Bible Commentaries
Romans 8

Verses 3-4

Law or Love

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.— Romans 8:3-4.

1. The passage with which the previous chapter closes is one of the most interesting perhaps that St. Paul ever wrote, because, in describing there his own feelings and experiences, he has depicted so faithfully, so graphically, the feelings and experiences of all earnest souls. The passage reveals pathetic secrets of theirs, arrests them with a vivid portrayal of themselves. “What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. To will is present with me, but how to perform I find not, for the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, I do. I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that is in my members.” What heart is there in which these words are not more or less echoed? Have we not known what it is, while perceiving and admiring the right, to be baffled by contrary impulses in our wish and purpose to practize it? We have seen its Divine claim and majesty, and have meant, have craved and struggled to respond to it, yet could not, held down and overborne by the weight of something lower belonging to us.

As one whose footsteps halt,

Toiling in immeasurable sand.

And o’er a weary, sultry land,

Far beneath a blazing vault,

Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,

The city sparkles like a grain of salt.

2. The question is how to be delivered from the thraldom of moral evil. Man is in contact with law, the transgression of which recoils upon him at every step. He does not need to be for ever told of it. The question is how to take his feet from the toils; how to get the desire and the power to love and obey; how to silence that conflict between the conscience and the lower desires which makes the soul a house divided against itself. Here is man loaded down with his passions, coming into the world with heavy tendencies on the animal side, depraved, inheriting the sinful blood of generation upon generation, exposed to all evil and overborne by temptation, ignorant, weak, fallible, limited in his powers, finding causes for his sinfulness which inhere in the very structure of his body and his mind, how shall he keep the moral law? How shall he get the desire to keep it? To do that which is right, says Paul, is with me, but “how to perform” that which I would, that is the difficulty. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death—who shall deliver me from this spiritual deadness of the soul, this corruption of the affections, this impotence of the will, this unwillingness to love and obey? That is the need of men in temptation. That is the cry of every heart who ever made a struggle to lead a clean and noble life. The law man knows; and all religious teachers take care that he shall continue to understand it, and that he shall not forget it. But this is not the main trouble, the trouble is how to get the willingness, the desire to obey the law. Well, Paul answers that question. The Gospel is the answer to it. While men are still without moral strength, Christ dies for the ungodly. The power of the new life in Christ Jesus delivers us from the old power of sin and death. If Christ be in us, the flesh is dead in respect of sin, the spirit is alive in respect of rectitude and obedience. Christ creates the motive of love.

3. The text would be unintelligible unless we observed its antithetical setting. It is a contrast between law and love as redemptive forces in human life. Paul does not discuss it with the philosopher’s pleasure in abstract reasoning. He is dealing with facts. Law was a fact. Love was a fact. In times past God had sought to govern the world by law. Now, through Jesus Christ, God was seeking to rule life by love. Which was the successful redemptive principle? On this point Paul’s mind was absolutely convinced. Law is powerless, helpless, impotent. Love is infinitely capable and eternally omnipotent. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” God has achieved by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and He, being “an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” and, because of that, the end of the law is attained, “the ordinance of the law” is now “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.”

The text contains the following statements:—

1. The Law could not free us from sin and death,—its failure being due to the weakness of the flesh.

2. God sent His own Son

(1) in the likeness of sinful flesh;

(2) and (as an offering) for sin.

(3.) He thus condemned sin in the flesh.

(1) In order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.

(2) Who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

I

The Failure of the Law

i. The Fact of the Failure

1. What is it that the Law could not do? It could not condemn sin in the flesh in such a way as to ensure that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us. The law demands righteousness: the law condemns sin. But the law cannot secure the fulfilment of the demand which it makes upon us; it cannot accomplish the destruction of the sin which it condemns; in other words, it cannot condemn sin effectually. It has indeed a terrible power to condemn; it can, it does, condemn the sinner most effectually, so as to secure his destruction; but it cannot effectually condemn the sin rooted in the flesh, so as to effect its destruction.

2. What is needed is that the sinner should be brought heartily to renounce the service of sin, and heartily to embrace the service of God, that, in the words of the Apostle himself, he should become “dead to sin” and “alive unto God.” The sinner must be brought into thorough, hearty agreement with God’s opposition to sin; and the law cannot produce such a change of heart as this: it may prevent the man from committing overt acts of sin, but that is a very different thing from destroying the love of sin itself, and inspiring a heart-hatred of the abominable thing which God hates. That the law could not do this for him, Paul had learned from his own experience. So long as he remained a stranger to God’s saving grace, the law, far from delivering him from the dominion of sin, only roused to greater activity the evil principles that were within him. He had to learn, by passing through struggles of the most painful kind, that it is not to the law that we must look for deliverance from the ruling power of sin.

The makers of our human laws know that they are weak. They know that while they promulgate their regulations they cannot reckon on obedience. We have laws against gambling, but gambling still goes on. We have a great body of laws to regulate the drink traffic, but you cannot pick up the newspapers without reading of the prosecution of some offender, or of some crime for which some one should be punished. It is because we know the law is weak that we engage inspectors and policemen. We build prisons, and penitentiaries, and reformatories, and keep them up at great expense, because we know that, while the laws are known, the simple knowledge is no guarantee of obedience. 1 [Note: J. G. Bowran.]

3. But, even though the law is weak, it cannot be said to be useless. It serves other and necessary purposes. The Apostle recognizes that. “Through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.” “Where there is no law neither is there transgression.” “Sin is not imputed where there is no law.” “Howbeit, I had not known sin except through the law.” It is by the law that we have the knowledge of sin. If we crossed the field and never saw the signboard, while we should be actual transgressors, there would be no guilt in the trespass. If, however, we saw the signboard, and sinned against knowledge, we should be verily guilty. And so, God, by the promulgation of His law, has created a conscience of sin, even as the State, by the announcement of its laws, has created a national sense of sin. The law, then, is necessary as an educational factor. It is the “schoolmaster.” But, as the pedagogue cannot manufacture geniuses, so the law cannot make saints.

If not with hope of life,

Begin with fear of death:

Strive the tremendous lifelong strife

Breath after breath.

| Bleed on beneath the rod;

Weep on until thou see;

Turn fear and hope to love of God

Who loveth thee.

Turn all to love, poor soul;

Be love thy watch and ward;

Be love thy starting-point, thy goal,

And thy reward. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

ii. The Cause of the Failure

1. It is natural enough that we should think in the first instance of the law as the agency fitted to bring about the desired result. What can be needed to secure men’s fulfilling the righteousness of the law but just that they should have its most reasonable requirements set plainly before them, clothed with the august authority of God Himself? It might seem as if the law coming to men thus, having its claims enforced, moreover, by the promise of reward in the case of obedience, and by the threat of punishment in the case of disobedience, were the very agency fitted to secure the object desired, did not experience prove that it is utterly powerless to accomplish it. That the powers of the law might be fully tested, it was solemnly promulgated at Mount Sinai, in the hearing of all Israel, amidst the most overwhelming manifestations of the Divine majesty and glory. But even when thus proclaimed in the most impressive manner by God Himself, it failed to secure the fulfilment of its just requirements. And what was it that rendered the law powerless? It was weak, the Apostle says, “through the flesh.”

2. The law is good in itself, but it has to work through the sinful nature. The only powers to which it can appeal are those which are already in rebellion. A discrowned king whose only forces to conquer his rebellious subjects are the rebels themselves is not likely to regain his crown. Because law brings no new element into our humanity, its appeal to our humanity has little more effect than that of the wind whistling through an archway. It appeals to conscience and reason by a plain declaration of what is right; to will and understanding by an exhibition of authority; to fears and prudence by plainly setting forth consequences. But what is to be done with men who know what is right but have no wish to do it, who believe that they ought but will not, who know the consequences but “choose rather the pleasures of sin for a season,” and shuffle the future out of their minds altogether?

This is the essential weakness of all law. The tyrant is not afraid so long as there is no one threatening his reign but the unarmed herald of a discrowned king. His citadel will not surrender to the blast of the trumpet blown from Sinai. 1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

3. The weakness of the law is accentuated when we think of its penal aspects. Even when the law rebounds upon the offender it seldom reclaims and improves. It is punitive and not remedial. You may send a man to the tread-mill, but as he performs the revolutions he may be evolving fresh schemes of crime. You may keep the thief in solitary confinement, hoping to silence him into honesty, but the probability is that he is worse on the day of his liberation than on the day of his apprehension. Of law, both Divine and human, the Apostle’s analysis is correct. It is weak, and weak through the flesh. Its chief design it cannot accomplish. It cannot secure compliance.

It is the universal experience that human nature rebels against the severities of repression. Is not that what Paul means when he says: “For I had not known coveting except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet; but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting.” There is a strange perversity in the flesh. There is nothing so tempting to us as the thing prohibited. We see the signboard: “No road this way. Trespassers will be prosecuted,” and through love of rebellion we select the prohibited path. The railway companies demand that every passenger shall have either a pass or a ticket, but, through sheer love of duping the law, men attempt the journey free of cost. The father who plays the despot in his family will create a household of rebels. The State where anarchy is rife is the State where tyrants rule. 1 [Note: J. G. Bowran.]

4. This is the Gospel, or, one may say, this is the essence of the Gospel, that Christianity is not simply a new and more impressive declaration that men are sinners, but a new power, greater than the world has ever known before, to help men out of the snares of sin, that they may be sinners no longer. For a long time now men have been told they are sinners. For six thousand years man has heard thundered in his ears the lesson of the law. It has been driven in upon his thoughts by all the penal inflictions of the Divine judgment; by the fires that rained ruin on the cities of the plain; by the waters that overswept the world in the days of Noah; by the handwriting on the wall that doomed the proud city of Babylon; by the sword and fire that fell on sacred Jerusalem; by the decay of Rome, sapped and undermined by its own vices; by all the records of the woe that has fallen on wicked men since time began. Men know that fire burns and that water drowns; so they know also that selfishness withers, that intemperance ruins, that ambition overleaps itself and falls on the other side, that avarice belittles the mind, and licentiousness blasts the body and the soul; men know, on the other hand, that virtue brings happiness and that uprightness brings peace. Men know this. But that is not the point. The point is to get a working motive that will lead them to act upon this knowledge.

“One may deal with things without love, one may cut down trees, make bricks, and hammer iron without love, but one cannot deal with men without love.” 2 [Note: Leo Tolstoi.]

Paracelsus believed that knowledge is power, and it was that that kindled and kept alive for a time his transcendent ambition. And when he was defeated, when his mistake had become clear to him, it was natural that he should say:

What wonder if I saw no way to shun

Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed God’s.

But he had learned a deeper lesson than that. He had come to see that there is a force surpassing in its majesty and might any that could possibly accrue from the acquisition of boundless stores of learning:

I saw Aprile—my Aprile there!

And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened

His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,

I learned my own deep error; love’s undoing

Taught me the worth of love in man’s estate,

And what proportion love should hold with power

In his right constitution; love preceding

Power, and with much power, always much more love;

Love still too straitened in his present means,

And earnest for new power to set love free. 1 [Note: J. Flew, Studies in Browning, 146.]

II

The Method of Love

i. God sent His own Son

1. The words imply that the Divine Sonship of Jesus was not a relationship built up in the course of His life upon earth by acts of obedience and spiritual fellowship. A king can only send as his messenger and representative one who has already grown into such ripe wisdom and proved loyalty that he can fulfil the trust imposed upon him. To be sent implies an antecedent character and personality which qualify for the special mission.

We cannot feel the power of God’s condemnation of sin by the Cross till we have a just conception and realization of the truth of the person of Him who endured the Cross and despized the shame. Then the thought becomes overwhelming. Whether God has any other way by which He can more forcibly and solemnly express His sense of the evil and demerit of sin to others of His creatures, we do not know; but we can conceive of no way in which He could have more forcibly and solemnly expressed it to us than the way He has chosen—through the voluntary death of His own Divine Son on the malefactor’s cross.

2. God sent Him. For the condemnation of sin by Christ God owed to Himself as the righteous God who hates sin; and He owed it also to us, whom He is anxious to save from sin; and instead of dispensing with it in the fulness of His Fatherhood, as some would tell us, His Fatherhood made it the more obligatory. The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God can in no way conflict with the true doctrine of the Atonement, but confirms it; for the true father must ever have a regard to what may affect the welfare of his children; and what could have more to do with our welfare than the conveyance to us of the heavenly Father’s own sense and estimate of sin?

There was more fatherhood in the Cross (where holiness met guilt) than in the prodigal’s father (where love met shame). There was more fatherhood for our souls in the desertion of the Cross than in that which melts our hearts in the prodigal’s embrace. It is not a father’s sensitive love only that we have wounded, but His holy law. Man is not a mere runaway, but a rebel; not a pitiful coward, but a bold and bitter mutineer. Does not Kant confess as a moralist the radical evil in man, and Carlyle speak of his “infinite damnability”? 1 [Note: P. T. Forsyth, The Holy Father and the Living Christ, 27.]

ii. In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh

Christ was sent “in likeness of sinful flesh,” not as if He had taken on Him the “likeness of flesh” in the sense of a semblance of body instead of its reality: but St. Paul means us to understand likeness to the flesh which sinned, because the flesh of Christ, which committed no sin itself, was like that which had sinned—like it in its nature, but not in the corruption it received from Adam: whence we also affirm that there was in Christ the same flesh as that whose nature in man is sinful. 2 [Note: Tertullian.]

1. The phrase, “the likeness of the flesh of sin,” implies the real humanity of Jesus, and His perfect sinlessness; and suggests the first way in which He condemns sin in the flesh. In His life He repeats the law in a higher fashion. What the one spoke in words the other realized in “loveliness of perfect deeds”; and all men own that example is the mightiest preacher of righteousness, and that active goodness draws to itself reverence and sways men to imitate. But His life lived in human nature gives a new hope of the possibilities of that nature even in us. The dream of perfect beauty “in the flesh” has been realized. What the Man Christ Jesus was, He was that we may become. In the very flesh in which the tyrant rules, Jesus shows the possibility and the loveliness of a holy life.

St. Paul speaks of Christ as having been “God’s own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”—that is, here was a man with a nature like ours, including flesh like ours, the very flesh which in us is always bringing forth sin, always causing us to fail and fall short, in spite of our truer vision and aspiration, and the hindering, defiling influence of which we often deplore as irresistible and not to be prevailed against; and this man was “God’s own Son” in the flesh, without spot and blameless, exhibiting in it a sustained perfection of filial obedience. 1 [Note: S. A. Tipple.]

2. That the Son of God had to take upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh was perhaps the bitterest and most agonizing humiliation of His earthly lot. The fact that He received at birth a body susceptible to pain, frailty, privation, with a sentence of death written upon its constituents, was not the saddest part of His destiny. If one of our children were to show constitutional symptoms, marking him out for a career of weakness and long-dragging pain, it would trouble us less than if, through some inexplicable cause, he were to resemble in features a notorious criminal, or carry to the grave a birthmark linking him with some scene of infamy and shame. Upon the form assumed by Him, who was the express image of His Father’s glory, the likeness of a criminal race was stamped. The spirit and character of Jesus could not fail to refine and beautify the flesh with which He was invested, and painters are true to the genius of the Gospel when they idealize His features into celestial charm. But the Eternal Father could not forget that it was into the likeness of sinful flesh the Son entered through His birth on earth, a likeness in which traits sacred and Divine were curiously mixed with the lineaments we associate with moral deformity and transgression; nor could the Son Himself forget this burning humiliation through which He must pass in His work of saving men.

