required to make good or verify the fact of
his being"born of God." He "committeth or doeth sin ;" the sin which is"the
transgression of the law." He is"of the devil;"-like Cain, who"was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother."
We are thus carried back to the
earliest manifestation of the distinction between the. children of God and the
children of the devil in the old familiar history of Cain and Abel. Of Abel
little is recorded in the history. But it is plainly implied, in what is said
of him here, that he loved his brother. We read that"Cain talked with Abel his
brother." And we read this in immediate connection with what the Lord said to
Cain on the subject of his rejected offering : - "Bat unto Cain, and to his
offering, he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance
fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy
countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou
doest not well, sin" - a sin-offering -"lieth at the door - at thy
disposal, and available for thee. After that"Cain talked with Abel his
brother." It is in that connection that we read of his doing so. It is not
needful to suppose that his talk was, at least in the first instance, a
deliberate plot to draw his intended victim into his power. It is quite
probable, or rather more than probable, that the conversation began in good
faith. The walk of the brothers in the field may have been as much without any
purpose on the one side, as without any suspicion on the other, of anything
like treachery or violence. It is quite natural that Cain should have talked
with Abel his brother. And the talk might turn on the recent incident of the
two acts of worship; on the disappointment which Cain had experienced, and the
explanation of it which the Lord had been pleased to give him. That "Cain was
still wroth, and his countenance still fallen," we may well believe. He has not
been able to bring himself to submit to God and his righteousness. He is in no
mood for being amiable to one who seems to him to be a favoured :rival. But he
does not meditate actual wrong. He would startle at the thought of fratricide,
when the talk with Abel his brother begins.
As it goes on, we may
imagine Abel, warmly and affectionately enforcing the gospel message which Cain
has just got from heaven; opening up its gracious meaning; trying to persuade
his misjudging brother that there is really no respect of persons with God, no
partiality for one above the other; but that for both alike there is
acceptance, as well-doers, if they can claim to stand on that footing, and for
both alike, if not well-doers, a sin-offering at the door and at command ; - as
near to thee, brother, as to me, as available for thee as for me, as much at
thy service as at mine ; - thine, as freely as it is mine, if thou wilt but
have it to be thine.
Had I, brother, sought acceptance as a well-doer,
needing no atoning blood of the slain lamb, coming merely with a tribute of
grateful homage, the Lord would have had as little respect to me and my
offering as he bad to thee and thine. Nay, less. I must have been more
decidedly and justly rejected; for of sinners I am chief. But, in my sin, I
looked and saw the sin-offering at my door. And, brother, it lieth at thy door
too, if thou wilt but consent, as a sinner, to make use of it. Has not our God
been telling thee so? Is not this his gospel to thee as well as to me.
Is it too much to conceive of righteous Abel thus manifesting his being of God;
thus doing righteousness and loving his brother? Is it at all conceivable that
he should deal otherwise with his brother, or not deal thus with him, while
Cain gave him the opportunity, by talking with him in the field? Could anything
else be the burden of the talk than his beseeching his brother to be reconciled
to God by the sacrifice of the slain lamb? And is it not just by his manner of
requiting such brotherly dealing with him on the part of Abel that Cain
manifests his being of that wicked one? Is not that the explanation of his
slaying him. For"wherefore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil,
and his brothers righteous."
That was the real reason; though of course
he did not avow it to himself. Probably he was not conscious of it. He had some
plausible plea of self-justification or of self-excuse. His younger brother
took too much upon him; affecting to be on a better footing with God than he
was, and to be entitled to dictate and prescribe to him. It was bad enough that
God should have rejected his plea of well-doing, or of righteousness; and bid
him come, not with"God I thank thee" on his proud lips, but with "God be
:merciful to me a sinner" in his broken heart. That one who is his junior in
age, and in strength so completely at his mercy, should press the same
humiliating lesson, is more than he can stand. He cannot reach God ; else his
anger would find vent against him. But the meek and unresisting child of God is
in his hands. And therefore he slays him;"because his own works were evil, and
his brothers righteous." Well did our Lord say of the Jews who sought to
kill him:"Ye are of your father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning." And he was so, "because he abode not
in the truth, for there is no truth in him." To lie and hate the truth, is his
nature;"when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own ;" it is his native
speech, his vernacular; for "he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8: 44).
And you are of him; for it is"because I tell you the truth that ye believe me
not" (ver. 45); and it is that which provokes you to"seek to kill me" (ver.
40).
Here then are two instances of the children of God being
manifested, and the children of the devil: Abel, and his brother Cain who slew
him; Jesus, and the Jews who sought to kill him. It is the first that John
cites; but the second throws light upon it. For Abel is to Cain instead of
Jesus; and Cain is to Abel what he would have been to Jesus. The antagonism is
clearly and sharply defined. On the one side there is love, brotherly love;
love to one who slays his lover, and love to him as still a brother; which is
indeed "doing righteousness as God is righteous," and therefore betokens a
divine birth. On the other side there is hatred, deadly hatred; hatred of the
righteous for his righteousness; which is"a work of the devil," and savours
accordingly of a devilish parentage.
For what brings out the antagonism
in both cases is truth or righteousness; truth, as the Lord puts it (John 8:);
righteousness, as John puts it here; the truth of God; the righteousness of
God. Whosoever doeth righteousness is of God; born of God. And such an one
will, like Abel, love his brother; not sinning, or transgressing the law which
commands love to men as brethren."Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of
God." And such an one"loveth not his brother," but"doeth the work of the devil
;" being like Cain, who"was of that wicked one, and slew his brother, because
his own works were evil and his brothers righteous."
Mark how
these opposite dispositions towards truth and righteousness, the truth and
righteousness of God, operate in producing the opposite dispositions of love
and hatred. I. Consider that old message or commandment, heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another. On what is it based? It cannot,
since the fall, be based on our joint participation in the ills to which the
fall has made us heirs. Companions in guilt, shut up as criminals in the
condemned cell, together awaiting execution, can scarcely be expected, need
scarcely be exhorted, to love one another. There is not much mutual love lost
in a band of outlaws or a community of rebels."Hateful and hating one
another is apt to be the characteristic of the tribe. They may call one
another brothers, sworn brothers; in the riot of a common feast, in the
presence of a common foe. But there is little real confidence or cordiality in
their fellowship. It is not, it cannot be, to guilty and sinful men, in their
natural condition of guilt and sinfullness, estranged :from God and at enmity
with God, that"the message" or commandment"heard from the beginning," to love
one another, is now addressed. At least it is not to such that it can be
addressed with any hope of its being complied with and obeyed. It is a message
or commandment that plainly, from its very nature, proceeds upon the fact of
their being a method of extrication, actual or possible, out of that wretched
state. It is redemption, and redemption alone, with the regeneration which is
involved in it, that makes mutual brotherly love among men, in its true and
deep sense, a practicable duty, an attainable grace. It is only one who,"being
born of God, doeth righteousness as knowing God to be righteous," that is
capable of really loving his fellowman as a brother. 0nly righteous Abel can so
love even murderous Cain.
If you are the children of the righteous
Father, you can so love even those who "despitefully use you and persecute
you." For as his children you are one in sympathy with the righteous Father;
you are of one mind with him; you are on his side in the great cause of
righteousness, and of a righteous salvation, which lies so near his heart.
Submitting yourselves to his righteous and sovereign grace; receiving pardon
and peace, a new nature and a new life, on the footing of your oneness with his
righteous servant and beloved Son; you are now, as his children, being born of
him, altogether for his righteousness and against the worlds sin.
What brotherhood then can there be between you and the men who sin; and who
harden themselves, or justify themselves, in their sin? Is there not a great
gulf between you and them? Are they not cut off from you? Are you not precluded
from holding them to be your brethren.
Nay; it is only now, now for the
first time, that you are in a position, that you have the heart, to feel
anything like a brothers love towards them. And it is the very sharpness
of the line that severs you from them that makes your brotherly love towards
them burn bright and keen and warm. You love them as brethren now, in a sense
and manner in which you never could love them before; however closely you and
they might be knit together, as issuing from the same womb, or dwelling in the
same house, or associated in the same calling, or walking in the same
way.
Yes; though you have "known that man after the flesh" known him
intimately, known him affectionately, known him so as to love him as a very
brother when you sat together at the godless festive board, or drained together
the cup of sinful pleasure; yet now henceforth you"know him no more." It is
after another fashion than that of the flesh that you know him now; and after
another fashion that you love. him; with an intensity of brotherly longing for
his good, unfelt, unimagined before. What sacrifice would you have made for him
then? You would "lay down your life" to save his soul now. He was your
playmate, your plaything then; you used him; you sported with him; you enjoyed
him. And you had a kindly enough feeling towards him. He was profitable to you;
or you found him always very pleasant to you. But he is far more to you now. He
is precious, oh! how precious, in your eyes; precious, not as the congenial
companion of a passing hour, but as one whom you would fain grasp as a brother
for eternity.
2. No such brotherly
love is possible for him who, not doing righteousness, is not of God. His frame
of mind is that of Cain; a frame of mind that but too unequivocally identifies
him as one of the devils children, and not Gods. For there is no
room for any intermediate position here. Either you are of God; or you are like
Cain, who "was of that wicked one, and slew.his brother." It was the contrast
between his brother and himself that moved Cain to this act; and before he was
moved to it, that contrast must have become very irksome and intolerable. It
was not because he was void of natural affection, or because his disposition
was one of wanton cruelty and bloodthirstiness; it was not in the heat of
sudden passion, or in a quarrel about any earthly good, that Cain slew his
brother; but"because his own works were evil, and his brothers
righteous."
It is this which chiefly marks the instigation of the
devil; and his fatherhood of Cain, and such as Cain.
No doubt he has a
hand in every sin or crime that his children commit. He fans the flame of lust,
and fires the hot blood of furious passion. He sharpens the wits of wily craft,
and helps the plotter in many a stratagem. He infuses fresh bitterness into the
malign temper of envious hate, whoever or whatever its object may be. But he
has a special grudge and spite against"the seed of the woman who is to bruise
his serpent-head." More than anything else on earth ; - infinitely more than
any remains or remnants of good that the fall has left in human nature and
human society ; - for these he can turn to his own account and make his own use
of; - does that wicked one detest the faintest trace of the footsteps, the
slightest breathing of the spirit, of him"whose goings forth have been from of
old;" who has been ever in the world, the wisdom and the word of God, the light
and the life of men. Wherever his power appears, setting up Gods
righteousness and its claim to vindication against mans sin and its boast
of impunity, there Satans malice is stirred. And he makes his children
fierce even to slaying; as he made Cain.
He does so commonly by
fretting and irritating the conscience, while at the same time he fortifies the
stronghold of stout-heartedness and pride. For these two in combination, an
uneasy conscience and an unbroken heart, are in his hands capable of being
wrought mightily to his purpose. Let the truth and righteousness of God be
brought so near to a man, by the divine word and Spirit, as to stir and trouble
thoroughly his inward moral sense, while his desire and determination to stand
his ground and not give in remains unabated, or rather is inflamed and
aggravated; let the process go on; and let all attempts towards an
accommodation, between the consciences increasing soreness and the
hearts increasing self righteousness and self-will, be one after another
frustrated and foiled; - you have then the making of a Cain, a very child of
the devil, who, if need be and opportunity serve, will not scruple to cut short
the terrible debate and end the intolerable strife by slaying his brother Abel;
by"crucifying the Lord of glory!" O my fellow-sinner, let us beware! Let us not
be"as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother."
I may
think that there is no risk of my being as Cain; it will be long before I slay
my brother Abel! But let me give good heed to what John records as the natural
history, as it were, of Cains sin. He"slew his brother; and wherefore
slew he him? because his own works were evil, and his brothers
righteous."
Let me ask myself a plain but pointed question. Is there no
child of God, no godly man or woman of my acquaintance, the thought of whom, or
the sight of whom, or his or her talk in the field, troubles me and makes me
feel uncomfortable? Many professing Christians I know and like. Many who pass
for serious and evangelical I can meet and converse with, easily and
satisfactorily enough. There were four hundred prophets of the Lord that Ahab
had no sort of objection to have near him and to listen to. But there was one
Micaiah that he did not care to send for."I hate him," said the king,"for he
doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." Is there any Micaiah who is
thus a sort of eyesore to me? Any Abel who provokes in me a kind of Cainish
spirit?
It is not, strictly speaking, envy, or mere jealousy of
anothers superior excellence. It is the tacit rebuke administered to my
shortcoming and sin; the awakening of a lurking consciousness of something
wrong in my state of heart or way of life, the unsettling of my security, the
begetting in me of I scarcely know what to call it - dissatisfaction,
apprehension, an uneasy and unpleasant feeling of my not being altogether, in
some particulars, what I ought to be, or might be ; - it is that which disturbs
me, in the presence of some child of God, or in the thought of such all one, as
an unquestionable type of godliness.
Ah! it is a dangerous symptom; you
brother, as well as I, may give good heed to it. It is the very germ of
Cains murderous mood. It may not lead you to slay your Abel; him or her
who is thus obnoxious to you; whose eminent nearness to God causes you to be
too sensible of your distance. You have other ways of getting rid of the
troubler of your peace without raising the cry, Crucify him; away with him. You
can evade his company, keep out of hearing of his voice, and elude the glance
of his eye. You can shut him out of your mind, and bid him be to .you as if he
was not. Or you may try another plan. You may open your ears to whispers
against him ; you may sharpen your sight to discover faults and follies in him;
you may"sit and speak against your brother, slandering your own mothers
son," if by any means you can make him out to be not so very immaculate or so
very heavenly, after all, but that you may stand your ground and pass muster
beside him in the end. What is all that but slaying your brother; slaying him
virtually if not literally; slaying him very cruelly? And wherefore?"Because
your own works are evil and your brothers righteous." Be not deceived. Be
very sure that"in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of
the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother." I draw an important practical inference from the views
now submitted. They may teach us something of the nature, and what may be
called the genesis, or natural history, of brotherly love.
We are
accustomed, when we speak of the particular affection of brotherly love, as
distinguished from the general affection of love or charity, to rest the
distinction chiefly on the opposite characters of those who are the objects of
the two affections respectively. Charity or love - I speak of it in its
earthward, not its heavenward direction-has for its objects men, all men,
indiscriminately; men, as such. Brotherly love has for its objects the children
of God; the members of the family or brotherhood of Christs people; who
have one Father, one Lord and elder Brother, one Spirit, one hope, one home. We
love all men with a love of benevolence; we love the brethren with a love of
congeniality and delight. So far as it goes, this is of course a true
account.
But does not Johns statement here suggest a somewhat
different, or at least an additional, explanation?
