Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
LECTURE VII.
CHRIST'S WORD AND HIS NAME.
(Rev. iii. 7-13).
WE have much before us to-night, which I shall do poor
justice to in the short time before me. But there are some prominent
characteristics of the state of things to which this epistle addresses itself
which I wish to bring before you. I do not intend to go into many details, but
merely to apply certain prominent points, in this address.
This
epistle has a different character from any former one. The Lord speaks of
Himself in a very distinct way from that in which He spoke of Himself before.
It is not anything external, but what He is Himself, the Holy and True One. The
way the Lord presents Himself in these epistles is always in accordance with
the state of those to whom He speaks. It is for warning or encouragement, or
perhaps both, as in the address to Smyrna: "He that liveth and was dead,"
enforced by the words, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the
crown of life." Here, "He that is holy, and he that is true" is a solemn
admonition, and yet it surely has its blessed comfort too.
This
personal title, in conjunction with the whole epistle, seems to show the final
break-up of ecclesiasticism, and an individual walk becoming the whole matter.
Holiness and truth have seldom been the attributes of bodies of men, even where
professedly Christian. Not long was it even in the apostles' time before one of
these could say, "All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ."
Pentecost has never returned. And now, having followed the development of
Christendom at large from Ephesus to Thyatira, and having seen the truth given
again of God dying out in the national systems of Protestantism, (in Sardis),
in Philadelphia we find a strictly remnant testimony; the Holy and the True
speaking of that which has seldom characterized more than individuals, and
which challenges our response as individuals to it.
It is
comparatively easy to point out Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, but who
shall point out Philadelphia? Can you decide it in your favour by the fact that
you belong to this or that company of people,- in this or that ecclesiastical
relationship? Is this all that is intended by keeping Christ's word and not
denying His name? I am not at all denying that the question of our associations
is one of grave importance, and rightly finds a place in connection with these
things. A place it must have, and a serious one, for he must purge himself from
vessels to dishonour, who would himself be a vessel unto honour; and Christ's
word defines our Church-place, as all else. But to take a part for the whole
would be a grave mistake, and even to give an undue place to such a part. It is
more than doubtful, then, if any body of Christians as a whole can possibly
represent Philadelphia as a whole. It is quite certain that, in order to do so,
it would have to be in a better condition far than was the Church already in
the days when apostles were yet upon the earth. No: the more Philadelphia
represents a condition which has in a remarkable way the Lord's own approval,
the more does it become us to see well whether that condition is our own or
not. Let us look a little then at what we have here in its prominent features.
They have but a little power: no very great works characterize them.
Three things however do, to which the Lord evidently attaches great importance.
First: "thou hast kept My word."
Secondly: "and hast not denied My
name."
Thirdly: "thou hast kept the word of My patience."
And first, it
is "My word," in opposition to all other. Everywhere through the epistle, as
you cannot fail to see, this "My " is remarkably emphasized, and the Person of
the Lord exceeding prominent. It may remind us how He has been bringing out in
these latter days the truth as to Himself. Not alone the effect of His work,
the power of His blood to cleanse and reconcile, but what He personally is who
has done all for us. Epecially has He been teaching us to look into the inner
sanctuary into which He is gone, and to recognize Him more simply and really
for what He is, true Man, as true a Man as ever, as well as God over all,
blessed forever. I think none can doubt, who know what God has been doing for
us in His grace for some time past, that the Lord Jesus has been fixing the
eyes of His people more intently upon Himself, and inviting us to nearer
intimacy. For how many the thought of Christ where He is now, was dimmed by the
very glories of the Godhead into which He was thought to have gone back -
scarcely any longer to be thought of as a Man at all! And to how many has the
thought of a Man - true Man, in the very glory of God, and there as
representative of His people, brought Christ into a distinctness and intimacy
which is now the life of all their joy.
This vividly personal mode of
address is no less strikingly appropriate to our day than it is in itself
precious and inspiring. And is it not also a further mark of remnant limes? He
whom men cast out of the synagogue because he could not but confess that Divine
power had opened his eyes, and because he would not dishonour - little as he
knew of Him - the One in whom that power had displayed itself, was but cast out
to learn in Jesus' presence the glory of the Son of God, and to take his place
among the sheep of the true Shepherd. And in proportion as we prove the
breaking up of everything,- the ruin, not merely of the world as such, but the
religious ruin - do we not find (if it be real) the presence of the Lord, all
the more real, meeting all our need? And then, as we prove this, "His Word" has
a place with us correspondingly. His Word, because it is His,- inherently
sweet, no doubt, yet not only because it is sweet: His Word, in opposition to
all else.
And, beloved friends, if we look around us at the present
day, which of us can be ignorant that it is the word of God that is in special
question everywhere. The two great parties of this day, the party of
superstition on the one hand, and of infidelity on the other, however they may
seem to be essentially opposed, yet unite in the attempt to lower and take away
the authority of His Word as such. Will Rome allow consciences to be simply
before God, and in subjection to Scripture? So far from that, you are to
receive her infallible interpretation of it and not listen to it for yourself
at all. And all ritualism, however diluted, runs in the same direction. The
voice of the Church is substituted for Christ's voice, and the Church herself
presses in between you and Him: there is to be distance, not intimacy. On the
other hand, infidelity (which you will find, in a form still more variously
diluted, where you least suspect it) will not allow God's voice to speak to you
in any real way at all. Religion is an earth-born thing - not heaven-born; an
aspiration perhaps, but not an inspiration; a seeking after God, not God after
you; and a seeking which they are now determining to be a fond vain thing, for
God is the Unknowable, and even the conception of Theism is "unthinkable."