A missionary traveller in inland China once had to reach a ferry by taking off shoes and socks and traversing a muddy pathway from which the flood had only just retired. After walking a few paces he noticed a poor unsightly leper, a few yards ahead, slowly moving to the same point. The marks of his disfigured feet were imprinted in the mud, and it caused a shudder as the missionary found himself treading, with bare feet, in the steps of a loathsome beggar. The contact was indirect, and perhaps there was no risk, but the sickening association haunted his imagination for days. If the identification had been more intimate, and the white man had been compelled to shelter in the sufferer’s grass-hut, to share the same couch, to wear his contaminated raiment, it might have maddened an over-sensitive brain. 1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

A well-known American story by Wendell Holmes, in which romance and scientific speculation are curiously blended, deals with the problem of prenatal inoculation by snake-bite. The mother of Elsie Venner, into whose blood the poison of the rattlesnake has entered, dies in giving birth to her baby girl. The child grows up with eccentricities bordering on insanity, and becomes an object of dread to neighbours and school-companions. She is gifted with a curious power of fascination, and is able to dominate those upon whom she fixes her weird and glittering eyes. Her movements are serpentine, and she shows a special fondness for snake-like trinkets of gold. Sometimes she secludes herself in a mountain cave haunted by the creatures of whom before her birth she was an unconscious victim. All her gestures are suggestive of this tragic misfortune known only to her father and her negro nurse. Before she dies, her nature is softened and beautifully humanized. If such an incident were possible, of course the law of moral responsibility could cover only one half of her life. But that question apart, what a distress to the father to find his child shunned and abhorred, although he himself might know the secret of her birth and have faith in the complete innocence of her deepest nature. The assimilation of the child for a time to a lower and a dreaded type of life—a type that has been an age-long symbol of malignant and deadly temper—must surely have been a tragedy of the deepest and most mysterious distress.

iii. And for Sin

The phrase may be rendered (as in the Revised Version) “as an offering for sin,” since it is the usual equivalent in the Greek New Testament for a sin-offering. But the context demands a wider reference, since it includes, along with the expiation, the practical condemnation and destruction of sin. Christ has come “for sin.” That is to say, His incarnation and death had relation to, and had it for their object to remove, human sin. He comes to blot out the evil, to bring God’s pardon. The recognition of His sacrifice supplies the adequate motive to copy His example, and they who see in His death God’s sacrifice for man’s sin cannot but yield themselves to Him, and find in obedience a delight. Love kindled at His love makes likeness and transmutes the outward law into an inward “spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

It is of great importance that you see the sacrificial character of Christ’s condemnation of sin in the flesh—that besides seeing that Christ clearly declared the flesh to be evil, and, in so declaring, did manifest God’s righteous condemnation of sin, and completed this testimony in giving Himself to die, you must also see that He did this as a sacrifice for sin. If not done as a sacrifice, the fact itself would merely leave us where we were. It would shed light on the evil of our state, but would not grant us deliverance from evil. But when we see Christ doing this as a sacrifice for sin—when we see Him coming into our nature, and taking it up, and presenting it holy to God, and doing this as a sacrifice for sin—then our thoughts are turned to the history of sin, and to the fact that He is not the only being who has this flesh. Our thoughts are turned to the whole human race; and we are taught concerning them that this deed has reference to them, and that it was not for a mere display of the power of the Son of God, taking an unclean thing and making it clean, that Christ came and took our flesh, but that He came with reference to those who were dwelling in this flesh, and for them shed His blood. 1 [Note: J. M‘Leod Campbell.]

III

The Success of Love

i. He condemned Sin in the Flesh

He condemned sin in the flesh, in which sin exercises its usurped dominion. And how did God condemn sin in the flesh, i.e. in human nature generally? (1) By exhibiting in the person of His Incarnate Son the same flesh in substance, but free from sin, He proved that sin was in the flesh only as an unnatural and usurping tyrant. Thus the manifestation of Christ in sinless humanity at once condemned sin in principle. But (2) God condemned sin practically and effectually by destroying its power and casting it out; and this is the sense especially required by the context. The law could condemn sin only in word, and could not make its condemnation effectual. Christ, coming “for sin,” not only made atonement for it by His Death, but, uniting man to Himself “in newness of life,” gave actual effect to the condemnation of sin by destroying its dominion “in the flesh” through the life-giving sanctifying power of His Spirit.

1. God’s condemnation of sin, understood in this light, comes to us, indeed, in other ways than through the death of Christ. It comes in the constitution of nature, in which, binding sin and misery together in a nexus more firm than iron, and which no power of man can dissolve, He has revealed from heaven, for all the ages of time, His wrath “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” It comes through the conscience, that sensitive magnet in man’s soul which ever points (very feebly indeed in many) to the pole of God’s own righteousness, and which, until utterly darkened and perverted by sin, ever condemns sin. It comes through His revealed law, whose very office it is to condemn sin, and in every denunciation of sin in His written Word. But at last it came in another and entirely different way—through the suffering and death of the righteous Christ, God’s own Divine Son. And it was evidently in this new way of declaring the mind or judgment of God against sin that Christ could do what the law was impotent to accomplish.

2. God condemned sin by allowing it to condemn itself. Just as some atrocious act of wrong, of violence, or of shame condemns crime, in the eyes of men, by showing them what crime can do, so He allowed sin to condemn itself by showing for ever what sin can do. It could reject and cast out the Divine Christ, the Holy One of God, and nail Him to a malefactor’s cross. And this itself proclaimed, and proclaimed for ever, sin’s need of atonement. But this was not the only way in which our Lord condemned sin by His death. He became “obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross,” which marks the extent of His obedience. His act of obedience even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross, must have been, therefore, an act of obedience to God. And why did God require this act of obedience? The only answer is that of the Apostle: to “show his righteousness”; to “condemn sin in the flesh” (by Christ’s dying a sacrifice for sin in the flesh); to condemn it, not by a blind act of suffering and death, but through the mind and will of His own Son expressing themselves through voluntary suffering and death.

3. By the Death of Christ upon the Cross, a death endured in His human nature, He once and for ever broke off all contact with Sin, which could touch Him only through that nature. Henceforth Sin can lay no claim against Him. Neither can it lay any claim against the believer; for the believer also has died with Christ. Henceforth when Sin comes to prosecute its claim, it is cast in its suit and its former victim is acquitted. The one culminating and decisive act by which this state of things was brought about is the Death of Christ, to which all the subsequent immunity of Christians is to be referred.

Sin in the flesh was tolerated and condoned before Jesus came down to live His sinless life amongst men. It was accepted everywhere as a necessity inherent in the visible organic framework of things. It is interesting to think that the old tradition which makes a Persian king one of the Magi lends itself to an instructive interpretation, because the religion of the ancient Persians held that matter was inherently evil and could never by any possibility become good. The Babe before whom he bowed was to prove in His personal history and example that it was not so.

Men often go on sinning, avowing that sin is no sin, for want of hope. They accept it as part of the inevitable order when no remedy appears. It is despondency which marks out much of our social wreckage as irretrievably derelict. Many unhappy beings around us have given up the fight and see no encouragement to attempt better things. They justify themselves in wrong-doing and invert all ethical classifications, because it seems no longer possible, at least for such as they are, to reap the rewards of virtue. The new voice of hope which speaks in the heart, the voice of the Incarnate and sin-atoning Saviour, is a sentence of death upon the evil which has so long been rampant in the flesh. God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh wrote a sentence of final condemnation upon sin in the flesh. Through our union with the Redeeming Head, sin in us is sentenced to its final overthrow.

ii. That the Requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us

That unreserved consent of Christ to the full demands of the law which gave His death its atoning value and efficacy was not an act of merely negative value—valuable, that is to say, in the way of annulling and abolishing the evil which sin had wrought. It was at the same time an act of the highest positive worth, the one transcendent act in which the entire moral force of the new spiritual humanity concentrates and embodies itself, the absolute perfection of righteousuess. And this righteousness of God is revealed to faith; by faith we appropriate it and make it in very truth our own.

1. The one righteous demand of the law, which includes all its other demands, is holy obedience inspired by the love of God ( Luke 10:27). That this “righteous demand of the law might be fulfilled in us,” was the great final cause of God’s sending His Son into the world.

2. Christ came not to insist upon a lower code of morals. It is His will not that we should be less holy, but that we should be holy as God is holy, and perfect as He is perfect. At the outset of His public ministry, He announced that not one jot or tittle of the law should pass away, but that its commandments should be obeyed far more perfectly than ever before, by conformity to its spirit rather than by dull and superficial obedience to its external demands. Only in this way would the righteousness of the law be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

Love makes obedience natural and inevitable. So Jesus taught. “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.” “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” “If a man love me, he will keep my word.” Paul expresses it thus: “Love, therefore, is the fulfilment of the law.” It is only to the loveless heart that the law is irksome. Obedience is a pleasure when we love. The man who loves God does not need to have the decalogue read every day. Because love is in his heart, he simply cannot break the commandments. He will obey them all, not by mere compliance with the negative restrictions, but by loving fidelity to their spiritual intent. The home where love is has no need for domestic legislation. The father’s word is law. The mother’s wish is a command.

iii. Who walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit

This clause defines the character of those in whom the righteous requirement of the law is to be fulfilled; namely, such as “walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” They “walk not after the flesh”—the flesh with its affections and lusts rebels against the law—“but after the spirit.”

1. By the entrance of the Spirit of holiness into a human spirit, the usurper is driven from the central fortress: and though he may linger in the outworks and keep up a guerilla warfare, that is all he can do. We never truly apprehend Christ’s gift to man until we recognize that He not merely “died for our sins,” but lives to impart the principle of holiness in the gift of His Spirit. The dominion of that imparted Spirit is gradual and progressive. The Canaanite may still be in the land, but a growing power, working in and through us, is warring against all in us that still owns allegiance to that alien power, and there can be no end to the victorious struggle until the whole body, soul, and spirit be entirely under the influence of the Spirit that dwells in us, and nothing shall hurt or destroy in what shall then be all God’s holy mountain.

2. We are brought into sympathy with the Law, because we are brought into grateful and loving sympathy with the great Lawgiver. When He could not by His commandments overcome the evil that was in us, He has by the power of His love, revealed in His long-suffering patience and boundless sacrifice, brought us into willing subjection to Himself, the subjection of a grateful love that will withhold nothing from Him, but will gladly give up everything for His sake. It is not the power of authority, but that of a transforming love, that brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The devil rises up within us when it is mere force that speaks to us, but when love speaks in infinite sacrifice we are shamed out of all our indifference, and conquered in all our rebellion. The mind which was also in Christ Jesus takes possession of us, imparting new desires and new motives, so that all resistance is gone, and obedience becomes a joy and duty a privilege. This is true to the extent that we are the recipients of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though rich, yet for our sakes became poor.

As the waxing moon can take

The tidal waters in her wake

And lead them round and round to break

Obedient to her drawings dim;

So may the movements of His mind,

The first Great Father of mankind,

Affect with answering movements blind,

And draw the souls that breathe by Him. 1 [Note: Jean Ingelow.]

Law or Love

Literature

Alford (H.), Sermons on Christian Doctrine, 42.

Burrell (D. J.), The Wondrous Cross, 95.

Campbell (J. M‘Leod), Sermons and Lectures, i. 326, 355.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, iv. 118.

Hutcheson (J. T.), A View of the Atonement, 130.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans, 130.

Mitchell (R. A.), Sin Condemned by the Mission of the Song of Solomon , 1.

Robertson (J.), Sermons and Expositions, 204.

Selby (T. G.), The Strenuous Gospel, 64.

Thomas (J.), The Dynamic of the Cross, 161.

Tipple (S. A.), Sunday Mornings at Norwood, 22.

Biblical World, iii. 299.

Christian World Pulpit, xi. 266 (Beecher); xxxiv. 246 (Emerson); lxii. 52 (Bowran).

Verse 6

The Carnal and the Spiritual

To be carnally minded (R.V. “the mind of the flesh”) is death; but to be spiritually minded (R.V. “the mind of the spirit”) is life and peace.— Romans 8:6.

This is one of St. Paul’s keen contrasts. It is expressed in language that is difficult to translate. The most literal translation possible is actually given in the Revised Version—“The mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace.” (This is the translation also of the American Revised Version, except that “Spirit” is spelt with a capital.) But such a phrase as “the mind of the flesh,” or “the mind of the spirit” is scarcely English. The translation of the Authorized Version (though it is rather a paraphrase than a translation) is perhaps as intelligible as any that can be made—“To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

I

Carnal Mindedness

“To be carnally minded is death.” The literal words are “the mind of the flesh is death.” Let us consider (1) what is meant by “the flesh”; (2) by “the mind of the flesh”; and (3) by “death.”

i. The Flesh

Here, as elsewhere in these chapters of Romans, the flesh is that side of human nature on which it is morally weak, the side on which man’s physical organism leads him into sin.

The word “flesh” occurs twenty-eight times in Romans, and frequently in St. Paul’s other Epistles, especially Galatians: it has various meanings which must be carefully distinguished, if we wish to have a clear understanding of the Apostle’s teaching in many important passages.

1. In its original and proper meaning “flesh” denotes the material of the living body, whether of man or of other animals, as in Leviticus 17:11. In this sense it occurs in Romans 2:28, “circumcision which is outward in the flesh.”

2. In the common Hebrew phrase “all flesh” ( Genesis 6:12-13; Genesis 6:19; Genesis 7:21), all earthly living things are included with man, except where the context limits the meaning to mankind ( Job 12:10; Psalms 65:2; Joel 2:28).

3. “Flesh” is applied by St. Paul to human kindred, as in Romans 9:3, “My brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh”; Romans 11:14, “My flesh.” This usage, like the preceding, is derived from the Old Testament: see Genesis 37:27, “He is our brother and our flesh.” In Romans 9:8, on the other hand, there is an express contrast made between the “children of the flesh,” and the “children of the promise,” equivalent to the contrast in Galatians 4:29 between him “that was born after the flesh” and him “that was born after the Spirit.” In this usage “flesh” represents man’s purely natural, earthly condition, a condition in which he is subject to infirmity, suffering, and death, subject also to the temptations which work through the senses and their appetites, but not originally or essentially sinful. It is in this sense that Christ is said in Romans 1:3 to have been “made of the seed of David as to the flesh,” and in Romans 9:5 to have sprung “as concerning the flesh” from Israel. In both passages “flesh” denotes what was simply and solely natural in His earthly life.

4. Though “the flesh” is not essentially sinful, it is essentially weak, and hence the word is used to describe man in his weakness, physical, intellectual, or moral.

(1) As connoting mere physical weakness “the flesh” is found in several passages of St. Paul’s Epistles ( 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 12:7; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 4:13) but not in Romans. We may remark that such a passage as Galatians 2:20, “The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,” is decisive against the notion that “flesh” is something essentially sinful. Yet mere physical weakness of the flesh may be a hindrance to man’s spirit, as in Matthew 26:41, “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”; and the human spirit thus hampered by the weakness of the flesh is so far unfitted to be the organ of the Spirit of God.

(2) This opposition of “the flesh” to all that is spiritual is more clearly marked when “the flesh” is regarded as the cause of intellectual weakness. This is the case in Romans 6:19, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh,” a passage which should be compared with 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 3:1.

(3) But “the flesh” is regarded by St. Paul as a dwelling-place and seat (not necessarily the only seat) of sin. This judgment is the result of practical experience, not of any speculative analysis of the ideas of “flesh” and “sin.” He found as a fact sin dwelling in his flesh; and he regarded this as a fact of universal experience ( Romans 3:9-20); but we have no reason to suppose that he regarded sin as inseparable from the very essence of “the flesh.” The flesh thus ruled by sin becomes a chief source of opposition, not only to the better impulses of “the mind,” but also to the law of God and to the influence of His Spirit.

ii. The Mind of the Flesh

The word used by St. Paul is not the ordinary word for mind. It is a word that expresses rather the contents of the mind—its thought, purpose, inclination or attitude, as in Romans 8:27, “God knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.”

1. That life is carnal in which our spirit, meant for God, is dragged at the chariot-wheels of our lower life; and that is spiritual which is ruled and mastered by the Spirit. We must not suppose that we shall make our religion spiritual by disparaging external acts or bodily exercises of worship. No; that is spiritual which is ruled by the Spirit. The worship “in spirit and in truth,” for us men who belong to the religion of the Incarnation, must be a worship “in body.” But it will be spiritual if it is full of spiritual intention. Secular business, again, is spiritual if it is ruled by the Divine Spirit according to the law of righteousness. Politics are spiritual, commercial and municipal life are spiritual, art and science are spiritual, and everything that develops our faculties is spiritual, if we will allow the Divine Spirit to rule in all according to the law of righteousness, truth, and beauty. For the whole of our being, with all its sum of faculties, is made by God, and meant for God.