May not the root of
the distinction lie in the subject of the affection rather than in its objects;
in the person loving, rather than in the persons loved? Is not the character of
the affection determined by the character of him in whom it; dwells, even more
than by the character of him to whom it goes forth?
At all events, when
my character is changed, the character of all my love, - let who may be its
objects, and let it have ever so many objects, differing ever so widely, - is
changed in a corresponding manner. There is not one of those I loved before
whom I love now as I used to do. My love to every one of them is a quite new
love. The wife of my bosom, the child of my house, the servant and stranger
within my gates, the beggar at my door, the queen reigning over me, the
companion of my leisure, the partner of my business, the holy man of God, the
wretched prodigal, the child of misery and vice - there is not one of them whom
I love now as I did before. It is a new affection that I feel to every one of
them.
And what is it that is new about it? Is it not that it is all now
brotherly love? Is it not that one and all of the varieties of natural
affection, - not stifled, not lost or merged, but subsisting still, as distinct
as ever and stronger than ever, - have infused into them this one common
element of brotherhood in the Lord? In me, in my heart, there is brotherly love
to every one; equal brotherly love to. all.
It does not call forth the
same response from all; it has not the same free course with respect to all. In
some, alas! it is deeply wounded, meeting with what sorely tries and grieves
it, as when the sad cry breaks forth,"Who hath believed our report? " -"All day
long have I stretched forth my hands to a perverse and gainsaying generation."
In others, again, it finds a blessed, present recompense; and the fellowship of
saints on earth becomes the foretaste of heavens joy. But is it not the
same affection, real, true, deep brotherly love, that is so sorely vexed in the
one instance, and so richly gratified in the other? Was it not the same
affection in the heart of Jesus that caused him-to"rejoice in spirit," as he
lifted up his eyes to heaven and said,"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy
sight"? - was it not, I ask, the very same affection that caused him to
exclaim, as he drew near to the city, and wept over it,"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings; and ye would not"?
XXV. BROTHERLY LOVE THE FRUIT AND TEST OF PASSING FROM DEATH UNTO
LIFE - THE WORLDS HATRED - THE LOVE OF GOD.
"Marvel not, my
brethren, if %he world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto
life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in
death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because
he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren." - 1 John 3: 13-16. There is an emphatic meaning in the address (ver.
i3),"my brethren." It prepares the way for the use of the first person"we"
(ver. 14). You are of the company of the brethren, as I am. I address you as
such, when I exhort you "not to marvel if the world hate you." For why should
you not marvel at this? Why should you not count it strange or take it
amiss.
For this, among other reasons: because we know, - you and I, as
brethren, know, - that to love as brethren is a grace belonging entirely to the
new life of which we are partakers. It is the very mark of our possessing that
life. Why then should we marvel if the dead are incapable of it? It is the
worlds nature to hate the godly; it was our nature once; and if it is not
so now, it is because we have undergone a great change;"we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren." It must be so. The
absence of this brotherly love is, and must be, a fatal sign of death, and of
continued death;"he that loveth not his brother abideth in death." For not to
love a brother is to hate him; and to hate him is to murder him; and to murder
him is to forfeit life:"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know
that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." Whereas, on the other hand,
the presence of this brotherly love is a blessed sign of life; for it marks our
oneness with the Living One; our insight into the manner of his love and our
sympathy with it:"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his
life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."
Here
then we have, in broad contrast, the way of the world, which is death, and the
way of God, which is life. It is the way of the world to hate, and so to hate
as to murder. It is the way of God to love, and so to love as to lay down life
to save. And it is in virtue of this contrast that the test holds good:"We know
that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren."
The worlds hatred; Gods love; these are what are
here contrasted. And yet there is one point at least of partial similarity. The
affection, in either case, fastens in the first instance upon objects opposed
to itself. The world hates the brethren; God loves the world,"the world lying
in the wicked one." And in a sense too the ends sought are similar. The world,
which hates, would assimilate those it hates to itself, and so be soothed or
sated; God, who loves, would assimilate those he loves to himself, and so have
satisfaction in them. This indeed may almost be said to be a universal
characteristic of sentient and intelligent mind; be it pure and benevolent or
depraved and malevolent; be its ruling passion hatred or love. It is, so far,
common to the wicked one and the Holy One. The wicked one, in whom the world
lies, hates; and his hatred fastens Upon the brethren. In his hatred he will
not scruple about murdering them outright in cruellest fashion. But he is as
well, or even better pleased, if he succeeds in murdering them after a milder
method; by getting them to listen to his wily speech. The Holy One loves; and
his love fastens on the lost. It is a love in spite of which he must, at the
last, acquiesce in the inevitable ruin of multitudes, whom alas! its
manifestation fails to touch. But his heart is set on winning them to his
embrace, and having them to be of one mind and nature with himself. And his
love has this advantage over the opposite affection. Who ever heard of the
wicked one laying down his life to secure the accomplishment of his object? -
or any Cain who is of the wicked one?"But hereby perceive we the love of God,
because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren."
I. Of the
worlds hatred of the brethren two things are said: it is natural, and it
is murderous.
In the first place, it is natural; not marvellous, but
quite natural. The Lord prepared his disciples beforehand to expect it, warning
them not to look for any other treatment at the worlds hands than he had
met with. It should not, therefore, be matter of surprise to you if the world
hate you. And yet it is sometimes apt to be so. Notwithstanding all warnings,
and all the experience of others who have gone before him, the recent convert,
the young Christian ; fresh, buoyant, enthusiastic, may fancy that what he has
to tell must pierce all consciences and melt all hearts. He goes among his
fellows, eager to appear in his new character, to bear his new testimony, to
sing his new song. Alas! he comes in contact with what is like a wet blanket
thrown in his face, cold looks and rude gestures of impatience, jeers and
jibes, if not harsher usage still. Instead of the welcome he anticipated, as he
hastened forth, with face all radiant from the heavenly fellowship, and lips
divinely touched with a live coal from off the altar, crying, - I have found
him, come and see; he meets with chilling indifference, or contempt, or anger.
He is tempted to give up as hopeless the task of dealing with the dead. But no.
Count it not strange, brother, that you fall into this trial. Why should you?
Is their reception of you very different from what, but yesterday perhaps,
yours would have been of one coming to you in the same character and on the
same errand? Surely you know that love to the brethren, brotherly love, true
Christian, Christ-like love - willing to give a cup of cold water to a disciple
in the name of a disciple, and welcome the least of the little ones for the
Masters sake - is no plant of natural growth in the soil of corrupt
humanity; that, on the contrary, it is the fruit of the great change by means
of which a poor sinner"passes from death unto life." Have you not found it to
be so in your own case? Would anything short of that have made you love the
brethren, and hear them gladly, when speaking in a brotherly way to you?. Would
anything else have overcome your hatred of them? Then "marvel not," nor be
impatient,"if the world hate you."
Again, secondly, the worlds
hatred of the brethren is murderous, as regards its objects:"He that loveth not
his brother abideth in death: whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer.""Loveth not,""hateth,""murdereth!" There is a sort of dark climax
here! Not loving is intensified into hating, and hating into murdering. The
three, however, are really one; as the Lord teaches in the sermon on the mount,
to which undoubtedly John here points (Matt. 5: 21-24). Not to love is to hate;
and to hate is to murder. If, therefore, you would be safe from the risk of
being a murderer, see that you are not a hater. And if you would not be in
danger of being a hater, see that you are a lover.
It is a solemn
lesson that is thus taught; and it would seem to be meant for you who are apt
to marvel if the world hate you, as well as for the world that hates you. In
that application, it may suggest some important practical
thoughts.
I. When Abel first caught
a glimpse of Cains state of mind towards him, he might feel as one who
painfully dreamed. He must have been slow to take it in. They had grown up
together in the same home; worked and played together; prayed together at the
same mothers knee; listened together to the same fathers teaching;
done one another many offices of kindness; enjoyed much pleasant intercourse in
house and field. While that strange conversation about God and his worship goes
on, Abel is startled as he sees Cains dark frown betokening growing
wrath. Hate gleams more and more from those kindling eyes. Is it fear that
pales the meek martyrs face, or is it anger that agitates his frame, as
that hoarse voice threatens and that cruel arm is raised? Not so. It is
horrible surprise at first; and then deep concern, tender pity, bitter grief.
That Cain has ceased to love him as a brother, - that is what chiefly wounds
him; wounds him more keenly than the stroke that fells him to the ground. Has
he lost, can he not win back, a brothers love? Is there such hatred, so
murderous, in one who is still so dear to him? Will he rather slay me than
taste and see how good our God is who has provided for us both the same
sin-offering of the lamb? It is a bitter sorrow. But it is not the bitterness
of a sense of his own wrong; it is the bitterness of the melancholy insight he
has got into his poor brothers dark and miserable heart.
Ah!
think ; - when you come in contact with some one to whom you would fain commend
the Saviour and the sacrifice you have yourself found so precious, - an old
familiar friend perhaps with whom your intercourse has been wont to be frequent
and sweet, - a humble neighbour who has often been glad to see you under his
lowly roof, to accept your alms in his poverty or your kindly sympathy in his
distress; and when you begin to discover that, as a child of God, you are not
so welcome now as you were when like himself you were a child of the world;
when he treats you coldly or rudely, and makes it plain that he would fain in
any way get rid of you ; - think rather of his case than of your own. It may be
hard for you to bear with his irritability and incivility; and you may be
provoked, if not to retaliate, yet to let him alone and make your escape. But
consider him; and have pity upon him. This malignant spirit of dislike to
righteousness, and to him whose works are righteous, is far worse for him to
cherish than for you to suffer. Leave him not. Rather stay by him and plead
with him; even though his hatred rise to murder.
2. For you need, for yourselves, and with special
reference to the worlds hatred of you, to be ever on your guard, lest
somewhat of the old dark spirit should creep in again into your own hearts. And
remember it may insinuate itself very insidiously and stealthily. Consider once
more the stages or steps: not loving; hating; murdering. Ah! how easily may the
first of these begin: not loving. It is a simple negation; no taking of any
positive step; but only, as it were, not taking any step at all; or not this or
that particular step; giving up; letting alone; using less energy of prayer and
pains; feeling less interest. Who is it that you have ceased, or are ceasing,
to love with a true brotherly love like Christs?
Is it one still
unconverted and unsaved? You have been dealing with him, as you think,
faithfully and affectionately; pleading with him for Christ, and with Christ
for him. You have had much patience, and have persevered long. Nor has it been
mere taskwork with you; it has been a work of love. You have felt a real
concern for his soul, a real longing for his salvation. But somehow the case is
not very hopeful; it was not very hopeful at first, and it is becoming less so,
or at least not more so. You are getting reconciled to the idea of failure and
disappointment. You are not at first conscious of a diminished regard for your
poor brother; but you are becoming less sanguine, and gradually less earnest.
The work of love becomes more like taskwork now. You will do your duty; you
will continue to be kind to him, to warn and exhort him, to set Christ before
him, and urge him to believe and live. But there is less cordiality in what you
do and say; you bestow less of your heart upon him. This may be natural, in a
sense and measure perhaps unavoidable, and not altogether unreasonable. There
may be a limit to your earnest striving, in love, with an obdurate sinner, as
there is a limit to the striving, in love, of Gods own Spirit with him.
But beware. It is not because he ceases to love that the Spirit ceases to
strive. See that it be not otherwise with you; that it be not your ceasing to
love that makes you cease to strive. If it be Christs mind that you
should shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony of judgment against any
one whom you have been plying with the testimony of mercy, he will make that
plain enough to you by unmistakeable indications of his will. And you will see
all the more clearly, and judge all the more fairly, if there be no ceasing to
love; no growing coldness and indifference; no feeling of a sort of apathetic
acquiescence in the inevitableness of that poor souls fate. No such
feeling is there in the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem. Beware, 1 repeat, of any
such feeling insinuating itself into your bosom. Not to love, with a love that
yearns to save, and-weeps rivers of waters for the lost, is to hate; and to
hate is to murder."Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my
salvation."
Or is it one of Christs little ones; one of the
fatherless and widows whom you visit in their affliction; one whose feet you
have counted it a privilege to wash? The service has been a delight; that
suffering saints chamber has been to you a Bethel. You have got in it far
more than you have given of spiritual refreshment and consolation. So you say
and feel, under the impulse of your first love for that brother in Christ. But
on further acquaintance you find, or think you find, things in him or about him
that are fitted to damp and repel your ardent advances. He is not so perfect as
you thought; his person not so pleasant; his room not so tidy. Infirmities come
out; disagreeable incidents occur; rude friends interfere. It is not romance
now, but reality. You are not quite so enthusiastic as you were in your esteem
of him, or quite so frequent and regular in your calls upon him. A sort of
weariness comes over you when you knock at his door; a sort of distasteful
recoil arrests you as you enter his chamber. It is plain that your Christian
admiration, your brotherly love towards him, is not exactly what it was; not so
glowing and so gushing. It may be as real and genuine; it may be even more
trustworthy, because it is more sober. If so, it is well. But beware. It may be
otherwise. There may be an approximation to a state of mind not quite so right
or safe ; - " not loving your brother," ceasing to love him as your brother in
Christ, allowing natural or accidental causes of estrangement or indifference
to cool your brotherly affection. And what then? May there not come something
worse? A certain half-unconscious dislike; a certain pleasure, even in hearing
him ridiculed or defamed; a not unwilling participation in the idle talk that,
exaggerating defects, and overlooking or misrepresenting excellencies, would
take away his fair name and reputation, and play the murderer as regards his
Christian character and standing?
Be on your guard against this spirit
of the world finding harbour again in your breasts. I speak to you who
have"passed from death unto life," and who know what it is to love the
brethren; to love all men with a true brotherly love in the Lord, a love that
looks on them as immortal beings, having near them a Saviour dying for them,
having in them a Spirit striving with them, having before them a Father waiting
to be gracious. Even you need to be warned against the worlds evil temper
of dislike and envy. Consider how insidious it is. It begins with what may
attract little observation and awaken little alarm; a change, scarcely
noticeable, or if noticed easily explained by altered circumstances, sobering
age, sad experience, repeated disappointment, or any of the thousand causes
that make the heart beat less wildly as time rolls on. Consider also its deadly
danger. The"not loving," or not loving so purely and so truly, comes to
be"hating, avowed or unavowed, distaste, disinclination, displeasure, dislike;
estrangement, suspicion, envy. And to hate is to"murder;" one way ar other, by
neglect or by calumny, by ill thoughts or ill words or ill deeds, it murders.
Consider, finally, how natural it is ;so natural that only your"passing from
death unto life" can rid you of it, and make you capable of its opposite. You
need not marvel if the world thus hate; fi)r it is its nature. Nor need you
marvel that you should still require to be exhorted not thus to hate; for it is
your nature too. Grace may overcome it; grace alone can do so. And even grace
can do so only through continual watchfullness and prayer, continual
recognition of the life to which you pass from death, and continual exercise of
the love which is the characteristic of that life.