On the other side, God has been bringing out for us in the most wonderful
way the fulness of His Word. I do not at all speak of external evidences,
although in every self-chosen path by which man is seeking to escape from God,
He has been meeting and confronting him with these. Stones have been crying out
in Egypt, and bricks in Assyria. The disentombed memorials of the long dead
past have proclaimed Him then living, who still and ever liveth. But I speak of
that in which His Word has witnessed for itself, as the innermost shrine of His
presence in which every voice speaks of His glory. That Word which to unbelief
is so poor and common and gives no response, has never to faith been so
revealing God, since apostles and prophets spoke it first. Christ, mute in the
judgment-hall and before His accusers, has never so manifested Himself before
in the midst of His own. Thus a true and faithful God has been providing for
the need of His people in the days which are coming, which even now are come,
when nothing else remains to us; when, if we cannot take His Word and rest in
it, no other rest is possible at all. You may understand then what an immense
thing it is to be keepers of Christ's Word. Let us remark now also, that it is
not merely words of His, but His Word, His Word as a whole. It has become a
common fashion to say that Scripture contains God's word, not is it. Thus we
are left to pick out, in the best manner we may, whatever is really His, from
that which may be merely the mistake of the writer. Thus the Word ceases to
have authority over us; instead of its judging us, we become its judges. We
obey it when obedience coincides with our own inclinations and when we do not
find it so, our excuse is at hand.
We can easily discern the folly
and the sin of this; but we must remember, beloved friends, how we may really
be acting secretly in such a way as this, without having any formal theory at
all about it. Practically we may be making our Bible a mere collection of
favourite texts, and ignoring those we have no fancy for, as if they were not
inspired by the same authority. Are there none who have a very real disrelish
for practical homely precepts, who get on excellently with the highest
doctrines? Let us understand then clearly, that keeping Christ's Word means
surely, if it means anything, honest subjection to the whole of it: to that of
which even we may not perceive the importance, as if we did; calling nothing
little of what He enjoins,- of what has equal authority to emphasize it.
We have need to remember, too, that our own contrary wills are often the
most effectual hindrances to receiving what is really Christ's Word. How solemn
it is to think that of the mass of things in which we differ from each other as
Christians, this contrariety must needs account for very much the larger part.
The Lord's words are plain enough, and universally applicable, that "if any one
will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." It is
due to Him, surely, to own that our differences are due to ourselves and not to
Him. But then these differences, found in so many whom we must esteem as really
godly men, what a warning they give us of how much that is not of God may be
even in the godliest. So far as we have indeed whole-heartedly followed Him,
who can doubt that He has led us right? But then how little really unreserved
following there must be! And it is not hard to see that such is indeed the
case, - that a mass of His own (ignorantly perhaps, but then self-blinded) are
really following "words" of His, rather than as a whole His "Word." Nay, many
seem to have come deliberately to a stand, where to go further would cost them
(they think) too much. They do not realize that it costs them really more to
proffer Him a com-promise He cannot accept; that it costs the brightness and
freshness of their lives now, and what hereafter He alone knows. How many are
trying to make up for this by the excitement of work for Him, and almost
persuading themselves that "to obey is" not "better than sacrifice, and to
harken than the fat of rams."
I say again, do not decide it by
ecclesiastical position; do not in fact draw the line anywhere; do not think it
means you are this side of any line. Is your face - are our faces - still ever
onward after Him, who rests not till He has us where His heart can rest with
us? How plainly perceptible it is, when a soul thus stops! Though the working
may go on, and the whole outside be no other than it was, there is something
gone that one in fellowship with God will at once feel hindering fellowship.
Beloved brethren, how sorrowful it is to lose one another's company in this
way! But if we lose Christ's, what shall replace it?
And here, again,
so many in judging themselves take up with what is far below the Christian
standard. Their measure is merely by what is in itself right or wrong - a legal
measure. They occupy themselves with what is good, perhaps the gospel, and
fancy that must be devotedness, when perhaps it is all self-invented employment
and will-worship, not in His plan for them, and meant, in fact, (so treacherous
are our hearts) to buy them off from true obedience.
But I must pass
on to the next thing here in the Lord's commendation of the Philadelphians. The
first thing is, "thou hast kept My Word": they are exemplifying a spirit of
true obedience; and now it is, "thou hast not denied My name."
Names in
Scripture are significant things. They are not there as in the present day put
upon people for their prettiness, or because they run in the family. God did
not think it an unworthy thing often Himself to interfere and change or give a
name, as we can all remember, and so the Lord with His disciples. There was a
reason for the name. It was the expression of what the person was, most
generally, or would be, as in Abraham, Israel, Peter, and such like; and so
especially with the names of God or of Christ.