2. We see from the context of the passage before us, how the carnal mind manifests itself.

(1) It minds the things of the flesh. “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh” ( Romans 8:5). To mind them is to be intent upon them, to be engrossed by them. They stand first in the affections; and the “things of Jesus Christ” are nowhere. Thoughts, views, likings, desires, aims, and pursuits are all carnal.

(2) It is enmity against God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God” ( Romans 8:7). It will accept an ideal God, a God of its own invention, a God who will wink at sin, and clear the guilty. But it hates the holy God revealed in the Bible. It has no liking for His people, His day, His word, or His salvation.

(3) It is in open rebellion against God. “It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” ( Romans 8:7). Moral indisposition and moral incapacity are here conjoined. The carnal mind is not only disinclined to render to God any such obedience as He can accept, but is incapable of doing so.

Give us the earth’s whole heart but once to know

But once to pierce the secret of the Spring,—

Give us our fill,—so we at end may go

Into the starless night unmurmuring.

Gold lights that beckon down the dusky way,

Where loud wheels roll, impetuous, through the night:

The lamp-lit leaves, the maddening airs of May,

The heady wine of living, dark and bright.

Give us of these, and we are blest in truth;

The wandering foot, the keen, unflagging zest,

One with the glorious world’s eternal youth,

Of all that is, and is not, first and best.

Ah, vain desire, our straitened years to mar!

Troubled we turn and listen unreleased,

To music of a revel held afar,

Evasive echoes of a distant feast. 1 [Note: Rosamund M. Watson.]

iii. Death

What is death? We may define death in its first aspect as ceasing to be, the cessation of existence; but if in physical death we ask what is the cause of the cessation of existence, we plainly perceive that it is not the cessation of the existence of the body, or even the decomposition of its material substances, but the absence in them of the principle of life. That principle keeps decay and decomposition at bay in the material form in which it resides, and death, or the absence of the principle of life, must take place before decay can commence. The spirit which gives beauty, expression, and activity to the body, and manifests itself through the body, must be separated from the body, and this separation is death. Consequently, on account of the strict analogy between physical and moral things, the word death is used throughout the New Testament as a term for moral separation—as “dead unto the law,” “dead unto sin,” etc.—meaning thereby that persons thus dead are separated from the power and principle of these things. But it is especially in connexion with the death which is the consequence of sin that the expression is used. Thus the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, says, “You hath he quickened,” i.e. given life to, “who were dead in trespasses and sins”; and the meaning of this is clearly defined by a parallel passage, as in Ephesians 2:11-12, “Ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, without Christ, alien” ( i.e. dead to, or separated) “from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God” (or separated from, or dead to, God) “in the world.” Again, speaking of the Gentiles generally, the Apostle describes them as “having the understanding darkened, being alienated” (or separated) “from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” And, again, writing to the Colossians, he says, “And you who were sometime alienated and enemies” ( i.e. separated or dead) “in your mind through wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” Sin thus produces alienation and enmity towards God, or, in other words, a moral separation between the sinner and God, which is spiritual death; and the contrary to this is to be quickened, or given life, i.e. to be reconciled to God.

All the peoples and nations around Paul had borne witness that to follow the flesh was to make life hasten toward the end, and to an end inglorious. The glutton and drunkard and libertine, the man of violence, the man of wicked ambition, the brutalized criminal, all these marched along then even more shamelessly than they do in our age, and had made him realize that the passions of the flesh lead to death. In his time many a Herod was dying before his day; many an Antony and Cleopatra were hurrying through their careers; many a prodigal was spending his substance in riotous living; many thousands of young men were dying violent deaths; and as he viewed this spectacle, the philosophy of the hour came back with force to Paul’s bosom that the passions of the flesh lead to death, the passions of the spirit lead toward life. In the opening chapter of this letter to the Romans, there is a picture of Roman morals, and in that condition of society you will find the cause of that great generalization that the flesh brings ruin, the spirit brings triumph. What were the battles of Alexander and of the Cæsars but a fleshly vanity, gratifying itself in the tumult and blood of carnage, and in the applause which rewarded the conqueror? 1 [Note: D. Swing.]

II

Spiritual Mindedness

“To be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

i. The Spirit

When St. Paul speaks of the mind of the Spirit in a man, he speaks of the entrance of a new factor, the Divine energy, into his inner life. He gives various descriptions of the experience. These are all involved ideally in the first genuine contact of the soul with God in Christ through faith. When the soul recognizes the love of God in Christ as the Saviour, and appropriates that forgiving love by faith, it is brought into touch with God as living, and dealing with it. There is now a new moral centre of the personal life. Yet we must not conceive the Divine Spirit as becoming identified with the subjective, regenerated life of the believer. For the Apostle always regards the Divine energy as continuing to act on the life of the believer as a distinct objective power.

ii. The Mind of the Spirit

What, then, is this mind of the Spirit or spiritual-mindedness?

1. It is not the same thing as being religious. A man may be exceedingly religious, exceedingly orthodox in his creed and punctilious in observing the forms of piety, and still have anything but a spiritual mind. Too sadly true it is that the priests and ecclesiastics and religious teachers of the world are not always the prophets of God. Men may deal in holy things and miss the holy vision. They may say, “Lord, Lord,” and know nothing of the mind of Christ. It was so in Israel; it has been so again and again in the Christian Church. Ages of ecclesiastical revival and of great religious activity are not necessarily ages of deep spiritual insight. God’s prophets and seers are quite as apt to come clad in goat’s hair and leathern girdles as in the more conventional millinery. How easy it is, in the Christian life as everywhere else, to mistake the form for the substance, the chaff for the wheat.

2. And, whatever it is, it is not the same thing as moral goodness—not quite the same. One may be very good, very kind, honourable, benevolent, and tender-hearted without being spiritual in one’s mind. Spirituality is moral excellence with something added. That additional something is what heat is to light. Has spirituality anything to do with one’s occupation in life? Is it a thing of temperament, or circumstances, or will? Is it something that men achieve, as they would win a fortune or acquire an education? Or is it a Divine gift, a supernatural bestowment, which only those have, or can have, who have had certain religious experiences?

3. The first feeling about spirituality, before it can come to any good and healthy growth, must be that it penetrates everywhere. There are not certain objects only for the spiritual mind to exercise itself upon, but every subject has its spiritual side; and each man carries for himself the responsibility as to whether he will deal spiritually or unspiritually with everything which the Lord puts in his way. For the truth is for ever true, and yet for ever forgotten, that spirituality is a quality of the human soul, and not of the things that the soul deals with. And so there is nothing high or low which the soul may not deal with spiritually or unspiritually, as it will.

(1) To begin with our worship. Worship is sanctified and intensified by this inward vision of God. “God is the king of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding” ( Psalms 47:7). “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” ( 1 Corinthians 14:15). Neither the vain conceits of human philosophy, nor the outward show of ceremony, must come between our souls and God; or hinder the knitting together and concentration of all our hearts’ affections and powers upon the exaltation of His holy Name.

(2) In the use and application of the Scriptures we do not adapt them to our theories, or wrest words from their contexts to prove our point—mistaking for God’s guidance the tenacious grasp of our own will upon some isolated phrase out of God’s Word, as if it held the whole truth unbalanced by the teaching of other passages. But we yield sensitively to the Spirit’s leading as He orders our steps in the Word, reproving or correcting us, instructing us in righteousness or in doctrine, as He may see fit; bringing us through the Scriptures into living contact with God Himself, and forming in us the mind of Christ. Nevermore can we rest satisfied with the mere “form of knowledge and of the truth,” even though our familiarity with the “letter” of Scripture may have grown to that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and we may have become the teachers of others. From henceforth our hearts cry out for the living God in His Word, to hear His voice, to seek His face, to understand the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear Him.

(3) We learn to find God in everything. We perceive His power and purpose in the very things which before appalled or perplexed us; we trace His wisdom and His hand at work in nature, in providence, and in grace; being ever drawn closer to His heart in love, and more deeply convinced of the reasonableness and simplicity of faith. Visible and material things do not absorb or terrify us as before; or blind our minds to the light. The consciousness of God, and of the unseen forces at work for our provision and protection, are more real to our spiritual sense than are the things which are seen and passing, to our natural sight.

(4) A new inspiration enters into our prayer life, if this illumination of heart is ours through the Spirit and the Word. Our ignorance of how and what we should pray for as we ought is exchanged for the pleading of the Holy Ghost in and through us according to the will of God, “the mind of the Spirit” which is “the mind of Christ,” stirring within us such prayer as God has pledged Himself to answer.

(5) Surely, also, as we learn to know and understand our God more, we shall not rest satisfied with knowledge only. It must become experimental, fruitful; translated into a living factor and force in character and life. Every fresh view of Christ will become a new motive power within us for practical daily progress. Any opening of our understanding to apprehend the exceeding greatness of the Spirit’s power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, will mean a quickened faith to believe in the mighty power of the same Spirit of holiness to work in us and to energize us to more abundant life and hallowed Service. Yet in that service how careful shall we be to run only when and where we are “sent” by our Lord; and to wait on God for clear instructions that we may understand His pattern for the work, as well as His appointed time and method and means for its execution, by the writing of His Spirit upon us.

You say there is another kind of intelligence that men lawfully respect, which is called shrewdness, or practical acquaintance with affairs. But is not that, too, provided for in the New Testament? Do you suppose it was irrespective of their practical experience among men, that Christ chose His first disciples, the foremost representatives of His truth, from among tax-gatherers, fishermen, tent-makers, and physicians? Or will you look through literature or biography, or the marts of commerce, or the boards of the exchange, for a shrewder insight into all the ways and windings of human nature than lurked in the sharp eye and wakeful perception of that leading Apostle, who turned the world upside down with his calm hand, carried his points with the dignitaries of provinces, foiled Felix and Agrippa, foresaw and forearmed himself against all that men could do to him, and in his Epistles tears open even the most cunning wrappages of self-deception with his holy satire,—conquering Greek sophists and Roman disciplinarians with weapons out of their own quiver?

You instance courage; and is there not enough of that in that pioneering rank of the “noble army of martyrs,” whom there was no dungeon dark enough to terrify from Jerusalem to Rome, and who would not blench, or even revile or murmur, under all the scourges of Jewry, the whips of dainty Philippi, or the lion’s teeth in the Roman amphitheatre?

Generosity, you say, is manly; but who will so disown his own reason as to confess he finds no generosity in that faith whose primal lesson is self-sacrifice, whose chosen badge and emblem is a cross, and which was taught and sealed by Him who gave His very life for the life of His followers?

You mention hospitality; and is not hospitality enjoined, with repetition and emphasis, by both Paul and Peter, as the attribute of saints, the grace of bishops, and the duty of all believers?

Of patriotism; and who was He that cried, weeping, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! if thou hadst known how often I would have gathered thy children”?

Of the taste and love for the beautiful; but whose finger was that which pointed most admiringly, as He discoursed, to the summer glories, the waving wheat and nodding lilies, the trees and lakes and gorgeous skies of Palestine?—whose eye, that rested with sweetest satisfaction on the affluent and varied scenery?—whose word, that blended the mystic openings of the sunrise with the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and so taught us how the relish of all that is sublime or lovely should rise at last and culminate in the worship of the Father, even as every manly and heroic quality is perfected only in the soul that is united to the ?Song of Solomon 1 [Note: F. D. Huntington.]

In one of the bright books of the day, I find a courageous and impulsive young English fox-hunter saying to a clerical Oxford cousin: “I feel that the exercise of freedom, activity, foresight, daring, independent self-determination, even in a few minutes’ burst across country, strengthens me in mind as well as in body. It sweeps away the web of self-consciousness. As for bad company, when those that have renounced the world give up speculating in the stocks, you may quote pious people’s opinions. We fox-hunters see that the ‘religious world’ is much like the ‘great world,’ and the ‘sporting world,’ and the ‘literary world’; and that, because this happens to be a money-making country, and money-making is an effeminate pursuit, therefore all sedentary sins, like covetousness, slander, bigotry, and self-conceit, are to be plastered over, while the more masculine vices are hunted down by your cold-blooded religionists. Be sure that, as long as you make piety a synonym for this weak morality, you will never convert me or any other good sportsman.” 1 [Note: F. D. Huntington.]

4. One of the strangest things about this character of spiritual-mindedness is the way in which so many people think of it negatively instead of positively. To them, to be a spiritual man simply means to be incapable of the occupations and pleasures which make up most of their own life. There are many of the boldest struggles of ambition and the most applauded victories of popularity of which a man becomes incapable when he takes to himself the new life of spiritual-mindedness; as the artist, who learns to do sweet and subtle things with his fingers, finds those fingers incapable of wielding sledge-hammers, or lifting blocks of granite. And it is often hard, because of the worship we have for mere capacity independently of the value of the task which it can do, for one to own that his struggle after spirituality makes him incapable of many things which the world thinks it most fine and glorious to do. But think of the Divine incapacity of Christ! We dwell with wonder upon all that He could do, but it seems scarcely less wonderful to think of all that He could not do. He could not turn aside for ease and comfort; He could not covet the world the devil showed him; He could not be tempted into bigotry or tortured into rage. When we succeed in making Him our Standard, we shall know that there are inabilities as glorious and honourable as any ability can be. It is better always to be incapable of cheating and lying than to be capable of chivalrously laying down one’s life in some great stress of duty. But there is no less a positive power of spirituality; and that is most clearly seen in the way in which it brings out the best colours of the best experiences and thoughts of men; and the growth of a man from unspiritual to spiritual existence is largely witnessed by the way in which his virtues graduate from the partial to the perfect life.

You have struggled for personal purity against all the temptations of the flesh; you have fortified the castle of your will with every worldly bulwark—respectability, shame, ambition, health; you have struggled and you have conquered. But has not something better often hovered before you as a possibility, when, in a new spiritual-mindedness, purity should not be the poor, half-vital, fluttering thing that you have brought out of your conflict, but strong and luxuriant, full of life and peace? As that picture has come out before you, you have dreamed of heaven, where purity shall not be a struggle of the will, but a delight and passion of the soul. Ah, yes, it must come in heaven. It cannot come till heaven come. Only remember that spiritual-mindedness is heaven, come when it will; and if it come here and now, then here and now purity may catch this holier light, and be the perfect thing that it will be in the heaven that is to come. 1 [Note: Phillips Brooks.]

For what is freedom but the unfettered use

Of all the powers that God for use has given?

But chiefly this,—Him first, Him last, to view

Through meaner powers and secondary things

Effulgent, as through clouds that veil His blaze.

iii. Life

“Life’ and “peace” are two words which certainly express the best desires of the best men. To be alive, to have all one’s powers in full activity; and to be at peace, to be free from distress and tumult and uncertainty—give a man both of these, and what is there left for him to desire? St. Paul tells us that the door to this perfect existence is spiritual-mindedness.

1. Israel had a full share of the natural and spontaneous life of antiquity. It lasted long, and it revived once and again after times of decline. But the life of Israel was lived in the presence of the Lord God; it was always subordinate to obedience and faith towards One above. He was always known as walking among the trees of man’s garden, a joy and glory to the worshipper, a terror to the transgressor. The sense of life which Israel enjoyed was, however, best expressed in the choice of the name “life” as a designation of that higher communion with God which grew forth in due time as the fruit of obedience and faith. The psalmist or wise man or prophet, whose heart had sought the face of the Lord, was conscious of a second or Divine life of which the first or natural life was at once the image and the foundation; a life not imprisoned in some secret recess of his soul, but filling his whole self, and overflowing upon the earth around him. It did not estrange him from the natural life which he shared with other men or with lower creatures, and which he was taught to regard as proceeding from God’s own breath or spirit. But it withheld him from seeking satisfaction within the lower life alone: and it made itself known not as a Divinely ordained substitute for life, for the sake of which life must be forgone; but as itself a life indeed, the crown of all life.