II. Of this love, as of the hatred, two things are
said. In the first place, it is natural now to the spiritual mind; natural as
the fruit and sign of the new life ;"We know that we have passed from death
unto life because we love the brethren." It is natural to us, in our old state
of death, to hate; it is, or should be, natural to us, in our new state of
life, to love. For our life is our participation with Christ in his life; and
his life, like the Fathers, is manifested in love; or is love. Our life,
therefore, is also love; it is our loving as the Father loves, and as the Son
loves. And this, secondly, implies that the love in question is the very
opposite of the murderous hatred of the devil; it is self-sacrificing, like the
love of God himself:"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down
his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (ver.
16).
It is a high ideal of this love to men as brethren that is set
before us. It is sympathy with God in his love to us; and in that love as
measured by his laying down his life for us. Whom does he thus love? Us: and
all such as we are; or as we were, when his love reached us."Scarcely for a
righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.""When we were without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly." For us sinners, for us without strength, for us ungodly,
he laid down his life. And it was a brotherly love to us that moved him to do
so. It was as our brother that he sacrificed himself for us. It is that we may
be his brethren that he would have us to perceive his love in sacrificing
himself for us, and to believe it.
Oh! to be enabled to enter more and
more into this brotherly love of Jesus; to apprehend its nature; to imbibe its
spirit! Truly it is the opposite of the hatred of a brother which marks one
abiding in death. That hatred prompts to take away anothers life; this
love to lay down ones own."Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer ;"
but here is one so loving his brother, that to save him alive he sacrifices
himself. Cain was bent on slaying his brother: Abel, was anxious, at the risk
of death, to win Cain. We, in our hatred, because he was righteous and we were
evil, slew a greater than Abel. He loved us with more than Abels love
when"he laid down his life for us."
We know that we have passed from
death unto life, when we love our fellow-men with a brotherly love like his;
when we are so bent on saving and blessing them, that we are willing not only
to give our whole lives for their good, but to suffer all loss, even death
itself, at their hands. Even when they are still our enemies, because the
enemies of our Lord; even while they hate us, and persecute us, and say all
manner of evil against us; how does it become us still to love them as
brethren, with a love that would seek them as brethren, and welcome them as
brethren, and live and die for them as brethren! Can they be more hostile or
injurious to us, than we were to Christ when he loved us and laid down his life
for us? Have they wearied us as we have wearied him? or provoked us as we have
provoked him? or pierced us as we have pierced him? How shall we not continue
to care for them and plead with them, as Christ continued to care for us and
plead with us, - oh! how long, how patiently, how tenderly, - if by any means
he might bring us to receive him as laying down his life for us! And when, by
his Spirit, they are moved and melted, and on the footing of that great
propitiation reconciled to God and to us; how shall we set bounds to the warmth
and cordiality of our embrace of them as now our brethren indeed! Can we grudge
any service or sacrifice to show our love, even should it be the laying down of
our lives for them, as he laid down his life for us
This is our
security against the evil spirit of Cain coming in again to trouble us. It is
to make full proof of the better spirit of Abel, or of him in whom Abel, like
us, believed, even Jesus, who so loved us, even when dead in sins, that he gave
himself for us, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; and who
so loveth us, as his brethren, for whom he laid down his life, that he would
have us to be sharers as his brethren with him in all the love with which the
Father loveth him and all the glory which the Father giveth him.
XXVI. RIGHTEOUSNESS OR TRUTH IN BROTHERLY LOVE
- ESSENTIAL TO THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE IN OURSELVES AND
BEFORE GOD.
"But whoso hath this worlds good, and seeth his brother
have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the
love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in
tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth,
and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is
greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn
us not, then have we confidence toward God." - 1 JOHN 3: 17-21.
The
lesson here is sincerity. It is with special reference to the grace or
affection of brotherly love, that this lesson is in the first instance
enforced; and the manner in which the subject is introduced is
noticeable.
The highest possible model or ideal has been presented for
imitation:"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life
for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Then immediately,
by way of contrast, the testing case put is made to turn on one of the simplest
and commonest instances of the exercise of human pity:"But whoso hath this
worlds good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels
of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" It looks almost
like irony or sarcasm. Your love to the brethren, to men as brethren, should
reach to your laying down your lives for them. Yes! And it would, if that were
necessary, or might do them good. So you say, and think. But what if, having
this worlds good, and seeing your brother have need, you shut up your
bowels of compassion from him? How then dwelleth the love of God in you? Is
that loving as God loves?
Beware of self-deception in this matter. It
is easy to imagine what you would do to win or help a brother; and yeti may
please yourselves by carrying the imagination to any length you choose. If a
great act of self-sacrifice would avail, you would not shrink from it. But what
if you grudge some far readier and easier service, a gift to the needy out of
your abundance, or a visit of sympathy to the widow out of your leisure, or a
word in season to the weary out of the fullness of your own happier experience,
or a helping hand to snatch a perishing soul from the pit and set him on the
rock on which the Lord has set you? You will lay down your life for one who is,
or who may be, a brother! And yet you cannot lay down for him your love of this
worlds good; your love of ease and selfish comfort; your fastidious
taste, that shrinks from contact with squalid wretchedness and vulgar ways;
your proud or shy reserve, that keeps the humble at a distance; your false
shame, that sends you in upon yourself when you should be sowing beside all
waters.
Thus somewhat sternly Johns tender expostulation - -for
it is very tender - is introduced:"My little children, let us not love in word,
neither in tongue." There is enough in the world of that sort of love."Let us
love in deed and in truth." It is only thus that we can"know ourselves to be of
the truth," or to be true, and so can"assure our hearts before God." We can
have no such assurance if our consciousness hints that there is guile in our
spirit."For if our heart condemn us," how can we face him"who is greater than
our heart and knoweth all things ;" all things about our heart; its secret
windings and subtle refuges of lies? It is only"if our heart condemn us not," -
condemn us not, that is, as unrighteous and insincere in the matter on hand, -
it is only then that we can"have confidence toward God."
Thus John
brings out into prominence a general principle connecting conscience and faith,
with immediate reference to his particular topic of brotherly love.
The
principle may be briefly stated. There can be no faith where there is not
conscience; no more of faith than there is of conscience; no firm faith without
a clear conscience. In plain terms, I cannot look my God in the face if I
cannot look myself in the face. In a sense, I must be able to justify myself if
I would took on God as justifying me; I must be able to acquit myself of guile
if I would reckon on his acquitting me of guilt. If my heart condemns me, much
more must he condemn me who is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things.
But must not my heart always condemn me? Must I not be always confessing that
my heart condemns me, and that therefore the searcher of it must condemn me
much more? No, This is not the language of legitimate confession, although it
is often used as such. On the contrary, it is rather a protest against the very
sort of confession which it is too commonly employed to express. It rebukes all
conventionalism; all formal routine or covert guile; all false dealing with
myself and with God. It demands, in worship and fellowship, that I approach him
who is greater than my heart and who knoweth all things, as one whose heart
does not condemn him.
Reserving the special application of this
principle to the grace of brotherly kindness, I ask you for the present to
consider it more generally with reference to the divine love; :first, as you
have to receive it by faith; and, secondly, as you have to retain it and act it
out in your loving walk with God and man.
I. I am a receiver of this love. And it concerns me much that my
faith, by which I receive it, should be strong and steadfast; which, however,
it cannot be unless my conscience, in receiving it, is guileless. David
experienced this; and he describes his experience in the thirtysecond Psalm.
There was a time, he says, when he kept silence; when there was guile in his
spirit. Then he had no rest. He was unwilling to be thoroughly searched and
tried by God; to have the hurt of his soul otherwise than slightly healed; to
have the deadly sore probed to the bottom, that the oil and balm to be poured
in might reach the root of the disease. If his heart condemned him; and there
was one greater than his heart, knowing all things, whose"hand day and night
was heavy upon him" (ver. 3, 4). lie got enlargement and assurance only when he
tried the more excellent way of full and frank confession, apprehending full
and free forgiveness (ver. 5-7). Then his heart did not condemn him, and he had
confidence towards God; being of the truth, he assured his heart before
God.
It must be noticed, however, that the ground of this assurance or
confidence is not the consciousness of integrity, thus declared to be
indispensable, but that gracious dealing on the part of God for which it makes
way. The negative form of Johns language is not without its meaning here
- "if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." It
describes simply the removal of an obstacle; a hindrance or obstruction taken
out of the way. A haze or mist of earth is dispelled, that the sun from heaven
may give light and warmth. A work of the devil is undone, that the work of God
may be wrought. For this inward misgiving, this secret consciousness of
insincerity,"our heart condemning us," is of that wicked one. It comes of his
lie still heeded, and, as it were, half believed. We must let it go, that the
truth may make us free.
The plain question then is, Are you dealing
truly with God as he deals truly with you? Are you meeting him, as he meets
you, in good faith? Is reserve on your part laid aside, as it is thoroughly
laid aside on his part? He makes advances to you in his gospel, advances most
generous and free; he gives you assurances most firm and faithful. These are
the ground and warrant of your confidence before him; these alone, and not
anything in yourselves, in your own consciousness of integrity, or in your
conscience acquitting you of deceit. But they can be so only when they have
their free course and their perfect work in you. And that they cannot have if
there is guile in your spirit, if your heart condemns you.
May not this
be the explanation of that want of assurance of which some anxious souls
complain? They are not at ease; they have not comfort, peace, liberty: they
feel as if they could not win Christ, so as to be sure of being in him. They
see how complete he is for them, as well as how complete they would be if once
in him; and they would fain win him and be found in him. But they cannot. Why
not? What is there between him and them? Guilt it cannot be; for guilt of
deepest dye he takes away; but it may be guile. Sin it cannot be; but it may be
silence; keeping silence. Let them not lay the blame of their unquiet and
unsatisfied state of mind upon God, or Christ, or the Holy Spirit; upon the
gospel way of salvation, or upon the gospel call. All the persons of the
Godhead are in favour of their assuring their hearts before God. In the Father,
they have rich, free, sovereign grace; altogether gratuitous; unbought and
unconditional. In the Son, they have an infinitely precious atonement, an
infinitely meritorious work of righteousness, meeting all claims in law against
them and upon them. In the Spirit, they have an almighty agency, shutting them
up into Christ, and taking of what is his to show to them. Then in the gospel,
they have all this love of the one God,- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, - made
over to them, if they will but have it, without price and without reserve; just
in order that they may assure their hearts before God. The whole plan of
salvation contemplates that result, and makes fun and adequate provision for
its being realised.
If it is not, why is it not? Look well to this
question, my brother. See if there is not in you some double-dealing, for which
"your heart condemns you." Is all straightforward? Is all real and downright
earnest with you? Or are you toying and playing with spiritual frames as if it
were all a mere affair of sentimentalism? Or are you brooding over your own
gloomy thoughts with that sort of morbid self-satisfaction that feeds on doubt
and despair. Thus, first, is it a real thirsting for God, a genuine and
strong desire for his face and favour, that is moving you; such as will break
through obstructions and "take the kingdom by force"? Or is it the old
Israelitish temper of peevish and petulant discontent, rather pleased than not
to have to complain that you cannot find the living water? And is all right as
regards your perfect willingness to fall in with Gods plan? Is there no
disingenuousness here; no dislike of being indebted wholly to free grace; no
hesitancy about letting go your last hold of the prop on which you have been
leaning, and casting yourself, as by a leap in the dark, into the arms of the
waiting Saviour Above all, thirdly, is there a clear understanding as to
the terms on which you would choose to be with God? Is there no shrinking from
the footing on which Christ would place you with his Father and your Father,
his God and your God? Is there a sort of half-consciousness in yon that you
would really apprehend and welcome the mediation ,of Christ better than you do,
if it were meant merely to ,establish a relation between God and you, so far
amicable as to secure your being let alone now and let off at last; and that in
consideration of certain specified and ascertainable acts of homage; without
its being insisted on that God and you should become so completely one? If your
heart misgive you and condemn you on such points as these, it is no wonder that
you have not peace with him"who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all
things."
But, beloved, now your hearts condemn you not! "You are of the
truth" you are true yourselves, and truth is your object; the truth ; the truth
of God. Then you can have no objection to take in the truth, full and entire,
no matter what humiliating discoveries it gives you of your own character and
state; or what demands it makes upon you for submission to the sovereignty and
grace of God. You have no quarrel with the gospel method of salvation for
anything in it that abases you and exalts the Lord alone; if you are "of the
truth." Nor can you now be cleaving to any righteousness of your own. You cut
the last cord that binds you to the old natural way of making your peace with
God, and sink into the embrace of him who is himself your peace. And it is
peace, immediate, full, free, unreserved, that you are eager to have. No truce
or compromise will content you now. You cannot be too completely reconciled to
God, or brought into friendship too intimate, or fellowship too close and
confidential, with your Father in heaven.
Is it so? In all this your
hearts condemn you not. Then why should you not "have confidence toward God"?
Is it not precisely thus that he is willing, in truth and faithfulness, to deal
with you? Then taste and see that God is good; suffer the love of God to dwell
in you, without obstruction on your part or any partial dealing any more. II.
Not only as receiving Gods love does it concern me to see to it that my
heart condemns me not; but as retaining it, and acting it out, in my walk and
conduct. Otherwise,"how dwelleth the love of God in me"?
The apostle
Paul speaks of "holding faith and a good conscience; "holding the mystery of
faith in a good conscience."Herein," he says,"do I exercise myself, that I have
always a conscience void of offence, toward God and toward men." This was, in a
large measure, the secret, or at least one indispensable condition, of his
confident boldness, as a worker and a witness for Christ. His heart did not
misgive or condemn him, as to any part of his habitual demeanour and behaviour.
If it bad, he would have been instantly smitten with a sort of moral or
spiritual paralysis. For the absence of conscious, or half-conscious, guile, is
not more essential to your standing fight with God, as regards your acceptance
and peace, than it is to. your continuing to stand right with him in the whole
work of faith and labour of love by which you have to glorify him.
What
a source of imbecility and unhappiness, even for the Lords own people, is
there in this;"their heart condemning them!" Peters heart must have
condemned him, more or less consciously, when he entered the high-priests
hall, and mingled with the servants. What had he to do $here at all; getting in
as he did; taking the place he did, and the character? Could he fail to have
some misgivings, as he stood beside the fire warming himself, like any ordinary
onlooker, while false testimony, that he could have contradicted, was swearing
away his masters life?