When God took the
special name of Jehovah with Israel, it meant that He was going to approve
Himself to them in that character, as the immutable God, the I AM, upon whom
they could rely to keep the covenant. So Christ is Immanuel, "God with us," and
in order that that prophecy may be, or shown to be fulfilled, He is called
"Jesus," His people's Saviour from their sins. God could not be with us except
our sins were met, and none but a Divine person could meet them,- salvation
must be of God: and this is all expressed in that name "Jesus."
Again
the name "Christ," which every one knows, is but the Greek form of the Hebrew
"Messiah," speaks of Him as the One anointed of God to be the Deliverer in
three necessary ways: a Prophet to bring out of error; a Priest to open the way
to God; a King to govern for God.
Thus Christ's name is a remarkably
explicit declaration of Himself. And this name of His, with the facts which it
implies, is what is committed to His people to hold fast and maintain as His,
in the midst of a world which has rejected Him. To confess His name involves
thus the confession of His absolute deity; His true humanity; His salvation of
His people; His being their only and sufficient Teacher, Intercessor and Lord.
This we have not to "profess" of Him merely, but to "confess," for the world
will not allow that He is really this. I do not forget that among us the world
is even yet what is called a Christian world, but that does not alter it
really. As soon as it sees that these names mean something for you, that they
express truly what Christ is to you, then they will not suffer it. Their
protest may be more or less polished according to the refinement of the age; it
may be the protest of liberality itself againstyour narrowness: none the less
you will have to suffer. Christ calls for confession ever. His people need
never fear that they will have to give up the old path of suffering,
consecrated by the prayers and tears of past generations of the long line of
His witnesses. The world never really changes: our path through it, our
struggle against it cannot change.
The name of Christ expresses then
what He is: the truth of what He is, is what is committed to us, what we have
to confess in the face of the world. Here is the great controversy between God
and man in the present day. As in Israel the question was between Jehovah, the
one true God, and the gods of the heathen; and Satan's effort then (alas, his
too successful effort) was to lead the people of Jehovah into the surrounding
idolatry, so now the question is as to the one Christ - for Satan's power has
set up "many Antichrists." People little realize how pre-eminently false
doctrine is the work of Satan. Christ is the "Truth;" the Spirit of Christ,
"the Spirit of truth;" Satan is the "liar from the beginning." By a lie of his,
man was first seduced and fell. By the truth he is brought back to God, and
sanctified. Satan's effort is therefore by counteracting lies to destroy the
power of the truth, and his most successful method is not so much direct
denial, as perversion of the truth. Knowing man's heart but too well by long
experience, he knows how to combine truth and error so skillfully, that the
truth shall give only the more speciousness to the error, while the error in
the guise of truth shall appeal to the lusts and passion, and enlist them upon
its side.
Thus Satan seduces as an angel of light, and Christendom,
with its profession of Christ's Lordship, can worship many lords under that
profession. Not denying His name, may in this way be given as a signal mark of
approbation in the midst of Christendom, even more than in the midst of
heathenism.
If we look further into Scripture for the association in
which we find the name of Christ, we shall soon see that it is connected with
the whole standing and walk of the individual believer, as well as with the
practical gathering together of His people: things which, always of primary
importance, have, as thus connected, come into special prominence in the
present day. We are "justified in the name of the Lord Jesus;" our prayers are
to be presented in His name; our every word and work are all to be done in His
name; our gathering as Christians is to be "to His name." And these things may
be otherwise stated, as our identification with Christ before God, His
identification with us before the world; and the objective power of what He is
for us, individually or collectively. That these are things very specially in
question in these days, if we are intelligent observers, we shall surely see.
Our justification in His name involves the first of these truths. It
is our identification with Him before God that alone permits, and necessitates
our acquittal. We are justified, as Scripture assures us, "by His blood;" He
having stood for us upon the cross and died under our just sentence. But thus
also, if His death is ours, His coming up from the dead is also ours; if "He
was delivered for our offences," He "was raised again for our justification."
His death was ours as sinners before God: we passed away in that character
entirely, "our old man," all that we we were as children of fallen Adam, being
"crucified with Christ." His resurrection declares the fact of His acceptance
in the offering of Himself for us, - declares therefore our acceptance. Our
place is henceforth in Christ before God, identified completely with the One
who as Man is entered into the heavens and set down in the presence of God for
His people. Hence the Lord could speak to His disciples, in view of the
accomplishment of His work, and of His now imminent return to His Father, of
prayer in His name as a new thing which would be now for the first time their
privilege, when the Spirit of truth having come to lead them into all the
blessed reality of the new position, they should know that He was in the
Father, and He in them, and they in Him (John xiv. 20). Conscious of their
gracious identification with Him on high, they were now for the first time to
approach the Father as thus identified; and the answer to their prayers,
however feeble these prayers, would be the testimony of Divine satisfaction
with Christ and with His work.
But if His people are thus in Christ
on high, He, on the other hand, is in them below; and, while identification is
not the only thought in this, (for He is in us as life also and by His Spirit,
and this is what empowers us for such a place), yet identification is none the
less clear and certain too. If He represents us in heaven, we represent Him on
earth, and this is as wonderful a privilege as it is an immense responsibility.
We represent Him before the world: living His life, treading His path, learning
His sorrows and tasting too His joys. Whatever we do in word or deed, we are to
"do all in the name of the Lord Jesus" .