Among the most intensely spiritual lives in England in our time I should certainly put Ruskin and Tennyson and Browning. What did these men live for? They lived to spiritualize the conception of life, to break down the power of vulgar materialist ambitions. What is the keynote of Ruskin’s social reform? Just this: that man is a spirit, not a mere body, nor a machine, but a spirit—a being with Divine life in him, and destined for high ends. By the needs of man’s spiritual nature Ruskin would arrange his daily work and his wages; his political economy was a protest against the materialization of that science, and a plea for making it the science of man instead of a science of mere external wealth. You might almost sum up Ruskin’s teaching in the words of Jesus: “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” 1 [Note: T. R. Williams.]

2. What is St. Paul’s conception of Life?

(1) In many passages he uses “life” in the more or less colloquial sense of existence in the world: e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ.”

(2) At the other extremity, life has for him the definite sense of a future reward or boon which God will bestow. This may be designated as its “eschatological” usage. In this sense, life is generally qualified by the adjective eternal. The phrase invariably denotes life looked at in prospect, in its complete realization. Thus in Romans 2:7, life is the recompense of perseverance in righteous conduct and of the quest for glory and immortality; in Romans 5:21, it is the goal and aim of the reign of grace through Jesus Christ; in Romans 6:22, it expresses the end or climax of the life of freedom from sin and bondage to God, and hence it is further defined as the gift of God (in contrast with the wages of sin) in Christ Jesus.

(3) But St. Paul always regards life as a present possession of the believer. As such, it is the direct result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and may even be termed the actual presence of the Spirit in the human personality. Most typical instances are: Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death”; Romans 8:6, “The mind of the spirit is life and peace” (the present text); and Romans 8:10, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

3. The new life is a renewal of the old from its very foundations. It is a renewal not of one part, but of the whole. It embraces the physical as well as the ethical or religious. For St. Paul, the sum of the believer’s experiences is a unity. Life included the totality of his energies. It cannot be divided up into provinces, of which one may be contrasted with another. Its only contrast lies in Death. Death for the Apostle means the ruin of the whole personality. Life means its triumphant continuance in the power of the Spirit beyond the barriers of earth and time, in conformity with the nature of the glorified Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

Spirit! whose various energies

By dew and flame denoted are,

By rain from the world-covering skies,

By rushing and by whispering air;

Be Thou to us, O gentlest one,

The brimful river of sweet peace,

Sunshine of the celestial sun

Restoring air of sacred ease.

Life of our life, since life of Him

By whom we live eternally,

Our heart is faint, our eye is dim,

Till Thou our spirit purify.

The purest airs are strongest too,

Strong to enliven and to heal:

O Spirit purer than the dew,

Thine holiness in strength reveal.

Felt art Thou, and the heavy heart

Grows cheerful and makes bright the eyes;

Up from the dust the enfeebled start,

Armed and re-nerved for victories:

Felt art Thou, and relieving tears

Fall, nourishing our young resolves:

Felt art Thou, and our icy fears

The sunny smile of love dissolves.

O Spirit, when Thy mighty wind

The entombing rocks of sin hath rent,

Lead shuddering forth the awakened mind

In still voice whispering Thine intent.

As to the sacred light of day

The stranger soul shall trembling come,

Say, “These thy friends,” and “This thy way,”

And “Yonder thy celestial home.” 1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 1.]

iv. Peace

St. Paul never begins an epistle without a salutation containing the word “peace.” And in the body of his teaching “peace” plays a conspicuous part. God is a “God of peace.” The Christian has “ peace with God.” “To be spiritually minded is life and peace.” It is obvious that he lays much stress on the possession of this golden treasure of in ward peace. With him it implies the removal of the guilt that separated us from God, the assurance of pardon, and the conformity of our will to His.

The peace which the Apostle has in mind consists of two elements: (1) the State of reconciliation with God; and (2) the sense of that reconciliation, which diffuses a feeling of harmony and tranquillity over the whole man.

1. Reconciliation. When the merit of Christ’s atoning sacrifice becomes ours, peace, sweet, satisfying, eternal peace, floods the soul. This is Christ’s promise. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” The world’s peace is the peace of compromise; Christ’s is the peace of reconciliation. It is the peace of reconciliation that is musical. It is a song that can be sung only in sight of Calvary’s bloodstained cross, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Without an altar of atonement there can be no song of reconciliation.

I sought for Peace, but could not find;

I sought it in the city,

But they were of another mind,—

The more’s the pity.

I sought for Peace of country swain,

But yet I could not find;

So I, returning home again,

Left Peace behind.

Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? said I;—

Methought a voice was given,

“Peace dwelt not here, long since did fly

To God in heaven.”

Thought I, this echo is but vain,

To folly ’tis of kin;

Anon, I heard it tell me plain,

’Twas killed by sin.

Then I believed the former voice,

And rested well content;

Lay down and slept, rose, did rejoice,

And then to Heaven went.

There I enquired for Peace, and found it true:—

An heavenly plant it was, and sweetly grew.

2. Tranquillity. There are certain elements in this peace of mind of which we can speak with some confidence.

(1) First we may be sure that it is the peace that comes of love, of love to God and man, free and abounding. What has peace to do with love, do you ask? Surely a great deal to do with it. For why are men so often not at rest within? Why do so many things trouble them and vex them? Why is there so much distraction of mind, so much bitterness of heart? Most certainly it is, in no small measure, because their love is so limited. There is no full stream that flows out from them towards all around them. That explains their unrest. It is the man who loves without stint that has learned the secret of the deepest peace.

(2) Again, it is the peace of perfect trust. Our want of peace is very often just want of confidence. We are not at ease in our mind, because we are not sure of those on whom some interests that are dear to us depend. We are not sure of ourselves. Great responsibilities are entrusted to our wisdom and skill; but we are not sure whether we are wise enough, or clever enough, to carry the business committed to us to a successful issue. Or we are not sure of some other persons who have under their control things that are of great value in our eyes. We are not sure of the captain of the ship in which we are sailing, or of the lawyer who is conducting our case, or of the doctor under whose charge we have placed ourselves. Or we are not sure of God, and of His wise and righteous government of the world. And the consequence is that we are nervous and restless. Everything would be different if we were more trustful. We may be dwelling in the midst of noise, and strife, and confusion, and yet we will not be disturbed or anxious if we believe in those who are at the helm any more than we would be anxious, amid all the racket and disorder incident to the building of a great house, if we had reason to trust the architect and contractor. To have peace, we must have faith.

(3) Once more, this peace is the peace of those who are fully occupied. There are other powers belonging to us besides the powers by which we love and trust; and our unrest in this world is due, in part, to the fact that these powers are not employed or only imperfectly employed. It is not our labours but our limitations which keep us in a state of disquietude. There is never such a sensation of perfect bodily contentment as when all the powers of the body are in full play, and yet not painfully fatigued or overstrained. And there is never such spiritual rest as when all the powers of the spirit have been brought fully into operation, and a man is, so to speak, carried wholly out of himself, and every part of him is engaged in the work for which it is fitted, and for which it was created. That is the rest of Heaven. There, they serve Him night and day. There, room is found, and opportunity, for every man, and not only for every man, but for every gift and power with which every man has been endowed.

The same Apostle who describes the peace of God as passing all understanding is he who laboured more abundantly than all. Let St. Paul be our type. Peace—the peace which Christ has left us—is not only consistent with the manifold occupations, energies, interests, cares of life; but through and in these we must seek it. 1 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot.]

We ask for Peace, O Lord!

Thy children ask Thy Peace;

Not what the world calls rest,

That toil and care should cease,

That through bright sunny hours

Calm Life should fleet away,

And tranquil night should fade

In smiling day;—

It is not for such Peace that we would pray.

We ask for Peace, O Lord!

Yet not to stand secure,

Girt round with iron Pride,

Contented to endure:

Crushing the gentle strings

That human hearts should know,

Untouched by others’ joy

Or others’ woe;—

Thou, O dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.

We ask Thy Peace, O Lord!

Through storm, and fear, and strife,

To light and guide us on,

Through a long, struggling life:

While no success or gain

Shall cheer the desperate fight,

Or nerve, what the world calls

Our wasted might;—

Yet pressing through the darkness to the light.

It is Thine own, O Lord,

Who toil while others sleep;

Who sow with loving care

What other hands shall reap.

They lean on Thee entranced,

In calm and perfect rest:

Give us that Peace, O Lord,

Divine and blest,

Thou keepest for those hearts who love Thee best. 1 [Note: Adelaide A. Procter.]

The Carnal and the Spiritual

Literature

Bright (W.), The Law of Faith, 234.

Brooks (P.), Christ the Life and Light, 41.

Campbell (A.), Spiritual Understanding, 83.

Garnier (J.), Sin and Redemption, 131.

Hopkins (E. H.), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 55.

Hort (F. J. A.), The Way, the Truth, the Life, 97.

Huntington (F. D.), Sermons for the People, 362.

Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 81.

Kennedy (H. A. A.), St. Paul’s Conceptions of the Last Things. 154.

Pope (R. Martin), The Poetry of the Upward Way, 79.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, viii. 89.

Pulsford (J.), Our Deathless Hope, 62.

Swing (D.), Sermons, 269.

Thomas (H. Arnold), The Way of Life, 100.

Williams (T. Rhondda), God’s Open Doors, 116.

Christian Age, xliii. 98 (Baldwin).

Homiletic Review, lvi. 135 (Cruttwell).

Treasury (New York), xix. 477 (Hallock).

Verse 9

The Owner’s Mark

If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.— Romans 8:9.

This is one of the most searching passages that can be found in the Bible. It takes hold of the question of our salvation in a very substantial and thorough manner. It removes utterly, almost infinitely, from this problem of our destiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarely to the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we are lifted to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered and naked before the eye of God.

I never read this Scripture in the presence of a Christian congregation without feeling that I have in some way chopped down through every heart with a great broad axe. There is no whitewashing in this passage: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Not, “He will do tolerably well, but not quite so well as he might do”; not that he will get on after a fashion, and have quite a respectable entrance into the city of the great King, though he may not push quite so far towards the front as he might have done if he had had the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Not that at all; but, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, there is not the remotest shadow of a chance for him: “he is none of his.” 1 [Note: C. H. Fowler.]

I

What is the Spirit of Christ?

1. In the earlier part of this verse it is called “the Spirit of God”—“ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” It is therefore the Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of God” because God is the original source, “the Spirit of Christ” because Christ is the immediate Channel and occasion of His gift to men.

When our Lord entered upon His Ministry, He acted as though He were a mere man, needing grace, and received the consecration of the Holy Spirit for our sakes. He became the Christ, or Anointed, that the Spirit might be seen to come from God, and to pass from Him to us. And, therefore, the heavenly Gift is not simply called the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of Christ, that we might clearly understand that He comes to us from and instead of Christ. 1 [Note: J. H. Newman.]

2. This Holy Spirit dwells in us as in a temple. He pervades us as light pervades a building, or as a sweet perfume the folds of some honourable robe; so that, in Scripture language, we are said to be in Him, and He in us. It is plain that such an inhabitation brings the Christian into a State altogether new and marvellous, far above the possession of mere gifts; exalts him inconceivably in the scale of being and gives him a place and an office which he had not before. In St. Peter’s forcible language, he becomes “partaker of the Divine Nature,” and has “power” or authority, as St. John says, “to become the son of God.” Or, to use the words of St. Paul, “he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.” His rank is new; his parentage and Service are new. He is “of God,” and “is not his own,” “a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”

3. Given without measure to Jesus, the Spirit of God, called also the Spirit of Christ, is given in measure to those that belong to Jesus. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Thus the Holy Spirit, that Life from God which came into the world in Jesus, and so changed and uplifted and refreshed the spirit of man, flows on into other men. Therefore He is called the Spirit of Life. Christians are said to have received this life. It is described as “Life indeed.” To lack the Spirit is to be separated from the Life of God.

I think that this thought, great as it is, is simple enough for each of us—that the Holy Spirit is the name of that holy Life which passes from God into us. That this should be so is more than we could have asked or thought, but it is not more or other than what fits with splendid fitness what in our own spirit we know and feel (though we hardly dare own it) that we are meant for some real union and communion with God. 2 [Note: Bishop E. S. Talbot.]

II

The Possession of the Spirit of Christ

1. The possession of the Spirit of Christ is the test of belonging to Christ. And how is it known that a man possesses the Spirit of Christ? A man possesses the Spirit of Christ if he manifests the mind or character of Christ. For just as the anointing of the Spirit enabled Christ to live His life of perfect obedience and true holiness, so in the measure in which the Spirit of Christ dwells in a man will he bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, which are the component parts of the Christian character. Here, then, is the test of Christianity. If a man have not the spirit, the tone, the temper, the character of Christ, he is none of His. Not the words that I recite as a creed, not the service that I render as a church member—these things do not prove my relation to Christ—but what I am in temper, in tone, in spirit, in character. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

I pray you, attempt to correct the circumference of your life from the centre; do not attempt to correct the centre from the circumference—that is, do not attempt to correct your spirit by altering your habits. Correct your habits by an alteration of the spirit. And how is the spirit to be altered? Only by the true, whole-hearted, unquestioning abandonment of your whole being to the Spirit of God will it be possible for you to have the Spirit of Christ. 1 [Note: G. C. Morgan.]

2. Character is the deepest fact of human life. There can be no final and satisfactory analysis of it; there can be no final and satisfactory statement of what character is. It is the essential truth concerning a man. The word means originally and simply an engraving, something written upon, carved into; and the man’s character is the truth about the man written upon his personality, to be read constantly and clearly by God, to be deciphered slowly and blunderingly by his fellow-men; but it is the fact, the essential fact, concerning a man.

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said: “Gentlemen, I cannot hear what you say for listening to what you are.” That is very often the case. Speech is constantly discounted by conduct, and profession is cancelled by the contradictory character that lies behind it.

III

Some Characteristics of the Spirit of Christ

If we are to be tested by the possession of the Spirit of Christ, we must have some clear conception as to what that Spirit is. Can we analyze it so far as to gather some conception as to its component parts?

It may be said that the Spirit of Christ is summed up in the one word Love. But we are bound to break the thought of love up, and notice how in Christ love expresses itself. What are the facts that, woven into perfect warp and woof, make up the fine and delicate texture of His Spirit?

Can there be a doubt as to the Spirit of Christ set forth in His teaching? “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” All religion comes to that: those are its high and final words. A filial soul in communion with the Father, a fraternal soul in communion with humanity. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” That is, surely without controversy, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” And clear as His teaching is, that Spirit of Christ is yet more evident in His life. 1 [Note: B. J. Snell.]

1. Take Gentleness first. The chief element of gentleness is self-restraint, the power to check those natural tendencies to self-assertion in its various forms of pride or bluster or fretfulness, not to speak of the more obvious faults of malice and bitterness. And then there is fairness of judgment, a kindly allowance for faults in others which a very little thought would show to be serious enough in ourselves, a consideration for the feelings of others. In these days of what some people would consider over-refinement, there is special need for this. Delicacy of sentiment makes men peculiarly liable to sensitiveness. The common courtesies of society are not always a sufficient remedy against this, because they may be merely the conventional veneer which hides very real unkindness. Nothing can be more unkind than rudeness expressed in honeyed words of transparent insincerity. Christian gentleness means gentleness of feeling, real kindness of heart. It will generally show itself in gentleness of manner, but gentleness of manner is by no means a substitute for it.