He "kept silence" and slunk away among the
menials of the office. He must have felt that either he should not have been
there at all, or if there, he should have been at his masters side. He
could not"assure his heart before God," or"have confidence toward God." It is
all the less surprising, in these circumstances, that he should have fallen
when sharper trial came. He was not found"holding faith and a good
conscience."
May we not thus account for the want of joy and power that
too often characterises your practical Christianity? Your experience is felt to
be lacking in life; your influence somehow does not tell. May it not be
because"your heart condemns you"?"Happy is he that condemneth not himself in
that which he alloweth." Is that happiness yours? Is there nothing in which you
allow yourself about which you have a doubt? Have you a latent suspicion that
you are not quite acting up to the standard of attainment at which you ought to
aim; that you are not following out your convictions to the full extent to
which they might lead you ; that you are tolerating what may be at least of
questionable expediency? You may have your excuses; your reasons why you cannot
be expected to be altogether so heavenly as one, or so self-denied as another,
or so decided and outspoken as a third, or so emphatic a protester against the
worlds follies as a fourth. But do these reasons satisfy you? Do they
keep your mind at ease? Or have you occasional qualms. It is a great matter if
the eye be single; if your heart do not condemn you. The consciousness of
integrity is, of itself, a well-spring of peace and power in the guileless
soul. The clear look, the erect gait, the firm step, the ringing voice, of an
upright man, are as impressive upon others as they are expressive of himself.
But that is not all. The assurance or confidence of which John speaks, is not
self-assurance or selfconfidence. No. It is "assurance before God;" it
is"confidence toward God."
Why does the apostle make "our heart
condemning us" so fatal to our"assuring our heart before God"? It is because
"God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." He assumes that it is
with God we have to do; and that we feel this. Our own verdict upon ourselves
is comparatively a small affair; we ask the verdict of God."With me," says
Paul,"it is a very small matter that I should be judged of mans judgment;
yea I judge not mine own self." I am not consciously self-convicted;"yet am I
not thereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord."
If indeed
my heart condemns me, there can be little room for question as to what I am.
Even then, however, what is fatal to my peace and power, is not my heart
condemning me ; but Gods being greater than my heart, and knowing all
things. My own heart is not likely to condemn me without God condemning me
also, and still more. But does it follow that, if my heart acquit me, he must
do the same? The contrary, rather, might be inferred. My heart not condemning
me might be no proof or presumption that God did not condemn me, He may not
acquit me as easily as I acquit myself; for he is greater than my heart, and
knoweth all things. There is, therefore, not a little grace here; in our being
permitted to infer, from our own heart not condemning us, a like acquittal on
the part of God.
And yet how should it not be so if we are his
children? Does not the Spirit witness with our spirit that we are so? And that,
not merely generally, with reference to the general question of our being
Gods children; but specifically, with reference to our being at each
successive moment in our Christian experience, and each successive step in our
Christian life, his children; his children, not in right of a past act of
adoption and work of regeneration, but in virtue of a present filial heart and
filial frame of mind towards him. It is thus that "the Spirit witnesseth with
our spirit."
Our spirit witnesses first; faithfully; for we are upon
honour. How is it with you, brother, with reference to this present duty; this
present trial? What are you thinking and feeling about it? That it is hard, too
hard; that too much is asked of you, or laid upon you; but that you must do, or
bear, as best you may, simply because you cannot help it? These are servile
thoughts and feelings; they breathe the spirit of bondage, not the spirit of
adoption. Your heart condemns you; your own spirit witnesses against you; the
Divine Spirit therefore cannot witness for you. You cannot lift an honest
filial eye to your Father; for"he is greater than your heart, and knoweth all
things." But if now, by grace, yea get the victory over these risings of the
old slavish mind in you, and have again somewhat of the same mind that was in
him who was ever saying, "Abba, Father," as to every business, every cup, every
cross; ah! then your heart condemns you not of servile guile, and the sullen,
dogged sense of bondage is all gone. Your own spirit witnesses, not of past but
of present sonship. It is"Abba, Father," with you and in you, here and now; you
are here and now crying,"Abba, Father." And another there is who is in you here
and now crying,"Abba, Father ;" the Spirit of adoption; the Spirit of
Gods own Son. So he witnesses with your spirit that you are the sons of
God; that you are so here and now, at this moment, in the doing of this painful
business, in the drinking of this bitter cup, in the bearing of this heavy
cross. And thus he gives you great enlargement and assurance, great boldness
and confidence, as you walk abroad in the light of Gods loving face
shining upon you, to manifest his love everywhere and always among your
fellowmen, his love as"dwelling in you."
For I must advert again to the
immediate occasion of this appeal of John on the subject of sincerity or
truthfullness. It is brotherly love of which he is discoursing; the duty of
loving all men as brethren; loving every man as a brother; with a true and real
brotherly love; a love that has respect to his being, or becoming, a brother in
the Lord. Judge yourselves here, that you may not be judged. What says your
heart, your conscience, as to this matter? Does it acquit you? Does it absolve
you from the blame of blood-guiltiness? Paul could take the people among whom
he had lived and laboured to record, the day he bade them farewell, that he was
pure from the blood of them all; for he had not shunned to declare unto them
the whole counsel of God. May I venture to do so? Woe is me! Can you venture?
Have you done what you could? Are you doing what you can?. Or have you
misgivings?. Here, a stumblingblock is put in the way of an inquirer by some
sad inconsistency, or some cold repulse!
There, a precious opportunity
of showing a little kindness, or speaking a word in season, is lost
irretrievably?. Ah! are these hands of yours clean which you hold out to some
dear friend, or some well-disposed neighbour, or some stranger at your gate;
clean from the sin of careless dealing with that man, as regards the welfare of
his soul for eternity? Are you conscious of indifference or insensibility about
his spiritual state being your prevailing temper, in your intercourse with this
or that person in your house, or in your social circle? Are you conscious of
estrangement, alienation, distance, dislike? Does your conscience tell you that
you are not treating him kindly as regards his own good, or not treating him
faithfully as regards the claims of God? Ah l then, you cannot face your own
heart; and how then can you, with open eye and upward gaze, face your God? If
there be even a lurking suspicion of duty possibly neglected, or of wrong
possibly done, rest not till all is righted."If thou bring thy gift to the
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first he reconciled to thy
brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
And generally I would
urge the vast importance of guilelessness and unreservedness, in the whole
domain of your spiritual experience. Why is it that we see so many joyless,
cheerless, one might almost say useless Christians? Why so many living and
walking in such a way as to give the notion of godliness being all gloomy
doubt, painful discipline, selfabsorbing anxiety, listless musing? Awake!
Arise! Shake off the chains that bind you. Go forth in open day, under the open
sky, to meet your God and Father, with your heart open to him, as his heart is
open to you. Stand fast in the liberty with which Christ makes you free. Be
upright. Be honest, frank, and fearless. Be yourselves; out and out yourselves.
Dare to avow yourselves what you are, to God, to your own hearts, to all men.
Be of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; yourselves time;
receiving all truth, declaring all truth; everywhere, and always. Be honest,
thoroughly honest, in the closet, in the family, in the market-place, in the
parlour. Be transparently honest to yourself and to your brother. Be honest to
your God and Father in heaven. Do but consent to treat him as he treats you.
His whole heart, he himself wholly, is yours; all his love; all his fullness.
Let your whole heart be his. Be you yourselves his; with no reserve; be
altogether, now and for ever, his.
XXVII.
RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO OUR PLEASING GOD AND TO HIS HEARING
US.
"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep
his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this
is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another, as he gave us commandment." - -1 JOHN 3: 22, 23.
This
is one of the strongest assertions that we have in Scripture of the efficacy of
good works, as bearing on our relation to God. It has no reference, however, to
the question of our acceptance or justification; it raises an ulterior
question. It manifestly connects a certain privilege with a certain practice,
in the case of true Christians, considered as already in a state of grace. And
it connects them, so as to make the privilege dependent upon the practice. The
privilege is, that "whatsoever we ask, we receive of him." This is partly an
explanation of the previous statement (ver. 21), and partly an additional
thought. The"confidence which we have toward God" is such as emboldens us to
ask what we will. And we ask confidently, because we know that God will not
refuse us anything that we ask. But it is the fact itself here asserted, and
not our sense or apprehension of it, that chiefly claims attention. It is
certainly a strong assertion, "Whatsoever we ask we receive of him." And it is
altogether unqualified; absolute and unrestricted. We are on such terms with
God that he will deny us nothing ; - that is the plain unequivocal meaning of
what John says. And it is not to be modified or explained away by any supposed
exceptions or reservations. It must be taken in all its breadth as literally
true, in connection with the practice on which it is dependent.
That
practice is obedience,"we keep his commandments;" - or the performance of good
works,"we do those things which are pleasing in his sight." For there are not
two separate acts or exercises here spoken of; but only one. "Doing things
pleasing in Gods sight" is not something over and above"keeping his
commandments," or something different from it. That cannot be. For it is not
merely doing things, any things, that may be pleasing in his sight; but doing
"those things;" which must mean doing the things which he has commanded, and
none other.
Is, then, this second clause a mere redundancy? Nay, it
adds much to the meaning. For one thing, it implies that when "we keep his
commandments," or do the things commanded, we do them as "things pleasing in
his sight" - we take that view of them in the doing of them. .And further, it
implies that God is really pleased with them. They are done in obedience to his
commandments, and so done as to be in very truth"pleasing in his sight." They
do please him; and it is because they do please him, that he is so pleased with
us who do them, that he can :refuse us nothing that we choose to ask. He
derives real gratification from what we do for him. What then will he not do
for us?
To make this view of the matter clear, let us take our Lord
himself as our example, in respect of both of these sayings of his beloved
disciple.
I."We keep his
commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." So John
writes; and so also Jesus speaks;"He that sent me is with me: the Father hath
not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him" (John 8: 29).
That was the hold which he had on the Father. It is, in a measure, the same
hold that John says we have on the Father."I do always those things that please
him.""We do those things that are pleasing in his sight." The language is the
very same; the sense and spirit in which it is used must be the very same also.
Let us consider it as used by Jesus; let us try to enter into his mind and
heart in using it. There is indeed in it, as used by him, a depth of meaning
which we dare not hope, or even try, to fathom. It touches what must ever be an
inscrutable mystery; the ineffable mutual complacency of the great Three in
One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit : and especially the Fathers ineffable
complacency in the Son o£ his love, as fulfilling on earth and in time
the counsel of the Godhead which dates from everlasting in heaven. But Jesus
uttered the words for our sakes; and as expressing a human feeling which we may
understand, and with which he would have us to sympathise. That human feeling
in the bosom of Jesus must have been very simple, and intensely filial;
realising intensely his filial relation to the Father, and his filial oneness
with the Father. There is, if I may venture so to speak, a childlike
simplicity, a sort of artless straightforwardness, in his saying so
confidingly, so lovingly, so naturally, ,, I do always those things that please
him." It is almost as if the words came out, halfunconsciously, from his lips;
as if he were thinking aloud. And certainly it is not of himself and his merit
that he is thinking; but of the Father and the Fathers love.. I always
please him; what I do always pleases him; is .the quiet comfort he takes in a
trying moment. For it is indeed a trying moment. He has the cross in view. Men,
displeased with him, are to"lift him up," and leave him to die in his agony
alone. Not so the Father. He leaves me not alone; he is with me; "for I do
always those things that please him."
Somewhat similar are the
circumstances in which John would have us to say;"we do those things that are
pleasing in his sight." We are not to marvel if the world hate us; the source
of its hatred we know (ver. 13). And we know also the source of that better
spirit of brotherly love with which it is to be met (ver. 14-16). Only let
there be, on our part, open, guileless, unreserved sincerity (ver. 17-21). Let
our heart, as in the sight of God, acquit us of all secret dishonesty. Let
there be truth in the inner man; the truth in love. Then we have the confidence
of little children toward God. And, as little children, we join with John, and
with Jesus, in saying, - Whatever the world may do to us, we are not alone; the
Father is with us, and heareth us, for "we do those things that are pleasing in
his sight."
There is nothing then here of a legal spirit; nothing of
the Pharisees self-righteous gratitude: "God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are." It is not thus that John asks us to join with him in
saying"we do those things that are pleasing in Gods sight." Rather, he
makes our saying this the very test of our entire freedom from all guile in our
spirits; all that sort of guile which such prayer as the Pharisees
implies. For the Pharisees prayer represents him as keeping Gods
commandments, in so far as he does keep them, merely to gain a selfish end and
serve a selfish purpose. If he cares about doing what pleases God at all, it is
merely with that view. He may be in earnest, ever so much. It is the
earnestness of one seeking to make terms with an adversary, and win his favour
or forbearance by a measure of forced submission. It is the earnestness of one
striving to effect a truce or compromise, on conditions ever. so severe, for a
boon ever so far off, and apt to be lost after all. Take the man who is serving
God most anxiously, and with most painstaking observance of the letter of the
commandments, on that footing; on the footing of his having thus to win his way
to such kind and measure of Gods countenance as he thinks he needs, or
cares to have. Ask that man, as before God, and in the eye of his own
conscience, Is all clear and open, free and forthflowing, between you and him
whom you so painfully serve? Is there not, on the contrary, reserve and
restraint; a holding back, as it were, of confidence on both sides; something
still outstanding between him and you which makes you feel that all is hollow
and unsatisfying?
Oh, to be converted, and become as little children!
First, to be made willing as little children, that all this misunderstanding
should be ended, and this breach thoroughly healed at once, and once for all,
as the Father would have it to be, in the Son. And then, as little children, to
know something of a little childs touching and artless simplicity, as we
look with loving eye into the loving eye of the Father, and lovingly lisp out
the touching words: "We keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight." Therefore now, O humble and simple child of God, if, in
saying this, you feel yourself to be identified with the holy child Jesus; if
your saying it is really his saying it in you by his Spirit; if it is as one
with him that you say it, or in all honesty would fain say it; do not hesitate,
or have any scruple, from any apprehension of its being presumptuous, or any
misgiving lest it should savour of self-righteousness. There can be no risk of
that, if you say it in and with Christ. There was no self-righteousness in him;
there could not be. For he began his work, himself already personally accepted
as righteous; and it was as a Son that he learned obedience. He makes you one
with himself in his acceptance and in his sonship. He asks you to let him make
you thus one with himself; on the ground of his making himself one with you in
your sin and death. You are as he is when you join with him in his saying, "I
do always those things that please him." There is no self-righteousness here;
scarcely even selfconsciousness. It is all direct, outward upward motion of the
soul; the outgoing of filial trust and love and loyalty; the fond and guileless
unreserve, one would say, of an unreflecting child, who would be amazed if any
doubt were cast on his fathers being always with him, and always hearing
him; for his heart bears him out in saying, with a childs simple and
artless love, - I keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing
in his sight. Only make sure that with reference to this matter there is no
guile in your spirit; that your heart does not condemn you. And there is one
plain and practical test or safeguard. Your doing those things that are
pleasing in Gods sight, is simply your keeping his commandments. If your
heart is not right with God, you will be seeking to recommend yourself to him,
by services or sacrifices that you think may give you some extra claim upon
him, and almost lay him under obligation to you, as if you could benefit or
profit him. You will be going about to establish or make good certain
meritorious and tangible grounds of confidence, that may avail you when you
have to plead with him in the judgment. But does not all that imply deceitful
and double-dealing both with him and with yourselves? If you would really
please him, he has told you how to do so. You are not to cast about for ways
and means of winning his favour; his favour is freely yours, in his Son. And
what now will he have at your hands? How, on the footing on which he would have
you to be with him, are you to please him? How, but just as his own Son pleased
him .? It was his meat to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his
work. He kept the Fathers commandments, and so abode in the Fathers
love.