And are not these truths
which God has been graciously restoring to us in these days afresh, (though
from the beginning in Scripture, and which characterize in a measure the
spiritual movement of the time) do not they give fresh meaning to the
confession of His name? No doubt the revival of "justification by faith" is as
old as the Reformation, and was then brought out with simplicity and power. We
have cause to thank God for it abundantly. Yet even that had been again very
much obscured by the substitution of experiences and fruits of the Spirit
instead of Christ, as to be rested in. And this had deprived the doctrine
itself of much of its power and blessedness. But there was one thing to which
the Reformation did not attain, and of which the common evangelical doctrine,
so-called, has fallen entirely short: it is this identification of the believer
with Christ risen and gone in, as Man, to God.
Even the full manhood
of the Lord, as a present thing in heaven, has become misty and indistinct, and
the resurrection side of the gospel is nearly absent from the evangelical
systems. They stop short with Christ's death for us, and use that to replace us
upon earth as men in the flesh still. They count it mysticism to talk of not
being in the flesh, of being dead with Christ, risen and seated in Him in the
heavenly places. The righteousness they impute is obedience to the law merely,
than which they say there can be nothing higher, and which, according to the
system, Adam should have fulfilled.
The effect of this is, we are
left in the world and of it, though forgiven and justified; we are to take our
place in it and make it better, not walk outside of it. Pilgrims and strangers
we are not, save in the perforce way that all the world is - time hurrying us
on alike to death and an eternity beyond.
A signal proof of this is
just the doctrine everywhere current, that the law is the rule of a Christian's
life. To this doctrine they attach extreme importance. To deny it is, as they
think, to open the flood-gates of iniquity, and preach license of the wildest
sort. For they have settled it against the apostle's clear and emphatic
statement, that the law is the strength of holiness, instead of being, as he
affirms it, "the strength of sin" (i Cor. xv. 16). The law, they say, is the
"transcript of the mind of God," and therefore the same as the gospel, only a
good deal more. To speak of being "dead to" it, and "delivered from" it, they
would deem profanity, if it were not that, these expressions being found in
Scripture, they had decreed them to apply merely to the ceremonial law. But the
"ceremonial law" is a theological fiction, not a Scriptural fact at all. It is
not found in Scripture anywhere, but is an arbitrary invention, to escape from
its plain meaning. In the very chapter from which the ex-pressions just now
cited are taken, and in direct connection with them, that law is represented as
saying, "Thou shalt not covet" (Rom. vii. 7). Was this the ceremonial law? Was
the ceremonial law "the strength of sin"? But my point is simply now, that when
they claim the law as the rule of a Christian's life, they thereby omit from
the Christian standard all that is not found in the Jewish one. The higher
position of the Christian is not admitted to have any corresponding practical
effect. Long life on earth is set before him as an aim and object. The heavenly
position is not contemplated; and pilgrim and strangership are left out of the
"rule;" for in the ten commandments, manifestly, these are not to be found.
How differently does the apostle set things before us in the last
chapter of his epistle to the Galatians: "But God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto
me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature (or creation); and as many as
walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and on the Israel of
God." The Christian rule is that he walk as one crucified to the world, in
Christ a new creation - not a mending of the old.
Thus, as I have
said, evangelicalism drops the resurrection side of the gospel, and the
characteristic heavenly features of a Christian's life. God has however come in
to recall them to our attention. He is lifting our eyes up to the heavens to
which He is just ready to call us home; and oh, may our hearts answer to His
appeal. Remember, this must be no mere theory with us. It will not do to take
this place, and spare the flesh and cultivate worldliness after all. It will
not do to talk about resurrection-life without some consistent endeavour to
apprehend and exemplify it. Practical results will always follow real faith,
and this is as true of faith in any special truth, as it is of faith as a
whole. The holy and the true One seeks for holiness and truth.
There
is another thing connected with the name of Christ, as we have already seen,
and you must suffer me to go on to speak of this. It was Christ's name that
once linked together all His people. No other name was known amongst them. And
when other names did begin to appear, the apostle's voice rebuked the dishonour
put upon the One to whom alone they were baptized, who was alone their Master.
Now, alas, the name of Christ is no longer a sufficient bond of union for His
people. No doubt they are ready, one and all, to claim the promise of His
personal presence where two or three are gathered to His name; yet, if, instead
of accepting this as a matter of course, they would try and prove their title,
they would find it perhaps less easy to do so than they think. Would His name
gather less than all His own? Could you plead being gathered to His name, and
(apart from the question of scriptural discipline) exclude His people? If His
name be the truth as to what He is, as we have seen, then this will exclude all
falsehood as to Christ. But for the very same reason, it will unite all true
confessors of Him. If what He is unites us, we shall have to put aside all
separate and separating creeds and articles, and return to simple membership of
the one body of Christ.
Alas, does it seem a bold thing now to claim
His Church for Him? Well, if we may scarcely hope that she will answer to the
claim, yet Christ has provided in His grace, from the very beginning, for the
faith of two or three, if there were no more, who would refuse all bonds beside
His name. If they have nought else they have the assurance that that faith
shall not be in vain,- that He at least will be with them, whose presence is
all needed sanction, and all joy.