A few months ago I read one of those exquisite little articles by Dr. George Matheson. In this particular one he spoke of the gentleness of God, and he said a thing about gentleness that I did not know before. He said this about gentleness: Gentleness is power in reserve, in check.” Said Dr. Matheson, “We speak of the gentleness of the brook, and it is a false figure. The brook has no gentleness; the brook is beautiful but not gentle; noisy, not gentle. It laughs over the stones and runs through its banks of moss and fern. While men may come and men may go the brook runs on for ever. But it is making all the noise it can, and it is exerting all the force it can. You cannot get more force out of it than it is exerting as it runs. There is no gentleness in the brook. You may talk, if you will, of the gentleness of the mighty river, the river that, if it once but breaks and bursts its banks, would devastate the whole countryside, yet it quietly and gently carries its burden on its bosom to the sea, and you hardly know it is strong. That is gentleness.” Oh, the gentleness of Jesus! What said He? Know ye not that I could ask of My Father, and He could straightway give Me ten legions of angels to fight My battles? All power behind Him, but He left it there and took His way, a perpetual outshining of gentleness; power in check, held back. 1 [Note: G. C. Morgan.]

A gentleman’s first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies—one may say, simply “fineness of nature.” This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs; but the white skin of Homer’s Atrides would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal; but if you think about him carefully you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature; not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honour. Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high-breeding in men generally will be their kindness and mercifulness. 1 [Note: Ruskin, Modern Painters, pt. ix. ch. 7.]

The only guarantee of gentleness is to observe the golden rule of the Gospel. “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye unto them.” Put yourself into their position, and see how you would like to be treated. But then there is a real difficulty sometimes in putting this into practice. What are we to do, you will say, when people have really injured us, and we feel obliged to let them know, not that we exactly resent it, for we really wish to be kind, but that we have been pained? I should say, in nine cases out of ten, better not to let them know it to all. A gentle example has far greater force that the kindest rebuke. In the rare cases in which it is absolutely necessary to explain your feelings, speak as plainly and directly as you can, remembering that a parade even of gentleness may be extremely provoking. You may be assuming thereby position of moral superiority which has the appearance, perhaps the reality, of affectation. The relations of Christians to each other require an infinity of tact, and may I not add an infinity of common sense? One thing we may be sure of, that the person who is really kind and really courteous is seldom taken advantage of except by the ignorant and foolish, and these he can generally afford, I won’t say to despise, but at any rate to bear with. 2 [Note: F. H. Woods.]

A German with a trained musical ear came a stranger into an American city. He heard the voice of song, and following the sound, found himself where they were singing psalmody in a nasal and discordant way. After he had entered, he wished he were outside, and he did not know whether he ought to put his, hands over his ears and so show his disgust, or rush out of the hall; but being too well bred to do either, he determined to endure it as best he could. And while he was sitting there, he discerned a woman’s voice, clear and sweet, singing in exact tune. She was not trying to drown all the rest; nor, on the other hand, was she at all disturbed or her melody at all marred by the discords around her; she just kept singing that sweet, pure note of concord, until at last it became infectious, and the others began to fall in with it; and it was not long before the whole company was singing in perfect harmony, influenced by the example of that one voice.

2. Strength. Next to the spirit of gentleness, comes the spirit of power. To some these would seem to be antagonists. The one appears to them as the natural and proper character of woman, the other of man. But surely it is not so. If there is any truth in such a view it is that gentleness is the quality which men need most to learn; power, force of moral character, what women too often lack. But certainly the two are not opposed to each other. Christian gentleness does not mean weakness of character, nor is strength of character at all the same thing as rudeness, nor yet as obstinacy. Rather is it the very opposite; at any rate, gentleness is essential to all true strength. Composure of mind, a quiet determination to do what is right, a readiness to overlook personal wrong, above all, an infinite store of patience, these are what give a man or woman an influence in the world; and the nobler the work is the truer all this becomes. For there is an attractiveness about sweetness of temper which draws us to those who have it. And the attractiveness is all the greater when we realize that that sweetness is the fruit of an earnest desire to live the Christian life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

O, east is east and west is west and never twain shall meet

Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat;

But there is neither east nor west, border, nor breed, nor birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! 1 [Note: Kipling.]

It takes the greatest strength to speak quietly. It takes rarely disciplined strength to bring the softest music out of organ or piano. It is quite likely that, speaking offhand, one would say that the eagle is the most powerful of all flying birds. And yet a little thought and reading bring to the mind the fact that, though actually so powerful, its relative strength is really inferior to that of the humming-bird. This smallest of birds can perform a feat of strength quite impossible to the powerful eagle. It holds itself steadily poised in mid-air as it quietly sips its honey-food from the hanging flower. Its very calmness and steadiness and delicacy of action reveal the superbness of its strength. The strength that reveals itself most in gentleness and tenderness and keenly alert patience, in subdued tone, and soft touch, and quiet step, is the real, strong strength that wins the hardest fight. 1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Home Ideals, 102.]

3. Sympathy. Sympathy is the power of love that enables you sometimes to make a pilgrimage outside the small circle of your own personality. If the majority of people were asked for a definition of sympathy, they would answer, “Sorrow for those who are in sorrow.” That is a splendid half-definition. Sympathy is not only the power that makes it possible for you to weep with me when I weep, it is the power that makes it possible for you to laugh with me when I laugh. That is apostolic, that is Christian—“Weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice.” It is not by any means certain that the latter half is not the more difficult.

Sympathy is a thing to be encouraged, apart from human considerations, because it supplies us with the materials for wisdom. It is probably more instructive to entertain a sneaking kindness for any unpopular person … than to give way to perfect raptures of moral indignation against his abstract vices. 2 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Some Portraits of Raeburn.]

I will not tell you of the things I know,

I cannot bar the path that you must go;

God’s bitter lesson must be learnt by all,

But living, I will listen to your call,

And stretch to you a hand that you may know. 3 [Note: Philip Bourke Marston, Song-Tide, 41.]

Sister Dora, after her long day’s work in her Walsall hospital for waifs and strays, for poor souls beaten down in the battle of life, often went to rest almost too tired to sleep. But over her head was a bell, to be sounded, in spite of all her weariness, when any sufferer needed her. And the bell bore this inscription, “The Master is come and calleth for thee.” 4 [Note: B. J. Snell.]

I was very much struck not long ago to hear a very clever and a very energetic and a well-known woman reply, when asked what she thought of the question about her sisters and the Empire Music Hall, “Oh, I am too busy over political questions to think about that; it does not touch me.” 5 [Note: C. M. Holden, The Warfare of Girlhood, 48.]

One day in Charleston Jail a minister came to call on John Brown and defended slavery as a Christian institution. “My dear sir,” said the old man, “you know nothing about Christianity. You will have to learn its a b c; I find you quite ignorant of what the word Christianity means.” And when the man looked at him very much disconcerted, John Brown softened a little: “I respect you as a gentleman, of course, but it is as a heathen gentleman.” And it was exactly that intensity of feeling in the old man that made him willing for the sake of his cause to lay down his life, and the heat of his passion set this land on fire. 1 [Note: R. E. Speer, The Master of the Heart, 198.]

I lay my hand on your aching brow

Softly, so! And the pain grows still.

The moisture clings to my soothing palm,

And you sleep because I will.

You forget I am here? ’Tis the darkness hides.

I am always here, and your needs I know.

I tide you over the long, long night

To the shores of the morning glow.

So God’s hand touches the aching soul,

Softly, so! And the pain grows still;

All grief and woe from the soul He draws,

And we rest because He wills.

We forget,—and yet He is always here!

He knows our needs and He heeds our sighs;

No night so long but He soothes and stills

Till the dawn-light rims the skies.

4. Humility. What a matchless view of Christ’s humility we have in John 13.—He rose from supper, laid aside His garments and took a towel, girded Himself, poured water into a basin, and began to wash His disciples’ feet. Christ was on earth as one that served. Humility followed Him from His birth in the manger to His borrowed grave. We have just as much of Christianity as we have of humility.

I held the golden vessel of my soul

And prayed that God would fill it from on high.

Day after day the importuning cry

Grew stronger—grew, a heaven-accusing dole

Because no sacred waters laved my bowl.

“So full the fountain, Lord, wouldst Thou deny

The little needed for a soul’s supply?

I ask but this small portion of Thy whole.”

Then from the vast invisible Somewhere,

A voice, as one love-authorised by Him,

Spake, and the tumult of my heart was stilled.

“Who wants the waters must the bowl prepare;

Pour out the self that chokes it to the brim,

But emptied vessels from the source are filled.” 1 [Note: E. Wheeler Wilcox.]

In a very entertaining work, over which we have roared in childhood, it is stated that a point has no parts and no magnitude. Humility is the luxurious art of reducing ourselves to a point, not to a small thing or a large one, but to a thing with no size at all, so that to it all the cosmic things are what they really are—of immeasurable stature. 2 [Note: G. K. Chesterton, The Defendant.]

The lesson of Christ’s humility is that we should be willing to take the humblest place to serve others. We need the John the Baptist spirit, not envious of the success of another, saying with our eye on the Lord, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” A Christian minister said, “I was never of any use until I found out that God did not make me for a great man.” High trees are commonly fruitless, and what grows on them hangs high above our reach. So we have more good of the humble servant of God who is willing to communicate what he has. The proud servant looks so high that even if he bore fruit it could not be reached by God’s poor people.

Give me the lowest place; not that I dare

Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died

That I might live and share

Thy glory by Thy side.

Give me the lowest place: or if for me

That lowest place too high, make one more low

Where I may sit and see

My God and love Thee Song of Solomon 3 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

5. Zeal. Christ’s was a spirit of holy zeal. “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” What a power Christians would be in the world if each one could honestly say with Brainerd, “Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the hands of my God! “We need at this time what the Chinese convert told the missionary his people wanted, “Men with hot hearts to tell us of the love of Christ.”

So far as my recollection of the 1875 Session goes, I can hardly tell what was its main feature. But perhaps the most memorable incident was the Plimsoll one. Mr. Plimsoll had devoted himself to an attack on rotten ships, which he alleged were numerous, and were sent out by money-seeking owners, totally regardless of the lives of the sailors. Some of these alleged malefactors he unmistakeably pointed to, and this led to angry denials on their part. He brought in a Bill dealing with this evil, but the Government pooh-poohed it, and gave him no real assistance. So, one afternoon when the matter was under discussion, he sprang from his seat on to the floor of the House, gesticulating, shaking his fist at the Treasury Bench, shouting out something about murdering villains, and generally deporting himself like one possessed. This, of course, caused great excitement and confusion, and as he declined to retract the words about villains, he had to retire from the House, while Disraeli proposed that he be reprimanded. On this, Fawcett got up, who was always a little pompous in his style of speaking, and, alluding to the scene just enacted and kindly doing what he could for Plimsoll, said that he had “advised him to take a walk.” So the reprimanding business was adjourned for a week, at the end of which time Plimsoll made an apology, which satisfied the House. But mark the result of all this. The “scene” attracted the attention of the country to the shipping scandal which Plimsoll attacked, and the Government thought it prudent at once to bring in a Bill of their own, which they carried before the end of the Session, and took great credit for, Disraeli making so much of it in a speech at the Mansion House that it was written that he had explained then—

How the whole of his life one long effort had been

To provide for the lives of the Merchant Marine. 1 [Note: G. W. E. Russell’s Memoir of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 110.]

In southern China, some years ago, in a city on the borders of the province of Hunan, I talked with a young Chinese Christian. He was a graduate of a college in the far north. He had come a thousand miles away from home to preach Christ among his own countrymen. He was one of the most intelligent Chinese Christians whom I had met. And I was asking him many questions regarding his nation, and especially regarding the life and spirit of the Chinese Christians. And when I was done, he said, “Mr. Speer, you have asked me a great many questions, and some of them have been very difficult. Now, I would like to ask you one question. You know what the Christians in your country are like. Are they all men and women of burning hearts?” It was a quaint Chinese idiom of which he made use, but that was its literal translation. He desired to know if we were all of us of burning hearts. What would you have said to him? What would you have said to him about the great mass of our so-called Christians. Are we of burning hearts? 1 [Note: R. E. Speer.]

’Tis not for man to trifle, life is brief

And sin is here;

Our age is but the falling of a leaf,

A dropping tear.

We have no time to sport away the hours,

All must be earnest in a world like ours.

Not many lives, but only one have we,

One, only one,

How earnest should that one life be,

That narrow span,

Day after day spent in blessed toil,

Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.

Enthusiasm’s the best thing, I repeat;

Only, we can’t command it; fire and life

Are all, dead matter’s nothing, we agree:

And be it a mad dream or God’s very breath,

The fact’s the same,—belief’s fire, once in us,

Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself. 2 [Note: Browning, Bishop Blougram’s Apology.]

The Owner’s Mark

Literature

Holland (H. Scott), Fibres of Faith, 67.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, ii. 217.

Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 472.

Talbot (E. S.), Sermons at Southwark, 61.

Christian World Pulpit, xi. 299 (Swing); lix. 377 (Campbell Morgan); lxxii. 280 (Snell); lxxv. 305 (Scott Holland).

Church of England Pulpit, lx. 298 (Boyd Carpenter).

Churchman’s Pulpit, pt. xix. 97 (Newman), 101 (Woods), 102 (Monro).

Church Pulpit Year Book (1907), 115.

Five-Minute Sermons by Paulists, i. 274.

Sunday School Times, xxxv. 769.

Treasury (New York), x. 815.

World’s Great Sermons, viii. 149 (Fowler).

Verse 11

The Resurrection of the Body

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.— Romans 8:11.

1. “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” In spite of that merciless saying of Strauss, “The last enemy which shall be destroyed is the belief of man in his own immortality,” there is no hope which nestles deeper in the human heart, and none which in our day has had more wistful expression. Among a thousand people there will not be one who does not wish to cast himself with all his heart and mind into this inspiring belief, and declare his conviction, if he can, that death is not the end of all his labours, his sorrows, his endeavours, his victories, his love, but that he, a complete human being—not soul only, but body and soul—will enter into fulness of life when he passes from this world into that which encompasses us on every side.

2. Now this hope is fulfilled in Christianity. For Christianity is a revelation of energy. That is its heart of hearts. It declares the direction in which God has put out force. It professes to bring into play the full powers of the Divine will. Everything else is subordinate to that. Knowledge, for instance, is not given by it for its own sake. Nothing is told us which does not belong to and issue from the action taken on our behalf. We know God through what He does. We know Him, we see Him, in Jesus Christ whom He has sent. In that sending we learn what God is, and the sending determines and limits all our knowledge. When we go beyond what He has shown us in that mission of His Christ, we find ourselves, as much as any others, lost in an abyss. We slip off into the inane; our faculties fail us. Only in the face of Jesus Christ, only by the rigid adherence to the actual manifestation of God’s will in act through Him, only in what is there expressed through the face of Him who lived and died and rose, only so does our knowledge come.

Even such is Time who takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, and all we have,

And pays us but with earth and dust;

Who, in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days.

But from that earth, that grass, that dust,

The Lord shall raise me up, I trust! 1 [Note: Sir Walter Raleigh.]

I

Resurrection

1. The word most commonly used in the New Testament for rising from the dead is the verb egeiro, “to awaken.” The angel awakened Peter, and the disciples awakened Jesus ( Acts 12:7; Mark 4:38). Joseph awakened from his dream, and took Jesus to Egypt, and back to the land of Israel ( Matthew 2:13-14; Matthew 2:20-21). Here and often elsewhere the English versions have the verb “arise,” but the arising is only a suggested meaning. Probably the word could be uniformly translated “awaked,” and in many instances with the effect of rendering the sense more vivid. Read through the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, substituting “awaken” for “be raised.” Note especially the places where it comes into antithesis with “asleep” ( e.g. Romans 8:15; Romans 8:20). You will perhaps not wish to change the familiar old rendering, but you will find it imbued with new significance. The noun of this stem is used but once in the New Testament ( Matthew 27:53).

2. Nearly as frequent as egeiro, and on the whole more conspicuous, are the verb anistemi and its noun anastasis. The noun is translated “resurrection.” The verb denotes to rise up or raise one up from the supineness of death to the vigour of life. Peter turned to the body of Tabitha and said, “Rise up.” She opened her eyes, saw Peter, sat up, “and he gave her his hand, and raised her up.” Jesus commanded the ruler’s daughter to awaken, “and straightway the damsel rose up” ( Acts 9:40-41; Mark 5:41-42).