II."And whatsoever we ask, we
receive of him." In this saying also we have the countenance of Jesus; for we
find him using it:"Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew
that thou hearest me always" (John 11: 41, 42). It was beside the grave of
Lazarus. What it was that he had been asking, is not said. So far as appears,
the prayer for the answer to which he gives thanks consisted not of articulate
words but of tears and groans. At all events he was heard; what he asked,
whatever it was, he received of the Father. And while openly acknowledging
this, for the sake of the bystanders, he is careful to explain that it is no
exceptional case."Thou hearest me always ;""whatsoever I ask, I receive of thee
always;" thou never refusest me anything. Why Jesus was so anxious, in this
instance, publicly to connect the miracle he was intending to do with the
Fathers hearing his secret prayer, it is perhaps useless to conjecture.
It was a signal display of his power to overcome the corruption of the grave
that he was about to give; that power which be is to put forth on a wider scale
when he comes again. It was fitting, one might say, that in giving it he
should, with more than ordinary explicitness and solemnity, carry the Father
along with him. But his studied generalisation of his thanksgiving is
remarkable."I knew that thou hearest me always." Never doth the Father leave me
alone; for I do always those things that please him; and he heareth me always;
I have his ear always; and whatsoever I ask I receive of him.
The
Lords manner of asking varies much. He weeps. He groans in the Spirit. He
offers up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears. He asks,
sometimes, as it might seem, almost incoherently (John 12: 57). Once, at least,
he asks conditional!y,"Father, if it be possible." But, be his manner of asking
what it may, always the Father heareth him; always, whatsoever he asks, he
receives of him.
"Thou hearest me always!" It is a blessed assurance.
And the blessedness of it really lies, not so much in the good he gets from the
Fathers hearing him, as in the Fathers hearing him itself; not so
much in what he receives, as in his receiving it from the Father. For this is
the charm, the joy, the consolation, of that access to the Father and that
influence with the Father which you now have in common with the Son. It is not
that you may enrich and gratify yourselves with what you win by asking from
him. But it is literally that whatever you ask you receive of him, as his gift;
the proof that he is ever with you and heareth you always. Do you not lay the
stress on the "him"? Whatsoever you ask you receive of him." You might have to
do with one as to whom your only consideration would be, how much you could get
out of him or extract from him. There is a common proverb about quartering upon
an enemy. And there is no little satisfaction in the idea that you have a
powerful and wealthy patron at your command, on whose resources you may draw at
pleasure. But it is not thus that you stand with God. In these other instances,
the chief, if not the whole value of any influence you have, is merely the
amount of actual benefit obtained. The asker cares little or nothing for the
motive which leads the giver to give, or far the disposition towards himself
that the gift implies and indicates. It is all the same to him, whether it be
extorted by menace; or wrung reluctantly by importunity; or made matter of cold
and cautious stipulation. So as only he gets, any how, and on any terms, a
certain amount or quantity of what he wants, he is content. That is not the
mind of Christ, when he says,"The Father is with me" "thou hearest me always."
The support which this thought gives to him is not that it warrants him in
demanding any personal benefit he may choose to specify, that would be pleasing
to flesh and blood. No. It is its imparting to his inmost consciousness the
sense of his being such a Son to the Father, so clear in the Fathers
sight, that the Father can refuse him nothing. He may ask what he will; and he
is sure to receive it of the Father.
Ah! how then shall I ask anything
at all? If such is my position, in and with Christ, how shall I have the heart
or the hardihood to ask anything at all of the Father, except only that he may
deal with me according to his good pleasure? If I am really on such a footing
with the Father that"he heareth me always," and"whatsoever I ask I receive of
him;" if I have such influence with him; if, as his dear child, pleasing him,
and doing what pleases him, I can so prevail with him that he can refuse me
nothing; what can I say? What can I do? I can but cast myself into his arms and
cry, Thou knowest better than I, O my Father! Father, thy will be done!
Yes. And under that blessed committal of all to him, what freedom may I not
use? When told that I and my doings are so pleasing to him that I may ask what
I will and it shall be done; the very abundance of the grace silences me. It is
enough for me, Father, that such is my acceptance in thy sight. But can I wield
the sceptre? Can I use so tremendous a power as this, that whatever I ask thee
to do thou doest? Nay. I am thy servant. Undertake thou for me. Enough for me
to be assured that I so find grace and favour in thy sight that I have but to
ask, thee to do anything and it is done. Enough! Nay, more than enough! I can
ask nothing on these terms, I must leave all to thee. But leaving all to thee,
I pour out all the more freely my whole soul to thee, I spread out my whole
case to thee. I speak to thee of all that is upon my mind and heart. I tell
thee all my desire. My groaning is not hid from thee. Let us look in closing at
the two specimen commandments, if one may so call them, or the two parts of the
one specimen commandment, which John expressly mentions in this
connection.
I."That we should
believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." The keeping of this commandment
is the doing of what is pleasing in the Fathers sight. It is so in
proportion to the love with which he loveth the Son, and loveth us in the Son.
We can do nothing that will please the Father more. It is what his heart is set
on; that the Son of his love should be the object of our faith.
Is there
not here a word in season for you, O sinner, whoever you are, however guilty
and however helpless, poor and needy, lost and undone? You, as it might seem,
are in no condition to keep Gods commandments so as to please him; and
you cannot venture to ask anything, or to hope that you will receive anything,
at his hands. Nay; but here is something that you may do, and that will be very
pleasing to him."Believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." It is true that
he will not be pleased with your keeping any other commandment; but he will be
pleased with your keeping that one. You may not be in circumstances to do
anything else that will be pleasing in his sight; but you are in the very
circumstances to do that which will please him best. He asks you if you will
not do, him this pleasure, "to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." Be
it that you cannot receive anything you ask otherwise than on the footing of
your keeping his commandments and doing those things that are pleasing in his
sight. Here is the commandment for you, here and now, to keep; here is the
thing pleasing in his sight for you, here and now, to do. Without faith it is
impossible to please God; but faith pleases him; it pleases him well. Then
believe now. And take a right view of the duty of believing. It is not using a
great liberty to believe on the name of Jesus; it is simply"keeping the
commandment of God." The liberty is all the other way. You use a great liberty
when you refuse to believe. Be not disobedient; displease not God by unbelief;
rather please him by believing. And believing, ask what you will, and it shall
be given you.
Keep on believing. Continue to believe more and more,
simply because you see and feel it more and more to be"his commandment that you
should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." Unbelief, in you who
have believed, is aggravated disobedience. And, as such, it is and must be
especially displeasing to God. It is his pleasure that his Son should be known,
trusted, worshipped, loved; honoured as he himself would be honoured. You
cannot displease the Father more than by dishonouring the Son; refusing to
receive him, and rest upon him, and embrace him, and hold him fast, and place
full reliance upon him as redeemer, brother, friend. Do not deceive yourselves
by imagining that there may be something rather gracious in your doubts and
fears; your unsettled and unassured frame of mind; as if it betokened humility,
and a low esteem of yourselves. Beware lest God see in it only a low esteem of
his Son Jesus Christ. Beware of guile. May not your staggering, hesitating
faith be but half. faith after all? May it not be that you are unwilling to be
wholly Christs, and to have Christ wholly yours.
Can that be
pleasing to God?"What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" asked
the Jews, and the Lord replied:"This is the work of God, that ye believe on him
whom he has sent." Therefore let us believe; and let us be"strong in faith,
giving glory to God." 2."And love one another as he gave this
commandment. The keeping of this commandment of love, as well as the
keeping of the former commandment of faith, is the doing of that which is very
pleasing in Gods sight; and, therefore, in the keeping of it we may with
much confidence reckon and rely on the assurance that "whatsoever we ask we
shall receive of him" that "he will hear us always."
I do not know -
who can tell me? What connection there was between the silent prayer of Jesus
at tile grave of Lazarus, and the utterance of that voice of power,"Lazarus,
come forth!" Evidently the Lord wished it to be seen and known that in some
very special manner the Father was with him, and went along with him, in that
great work."Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou
hearest me always; but because of the people that stand by I said it, that they
may believe that thou hast sent me." He would have it understood that he did
the work as one whom the Father had on this occasion heard; as one whom "the
Father heareth always," and whom "the Father hath sent." For he was to do it,
not as a thing that might please himself, but as a thing that would please the
Father. He"loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus," and he was about to
manifest and gratify his love by a very signal proof and token. But he would
have an men to observe that it was not merely on the impulse of a spontaneous
burst of affection that he acted, but as doing what the Father commanded, and
what would be pleasing in the Fathers sight. Loving, in that way, Martha
and her sister and Lazarus, he knew that in the practical outgoing of his love
towards them; in whatever loving words he was to say, and whatever loving works
he was to do; he might be sure of the Father being with him. For "he pleased
the Father ;" he sought to please the Father, and did please the Father.
Therefore he was sure of receiving what he asked; sure of the Father hearing
him then and hearing him always.
Go ye and do likewise. Love one
another; love your brother; love as a brother every one with whom you have
anything to do; love him with the love that would fain have him for a brother.
And let your love still always be "the keeping of Gods commandment," and
"the doing of what is pleasing in his sight." Let it not be, as it were, at
your own hand that you love, but in obedience to the commandment of God. This
may, in one view, be felt by you to be a sort of damper; a drawback upon the
warm spontaneous flow of your affections. It may seem to detract from the
generous enthusiasm of your good will and your good offices. It takes away the
chivalry and romance of this virtue. It makes Christian philanthropy a very
humble and homely duty. You are to go among your fellows, - not loving them of
your own accord, and at your own discretion showing your love, - but loving
them in obedience to"the commandment of God;" and in all the expressions and
acts of your love, simply bent on doing what is"pleasing in his sight." But
after all, if this is a lowlier, it is a far more becoming and safer position
for you to occupy. And it is one in which, if you honestly occupy it, you may
with all the greater confidence rely on his hearing you now, and always. You do
good and communicate; you are fruitful in every good work; you wash the feet of
saints; you visit the fatherless and widows; you speak a word in season to the
weary; you stretch out a helping hand to all that need; not merely as indulging
your own loving impulses, but rather as carrying out Gods loving
purposes. You do these things because they are "well pleasing in his sight."
Doing them thus, in singleness of eye, what encouragement have you to expect
that he will be with you in the doing of them; that he will hear your prayer
for those to whom you do them; and that whatsoever you ask on their behalf you
will receive of him! But in all this, let us see to it that we are "of the
truth ;" simple, guileless, upright; as regards our whole life and walk of
faith and love. Only then can we have confidence before God that whatsoever we
ask we shall receive of him. Let us lay to heart the Psalmists
acknowledgment, - " If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear
me;" and his thanksgiving, - " But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended
to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my
prayer, nor his mercy from me." Let us lay this to heart, not in any spirit of
self-righteousness or vain-glory; but in simple · sincerity, as little
children, honouring our Father; according to the quaint thought of an old
writer" I find David making a complete syllogism, perfect in mood and figure.
The first premiss being, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will
not hear me and the second, But verily ,God hath heard me; he hath
attended to the voice of my prayer I look for his drawing the conclusion:
Therefore I regard not iniquity in my heart. But no. When I expected him to put
the crown on his own head, he places itt on Gods ; - Blessed be God,
which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. I like
Davids logic better than Aristotles; that whatever be the premiss
Gods glory is the conclusion."* Fullers Good Thoughts in Bad
Times.
XXVIII.OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
ATTESTED BY OBEDIENCE, AS IMPLYING OUR ABIDING IN GOD, AND HIS
ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIRIT GIVEN BY HIM TO US.
"And he that keepeth his
commandments dwelleth [abideth] in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that
he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us. Beloved, believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false
prophets are gone out into the world." - 1 JOHN 3: 24; 4: 1.
This is
another fruit of the keeping of Gods commandments; or another view of the
blessedness of doing so. It ensures our abiding in God, and his abiding in us;
and that in a manner that may be ascertained and verified. Two practical
questions are thus virtually put and answered.
I. How may we abide in God? So abide in him as to have him abiding
in us? By keeping his commandments. How may we know that he abides in us? By
the Spirit which he giveth us, - and giveth us in a way that admits of the gift
being verified by trial.
I. In the
keeping of Gods commandments there is this great reward, that he that
doeth so"dwelleth in God, and God in him." Negatively, it has been already
shown that there can be no such mutual indwelling if there is on our part
disobedience to Gods commandments. Sin, as"the transgression of the law,"
is incompatible with such high and holy communion (3: 6). It is the positive
form of the statement that is now before us. Obedience, or the keeping of
Gods commandments, actively promotes this communion. It is more than the
condition of it; it is of its very essence. If this mutual indwelling is not to
be mere absorption, which some dreamers in Johns day held it to be - if
it is not to be the swallowing up of our conscious individual personality in
the infinite mind or intelligence of God - -if it is to conserve the distinct
relationship of God to man, the Creator to the creature, the Ruler to the
subject, the Father to the child ; - it must be realised and must develop
itself, or act itself out, through the means of authority or law on the one
side, and obedience or the keeping of the commandments on the other. It is, in
fact, the very consummation and crown of mans old, original relation to
God; as that relation is not only restored, but perfected and gloriously
fulfilled, in the new economy of grace.
For consider the divine ideal,
if I may so speak, involved in the creation of man after the image of God, and
in the footing on which it pleased God to place man towards himself. Evidently
God contemplated obedience, or the keeping of his commandments, as the normal
state or character of man. While that state or character continued, there was
the best understanding between the parties; between God and man; they were on
the best of terms with one another. There was entire complacency on both sides;
each resting and dwelling in the other with full and unalloyed satisfaction.