You may perhaps turn round upon me
here and ask, do I mean to deny that Christ is with all His people, or that the
Spirit of God does not work in the denominations of Christendom? And many will
be ready to urge, nay, have urged again and again, that the way in which the
Spirit of God works amongst these shows His sanction of them. But that is too
large a conclusion. It would carry us on to the conviction that Romanism itself
was sanctioned of Him. Who can deny that God worked by such an one as Martin
Boos? He worked, and worked largely; and we can surely own it fully, and bless
His name for it, without at all supposing that His love and pity shown to souls
in the midst of popery sanctions the papal system God is sovereign in His
grace, bound and limited by no restrictions. We rejoice to know that in a world
of sinners He has bought Himself title to come in anywhere and save. Sin is no
barrier where the Lamb of God has suffered for it. Did He want to have things
right before He came in, who would be saved?
If you urge that grace,
where it comes in, will tend to set things right, 1 answer, Of course: every
soul that knows God would agree to that. But here comes in the mystery (mystery
it is, to believers and to unbelievers alike), the mystery of the human will,-
which, even in God's people, dares to set limits to obedience to His Word, aye,
and can cover these up with flowers, as necessary fences and safeguards to
holiness. I fully allow that everywhere God's Spirit works, and works for good;
but everywhere, alas, man's will works too. Let us not confound these. None can
"be as God's mouth" who do not learn, with Jeremiah, to "take forth the
precious from the vile." The mingling of such things together is not of God;
but much that is of God is yet so mingled.
Yes, the working of God's
Spirit is like that to which the Lord compares it, "the wind" that" bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh or whither it goeth." And God's grace is to the chief of sinners
unrestricted grace. We must not take these as putting sanction on the
circumstances amid which they work. We must not judge of the latter but by the
Word which God has given us for perfect guidance. And we must not propose to
follow Him in His workings necessarily, for this is beyond us, to do as He
does; and, as has been truly said by others, "He is the Sovereign, and we are
the servants," and the servant must only do what he is bidden. Most fully then
can we allow that God works among denominations, without in the least conceding
that denominations are of Him, or that He is with them as such. I have already
declared also my conviction, that in the beginning of many of these He was with
- fully with - those whose consciences forced them into separation from some
evil, which He had made them realize as such. But that proves nothing as to the
denomination itself. Who indeed can read the apostle's challenge of the first
entry of the thing at Corinth, and honestly maintain that God approves of it?
Or that all that he forbade was their wrangling about it, but that when that
wrangling had come to a division, then it would be all right? That would be to
forbid a tree to have blossoms, whose fruit nevertheless might be acceptable
enough.
We can fully maintain, then, God's universal grace. We can
believe and rejoice in the unrestrained working of His blessed Spirit. We can
do more than this: we can allow that Christ is with every individual Christian
according to His promise: a promise realized indeed by these in proportion to
the simplicity of their faith in Him, a faith whose fruit is found in the works
which surely come of it. Our Lord's promise is clear, but in terms it is well
to recall precisely, while we think of it. "He that hath My commandments and
keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of
My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself unto him." And again:
"If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we
will come and make our abode with him" (Jno. X1V. 2 1-23).
God forbid
that we should deny these blessed words, or attempt in any wise to limit them
arbitrarily, or indeed to limit them at all. The words apply to the individual,
and to the individual alone: that is clear. And it should be clear that the
Lord's promise to two or three gathered to His name is a promise additional to
this, and outside of it. It is a sanction, not of individual state, as that in
John is, but of a gathering as gathered to Him; a sanction connected not only
with the hearing of prayer, but with binding and loosing by the assembly - with
assembly acts, which no individual merely, or mere set of individuals, have
power for.
For the assembly, if practically but only two or three of
those gathered to His name, is thereby prevented being a mere clique or private
party, met to accomplish merely personal ends. Its door must be open for all
that are Christ's, confessing truly His blessed name; and then He can be there
to give efficacy and authority to that which is not the aim of a faction or a
self-isolated party, but of His own gathered as His own,- as far as their will
and aim can accomplish it, in unity with all His that are in practical
fellowship with Him.
We may see then the reason of this promise, and
that it is no arbitrary thing. And in order that He may be able to be with us
so, He has put the terms of it as low as He could put them for a gathering to
be a gathering at all,-"two or three"- blessed be His name! How great the grace
we have indeed cause to own, in a day of such feebleness and disunion as is the
present, spite of its pretension. Nor need there be one bit of pretension on
the part of those who thus gather to His name. They, above all, are called to
recognize the ruin in which they themselves have had but too disastrous part,
and to own (what is a continual warning against pretension) that aught but
continuous lowly cleaving to the strength of Christ can keep in a path where
failure from the very beginning has been found. Thus much then as to the
confession of the name of Christ. Let us mark here, before we go on to consider
the third thing before us, the meaning of the name Philadelphia, a meaning
which connects well with what we have had just now, both in the way of warning
and of encouragement alike. Philadelphia means "brotherly love." Not
association merely, even of brothers, but brotherly love. So is it to be with
us: love, wherever there are "brothers," love to all the children of the Father
as His children, but a love which consists, and only consists, with heedful
maintenance of what is due to the Father. I am but repeating the apostle's
words:
"This commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his
brother also." Then the extent of this, and the argument for it, are given us:
"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and every one
that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him." And then
the caution: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love
God and keep His commandments: for this is the love of God that we keep His
commandments; and His commandments are not grievous" (1 John iv. vi; V. 1,2).