3. The words of these two stems are sometimes used interchangeably, and in variant readings one is often displaced by the other. Resurrection of the dead is frequently mentioned, but resurrection from the dead still more frequently. In the first of these expressions dead persons are represented as rising to life, in the second, one is represented as passing out of the class of dead persons into another class. Perhaps we have here nothing more than two differing aspects of the same fact.

4. Whatever exceptional or unusual forms of expression there may be in the recorded teachings of Jesus and His immediate followers, the ordinary presentation is not that of buried bodies rising up from their graves, or from Hades, but that of a person awakening from unconsciousness, rising up from the powerlessness of death to the activity of life.

Twilight and sunrise,

Burden and heat of day,

Sunset and twilight—

So passeth life away.

Back in my Mother’s arms

Lay this tired clod,

Till a fresh sunrise

Wake me—with God.

II

The Resurrection of Jesus

1. The Resurrection of Jesus is, above all else, a display of power. He who is our strength moves out of the bonds wherewith the grave had bound Him; He shatters the gates of brass, and bursts the bars of iron in sunder. God, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, has overcome death, and opened the door of everlasting life—opened the door. There is an uprush of pent energy; there is an eruption of might. And barriers yield and break, and doors are flung open, and a passage has been forced, and human life is carried forward as by an irresistible flood past its ancient limits. It moves out into new fields, on untravelled levels; through the doors that had so long forbidden its entry it presses onwards, driven by the power of its indwelling might.

2. That is the Resurrection as St. Paul conceives it. A tremendous action must have taken place, and all the world is convulsed with the tumult and the shock. God has come upon the scene in the greatness of His name, “according to the working of the mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him on his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principalities, and powers, and might, and dominion; and he hath put all things under his feet, and given him to be head over all things.” The words tumble over one another in their anxiety to portray this immense and overwhelming effort to which the Eternal has committed Himself.

3. This insistence on the energy put in action concentrates itself for St. Paul on the reality of the risen body of the Lord. There are critics who succeed in persuading themselves that St. Paul by his teaching of the spiritual resurrection of our own bodies in the famous chapter of the Corinthians, consciously avoids any reference to the Lord’s actual body which is obviously at variance with the usual belief. And yet he is most certainly and emphatically rehearsing as his own the universal tradition of the Church. He is deliberately appealing at the very time to the fact that he is but saying for himself, what he received as the authorized account which every Christian held, by sheer necessity through being a Christian.

4. And so, again, the vividness of the Apostle’s recognition of the humanity of the risen Christ alone explains the intensity and the immediacy of the activities which it sets in motion here on earth. The entire sum, he tells us, of our bodily conditions here in the flesh, experiences at once the result of our life hidden with Christ in God. For that which is hid there with God is one with our human realities here; it tells upon them inevitably. It is in our bodies that we become so forcibly aware of the change that has been at work. “Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, evil desires, and passions; put also away all anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking; lie not one to another.” Why? Why is all this bound to happen? Because you are putting on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, and this through identification with that body of Christ alive from the dead, in which there can be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. So we are alive by the Spirit working with His splendid energy in our flesh; the Spirit that is groaning and travailing, struggling and striving, helping our infirmity with His irresistible force, working for the adoption— i.e. the redemption—of our body!

III

The Resurrection of our Body

1. Jesus rose in the body. His was no mere immortality of the soul; He claimed the body as part of Himself. In the body He ascended; in the body, now glorified, He lives and rules; in the body He will appear again, the second time, unto salvation. Not only, however, has He Himself risen in the body, but His resurrection is set forth as the pledge of ours. The hope of the believer is not simply that his soul shall live hereafter, but he looks for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body. The body of his humiliation shall yet be changed into the image of Christ’s glorious body.

It may be difficult for us to reconcile St. Paul’s description of the spiritual body, but it is plain that he himself did not recognize any difficulty. He universally takes the actual body of the Lord as the very ground of his Resurrection doctrine. It is out of its reality and identity that he draws all his moral and practical teaching. He can never speak or think of the Resurrection without showing that he has the actual body before his eyes. So, in the text the Resurrection of Jesus is the proof and the pledge that what happened to the Lord will happen to us. And what is that? The raising of the body. If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in us, then He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead is bound to quicken, too, our mortal bodies. 1 [Note: H. Scott-Holland.]

2. In the bodily resurrection of our Lord—an organic part of the reconciling work of Christ—we have the earnest of the bodily as well as the spiritual redemption of all that are in Him. For it must not be forgotten that the work of Christ is a work of reconciliation in more than one sense. Of course, primarily, it is the reconciliation between the individual sinner and the holy God against whom he has offended; then it is also the potential harmonization of the schism which sin has wrought in man’s nature, so that man comes into unison with himself; and to crown all, the cross is also the potential reconciliation of the entire cosmos, including, of course, man’s physical being, which has been disordered by sin. It is the plan of God to sum up all things in Christ, and through His cross.

Souls may fly off, perhaps, as the hymns tell us, to distant worlds, to unknown spheres. We may think anything we like about such winged creatures; they have nothing to do with us. But the spirits of those we have loved and cared for, the spirits who have held converse with ours, cannot be changed into birds or butterflies. They must be still human, the more they have entered into converse with the Divine. And why must we force ourselves into the conception of them as without bodies? Is it because they have dropped that which was corrupt and dead, because this has been given “earth to earth, dust to dust”? Was it this dead thing which we saw and heard and handled? Was it this from which sweet words came forth? That which is mortal is gone; is any life gone? Is not mortality opposed to life? 1 [Note: F. D. Maurice, Life, ii. 623.]

i. The Body

1. It is a correct instinct which leads men to speak of the salvation of “the soul.” The same instinct asserts itself when we speak of the immortality of the soul, but of the resurrection of the body. What is the human body? Differentially, it is the complement of organs through which an individual human spirit works. Whether it is necessarily made of matter is another question. In certain conditions, we would speak of the body of a shadow or of a reflection. The Bible says little of disembodied spirits as such. It represents the human person in the life after death as a soul, a self, a spirit with whatever organism is requisite for maintaining personal identity. It never speaks of the resurrection of “the flesh” or of the materials of which our present bodies are composed, but it emphasizes the resurrection of the body. “If the Spirit of him that awakened Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that awakened Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you” ( Romans 8:11).

2. The body is as really a part of man’s personality as the soul is. It is not, as philosophy is apt to teach us, a mere vesture or accident, or, still worse, temporary prison-house, of the soul; it is part of ourselves. Not, indeed, in the sense that the soul cannot survive the body, or subsist in some fashion without it, but in the sense that man was not created incorporeal spirit. His soul was made and meant to inhabit the body, and was never intended to subsist apart from it. Hence death, in the true Biblical point of view, is not something natural to man, but can only be regarded as something violent, un natural, the rupture or separation of parts of man’s being that were never meant to be disjoined. The soul, in virtue of its spiritual, personal nature, survives the body; but, in separation from the body, it is, as many things in Scripture ( e.g. its doctrine of Sheol) show, in a mutilated, imperfect, weakened condition. This view is not only important in itself as giving its due share of honour to the body, and harmonizing with the close relations between soul and body on which modern psychology lays increasing stress; but it will be found to shed much light on other doctrines of Scripture—for instance, on death, on immortality, on resurrection, on the full scope of Christ’s redemption.

A human body is the necessary—is the only—method and condition on earth of spiritual personality. It is capable, indeed, of expressing spirit very badly; it is capable of belying it; indeed, it is hardly capable of expressing it quite perfectly; it is, in fact, almost always falling short of at least the ideal expression of it. And yet body is the only method of spiritual life; even as things are, spirit is the true meaning of bodily life; and bodies are really vehicles and expressions of spirit; whilst the perfect ideal would certainly be, not spirit without body, but body which was the ideally perfect utterance of spirit. 1 [Note: Moberly, Problems and Principles, 358.]

It was with keen feeling that St. Paul, with his thorn in the flesh and his many infirmities, referred to the body of humiliation, and it was with gladness that he looked forward to the body of glory, which would accomplish whatsoever his soul desired, so that he could imagine no high endeavour but this perfect servant would carry it into action. 2 [Note: J. Watson.]

ii. The Resurrection Body

1. Our resurrection bodies are to be our mortal bodies made alive. That this making alive implies transformation is much insisted upon. We wait for the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, “Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” ( Php_3:21 ).

Matthew Arnold has told us that St. Paul, without being aware of it, substituted an ethical for a physical resurrection, and an eternal life in the spirit here for an everlasting life hereafter. Now a German theologian (Kabisch) tells us that St. Paul knows nothing of a figurative “life” ethical in quality, but only of a physical life; that Prolongation of physical life after death is the object of his hope; that even the Spirit, in his system of thought, is physical and finely material, and communicates itself by physical means, by baptism, and even by generation through a Christian parent; that the germ of the resurrection body is a spiritual, yet physical body, existing now within the dead carcase of the old body of sin; and that the essence of the resurrection will consist in the manifestation of this spiritual body by the sloughing off of its gross carnal envelope. Such are the two extremes. Surely the truth lies somewhere between. 1 [Note: A. B. Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 391.]

I dreamed that I was growing old

(It may be it was not a dream),

I shivered in the frosty cold

And trembled in the summer beam;

It cost me many a bitter sigh,

Until I knew it was not I.

The house my Maker for me made

Received His likeness in its form;

His wisdom all its parts displayed,

His beauty clothed its Chambers warm;

If not so fair as years go by,

What matter—for it is not I.

The lamps that light its rooms burn low,

Its music sounds more dull of late,

And one—it may be friend or foe,

Knocks loudly often at its gate;

I tremble then—I scarce know why,

My house he Claims, it is not I.

I am indeed a dweller there,

A winter and a summer guest,

Its rust and its decay I share,

But cannot look therein to rest;

I’m sure to leave it by and by,

’ Tis but my house—it is not I.

I sometimes think, when lying down,

For the last time I lock the door,

And leave the home so long my own,

That I may find it yet once more

So changed and fair I scarce shall know

The home I lived in long ago. 1 [Note: J. E. A. Brown.]

2. Of what nature, then, is the resurrection body?

(1) First, it is identical with the mortal body of the same person, in the sense of its being body to the same spirit, and constituting with that spirit the same soul, the same self. Jesus, speaking on another subject, stated an implication which Paul recognized and expanded. When a grain of wheat dies in the earth, it has a resurrection in the “much fruit” which springs from it ( John 12:24). Paul calls attention ( 1 Corinthians 15:36-41) to the identity of the blade with the kernel that was sown: “to each seed a body of its own.” The kernel and the blade are alike the body to the differential principle of the kernel. The product is still wheat, not something else; still that individual type of wheat, not some other.

(2) Second, various terms are used to indicate the differences between the present body of a person and his resurrection body. One is earthy and the other heavenly, one psychical and the other spiritual, one corruptible and the other incorruptible ( 1 Corinthians 15:42-54). Jesus had taught that in the resurrection men die no more, but are like the angels ( Luke 20:36 and parallels), and Paul expands this doctrine of a heavenly, spiritual, incorruptible body. This might be illustrated by all the numerous passages which speak of the changing of our mortal bodies ( e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 2 Corinthians 5:2; 2 Corinthians 5:4; Php_3:21 ; Romans 8:11).

Should it be the case that the soul had become so perfectly embodied that its covering is now its character, then the moment of death would be the moment of judgment, for the soul would carry with it, as it were, its whole history, and show the deeds done in the body. We have, indeed, I think, a hint and prophecy of this correspondence between body and soul when before our eyes a face of perfect shape grows unsightly through pride and lust, and a countenance that once was repulsive becomes attractive through the beauty of the soul. If the soul in her sin or in her loveliness can so far mould to her will this stubborn matter, what may she not do with a finer material? And so we may be writing our own books of judgment, recording every high endeavour and every base passion upon the sensitive and eternal body of the soul. 1 [Note: J. Watson.]

(3) Third, emphasis is particularly placed on the idea that the resurrection body is not subject to the perpetual flux which we think of as characterizing matter. That it is incorruptible is many times reiterated. Christian teaching, except in figure of speech, does not mention the nourishing of the resurrection bodies of the redeemed by eating and drinking. Jesus expressly says that there is no marrying in the resurrection. Note the contrast with the teachings of Muhammad and others. And as if other expressions were not explicit enough, Paul expressly tells us that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” ( 1 Corinthians 15:50), that is, that the resurrection body is not a body of flesh and blood.

Science suggests that as the seen universe is composed of matter, the unseen is composed of ether, and at every point of investigation we “are led from the visible and tangible to the invisible and intangible”; and science also concludes that the visible universe will in the end be swallowed up by the invisible, and this world disappear as a “species of matter out of date.” The body of the future cannot therefore be material, but is likely to be ethereal, a body to which matter could offer no obstacle, and whose mobility would be incalculable. It is evident that a body of this substance would be much more akin to the soul, a more flexible instrument and a more transparent veil, so that while the body of matter hides the inner self, the body of ether would be its Revelation 1 [Note: J. Watson.]

As life wears on, and the physical freshness and beauty of the body fade, a new expression often comes out which reveals the body of the soul. In disease I have often seen faces transfigured, as though the husk of earthy matter became for a moment transparent, and an inner body, wearing the soul’s likeness, shone through. Death often completes this purging away of the mere fleshly carcase, and gives a truer picture than the living face of the body of the spiritual world. I have seen faces of noble Christian combatants, which wore but a common expression in this life, look grand and heroic in death.

As sometimes in a dead man’s face,

To those that watch it more and more,

A likeness, hardly seen before,

Comes out—to some one of his race:

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,

I see thee what thou art, and know

Thy likeness to the wise below,

Thy kindred with the great of old.

But there is more than I can see,

And what I see I leave unsaid,

Nor speak it, knowing Death has made

His darkness beautiful with thee.

Yes, and death to those who have lived Christianly is a kind of transfiguration. “He who raised up Christ from the dead, doth quicken the mortal body”—and in death we see how perfectly—“by his spirit who dwelleth within.” 1 [Note: J. Baldwin Brown.]

3. The subject of the resurrection of the body is not devoid of practical interest. It really lies at the bottom of the ideal of a Christian State. Throughout the Epistles of the New Testament the duties of the Christian life are based upon the fact of our Lord’s Resurrection. Before that event polygamy, concubinage, private divorce, and even slavery, had the sanction of religion. But the Christian was required to “put off” all these practices; and the “newness of life” which distinguished him from the rest of mankind was conceived as resulting directly from the fact that “Christ was raised from the dead.”

Other religions may teach that there is a magical charm in asceticism; but none of them condemns as sinful the free indulgence of any natural appetite, provided it be not coupled with imprudence, or with disregard of the acknowledged rights of others. And St. Paul was apparently of the same opinion—if so be that Christ is not risen. In a world where the guiding principle is common sense, he could conceive of only one alternative to life in union with a risen Lord: “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 2 [Note: E. H. Archer-Shepherd.]

And, therefore, let no difficult speculations, no haunting doubts, no attempts to be wise above that which is written, move you from this solid certainty, that, when your time comes to die, and that tired body which, perhaps, now contains in it the seed of the disease which shall one day lay it low, lies still in death, then the Holy Spirit who has disciplined you and taught you and confirmed you and led you all your life long unto that day, has yet one more loving office to discharge for that body which has been His temple for so long—He will raise it from the dead. It was an old prophecy which expressed well the undying instinct of immortality: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption”; and if that was proved true in the case of Christ, it will also be proved true in the case of a Christian. 1 [Note: A. F. Winnington Ingram.]

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,

Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,

Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast.

O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!

Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,

Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:

Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the Blessed only see.

O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee! 2 [Note: Thomas Campion.]

And if the dying are to lift up their heads, then lift up your heads, ye mourners. What has happened to your dead? you ask this morning; they were here with you last Easter, you say, joining in the Easter hymns and looking with you at the Easter flowers. What has happened to them? A beautiful thing: “The loving Spirit has led them forth into the land of righteousness.” It was just what they had prayed for in the Psalms time after time: “May thy loving Spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness”; and He took them at their word, and escorted them forth to be with Christ for ever—

Children, in My gracious keeping

Leave ye now your dear ones sleeping.