You would not say, in these circumstances, that this mutual indwelling of man
in God and God in man was, in any proper sense, procured or obtained by
mans obedience, by his keeping the commandments of God. You would rather
say that it had in that way its proper outgoing or forth-going, its conscious
realisation. It is mans method of intercourse with God; the only
competent, the only conceivable method, if God and man respectively are to keep
their relative positions as distinct intelligences. It is only along the line
of God ruling and man obeying, that the two, as separate persons or
individuals, can so walk together as to get into one anothers minds and
hearts, and thus abide in one another. Such mutual indwelling of God in man and
of man in God, becoming day by day more close, confidential, loving; through
mans increasing insight into the exceeding excellency of the commandments
he is keeping, or rather of him whose nature and will they discover, and
through Gods increasing delight in the growing intelligence and sympathy
with which man keeps them; might seem to be complete; having in it all the
elements of perfection, as regards both the holiness and the happiness of man.
Can God and man be more to one another
Alas, the drawback of a
conditional standing, and a possible fall, is fatal. It leaves an opening for
suspicion creeping in, upon the hint of a seeming friend, who would insinuate
that restraint is irksome and independence sweet. Then all mutual indwelling is
over. God and man must dwell apart. There may indeed be some sort of formal
dealing between them; at least man fondly imagines that there may. He thinks
that he can so far keep Gods commandments as thereby to right himself
with God; to the extent at least to which he cares to be righted. He will make
certain terms with God, or conceive of God as making certain terms with him ;
and he will be punctilious in the fulfilment of these terms. But that is not
really keeping Gods commandments. It is the keeping of a pact, if you
will; the doing of his part in a bargain. And if the two parties concerned were
equals, or if the relation between them were one of mutual independence, this
might lay a foundation for some sort of mutual indwelling, by faith and love,
in one another. Even in that case, however, the foundation is too narrow and
precarious. If the mutual indwelling is to be real and thorough, there must be
something more than the fulfilment of certain stipulated conditions between the
parties. They must submit themselves, each to the other, cordially and without
reserve; they must study to obey and please one another. Between God and man
especially, the introduction of the conditional element, of anything that
savours of the striking of a bargain or the making of terms, is and must be
destructive of all real fellowship or intercommunion. No obedience rendered on
that footing or in that spirit can ever secure your dwelling in God and his
dwelling in you. In point of fact, it is apt, - if not from the first to
occasion a breach, - yet ever afterwards, when a breach occurs, to widen,
deepen, and perpetuate it, however it may be meant, and may seem to bridge it
over.
The practical value of a free gospel is, that it places your
"keeping of Gods commandments" on a different footing, and breathes into
it a different spirit. You look to Jesus, and are one with him. You are in the
same position of advantage for keeping Gods commandments in which he was.
You start, as he did, on the walk and work of obedience, not as seeking
acceptance, but as already accepted; not as a servant on trial, but as a son
abiding in the house evermore. You are not only what unfallen Adam was when the
task of keeping Gods commandments was set before him; you are as Christ
was when the same task was set before him.
Consider then what sort of
keeping of Gods commandments his was; and how it must have conduced to
his abiding in the Father, and the Fathers abiding in him. Of course that
mutual indwelling never could, through all his keeping of the Fathers
commandments, become more full and complete, in principle and essence, than it
was before he began to keep them. But we may well imagine that to his human
consciousness, and in his human experience, the sense of it must have been
growing more intense, and more intensely soothing and beatific, as his keeping
of them went on, and on, to its terrible and triumphant close. Among the things
about obedience which he learned by suffering, surely this was one, that it has
a mighty power to promote, enhance, and intensify the indwelling of man in God,
and of God in man. He learned the grief and pain which such obedience as he had
undertaken to render involved. Did he not learn something of its joy and
pleasure too, the joy and pleasure of apprehending and feeling, more and more,
in his human soul, his dwelling in the Father and the Fathers dwelling in
him throughout it all?
I dare not venture upon particular illustration
here. But I ask you, in any hour of deep and private meditation, and after you
have prayed, or while you are praying, for the help of the Spirit, to put
yourself alongside of Christ, in the sorest and hardest of the experiences
which his keeping the Fathers commandments entailed upon him. Try to
enter into what his soul was feeling when it was "exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death." There was anguish, agony; the anguish and agony of having guilt to
answer for, and a penal death to die. But was he not then and there, in his
keeping of the Fathers most dread and awful commandments, and through his
keeping of them, dwelling in the Father and the Father in, him, in a sense and
with a depth and force of meaning, of which that human soul of his could not
otherwise have had any experience? What insight, what sympathy, what rest,
repose, and peace, - the rest, repose, and peace of unutterable complacency, on
his part, in the Father and on the Fathers part in him, must there have
been in his utterance of these simple words,"It is finished; Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit!"
Let our keeping of Gods commandments
be like his. Let us seek grace that it may be so. In our case, as in his, this
may imply a bitter cup to be drunk; a heavy cross to be borne. Like him, we
have to learn obedience by suffering. Let the obedience we thus learn be of the
same sort as his. Let it be the giving up of our own will, always, everywhere,
that Gods will may be done. We shall then prove how good and acceptable
and perfect that will of God is. We dwell thus in God when our will is merged
in his will; we have rest and repose in him; our will in his will, our thoughts
in his thoughts; our ways in his ways. And he dwells in us his will in our
will; his thoughts in our thoughts; his ways in our ways. We enter into his
mind and heart; and he enters into ours.
II.
The manner of Gods abiding in us, or at least the way in which
we may know that he abides in us, is specified : - -" Hereby we know that he
abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us." We are to distinguish
here between our dwelling in God and his dwelling in us. Both are to be known
as facts of our own consciousness, not as revealed truths merely, but as
realised experiences. The one, however, our dwelling in God, is to be thus
known by our"keeping his commandments;" the other, Gods dwelling in us,
by"the spirit which he giveth us." The one we know by what we do to God ; - the
other, by what God does in us. And yet, the two means of knowledge are not far
apart. They are not only strictly consistent with one another; they really come
together in one point.
For the Spirit is here said to be given to us ; -
not in order to our knowing that God abideth in us, in the sense of his opening
our spiritual eye and quickening our spiritual apprehension ; - but rather, as
the medium of our knowing it, the evidence or proof by which we know it. He
giveth us the Spirit ; and by that token, his giving us the Spirit, we are
taught by the Spirit to know that God dwelleth inns. The question therefore as
to what this gift of the Spirit may be, is thus narrowed to a precise point. Is
it the gift of the Spirit enabling men to perform supernatural works that is
meant?. That can scarcely be the gift of the Spirit for such works was never a
sure sign of Gods really and savingly dwelling in those who did them.
Surely it must be the gift of the Spirit for the ordinary purposes of the
Christian life and walk that John has in view; the gift of the Spirit common to
all believers in all ages. God giveth us the Spirit in order that, by the
Spirit being given, we may know that he dwelleth in us. He means us, therefore,
to recognise this gift as a sure evidence of that fact. And how are we to
recognise the Spirit as given to us? How otherwise than by recognising the
fruit of the gift? The Spirit given to us is, as to his movement or operation,
unseen and unfelt. But the fruit of the Spirit is palpable and patent."It is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance." For"against such there is no law" (Gal. 5: 22,
25).
"Against such there is no law." That is an important addition or
explanation here. There is nothing in the gift of the Spirit, or in the fruit
of the Spirit as given, that is contrary to law; nothing, therefore, that can
again bring us under the risks and liabilities of law. On the contrary, the
Spirit being given, with such fruit, is precisely what secures that kind of
keeping of the commandments on our part, by which we"dwell in him." For, I must
repeat, it is as the Spirit of adoption that he is given;"God sendeth forth the
Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
Thus the two
elements and conditions, the two means and evidences, of this mutual indwelling
of us in God and of God in us meet together. We dwell in God by keeping his
commandments; he dwells in us by giving us his Spirit. But our keeping his
commandments and his giving us his Spirit are really one; one and the same fact
viewed on opposite sides. It is not any sort of keeping his commandments on our
part that will ensure or attest our dwelling in him. It is not any way of
giving us his Spirit on his part that will ensure or attest his dwelling in us.
Our keeping his commandments in the spirit of bondage; in a legal,
selfrighteous, formal, and servile frame of mind; is not our dwelling in God.
Gods enabling us, by the power of his Spirit, to work miracles, would not
be his dwelling in us. Our dwelling in him is our keeping his commandments, as
his Son did, on the same filial footing and with the same filial heart. His
dwelling in us is his"sending forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, Abba, Father."
III. From
all this it follows that the counsel or warning,"Believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits whether they be of God" (4: 1), is as needful for us as it was
for those to whom John wrote. We may think that it is the Spirit of God whom we
are receiving into our hearts and cherishing there, when it may really be
another spirit altogether: one of the many spirits inspiring the"many false
prophets that are gone out into the world." Therefore we must"try the
spirits."
Do you ask how, or by what test? - " Hereby know ye the
Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is not of God." The full meaning of this pregnant and searching
test will be afterwards considered. Meanwhile, as beating on the subject now in
hand, it admits of at least one obvious application.
The Spirit that is
of God will ever honour Christ; and especially Christ come in the flesh; which
means not only Christ incarnate, but also and emphatically Christ crucified.
The person and work of Christ, as the outward object of our faith, the ground
of our confidence before God outside of us and apart from us, the true Spirit
of God will ever magnify and glorify. He will not consent to substitute for
that any inward experience, however heavenly, as superseding it or setting it
aside. That is what false prophets, moved by an anti-Christian spirit, are apt
to do. It was a very marked characteristic of their teaching in Johns own
day. An inward light, an inward sense, something, or much of a Christ in them;
an inward revelation, or rapture, or elevation, a sort of mystical indwelling
of God or of Christ in them, they extolled and cried up; making it the sum and
substance of all Christianity, the whole gospel of the grace of God. Now any
spirit that fosters such a tendency is not of God. Any spirit that would
encourage us to look in upon ourselves and not out to Christ for peace or
holiness is not of God. Inward experience is very precious; it is
indispensable. A growing inward consciousness of our"keeping Gods
commandments," or, in other words, of our conformity of mind and heart and will
to Gods character and law, - -a growing inward consciousness of the fruit
of the Spirit, love, joy, peace - we must have; and we must seek to have it
more and more, if we would have real communion with God. But if we are rightly
exercised, how will this affect our views of"Christ come in the flesh," our
feeling of our need of him and of his exclusive sufficiency for us? Will it
make us at all the less inclined to be ever looking to Christ, ever leaning on
Christ, ever laying hold of Christ, ever having recourse to Christ, and that
blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin? Nay, on the contrary, our growing
aquaintance with God, our growing delight in his law, our growing apprehension
of the blessedness of perfect oneness, in nature and in will, with him, will
only give us deeper convictions of sin, and open up to us new and fresh
discoveries of our corruption and our guilt, and lead us to be ever saying,
with reference not to past but to present evil in us:"O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And to be ever taking refuge
in Pauls last stronghold -"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I
am chief."
Let us then, acting upon the belief that"whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him," be ever asking God to give us the Holy Spirit, that we may
know experimentally his dwelling in us. We cannot have too much of this gift of
the Spirit, if it is indeed the Spirit "confessing Christ" that we ask God to
give. We need not be afraid of having too much of the inward fruit of the
Spirit; nor need we shrink from recognising the Spirit given to us by God as
the spirit of assurance;"the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind." If indeed we find ourselves leaning to the imagination that we have got
past the stage at which we need to be living, as sinners, upon Christ the
Saviour, and are tempted to live upon inward frames and feelings; putting the
Spirits work in us instead of Christs work for us; then we do well
to beware. But there is really no incompatibility between the two; our
coveting, asking and obtaining more and more of the inward testimony of the
Spirit, and our being by that very testimony - as it unfolds to us more and
more Gods high ideal and our sad coming short of it- shut up more and
more into Christ as the Lamb of God; with whose atoning blood and justifying
righteousness we feel more and more that we can never for a single moment
dispense.
Finally, let us remember that it is in the actual "keeping of
Gods commandments" that we find all this great mystery of"our dwelling in
God and his dwelling in us, practically cleared up. In the onward path of the
just, which is as the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect
day, we come to know the Spirit given to us, by his"confessing Jesus Christ as
come in the flesh." Let us therefore so keep Gods commandments as not to
vex or grieve the Holy Spirit. For we do vex and grieve him when our keeping
them is either ungracious on the one hand; or, on the other hand, becomes to us
a ground of confidence before God. As the Spirit of God, he is vexed by our
submission to God being any other than a submission of the whole heart; filial
altogether, and not servile at all. And as"the Spirit confessing Jesus Christ
come in the flesh," he cannot but be vexed if we unduly lean even on his own
work in us, to the disparagement of what is the one only ground of a
sinners hope, from first to last,"Christ and him crucified." But let us
keep the commandments of God simply, humbly, lovingly; not as doing any great
thing, but only as doing his will, and content that his will be done. So
keeping his commandments, we abide in God, and so also we know that he abideth
in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
XXIX. OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS EXERCISED IN TRYING THE SPIRITS; THE TEST,
CONFESSING THAT JESUS CHRIST IS COME IN THE FLESH.
"Hereby we know that he
abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us. Beloved, believe not every
spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false
prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and
every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not
of God: and this is that spirit of anti-Christ, whereof ye have heard that it
should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little
children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he
that is in the world." - 1 John 3: 24 - 4: 4.
The appeal in the
beginning of the fourth chapter springs out of the closing statement in the
third:"Hereby we know that God abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given
us." This evidently throws us back into ourselves; into some consciousness on
our part of his having given us the Spirit. It is an inward or subjective test.
Have we in us the Spirit as given to us by God! If so, we have the Spirit in
us"confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." And by his confessing
that truth, we may distinguish his indwelling in us from all attempts of any
anti-Christian spirit, or any false prophets or teachers inspired by an anti-
Christian spirit, to effect a lodgment in our hearts. For this is their
characteristic; they refuse to"confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."
has been already brought out in what John says of Anti-Christ as"denying that
Jesus is the Christ ;" - and so virtually "denying the Father and the Son" (2:
21-25).
I am inclined to think that we have now to deal with it more
subjectively; as a matter of inward experience rather than of doctrinal
statement. For the starting-point is our"knowing that God abideth in us, by the
Spirit which he hath given us." It is the fact of the Spirit confessing in us,
and not merely to us, that we have to ascertain and verify; and therefore the
test must apply inwardly :-Have we in us"the Spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh .?" As it stands here, therefore, I think we are
called to deal with that formula rather experimentally than dogmatically; and
so to make it all the more available for the searching of our hearts.