Many are making the mistake of supposing love to be the track, so to
speak, in which we are to run; whereas it is the motive force by which we run
in the track. The word of God lays down the rails; and these are rightly, and
necessarily rigid and narrow too, in a true sense. The Word itself tells us
that the way is a "narrow way." But love takes that road alone, and never
another. The apostle will not allow that anything we may think love is such. He
will not allow feeling to be the test at all. Of course we shall feel it - that
is quite true,- but it is not the test; man's heart is too deceitful to allow
it to be such, whether it be love to our brother, or to God our Father. Man is
emotional, capable of being worked upon, and of working himself up to almost
any extent. And he is quite capable of perilous misjudgment of himself in that
very way. I am not at all speaking of hypocrisy, (although I do not say there
is not danger of that too), but of the way things may affect us powerfully, as
it would seem, and yet superficially. This emotional feeling is no guarantee as
to our true condition, any more than the waves driven by the wind against an
ocean-current are a sign of the real obliteration of the current.
But
love - most God-like, when true - is that which has most imitations which are
not of God. The giving all one's goods to feed the poor, the giving one's body
to be burned, the apostle supposes might be all without love; therefore not
adequate tests of it. I may love a child of God, and very dearly, and yet love
him for many another reason than because he is a child of God. My love may be
merely social; what is most Christ-like in him may be what I like least. How
little indeed, if we take the apostle's characteristics of it in that
thirteenth of i Corinthians, shall we find often of what will stand
examination: "love that seeketh not her own, that beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"!
If you will turn
to the first chapter of the second of Peter, you will find that in the order of
divine growth, "brotherly love" comes in a very different place from what we
should naturally imagine. From "faith," the beginning of everything in us,
brotherly love is the sixth stage on towards perfection, and only short of the
full maturity of "love" itself. We are first of all to add to our faith
"virtue," in the Roman sense of it - courage, spiritually applied. For as
faith's walk is against nature, and through a hostile world, the very first
requisite for it, uext to faith itself, is "courage."
At the start
you have to make up your mind. There must be no indecision, no
half-heartedness. The obedience, which the apostle John has given us as the
test of love, comes at the very beginning. Have we all even reached this first
point from which alone the Philadelphian position can be attained? Are we all
by God's grace unreserved in self-surrender to Him who is indeed our Master and
Lord? Only after this, not before, comes "knowledge "- true knowledge - only to
be acquired practically by the road, and in the field in the face of the enemy;
and knowledge which immediately becomes practice as "temperance,"- government
of ourselves; and "patience," in view of adverse circumstances; "endurance,"
holding on to that wherewith we began - not only I did "count all things but
loss," but still I do.
Then "godliness" follows. The more positive
fruits begin to appear. The truth is acting upon the one given up to follow it,
self-ward, world-ward, God-ward, and now at last brother-ward. Think of how
much it involves to be a Philadelphian, and you will see at once that no mere
right position ecclesiastically will put you there. You must be devoted; you
must be self-governed; you must be enduring; you must be with God: and then,
these points reached, your love to your brethren will be in orderly
development, and somewhat that we can trust.
We need not marvel,
however much we may deplore it, how little of this spirit is indeed to be
found. But there is no remedy in mere expectancy or in lament, still less in
accusation of one another on this score. The doing of this betrays the doer. It
shows that "seeking not her own" is not the quality of our love, at least. If
we mourned it rightly, we should be more with God about it - intercessors, not
accusers. And then also, remembering that only what we receive we have, we
should be seeking for God to minister and manifest His love to the needy and
unsatisfied hearts towards Him, which this coldness of heart toward each other
implies.
On the other hand, let us notice for our encouragement that
from faith as a root all these fruits develop. The apostle's words infer as
much as this. They are, really, "in your faith have also virtue, and in virtue,
knowledge," and so on. This is as plants grow, each fresh bud developing out of
the product of a former one. For faith, the root of all, lays hold on Him in
whom all spiritual blessings are ours, and the spiritual growth is only by what
we learn of Him. And so the apostle adds:
"If these things be in you and
abound, they make you. that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." The remedy is not in moody
self-occupation, and not in endeavouring to get out of ourselves what is not
found there, but in more real and earnest laying hold of what is ours in Him
who is for us complete satisfaction and all-sufficient power. It is a great
thing to be a Philadelphian, and you will not wonder that under this title the
Lord should describe a people who, with all their weakness, have His special
approbation.
But here, if we look a little around us, we shall find
on the one hand a divine movement stirring the hearts of God's people towards a
real, practical "brotherly love" springing out of "godliness." On the other it
is easy to see an imitation of this which aims at a getting together of
Christians, even at a sacrifice of that which is of God. In the world too,
confederacy is the order of the day. "Union," they say, "is strength." And
everywhere, societies, associations, companies, amalgamations of every kind,
for all sorts of purposes, are found. They are naturally largely commercial,
and for such selfish ends as the world that knows not Christ is full of. They
are a banding of individuals who remain really in interest individuals, not
seekers of each other's good, but their own. They are neither the expression of
love nor do they promote it. On the contrary it is well known that the larger
they are as corporations, the less heart there is in them. They intensify the
self-seeking to which they minister, and for which they provide an ampler
harvest field.