I’d a dream to-night

As I fell asleep,

Oh! the touching sight

Makes me still to weep:

Of my little lad,

Gone to leave me sad,

Aye, the child I had,

But was not to keep.

As in heaven high,

I my child did seek,

There, in train, came by

Children fair and meek,

Each in lily-white,

With a lamp alight;

Each was clear to sight,

But they did not speak.

Then, a little sad,

Came my child in turn,

But the lamp he had,

Oh! it did not burn;

He, to clear my doubt,

Said, half turn’d about,

“ Your tears put it out:

Mother, never mourn.” 1 [Note: W. Barnes.]

The Resurrection of the Body

Literature

Beecher (W. J.), The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Future Life, 145.

Brown (J. Baldwin), The Divine Life in Man, 223.

Ingram (A. F. W.), A Mission of the Spirit, 217.

Jeffrey (G.), The Believer’s Privilege, 286.

Mabie (H. C.), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 171.

Christian World Pulpit, xxxviii. 392 (White); lxvii. 289 (Scott-Holland).

Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., vi. 39 (Brown).

Verse 14

The Leading of the Spirit

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.— Romans 8:14.

1. These words constitute the classical passage in the New Testament on the great subject of the “leading of the Holy Spirit.” They stand, indeed, almost without strict parallel in the New Testament. We read, no doubt, in that great discourse of our Lord’s which John has preserved for us, in which, as He was about to leave His disciples, He comforts their hearts with the promise of the Spirit, that “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.” But this “guidance into truth” by the Holy Spirit is something very different from the “leading of the Spirit” spoken of in our present text; and it is appropriately expressed by a different term. We read also in Luke’s account of our Lord’s temptation that He was “led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted of the devil,” where our own term is used. But though undoubtedly this passage throws light upon the mode of the Spirit’s operation described in our text, it can scarcely be looked upon as a parallel passage to it. The only other passage, indeed, which speaks distinctly of the “leading of the Spirit” in the sense of our text is Galatians 5:18, where in a context very closely similar Paul again employs the phrase: “But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” It is from these two passages primarily that we must obtain our conception of what the Scriptures mean by “the leading of the Holy Spirit.”

2. There is certainly abundant reason why we should seek to learn what the Scriptures mean by “spiritual leading.” There are few subjects so intimately related to the Christian life of which Christians appear to have formed, in general, conceptions so inadequate, where they are not even positively erroneous. The sober-minded seem often to look upon it as a mystery into which it would be well not to inquire too closely. The consequence is that the very phrase, “the leading of the Spirit,” has come to bear, to many, a flavour of fanaticism.

I

The Leading of the Spirit belongs to, and characterizes, the Sons of God

1. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,” says the Apostle, “these are sons of God.” We have here in effect a definition of the sons of God. The primary purpose of the sentence is not, indeed, to give this definition. But the statement is so framed as to equate its two members, and even to throw a stress upon the coextensiveness of the two designations. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these, and these only, are sons of God.” Thus the leading of the Spirit is presented as the very characteristic of the children of God. This is what differentiates them from all others. All who are led by the Spirit of God are thereby constituted the sons of God; and none can claim the high title of sons of God who are not led by the Spirit of God.

When we consider this Divine work within our souls with reference to the end of the whole process we call it sanctification; when we consider it with reference to the process itself, as we struggle on day by day in the somewhat devious and always thorny pathway of life, we call it spiritual leading. Thus the “leading of the Holy Spirit” is revealed to us as simply a synonym for sanctification when looked at from the point of view of the, pathway itself, through which we are led by the Spirit as we more and more advance towards that conformity to the image of His Son which God has placed before us as our great goal. 1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

2. This leading of the Spirit is not some peculiar gift reserved for special sanctity and granted as the reward of high merit alone. It is the common gift poured out on all God’s children to meet their common need, and it is the evidence, therefore, of their common weakness and their common unworthiness. It is not the reward of special spiritual attainment; it is the condition of all spiritual attainment. In its absence we should remain hopelessly the children of the devil; by its presence alone are we constituted the children of God. It is only because of the Spirit of God shed abroad in our hearts that we are able to cry, Abba, Father.

Defining as they do, generally and without exception, all the sons of God, the words cannot point to any exceptional or what we commonly know as miraculous agency. The influence exerted must be normal and ordinary. That is, at least, if the sons of God are, as we know they are, to be moving about in the world, performing the ordinary duties of life like other men. The influence of the Divine Spirit must not be expected and will not show itself in lifting them out of common life, but in leading them in it, however this latter term is to be understood. And such a consideration will necessarily imply much more. Common life proceeds on common rules. God has just as much bound together seed-time and harvest, means and result, in the life of men as in the life of nature. And it is in, not out of, this chain of connected action, that we may look for the leading of God’s Spirit in man, just as it is in this same chain that we expect His working in nature. 1 [Note: H. Alford.]

How can a privilege which is open to all lead any man to think that he is better than his neighbour? Men do not give themselves airs because the sun shines on their heads, and the scent of the sea and the forest mixes itself with the blood, and flowers blow about their pathway, and the blue quivers with lark-songs. They never grow arrogant through that which they possess in common with their fellows, even should many in the crowd be unmusical and inartistic and indifferent to the exhilarations of nature. And those who realize that this privilege rests upon grace, and is enjoyed through faith alone, cannot possibly be under any special temptation to become proud. 2 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

Do not proudly elevate your head through the charms of your voice,

For reeds and silken cords are also endowed with speech.

Attach not so much dignity and excellence to your sight,

For the sparrow can discern at a distance of twenty parasangs.

Boast not so loudly of your powers of hearing,

For the hare is sensible of sound at ten leagues’ distance.

Oh, weak man! speak not so much of your perception of smell,

For a mouse can smell at a bow-shot distance. 3 [Note: Mirkhond, in Field’s Little Book of Eastern Wisdom, 25.]

3. As the sons of God are characterized by the leading of the Spirit, so at the same time the leading of the Spirit produces certain broad results in them, so that in the sons of God we discern (1) life in God, (2) union with God, (3) likeness to God.

(1) Life in God. To be a son is to be a partaker of the immortal life of God. Paul speaks of the immortal God. To be a son is to participate in His eternal life. The Spirit that leads is in him whom He leads “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Sonship holds in it a growing conviction, a consciousness of life eternal. In the course of years it becomes a main factor of thought, faith, and feeling; indeed, it becomes a fixed, unfluctuating part of consciousness. It never suggests a doubt, a question, but settles down immovably among the certainties: an intuition of God’s indwelling Spirit. Thus it comes to pass, as Channing finely argues, that our strongest proofs of immortality are not the analogies of nature, not the reasonings and deductions of intellect, but the possession of Divine purity, truth, and love. These give vitality to hope, and to faith the full force of a realization. He who has hold of, and grows up into, these, is not left to the doubtful determinings of the logical understanding; he has a surer token, he has got the eternal life itself. He knows. He has Christ in him, the hope of glory. He is an heir of God, a Joint heir with Jesus Christ. To be led by the Spirit, is to enter and grow in the life of God, and so become a being after God’s own kind. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.

(2) Union with God. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” That reveals the secret of true communion and intercourse with God. That shows the root of it. It is more than an emotion or a feeling, more than a happy mood; it is a life principle, deep, pure, strong and eternal; and happy feelings, pleasures of emotion, are but one form in which it may declare itself. It is really a community of life which identifies the human soul with God in His mind, will, and character.

(3) Likeness to God. This is the final result of the leading of the Spirit of God. The man is broken off from fleshly and devilish affinities, and enters into moral affinity with God. He and God are like-minded. The similitude is not of form, but of character. The likeness is inward, spiritual. It is a disposition revealing itself in tastes and tempers and deeds. We sometimes say of a lad, “He is his father’s son; he is his father over again.” We mean, generally, more than appearance. We point to a likeness more essential. We mean he is of his father’s spirit—has his habits and tendencies. In this moral or intellectual sense a lad very often is not his father’s son; he is sometimes his mother’s. In association with this fact we at once call to mind other words of the Lord Jesus; they are these—“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

There is a law of unconscious assimilation. We become like those with whom we go. Without being conscious of it, we take on the characteristics of those with whom we live. I remember one time my brother returned home for a visit after a prolonged absence. As we were walking down the street together he said to me, “You have been going with Denning a good deal”—a mutual friend of ours. Surprised, I said, “How do you know I have?” He said, “You walk just like him.” What my brother had said was strictly true, though he did not know it. Our friend had a very decided way of walking. As a matter of fact, we had been walking home from the Young Men’s Christian Association three or four nights every week. And unconsciously I had grown to imitate his way of walking. 1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 20.]

II

The Leading of the Spirit is Controlling and Continuous

i. It is controlling

1. One is not led, in the sense of our text, when he is merely directed in the way he should go, guided, as we may say, by one who points out the path and leads only by going before in it; or when he is merely upheld while he himself finds or directs himself to the goal. The Greek language possesses words which precisely express these ideas, but the Apostle passes over these and selects a term which expresses determining control over our actions.

Our Lord promised His disciples that when the Spirit of Truth should come, He should guide them into all the truth. Here a term is employed which does not express controlling leading, but what we may perhaps call suggestive leading. It is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament of God’s guidance of His people, and once, at least, of the Holy Spirit: “Teach us to do thy will, for thou art my God; let thy good Spirit guide us in the land of uprightness.” But the term which Paul employs in our text is a much stronger one than this. It is not the proper word to use of a guide who goes before and shows the way, or even of a commanding general who leads an army. It has stamped upon it rather the conception of the exertion of a power of control over the actions of its subject, which the strength of the led one is insufficient to withstand. This is the proper word to use, for example, when speaking of leading animals, as when our Lord sent His disciples to find the ass and her colt and commanded them “to loose them and lead them to him” ( Matthew 21:2); or as when Isaiah declares in the Scripture which was being read by the Eunuch of Ethiopia whom Philip was sent to meet in the desert, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.” It is applied to the conveying of sick folk—as men who are not in a condition to control their own movements; as, for example, when the good Samaritan set the wounded traveller on his own beast and led him to an inn and took care of him ( Luke 10:34); or when Christ commanded the blind man of Jericho “to be led unto him” ( Luke 18:40). It is most commonly used of the enforced movements of prisoners; as when we are told that they led Jesus to Caiaphas to the palace ( John 18:28); or when we are told that they seized Stephen and led him into the council ( Acts 6:12); or that Paul was provided with letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, “that if he found any that were of the Way, he might lead them bound to Jerusalem” ( Acts 9:2). In a word, though the term may, of course, sometimes be used when the idea of force retires somewhat into the background, and is commonly so used when it is transferred from external compulsion to internal influence—as, for example, when we are told that Barnabas took Paul and led him to the apostles ( Acts 9:27), and that Andrew led Simon unto Jesus ( John 1:42)—yet the proper meaning of the word includes the idea of control, and the implication of prevailing determination of action never wholly leaves it. 1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

Every spark of light in the soul is kindled by the Holy Spirit. Every movement of the divine life in a man is His. Every heavenward desire, every yearning of the love of Christ, every keen spiritual judgment cutting through the fallacies and self-seeking evasions of the world, is from Him and by Him. I cannot stir a step in my spiritual life without Him. I cannot turn my eye of faith to Christ an instant without Him. Every sweet consolation poured out on my soul is His. Every testimony to a man’s place in God’s family is from His gentle voice, whispering in the waste places of his heart, bearing witness with his spirit that he is one of the sons of God. Every flower that blooms in man He has tended and cherished: every fruit of holiness, He set it, and watched it, and guarded it from blight and frost, and gave it its consistence and its bloom: the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear, in nature and in grace, alike are His: His, according to His own laws and procedure, but no less His throughout, and His entirely. 2 [Note: H. Alford.]

2. It is to be observed, however, on the other hand, that although Paul uses a term here which emphasizes the controlling influence of the Spirit of God over the activities of God’s children, he does not represent the action of the Spirit as a substitute for their activities. If one is not led, in the sense of our text, when one is merely guided, it is equally true that one is not led when one is carried. The animal that is led by the attendant, the blind man that is led to Christ, the prisoner that is led to jail—each is indeed under the control of his leader, who alone determines the goal and the pathway; but each also proceeds on that pathway and to that goal by virtue of his own powers of locomotion. There was a word lying at the Apostle’s hand by which he could have expressed the idea that God’s children are borne by the Spirit’s power to their appointed goal of holiness, apart from any activities of their own, had he elected to do so. It is employed by Peter when he would inform us how God gave His message of old to His prophets. “For no prophecy,” he tells us, “ever came by the will of man: but men spoke from God, being borne by the Holy Ghost.”

There is a difference between the Spirit’s action in dealing with the prophet of God in imparting through him God’s message to men and the action of the same Spirit in dealing with the children of God in bringing them into their proper holiness of life. The prophet is “borne” of the Spirit; the child of God is “led.” The prophet’s attitude in receiving a revelation from God is passive, purely receptive; he has no part in it, adds nothing to it, is only the organ through which the Spirit delivers it to men; he is taken up by the Spirit, as it were, and borne along by Him by virtue of the power that resides in the Spirit, which is natural to Him, and which, in its exercise, supersedes the natural activities of the man. Such is the import of the term used by Peter to express it. On the other hand, the son of God is not purely passive in the hands of the sanctifying Spirit; he is not borne, but led—that is, his own efforts enter into the progress made under the controlling direction of the Spirit; he supplies, in fact, the force exerted in attaining the progress, while yet the controlling Spirit supplies the entire directing impulse. 1 [Note: B. B. Warfield.]

“Led.” That word is the key to God’s method of grace. The Spirit comes and gives facility in action. He does not supersede or compel it. He comes to the human soul to sustain it in right conditions and habits. He dwells there—as a generator of forces, not as a tyrant to overbear it in the way of power. 2 [Note: W. Hubbard.]

That God leads us, and does not drive, is the answer to many of the questions that have been put to me. Why are there sin and evil in the world? What was the necessity for the Incarnation? Why the astounding miracle of the Atonement? What is the good of the Church? The answer to every one of these questions is that God leads and does not drive. I remember so well in the old East End days, when the young men of the boating club connected with the Oxford House came to ask about their rowing on Sunday morning, and I explained to them that I could not remain their president if their club races were held on Sunday morning; that it was impossible for me to commit myself to the principle that Sunday morning was the time for a boat-race, but that I had no right, as president or head of Oxford House, to dictate to them as individuals what they should do, for I lived down there to try and lead them to better ways of spending Sunday morning; and the deputation, with that perfect frankness and trust which they always gave me, looked up and said: “We quite understand, Mr. Ingram: you have come down here to lead us, and not to drive us.” 3 [Note: Bishop A. F. W. Ingram.]

ii. It is continuous

1. The spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not something sporadic, given only on occasion of some special need of supernatural direction, but something continuous, affecting all the operations of a Christian man’s activities throughout every moment of his life. It has but one end in view, the saving from sin, the leading into holiness; but it affects every single activity of every kind—physical, intellectual, and spiritual—bending it towards that end. Since it is nothing other than the power of God unto salvation, it must needs abide with the sinner, work constantly upon him, enter into all his acts, condition all his doings, and lead him thus steadily onward towards the one great goal.

He leads us on

By paths we did not know,

Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow;

Though oft we faint and falter on the way,

Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,

Yet, when the clouds are gone,

We know He leads us on.

He leads us on

Through all the unquiet years;

Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears

He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze

Of losses, sorrows, and o’erclouded days

We know His will is done;

And still He leads us on.

And He, at last,

After the weary strife,

After the restless fever we call life,

After the dreariness, the aching pain,

The wayward struggles, which have proved in vain,

After our toils are past—

Will give us rest at last. 1 [Note: Jane Borthwick.]

2. It is impossible, in tracing the Spirit’s work, to keep separate the various conventionally named parts of a man’s inward being in which that work is carried on. Man is one in himself, though manifold in powers and in phases of that one being. Great fault and great confusion have been occasioned in these things, by regarding men’s spirits as if they were compounded of various detached portions, and regions fenced off from one another. We speak of the judgment, the memory, the affections, the imagination, as if they were distinct members of the soul, as the hand and foot and head are of the body. We are in some measure obliged so to speak, from the very imperfection of our thought and language. But we must never forget, that it is one and the same spirit—one and the same man, that judges and remembers and loves and fears and imagines.