Taking that view, I shall consider, in the first place, what the inward
confession of the Spirit in us that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh may be
held to imply; and then, secondly, how our realising this in our experience
secures our personal and practical victory over all anti-Christian spirits or
prophets who deny that great and blessed fact. I. It properly belongs to the
Spirit to"confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." He had much to do
with the flesh in which Jesus Christ came. He prepared for him a body in the
Virgins womb, so as to secure that he came into the world pure and
sinless. And all throughout his sojourn on earth the Spirit ministered to him
as "Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" he could not minister to him otherwise. It
is the flesh, or humanity, of Jesus Christ that brings him within the range of
the Spirits gracious care. It was his human experience that the Spirit
animated and sustained; and it is with his human experience also that the
Spirit deals when he "takes of what is Christs and shows it unto us." His
object is to make us one with "Jesus Christ as come in the flesh." That
practically is his confession to us and in us. Let us see what it
implies.
1. He identifies us with
Jesus Christ in his humiliation. There is no real humiliation on the part of
the Son if his coming in the flesh is denied. He might be conceived of as
coming gloriously, graciously, condescendingly, in his own original and eternal
nature alone; taking the mere semblance of a body, or a real body now and then,
as the Gnostic dreamers taught. But there would have been no humbling of
himself in that, and no room for any concurrent humbling testimony or work of
the Spirit in us. It is Jesus Christ as come in the flesh, "made of a woman,
made under the law," that the Spirit owns and seals. And he confesses or
witnesses this in us by making us one, and keeping us one, with our Lord in
that character, as"Jesus Christ come in the flesh." In our divine regeneration
he brings us to be, - what, through his interposition, Jesus Christ in his
miraculous human generation became, - servants under the yoke; subject to the
authority and commandment of God; willingly subject; our nature being renewed
into the likeness of his.
2. The
Spirit identifies us with Jesus Christ, not only in his humiliation but in its
conditions and liabilities. For"to .confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh," is
not merely to admit the fact of his incarnation, but to admit it with whatever
consequences necessarily, in terms of law, flow from. it. His coming in the
flesh is not simply an incident or .event in history; it has a special meaning
in the moral government of God. It brought him, not merely into the position of
one made under the law, but into the position, under the law, of those whose
place he took.
The old deniers of his coming in the flesh saw this; and
it was their chief objection to the doctrine. They might have allowed that the
mysterious efflux or emanation of Deity that they seemed to own as a sort of
Saviour did somehow identify himself with us, by making common cause with us,
and even temporarily assuming our nature with a view to purge and elevate it.
But they perceived that the literal incarnation of the Son of God, truly and
fairly admitted, carried in its train the vicarious substitution and atonement.
Modern teachers in the same line think that they may hold the first without the
last. But I am mistaken if any incarnation they may thus hold does not slip
insensibly, in their handling of it, into some modification, suited to modern
turns of thought, of the old vague notion of a certain divinity being in every
man; and in some one man perhaps pre-eminently as the type and model of perfect
manhood. That, however, is not to "confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" for
his coming in the flesh, accepted as a reality, implies his really putting
himself alongside of those in whose flesh he comes, and serving himself heir to
all the ills to which their flesh is heir. Let us look, then, at"Jesus Christ
coming in the flesh," the Son of God taking our nature into oneness with
himself. He takes it pure and sinless, so far as he is personally concerned;
but he takes it with all the liabilities which our sin has entailed upon it,
And the Spirit, confessing in us that he is come in the flesh, makes us one
with him in this view of his coming; our guilt and condemnation being now his,
and his taking our guilt and bearing our condemnation being ours. His coming in
the flesh is his consenting to be crucified for us; the Spirit in us confessing
him as come in the flesh makes us willing to be crucified with him. And so, by
means of this confession, the true Spirit of God and of Christ opens to us a
prospect of glory and joy such as no lying spirit of anti-Christ can hold out.
If it was not really in the flesh that he came; or if, coming in the flesh, he
failed to redeem by substitution those whose flesh he shared; then flesh, or
human nature, can have little hope of reaching the blessedness of heaven. But
having really come in the flesh, and in the flesh suffered for sin, he raises
the flesh in which he suffered to the highest capacity of holy and happy
being."In my flesh I shall see God," was the hope of the patriarch Job. It is
made sure by Jesus Christ come in the flesh, and by the Spirit confessing in us
that he is come.
II. This
accordingly is the secret of our present victory over anti-Christian spirits
and men:"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them" (vet. 4). The
intimation (ver. 3) that the spirit of anti-Christ is already, even now, in the
world, is fitted to make this assurance very welcome. For war is proclaimed;
war that is to last as long as the world lasts. It is the old war, proclaimed
long ago, between the serpents seed and the womans. But it has
taken a new form; and that its final one. From the first manifestation of it, -
from the day when Cain slew his brother - it might be seen to turn upon the
question of the worship of God by atoning sacrifice. Is there, or is there not,
to be the shedding of blood for the remission of sins? That, more or less
clearly, with variations suited to the varied aspect of the. church and the
world, has ever since continued to be in substance the point at issue. Now that
Christ has come in the flesh, it is so more than ever."Jesus Christ come in the
flesh" is its ultimate expression and embodiment. In the contest about this
high theme,"you, little children, have overcome them." The victory is already
yours: for"you are of God."
Two questions here occur : - -
1
What is the nature of the victory?
2. How is it connected with
your being of God?
I. The victory is a real victory got over the
false prophets or teachers, who are not of God, whom the spirit of anti-Christ
inspires. And it is a victory over them personally; not over their doctrines
and principles merely; but over themselves:"Ye have overcome them." True, it
is, in a sense, a war of doctrines or of principles that is waged; its field of
battle is the field of argument and controversy. You and they meet in
discussion and debate; and when you succeed in refuting their reasonings, you
may feel the complacency of a personal triumph over them as, vanquished, they
seem to quit the field. But even though vanquished they may argue still. They
are silenced, merely, and not subdued; and their silence is only for a time.
You may soon have the battle to fight over again; and in the incessant fighting
of it, you may be doomed to suffer wounds, in your temper at least, if not in
your faith; in your equanimity of spirit towards men, if not in your peace of
mind within yourselves, or even your peace with God. I cannot think that that
is the victor)- on which John congratulates his"little children" so
affectionately.
No doubt such victory is valuable, as the sort of war in
which it is won is inevitable. It is idle to effect to run down controversy, as
long as there is error abroad among men. It is mere prudery to be always
groaning over the symptoms of irritability which controversialists have
exhibited, and bemoaning evermore their lack of a smooth and oily tongue. All
honour to the champions of Gods holy word and blessed gospel, who have
waxed valiant in fight against the adversaries of both! All sympathy with them
in their indignant sense of what touches the glory and insults the majesty of
him whose battles they fight; with large allowance for the heats into which,
being but men, they may suffer their zeal to hurry them! And all thankful joy
in the success with which they wield the weapons of their keen logic, their
learned study, their burning eloquence, in baffling the sophistries of heresy
and infidelity, and rearing an impregnable defence around the battlements on
which the banner is planted which God"has given to them that fear him, that it
may be displayed because of the truth!"
But that is not exactly the
victory which is here meant when it is said,"ye have overcome them." For what
really is your contest with them? It is not about an abstract proposition, a
mere article in a creed. It is not whether you can prove that Jesus of Nazareth
was man as well as God, or God as well as man; or they can prove the reverse.
No."Jesus Christ come in the flesh" is not with you a mere matter of
disputation. It is a pregnant and significant fact in Gods government of
the universe, grasped by you as such, and apprehended as such in your
experience. By faith you know and feel what it means. You identify yourself
with him in his coming in the flesh; consciously and with entire community of
mind and heart ;. and in the very doing of this you "have already overcome
them."
For it is the fact that they dislike; not argument about the
fact. It is the actual "coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh," and his actual
accomplishment, in the flesh, of all that in the flesh he came for, that they
resent and resist. It is that which Satan, the original spirit of anti-Christ,
would fain have set himself to hinder; moving Herod to slay Jesus in his
childhood, and Judas to betray him in his manhood; tempting Jesus himself to
make shipwreck of his integrity. And it is your actual personal participation
with him, as "Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" your being really one with him
in that wondrous humiliation, in its spirit and its fruit; that, so far as you
are concerned, they seek to frustrate. In realising that, you get the better of
them; confessing thus Jesus Christ come in the flesh, you have overcome them It
is not that you are able to discuss with them, as debatable questions in
argument, the reality and the meaning of Jesus Christ having come in the flesh.
You may have to do so, and if you do so on a clear call of duty, you are sure
of divine support and help; perhaps even of success and triumph. But that is
not your having already overcome them. Very gladly would they often drag you
into this snare; making you mistake the chance of overcoming them in a
discussion about Jesus Christ come in the flesh, for the certainty of your
having overcome them through your simply confessing him in that character. But
be not drawn down to lower ground. Stand upon your position of oneness with him
whom you confess as Jesus Christ come in the flesh. Meet thus any and all
anti-Christs; anti-Christian spirits, anti-Christian prophets. They are not to
be overcome. You have already overcome them.
2.
Your having overcome them is connected with your"being of God" (vet.
4); which again is intimately connected with your" confessing that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh" (ver. 2). Your being of God is the intermediate link
between your confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (ver. 2), and
your having overcome them who reject that truth (ver. 4)-"Ye are of God" (vet.
4)- This, let it be observed, is what has previously been asserted of the
Spirit that"confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." He "is of God"
(ver. 3)- And it is denied concerning any spirit refusing to confess that. Such
a spirit"is not of God." Now what, as applied to the Holy Spirit, does this
mean? How, - in what sense and to what effect, - is the Spirit that confesses
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh said to be "of God"?
He is of
God essentially, being himself God; proceeding from the Father and the Son; one
with them in the undivided essence of the Godhead. He is of God, if I may so
say, officially; condescending in infinite love, to be the gift of the Father
and the Son to guilty and sinful men. But here more particularly, he is of God
as confessing, or in virtue of his confessing, that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh. He is on the side of God, or in the interest of God; he consults and
acts for God; he takes Gods part and is true to God. It is as being thus
of God that the Spirit confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. He
contemplates, if I may so say, that great fact with all its issues from the
divine point of view; in its bearing on the divine character and nature, the
divine government and law. He is"of God" in it; in that fact and in all its
issues.
Do I take too great a liberty in speaking thus of the Holy
Spirit? I scarcely think so when I call to mind how this phrase describes
Christs own position in the world with reference to the Father. He was"of
God;" he was so in a very emphatic and significant sense; not only as regards
his origin and mission; his coming from God and being authorised by God; but
also, and specially, as regards his end and aim all through his humiliation,
obedience, and sacrifice. He was"of God;" on the side and in the interest of
God. It was the zeal of Gods house that ate him up. It was the doing of
Gods will, and the finishing of Gods work, that was his meat. It
was the glorifying of his Father, and the finishing of the work which his
Father gave him to do, that ministered to his satisfaction in his last farewell
prayer. Of him pre-eminently it might be said :"He is of God." And in his being
thus "of God," as to the whole mind and meaning of the phrase, the Holy Spirit
is with him and in him. Jesus Christ come in the flesh is, in this sense
emphatically, confessed by the Spirit. The Spirit is with him, and in him, as
the Spirit that is of God; and as being to him the Spirit that is of God. He
and the Spirit are at one in being both"of God." And you, in the Son and by the
Spirit are"of God;" as truly of God as is the Spirit, or as the Son was when
God"gave not the Spirit by measure to him." The essential characteristic of the
spirit of anti-Christ is that it is, in the sense now explained,"not of God."
It does not look at the Saviour and the salvation as on the side of God; rather
it takes an opposite view, and subjects God to man. It subordinates everything
to human interests and human claims; looks at everything from a human and
mundane point of view; measures everything by a human standard; submits
everything to human opinion; in a word, conceives and judges of God after the
manner of man.
This, indeed, may be said to be the distinctive feature of
all false religions, as well as of all corruptions of the true religion. They
exalt man. They consider what man requires, what he would like, what is due to
him. Even when they take the form of the most abject and degrading
superstition, that is still their spirit. They aim at getting God, by whatever
means of persuasion and prostration, to do the bidding of man. For it is the
essence of our corrupt human nature, of which these corrupt worships are the
expression, to care and consult for self, and not for God. This is the essence
of the spirit of anti-Christ; the spirit that breathes and moves in the false
notions that have gained currency in the church respecting"Jesus Christ come in
the flesh." Their advocates give man the first place in their scheme. Their
real objection lies against those views of gospel truth which assert the
absolute sovereignty of God, and put forward pre-eminently what he is entitled
to demand, - what, with a due regard to his own character, government, and law,
he cannot but demand. They dislike such representations as bring in the element
of Gods holy name and righteous authority, and lay much stress upon that
element, as one of primary consideration in the plan of saving mercy. Hence
they naturally shrink from owning explicitly Jesus Christ as come in the flesh
to make atonement by satisfying divine justice. They prefer some loose and
vague way of putting the fact of his interposition, and the manner of it.
Admitting in a sense its necessity, they are unwilling to define very
precisely, either the nature of the necessity, or the way in which it is met.
He came in the flesh, to redeem the flesh, to sanctify, elevate, and purify it.
He came in the flesh, to be one with us, and to make us, in the flesh, one with
him. So they speak and think of his coming in the flesh. Any higher aim, any
prior and paramount design involved in this great fact, viewed in its relation
to the nature and supremacy of God, his holiness and justice, as lawgiver and
judge, they are slow to acknowledge. Hence their gospel is apt to be partial
and one-sided; looking rather like an accommodation of heaven and heavens
rights to earth and earths wishes and ways, than that perfect
reconciliation and perfect assimilation of earth to heaven for which we hold it
to have made provision ; - our heavenly Fathers name being hallowed, his
kingdom coming, his will being done, in earth as it is in heaven. Their system
is not "of God" as the primary object of consideration; for they themselves are
not out and out, in this sense,"of God." But"ye are of God, little children,"
in this matter; in the view that you take, and the conception that you form of
Jesus Christ come in the flesh; of the end of his coming, and the manner in
which that end is attained. You look at that great fact, first and chiefly in
its relation to God, and as on the side of God. It is from God and for God that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. So he always taught ;and so you firmly
believe. He placed God always first ;the glory of God, the sovereignty of God,
the will of God always took precedency. Mans concerns and interests were
subordinate to that. Nothing is more conspicuous in "Jesus Christ come in the
flesh," throughout his whole ministry, in all his life and in his death, than
this loyalty to God his Father, prevailing even over his amazing tenderness and
pity for men. He was truly of God, even when his being so might tell against
men; tell to their destruction rather than their salvation. He does not shrink
from the darkest issues which, in that view, his coming in the flesh carries in
its bosom. He did not shrink from them when realised in his own person, and in
his personal experience, as the suffering substitute of the guilty. He does not
shrink from them as they are to be realised in the persons, and in the personal
experience, of those who"will not come unto him that they may have
life."