The bond here is in no wise brotherhood; yet who can
deny that professing Christendom is largely permeated by the same spirit, and
has adopted worldly means in a worldly spirit, for ends professedly Christian ?
Do not mistake; do not run into the thought that these ends being worthy ones
must sanctify the means employed to reach them. These combinations to produce
great results, is there no ensnarement in the very thought? Are not means apt
to be mistaken for ends? Is not the consciousness of strength which union
promotes, and is designed to promote, the very opposite of the weakness which
has need of arid brings in God? Does not the publicity of action put those
engaged in it before men's eyes rather than God's, and make them little content
with such words as the Lord addresses here to Philadelphia, "I know thy works?"
Lastly, does not the apparent greatness of the result aimed at, induce a
carelessness as to what are considered the smaller details of ways and means by
which it is to be reached?
No one can deny that while the increase of
sects goes on without apparent abatement, yet along with this there is a marked
and decided tendency to union for all kinds of objects dear to the Christian.
Missionary societies, Bible societies, Tract societies, Sunday-school Unions,
Young Men's Christian Associations, and such like, ignore on the one hand what
they recognize on the other, and aim to unite Christians as such, to accomplish
results which the divisions of Protestantism have hindered. And in movements of
this kind there is much that one can very heartily rejoice over. Who can doubt
that there is working a real desire for Christian fellowship, a longing for
liberty beyond the artificial limits posed by ecclesiasticism, and a yearning
for greater and better fruitfulness than the strife of sects would allow? Who
can doubt also that in this way the zeal of many earnest workers has been
kindled, and that much has really been, and is being, accomplished? Intolerance
has been softened down; sectarian rancor mitigated; and a busy activity in
evangelistic efforts especially induced, which the Lord is using for blessing
to numbers of souls.
We should be sadly wanting in discernment if we
did not see, and in Christian spirit if we did not rejoice over, such things as
these. Nor must it be thought a contradiction to point out on the other hand
results which are to be deprecated, and tendencies which are rapidly developing
as the years roll by, which must be a source of trouble, if not surprise, to
every one to whom -"Anworth is not heaven, And preaching is not Christ;'' to
whom the quality of a thing, as viewed by the "Holy and the True," is of more
importance than its quantity.
Let us judge candidly and seriously of
that which the coming day at least will reveal in its true character. Who that
has that day before him dare rashly blame or carelessly pass over things which
affect the glory and the heart of the Lord our Saviour - that heart upon which
rest (as the engraved jewels on the high priest's breast-plate), the names of
His beloved people, not one of them forgotten? He who has before him, what we
have here, the Son of Man in the midst of the candle-sticks, will be delivered
from the snare of acting before other eyes than His, and will have no motive to
apply other than truthfully, and in love, "what the Spirit saith unto the
churches."
We have glanced at the churches of the Reformation and
scarcely need to have it repeated that nationalism everywhere gives "a name to
live" where there is no real life. The discipline here is of the very loosest
kind. Annihilationism, Universalism, Swedenborgianism, Rationalism of the
extremest kind, are in some of these systems allowed openly to manifest
themselves. "Tares and wheat," they urge, "are to grow together to the
harvest." "Judas was at the table of the Lord." And thus they have scriptural
ground, as they imagine, for "putting away from among themselves a wicked
person," or "purging themselves from vessels to dishonour."
What must
be, what is, the effect of this and such like laxity? And what the effect of
bringing a large number together where even the feeble bonds of such discipline
are relaxed, and members of the loosest bodies are accepted thus far by those
'who in their own bodies are governed by stricter and more scriptural rules?
What can the effect be but the deterioration of the whole, a leavening of
worldly principles and of positive false doctrine also? Are the spiritual
ordinarily in a majority in these large bodies, or in a minority? Do they lead
the rest, or have they to find themselves forced to follow the lead of others,
and to mix themselves up with that which they feel and own to be not as they
would have it, but still tolerate for the sake of the con-nection with so large
a machinery for good, as they esteem it?
Generally, a compromise as
to the truth has to be made, which would forbid any one in these associations
to do what Paul appealed to the Ephesians as having done amongst them: "I have
not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." They have to be (so
far as these connections go) servants qualifying by omissions their Master's
message, bound to refrain from delivering what He has put into their mouth to
deliver. Oh that beloved brethren in the Lord would well consider for
themselves how far this can go, without dishonour to the Lord who has bought
them for His own, or without loss of real power through grieving the Spirit of
power!
And are not means insensibly substituted for the end, - the
registry of so many visits made, so many tracts distributed, so much ground
covered, made to do duty oftentimes for that which these things are only
hand-maids to, if they mean anything at all? And if conversions are registered,
the case is often still more sorrowful: conversions being expected as the
result of so much machinery, and chronicled - oh how lightly and carelessly -
to man's successful effort, rather than the praise of God!
Upon all
this I do not desire to dwell longer. Examples to demonstrate the truth of it,
will not be wanting to those who care to test what they do, by the one perfect
standard to which we all appeal, and by which all will be exactly measured in a
coming day.