If you are "of God," you are of his mind. You approve of this
principle; you recognise the propriety of what is due to God being first
attended to and provided for, in preference even to what may be needed by man.
What God, being such as he is, must require, since"he cannot deny himself,"
that is the first question; then, and in subordination to that, what can be
done for men. It is a great matter for you to view the whole plan of salvation,
as being yourselves, in this sense, "of God" It is your doing so that secures
your having overcome all spirits of anti-Christ. If thus"you are of God," you
are already raised to a higher platform than they can occupy, so as to have a
loftier and wider range of vision. Your profound reverence for the majesty of
God; your loyal, loving recognition of his holy and righteous sovereignty; your
deep, admiring esteem of his government and law; your calm conviction that the
Lord reigneth ; your intense desire that the Lord should reign; your
determination, may I say, that the Lord shall reign; lifts you out of the
region of human questionings and all doubtful disputations. It is your very
humility that lifts you up. You sit at the feet of Jesus Christ come in the
flesh. You stand beside his cross. You do not now stumble at the mystery of its
bloody expiation; or quarrel with the great propitiation-sacrifice through
unbelief of its necessity. The ideas of justice needing to be satisfied;
punishment inevitably to be inflicted; one willing to bear it in your stead
being found; that one being"Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" do not now offend
you. Nay, being"of God," on his side and in his interest in the whole of this
great transaction, you can meekly, in faith, commit to him and leave in his
hands even the most terrible of those ultimate and eternal consequences,
involving the aggravated guilt and final ruin of many, that you cannot but see
to be inseparably mixed up with the confession that"Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh."
XXX. THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN US
GREATER THAN THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST IN THE WORLD.
"Ye are of
God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in
you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they
of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God
heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth, and the spirit of error." - 1 John 4: 4-6. The security for our full and
final victory over anti-Christ and his spirit lies in the emphatic
declaration:"Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." He
that is in you is the Spirit of God; for "hereby we know that God abideth in
us, by the Spirit which he hath given us;" the Spirit that, being of God,
"confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" (3: 24; 4: 2). He that is
in the world is the spirit of anti-Christ,"whereof ye have heard that it should
come, and even now already is it in the world" (4: 3). Therefore you who "are
of God have overcome them," -"the spirits" the false prophets,"that are gone
out into the world" (4: 1). They are of the world; what they speak is of the
world and meets with the worlds acceptance (ver. 5). We, the true
teachers, are of God; what we speak is of God; and meets with the acceptance,
not of him who is not of God, but of him who, being of God, knows God (ver. 6).
By this test the spirit of truth which is in us is to be distinguished from the
spirit of error that is in them (ver. 6). From whom do we obtain a hearing"Ye
are of God;" and your being of God raises you above the risk of being"seduced
by false prophets;" for it enables you to "try the spirits.We too are of God."
And this is the proof of it - that our teaching commends itself, not to the
world, but to you who know God and are of God. Between you and us there is a
blessed harmony; between your state of mind as you try the spirits, and our
teaching as we stand the trial You who are hearers, are secure in trying the
spirits against all false prophets; for you have overcome them, being
yourselves of God. We who are preachers, being of God as you are, have
assurance that our spirit, the spirit of our teaching, is the Spirit of truth,
when we see the world hearing them, and only you who are of God and know God
hearing us. Thus you and we are both safe; you who try and we who are tried;
you safe from being misled by false prophets, we safe from being confounded
with them. And our joint safety lies in both you and us being "of
God."
Taken thus, this passage bears closely on a deeply interesting
subject; the self-evidencing power of the gospel of Christ in the hands of the
Spirit of God. There is a wonderfully gracious correspondence between the
spiritual intelligence of the man who is of God and knows God; and the
spiritual intelligibility and acceptability of the teaching which is of God.
The two fit into one another; the state of mind and heart in the receiver who
tests, and the character of what is submitted to him to be tested. You who
test, and we who are tested, are in a close and intimate relation to one
another. A common quality unites us; or a common agency; opening your eyes to
try, and fashioning our doctrine for being tried. The same spirit is in you and
in us; the Spirit that is"of God" the Spirit of truth.
There is
something like this on the other side. There is the world; and there axe the
false prophets who are of the world. They are mutually related to one another,
precisely as you and we are. What you are to us, that the world is to the false
prophets. What we are to you, that they are to it. The world knows its own. The
teaching which is of the world commends itself to the world. That teaching,
therefore, must be anti-Christian; for the world is anti-Christian. Here, then,
are the opposite workings of two opposite powers; and here is the secret of
their greatness. For both are great; and both are great, not only in
themselves, but in their adaptation to those with whom they have to
deal.
I."He that is in the world is
great." And his greatness lies in this, that he operates in a twofold way. He
forms and fashions the world spiritually; and he finds for it, or makes for it,
appropriate and congenial spiritual food. He creates or moulds the worlds
appetite for some sort of religious teaching; and he inspires for his own ends
the religious teaching that is to suit his world and be accepted by it. Hence
his false prophets are sure of their own measure of success;"they are of the
world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them" (ver.
5).
But he cannot succeed with you who are "of God;" for there is one in
you who, great as he is, is greater still. And he also operates in a double
way. He gives you inwardly spiritual intelligence, spiritual insight and
sympathy, to try; and he gives you outwardly spiritual truth to be tried. You
are yourselves of God, and therefore competent to judge what we speak. And we
too, being of God, speak what cannot be acceptable to the world, but only to
him who is of God, and knows God. Thus what you are prepared to apprehend and
appreciate, and what we are moved to speak, harmonise and are at one. It is all
the doing of"him who dwelleth in you," and of whom "we know," through your
acceptance of our teaching,"that he is not the spirit of error, but the Spirit
of truth."
Look for a little at the world, and him that is in the
world. He is great, undeniably great; great in power and wisdom; in command of
resources and subtlety in the use of them. He has largely, as to its moral and
spiritual tastes and tendencies, the making of the world in which he is, and of
which he is the moving soul. The world, in a sense, lives, and moves, and has
its being, in him. He is in it as the spring of its activities, the dictator of
its laws, the guider of its pursuits and pleasures; in a word,"the ruler of its
darkness." The darkness of its deep alienation from God, he rules. And he rules
it very specially for the purpose of getting the world to be contented with an
image, instead of the reality, of godliness. For he knows well enough that the
world is, and must be, in a sense and after a fashion, religious. He cannot put
it off with the"no God" which the fool would fain say in his heart. He is far
too sagacious and shrewd to attempt that. What he does attempt is a much more
plausible device. He takes advantage of whatever may be the worlds mood
at the time, as regards God and his worship; throws himself into it;
controlling or inflaming it, as he may see cause, so as to turn it to his own
account. And then he contrives to bring under his sway prophets or teachers;
not always consciously false; often meaning to be true; able men; holy men; men
of God and of prayer; pre-eminently so it may be. And bringing into contact the
world which he has doctored and the doctors whom he has tutored, he adjusts
them skilfully to one another. He causes his teachers, perhaps insensibly, to
draw much of their inspiration from the particular world which, as to its
religious bias, he has influenced with an eye to their teaching. And so"they
are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth
them." Numberless instances and illustrations might be brought forward here;
reaching from the grossest corruptions that have ever disgraced the name of
religion, to the most refined forms of ingenious speculation that have ever
imposed on the fancy of the most devout enthusiast, or the feelings of the most
amiable. They might all, I believe, be explained on the principle now
suggested. There is one in the world who is great; great in a religious point
of view; great in his power and skill to master and manage, from age to age,
the worlds ever-changing fits and fashions of religiousness; great in the
strange and terrible command he often wields over the most gifted, and even the
most godly, of the prophets or teachers who have to deal with them.
Thus, if the world, at his instigation, wants a golden calf, there is an Aaron,
under his influence, ready to provide one. If the people, moved by him, will
have smooth things spoken to them, he has prophets of smooth things prepared
for them. If men are growing weary of the old wine; and he will be but too glad
to make them more weary of it, and help them also to excuses for their
weariness; it shall go hard but he will mix plenty of new wine for their use.
It is not he who has to take up the complaint; nor his agents either ; - " We
have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye
have not lamented." He is in and among the crowd of those to whom the children
in the market-place are to cry. And the children who are to cry are his
ministers. He can prepare the crowd to hear, and move the children to cry;
according to his good pleasure; so that there shall be flock for pastor and
pastor for flock; people for priest and priest for people; the times for the
teaching and the teaching for the times; all in perfect harmony. Yes; he that
is in the world is great; great in his ability to make the world, - the world
in the church, - what he would have it to be; great in his ability to find and
fit and fashion ministers and agents, who, being of the world, as regards its
religious tastes and tendencies, will "speak of the world," and whom,
therefore, the"world will hear."
There is, indeed, a power or law of
action and reaction between the world and its prophets - the world in the
church and its false prophets, - which, as indicating the greatness of him who
is in the world, deserves very careful notice. The world in the church, I
repeat. For I have nothing to do now, - John here takes nothing to do, with the
world outside of the church, the world of those who do not even profess to be
religious; his sole concern is with the church, and the spirits in the church
that are to be tried, and the parties that are to try them. Satan, the spirit
of anti-Christ, has within the church a world of his own, a world in which he
is, and is great. And he is great in it, very much through his making skilful
and sagacious use of this law of action and reaction, between what the world
craves and what its false prophets give.
Do you suppose that if you
have "itching ears," there will not be found preachers who, catching perhaps
unconsciously the contagion from you, will feed and foster the disease? If you
incline to a gospel explaining away the atonement, and reducing the incarnation
to a mere glorifying of humanity in the mass, instead of its being the
redemption, by substitution, of individual men; a gospel of that vague sort
will soon be forthcoming. If, in any church or congregation, there springs up a
craving for excitement, a demand for novelty, which the old preaching of the
cross fails to satisfy; if a certain restless prurience of spiritual taste
begins to manifest itself; if a cry or a sigh for gifts and miracles, for signs
and wonders, is heard; all experience, all history, proves that it will not be
long before men appear who, carried away themselves and led off their feet by
the strong tide, will prove apt and able agents in encouraging others to try
the virtue of its flowing waves. It is not that they purposely or dishonestly
accommodate their teaching and prophesying to the spirit that may be abroad in
their world. They drink it in themselves; it intoxicates their own souls. "They
are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth
them." Truly great is he that is in the world; great in adapting the world and
its prophets very perfectly to one another. II. But"greater is he that is in
you, little children," for he is the Lord God Almighty. He is strong; and
he"strengthens you with might by his Spirit in the inner man; Christ dwelling
in your heart by faith; and you being rooted and grounded in love." He is
strong; and he makes you strong; strong in holding fast the form of sound
words, and contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints;
strong in cleaving to the truth as it is in Jesus; strong in your real,
personal, close, and loving acquaintance with him, "whom to know is life
eternal." He who is in you is God; God abiding in you; giving you the Spirit.
He is in you; not merely on your side, at your right hand, around you; but
within you. He is working in you; so working in you as to secure your safe
triumph, in this great fight of truth against error, over the world and him who
is in it. And his working in you is of the same sort as is the working of his
great antagonist in and among those with whom he is so busy.
He makes
you, who are of God, to be men of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord;
quick to apprehend what they who are of God are moved by him to speak. He takes
these two things: the mind or heart of the learner or inquirer who is of God,
and what is spoken by the apostle or teacher who also is of God. He adapts them
to one another, brings them together, welds them into one. So he insures that
what we who are of God speak, however it may be received by the world, shall
prove acceptable to you who know God and are of God. He imparts to you, in whom
he is, a certain spiritual tact or taste, - call it spiritual intelligence,
spiritual insight, spiritual discernment, - by means of which he enables you to
recognise, in what you hear or read or remember, the very truth of the true and
living God, sanctifying and saving to your own souls. He brings out in you,
palpably to your own consciousness, the marvellous correspondence that there is
between the heart with which he is inwardly dealing and the word or doctrine
which, through the teaching of men of God, he is outwardly presenting. He is in
you; breaking your heart in deep conviction of sin, and then healing the broken
heart, oh! how tenderly, by the sprinkling of atoning blood. He is in you;
causing the commandment so to come home to you that you die, helplessly
condemned, under the righteous sentence of the law, and then bringing near to
you, oh! how lovingly, the life-giving assurance that "there is now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." He is in you; causing you to
see and feel that instead of"being rich and having need of nothing, you are
poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked," and then pressing
upon you, oh! how graciously, the Lords affectionate counsel to buy of
him"freely," without money and without price,"gold tried in the fire, that you
may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of
your nakedness do not appear; and to anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you
may see." He is in you; forming you for Christ and forming Christ in you. He is
in you; fitting your whole inner man for Christ, and fitting Christ into your
whole inner man. He is in you; so as to cause to spring up from the very depths
of your spirit a sense of intimate oneness, not to be broken, between you and
Christ, - between your highest faculty of belief and thought, and his doctrine,
which now"you know to be of God." What precisely the bond of this oneness may
be, in what exactly it consists, - you may not be able to define. Probably, at
bottom, it is the recognition in your heart now, as in Christs doctrine
always, of the high and holy sovereignty of God; his just supremacy. It is the
joint owning, in your heart and in Christs doctrine, of the great truth"
The Lord reigneth." But be it what it may, you feel it. And the feeling of it
is your assured confidence and satisfying rest.
I cannot now pursue the
subject further. Let me simply, in closing, exhort you to consider well in what
it is that your security lies, when you are called to try the spirits - what it
is that alone can give you certain and decisive victory over the false
prophets. It is God being in you; abiding in you; giving you the Spirit. The
spirit of anti-Christ is in the world; in the churchs world; in the
worldly materials of which, in too large a measure, the church is
composed."Many false prophets are gone out into the world." The spirit of
error, as well as the spirit of truth, is abroad; and it may be that sifting,
trying, critical days are at hand. What is to be your protection? How are you
to be prepared? Let me warn you that it is not head knowledge that will do; not
logic, or rhetoric, or philosophy, or theology; not creeds, or catechisms, or
confessions ; not early training in the soundest manual; not familiarity with
the ablest and most orthodox writings; not skill in argument and debate ; - no;
nothing will do but God being in you; in your heart, your heart of hearts; God
in Christ dwelling in you; God giving you the Spirit. An experimental assurance
alone will keep you safe. But that will keep you safe. For as he that is not of
God will not hear us who speak as being of God; so he that knoweth God will not
hear the false prophets. So the Good Shepherd himself assures us. He "goeth
before the sheep, and they follow him, for they know his voice; and a stranger
will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers.""My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I
give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any
pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all;
and none is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand. I and my Father
are one."
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