With all this, I gladly own a greater seeking after communion
among those that are the Lord's, Yet I press that co-operation apart from the
truth is not God's mind, nor are human and voluntary associations His method
either. God's Church - not a union of churches, but a union of members with
their living Head - is His association, and in this He has provided as well for
the maintenance of His truth as for the true liberty of His people. If we will
not take this, how can we ask Him, because He is gracious, to bless the
make-shifts substituted for it? Is it "love in the truth " and "for the truth's
sake," where truth is set aside or compromised, in order to be together?
Yet if you follow truth, instead of practically bringing you to unite with
the many, it will separate you - isolate you - reduce practically to nothing
much that now may seem great and valuable - and shut you up into a narrow path
from which naturally you shrink. Does Scripture ever promise aught but a narrow
path? Are weakness and nothingness hindrances or helps to trusting God? Is it
any harm for faith to have exercise? and is not the power of God as competent
to work by small means and individuals as by a multitude, and by machinery of
the utmost power? If we do not think so, what does it show but how sadly a
trust in means and machinery has displaced confidence in the living God?
Let us pass on now to consider one other thing in the attitude of these
Philadelphian saints which the Lord singles out for special approbation.
"Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the
hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell
upon the earth."
And what is connected with this? "Behold, I come
quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." Remark,
He says for the first time now, "quickly." We have not had that before. It is a
sign here of how the time of His patience is coming to an end. It is now as the
apostle says in the first chapter, "The kingdom and patience of the Lord Jesus
Christ." By-and-by it will be His "kingdom and glory." Now it is the time in
which, though already possessing "all authority in heaven and earth," He waits,
not taking His power to put down evil, but exercising that long-suffering which
is unto salvation, of which each one here saved by grace is an example and a
proof.
Can it be a strange thing then for us to have to keep the word
of His patience? to remember what holds back the wheels of judgment, and delays
the fulfilment of our hope as Christians? Patience is not indifference as to
that hope, but the very opposite. Were we indifferent we should not be able to
speak of or to realize patience at all: "if we hope for that we see not, then
do we with patience wait for it."
Happy it is to need the exhortation
to be patient thus, - because our desires laying hold of the exceeding great
and precious promises, our souls are carried onwards in the current of them
toward the haven which faith pictures close at hand! Need we wonder at an
admonition to be "patient?" Should we not wonder if our souls could embrace
that future blessedness, and have no such need? But the keeping the word of His
patience is more, a good deal, than being patient ourselves. It separates the
thought from repression of merely selfish longings, and elavates it into
communion with Him whose waiting and whose coming forth alike are the necessary
result and the display of what He is - the divine Lover and Saviour of men's
souls. If He come, or if He wait, it is righteousness, love, and wisdom in Him
that combine and manifest themselves.
Two things are now promised to
those keeping the word of His patience: first, that He will keep them out of
the hour - not out of the temptation merely, but out of the hour of temptation
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth;-
out of the judgment of the world ready to involve the lifeless professors of
Christianity, whose hearts remain, spite of their profession, bound to earthly
things; out of the trouble and sifting also which will precede the judgment at
the Lord's hand when He appears.
But how shall they be kept out of a
time of universal trial? That is intimated in the second promise, "I come
quickly." His coming will gather His saints into safety far from every breath
of the tempest to ensue. They shall be with Him, raised or changed, caught up
to His blessed presence, before the trial comes; and when the world sees Him
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, no saint of the
present time but shall be with Him there. "He shall come to be glorified in His
saints, and admired in all them that believe, in that day" (2 Thess. i. io).
And now let me ask: If this intimation of the speedy approach of the
Lord marks Philadelphian times, who can for a moment doubt the coincidence with
the cry which for half a century has been stirring the hearts of Christians
everywhere? Nothing is more certain, be it right or be it wrong, than that
there has been a widespread revival of the hope of the Lord's coming, together
with an impression of its actually being very near. Even the dates which have
time and again been confidently set for it, if, on the one side, they show the
mistakes of prophetic interpreters, on the other, not less plainly do they show
the prevailing expectation. While there have been all through a large and
increasing number who have never given credit to any of these calculations,
they have yet been as deeply convinced as any that the time is near at hand.
And what is this but itself a token of its actual nearness, according
to the promise in this Philadelphian epistle? Has not the Lord been saying to
them, "I come quickly?" It is easy, no doubt, to fasten upon mistakes made by
warm hearts or excited minds, in order to bring discredit upon the truth; but
Scripture, which disclaims for us the knowledge of times or seasons, assures
the faith of those who would be "exhorting one another so much the more as they
see the day approaching."
Let us hold it fast, and let us hold it
pure: free from the errors with which Satan is seeking to degrade it by
association,- free from the mistakes of ignorance and fanaticism,- but also
from the coldness and indifference of hearts that give little response to our
Lord's words here.
I must pause here, though there is much, much more
in this epistle. I must leave to your own meditations the sweet encouragements
and promises to the overcomer, which, as often noticed, so link the believer
with the One who addresses him. May we be able to take hold of them. They are
ours, for faith to realize and rejoice in: that faith which not only
"overcometh the world," but now in the professing Church has also to overcome.
"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he
shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of My God, and the
name of the city of My God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of
heaven from My God; and I will write upon him My new name."
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches."
LECTURE VIII. WHAT
BRINGS THE TIME OF HIS PATIENCE TO AN END
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