(1) The first step of the Spirit’s ordinary work of guidance takes place in that part of man’s spiritual being which we know as his understanding. It is a guidance of information. It is expressed by our Lord in these words: “He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” It is revelation of facts regarding Christ and His work. Let us trace it and observe its laws. It is carried on in appointed association with ordinary means and sources of knowledge. The Spirit of God does not reveal Christ and the things of Christ to a heathen who never has heard of Christ. “How can they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” is the Apostle’s question, even in his own day of miraculous agency. God is pleased then that this part of His work should be subserved and conditioned by the making known to men of the facts of the Gospel. On this His appointment, the duty of preaching, the duty of dispersing the Scriptures, the duty of teaching and informing the young, are founded.

Whenever the Spirit is followed, the soul sees. The mark aimed at has been espied. All is not taken fully in at the first, nor ever, but there is sight and a seeing. Could you stand on the highest peak of the highest mountain, you could not see all the world; on the other hand, looking out of your cottage window, you see enough to call you forth to research and labour. It is not a blind going. The way of your steps is discovered. True, the Spirit will often have to lead you “as one who is blind,” taking you gently by the hand, holding you up, and guarding you; but you follow because you have learned to know and hearken to His voice, and because you have found safety, strength, and wisdom in heeding Him, and are sure of the end. 1 [Note: W. Hubbard.]

Step softly, under snow or rain,

To find the place where men can pray;

The way is all so very plain,

That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore

On tortured puzzles from our youth.

We know all labyrinthine lore,

We are the three Wise Men of yore,

And we know all things but the truth.

Go humbly … it has hailed and snowed …

With voices low and lanterns lit,

So very simple is the road,

That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,

And blinding white the breaking day,

We walk bewildered in the light,

For something is too large for sight,

And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun

(… We need but walk a little way …

We need but see a latch undone …),

The Child that played with moon and sun

Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,

The old strange house that is our own,

Where tricks of words are never said,

And Mercy is as plain as bread,

And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly; humble are the skies,

And low and large and fierce the Star,

So very near the Manger lies,

That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes

To roar to the resounding plain,

And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,

For God Himself is born again;

And we are little children walking

Through the snow and rain. 1 [Note: G. K. Chesterton.]

(2) From the understanding the guidance of the Spirit goes to the will. The same Spirit which revealed to the eye of the mind the facts of Christ’s work in their vital significance now turns that eye inward on its own region of life and responsibility. In our Lord’s description of the Spirit’s convicting work in the world, namely, the convincing of sin, the action on the conscience is placed first (knowledge of the facts of redemption being presupposed), because the very bringing home of these facts to the inner being is necessarily the conviction of sin.

It is by our will that we are to be proved and judged. In the midst of all this growing, overwhelming light, the will may remain stubborn and rebellious. Faults in childhood growing into the sins of boyhood, hardening into the entanglements and obstinacy of manhood, establish a deliberate resistance in the will against the light of the Spirit. We often see the most promising forms of character slowly fading off. For a time there is a kind of negative declension. No marked and active faults appear; but nothing is advancing towards holiness and the mind of Christ. They seem for awhile to stand still, as we see in an arrow’s flight a momentary pause before it begins to descend. So they never go beyond a certain point; then for awhile they hang in suspense—then slowly fall. Then some one sin appears, long nourished in secret, now at last revealed; some one parasite, which has clung about them, and slowly confirmed its grasp around the whole strength and stature of their character. And this one sin gives the fatal wound to their spiritual life. 1 [Note: H. E. Manning.]

Seventeen beautiful Easter lilies were planted in a garden, and in due time sixteen of them sprung up with all their beauty; but the one which had been planted near the hedgerow never seemed to make any progress whatever; it was carefully tended, watched, and watered day by day, and yet it never grew. At last the gardener dug it up, and then he found out the cause. In the hedge had been planted a clematis, and it had thrust its silken roots through the earth, wanting something to take hold of, and, feeling the lily bulb, had twined around it, until by degrees it had strangled it; and the lily which grew above the earth was never more than a poor, puny thing. 2 [Note: A. C. Price.]

(3) Lastly, comes the quickening of the affections. All men are ruled by either love or fear: there is no intermediate state. “Perfect love casteth out fear,” and a ruling fear casteth out love. They may be mingled for awhile; but one or the other must bear rule and sway at last. And this is a sure criterion. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” He would have from us the service of sons, loving, glad, and grateful, without stint or measure; not saying, How much must I do? but How much may I, how much can I do? How much time, substance, Service, or thought can I give to Him?

Love is the key of life and death,

Of hidden heavenly mystery:

Of all Christ is, of all He saith,

Love is the key.

As three times to His Saint He saith,

He saith to me, He saith to thee,

Breathing His Grace-conferring Breath:

“Lovest thou Me?”

Ah, Lord, I have such feeble faith,

Such feeble hope to comfort me:

But love it is, is strong as death,

And I love Thee. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

III

The Leading of the Spirit is Deliverance from Sin, but not Escape from Sorrow

1. The end in view in the spiritual leading of which Paul speaks is not to enable us to escape the difficulties, dangers, trials, or sufferings of this life, but specifically to enable us to conquer sin. Let us not forget, indeed, the reality of providential guidance, or imagine that God’s greatness makes Him careless of the least concerns of His children. But let us much more not forget that the great evil under which we are suffering is sin, and that the great promise which has been given us is that we shall not be left to wander, self-directed, in the paths of sin into which our feet have strayed, but that the Spirit of holiness shall dwell within us, breaking our bondage and leading us into that other pathway of good works, which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them.

Our proper road may run up rugged steeps, and down sharp and dangerous descents. Our education may of necessity demand burdens, toil, and sorrow. Our vocation may be as that of a soldier. Be it so, enough that He leads. In following Him, strife there will be; but in the striving we shall have joy, for He will be with us. His leading is not hardship, though hardship may meet us in the following. But hardships thicken with the years—hardships which we cannot cope with, if we follow not. The soldier follows with high courage the captain in whom he confides. The patriot rushes to the war for liberty and home. He will have privations and wounds. But he would be ashamed to stay behind. He could not if he would. He goes, thinking neither of work nor of pay. To save his country is for him reward and glory. So the soul that follows the Spirit may have to endure the hardship of war; but there is the enthusiasm of the conflict, and presently the joy of sacred victory. “To be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

In pastures green? Not always; sometimes He

Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me

By weary ways, where heavy shadows be.

And by still waters? No, not always so;

Oft-times the heavy tempests round me blow,

And o’er my soul the waves and billows go.

But when the storm is loudest, and I cry

Aloud for help, the Master standeth by

And whispers to my soul, “Lo, it is I.”

Above the tempest wild I hear Him say,

“Beyond this darkness lies the perfect day,

In every path of thine I lead the way.”

So, whether on the hill-tops high and fair

I dwell, or in the sunless valleys where

The shadows lie—what matter? He is there. 1 [Note: Henry H. Barry.]

2. Yet the good man may, by virtue of his very goodness, be saved from many of the sufferings of this life and from many of the failures of this life. How many of the evils and trials of life are rooted in specific sins, we can never know. How often even failure in business may be traced directly to lack of business integrity rather than to pressure of circumstances or business incompetency, is mercifully hidden from us.

3. And the leading of the Spirit establishes that intimacy, confidence, and affection which are so necessary to right training. We cannot love God if He is only an instigator of providential pain and scourging in our lives. We must have the compensating kiss of a felt forgiveness upon our cheeks and the tender whisper of assurance in our souls.

Mencius, the Chinese sage, who is honoured second only to Confucius himself, says: “The ancients exchanged children with each other, for the purpose of training them in letters and deportment. They were afraid lest the punishments necessary in the course of education should injure the sacred bond of affection between parent and child.” No very great harm was assumed to be done if the lad looked upon the neighbour who taught him his hornbook as a natural enemy. We smile and think the danger hypothetical, and the Chinese care for the filial sentiment over-fastidious. But if no word of love ever crossed a father’s lips, and parents tried to make themselves into sphinxes of imperturbable reserve, the danger might be very real indeed. 1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

One of George Eliot’s most skilful books deals with the fortunes of a young man who for many years had been left in entire ignorance of his parentage. When a mere infant, Daniel Deronda was placed by his Jewish mother, afterwards known as the Princess Halm-Eberstein, in the care of Sir Hugo Mallinger, with the instruction that he should be allowed to know nothing whatever of his Jewish birth and blood. At times he thought this English gentleman, who had inspired within him not a little affection, must surely be his own father. He scanned the family portraits to see if he could solve the riddle, but no reflex of these features appeared in his own. When he went to Eton, one of the boys “talked about home and parents to Daniel, and seemed to expect a like expansiveness in return.” “To speak of these things was like falling flakes of fire to the imagination.” One day, when Sir Hugo asked him if he would like to be a great singer, he gave up the cherished thought that this indulgent but mysterious guardian could be his father; for no English gentleman, he reasoned, would think of allowing his own boy to follow the career of a professional singer. Now this atmosphere of secrecy in which he had been brought up was cruel, and might have been attended with grave disaster to his disposition and character, for the lad scarcely knew upon whom to bestow his pent-up affection. The delineation is not intended as a study in the growth of character, but to show probably that not a few of the sentiments of Jewish life and religion are in the blood, however little a young Jew may be told about his own ancestry and family connexions. When, after the lapse of years, Deronda had an interview with his mother, we are told that it seemed as if he were “in the presence of a mysterious Fate, rather than the longed-for mother,” and he did not hesitate to say, “I have always been rebelling against the secrecy that looked like shame.” 1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

I do not ask, O Lord, that life may be

A pleasant road;

I do not ask that Thou would’st take from me

Aught of its load;

I do not ask that flowers should always spring

Beneath my feet;

I know too well the poison and the sting

Of things too sweet.

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead;

Lead me aright—

Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed—

Through peace to light.

I do not ask, O Lord, that Thou should’st shed

Full radiance here;

Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread

Without a fear.

I do not ask my cross to understand,

My way to see—

Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,

And follow Thee.

Joy is like restless day; but peace divine

Like quiet night;

Lead me, O Lord—till perfect day shall shine,

Through peace to light. 2 [Note: Adelaide Anne Procter.]

IV

A Great Consolation

What a strong consolation for us is found in this gracious assurance—poor, weak children of men as we are! To our frightened ears the text may come at first with the solemnity of a warning: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these, and these only, are sons of God. Is there not a declaration here that we are not God’s children unless we are led by God’s Spirit? Knowing ourselves, and contemplating the course of our lives and the character of our ambitions, dare we claim to be led by the Spirit of God? Is this life—this life that I am living in the flesh—is this the product of the Spirit’s leading? Shall not despair close in upon me as I pass the dreadful judgment on myself that I am not led by God’s Spirit, and that I am, therefore, not one of His sons? Let us hasten to remind ourselves, then, that such is not the purport nor the purpose of the text. It stands here not in order to drive us to despair because we see we have sin within us, but to kindle within us a great fire of hope and confidence because we perceive we have the Holy Spirit within us. Paul does not forget the sin within us. Who has painted it and its baleful power with more vigorous touch? But neither would he have us forget that we have the Holy Spirit within us, and what that blessed fact, above all blessed facts, means. He would not have us reason that because sin is in us we cannot be God’s children, but in happy contradiction to this, that because the Holy Spirit is in us we cannot but be God’s children. Sin is great and powerful; it is too great and too powerful for us; but the Holy Spirit is greater and more powerful than even sin. The discovery of sin in us might bring us to despair did not Paul discern the Holy Spirit in us—who is greater than sin—to quicken our hope.

In this assurance we shall no longer beat our disheartened way through life in dumb despondency, and find expression for our passionate but hopeless longings only in the wail of the dreary poet of pessimism—

But if from boundless spaces no answering voice shall start,

Except the barren echo of our ever yearning heart—

Farewell, then, empty deserts, where beat our aimless wings,

Farewell, then, dream sublime of uncompassable things.

We are not, indeed, relieved from the necessity for healthful effort, but we can no longer speak of “vain hopes.” The way may be hard, but we can no longer talk of “the unfruitful road which bruises our naked feet.” Strenuous endeavour may be required of us, but we can no longer feel that we are “beating aimless wings,” and can expect no further response from the infinite expanse than “a sterile echo of our own eternal longings.” No, no—the language of despair falls at once from off our souls. Henceforth our accents will be borrowed rather from a nobler “poet of faith,” and the blessing of Asher will seem to be spoken to us also—

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass;

And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

There is none like unto God, O Jeshurun,

Who rideth upon the heaven for thy help,

And in his excellency on the skies.

The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,

And underneath are the everlasting arms.

The Leading of the Spirit

Literature

Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, iii. 309.

Atkin (J. W.), The Paraklete, 42.

Baillie (D.), The Love of God, 49.

Butcher (C. H.), The Sound of a Voice that is Still, 141.

Gibbons (J. C.), Discourses and Sermons, 363.

Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 183.

Hare (A. W.), Sermons to a Country Congregation, i. 77.

Harper (F.), A Year with Christ, 126.

Hodge (C.), Princeton Sermons, 81.

Huntington (F. D.), Christ and the Christian Year, i. 384.

Hutchings (W. H.), Sermon-Sketches, i. 150.

Ingram (A. F. W.), A Mission of the Spirit, 72.

Johnstone (V. L.), Sonship, 71.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iv. 27.

Mortimer (A. G.), Studies in Holy Scripture, 135.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, x. 393.

Rees (J. S.), Sermons from a Little Known Pulpit, 67.

Selby (T. G.), The Holy Spirit and Christian Privilege, 125.

Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 46.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxi. (1875), No. 1220.

Tholuck (A.), Hours of Christian Devotion, 260.

Warfield (B. B.), The Power of God unto Salvation, 151.

Christian World Pulpit, x. 65 (Hubbard), xliv. 72 (Sinclair).

Churchman’s Pulpit, (Whit-Sunday) ix. 105 (Grimley); (Eighth Sunday after Trinity) xi. 31 (Edmunds).

Verse 15

The Spirit of a Son

For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.— Romans 8:15.

1. In a remarkable letter which appeared in the Times, written by Professor Harnack, in which he was dealing with the letter of the Emperor of Germany upon the controversies gathering round the Higher Criticism, great prominence was given to the fact that there is no subject of graver importance for a man than his relation to God, and that everything depends on this relation. We would all say a full “Amen” to that sentence. A true relation to God lies at the bottom of all right-shapen life. A wrong conception of God will issue in a wrong shaping of life.

2. But what is a true relation to God? It is beyond doubt a filial relationship. Our Lord has taught us that, in the first clause of the Lord’s Prayer. He who prays, “Our Father which art in heaven,” believes that the relation in which he stands to God is that of a child to his father; and he who thus prays—if his prayer be a reality—will find the primary shaping of his life in the fact that his relation to God in every aspect of life is that of a child to his father. Accordingly, St. Paul tells the Roman Christians that what the Holy Ghost does is to enable us with fulness of utterance to say this first clause of the Lord’s Prayer. No man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost. No man can really call upon God as Abba, Father, unless it be through the power of the witness of the Spirit. The Lord’s Prayer can be a reality only to those who are taught to utter it in the power of the Holy Ghost. But the characteristic feature in the life of the true Christian is this, that not having the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, he is enabled to look up into the face of the Eternal as He dwells in the light that no man can approach unto in the glory of the heavens, and with simplicity of utterance say, “Abba, Father.”

3. What says the example of Christ? For let us remember this truth—the model Christian is Christ Himself; and if we want to know what the ideal Christian life is, and the conditions under which we are to live it, we have simply to discover first of all what were the conditions under which Christ, in His humanity, lived that ideal human life. The most superficial study of St. John’s Gospel will teach us this, that the whole life of Christ was lived in a spirit of filial relation to His Father in heaven. When we turn to St. John’s Gospel and go through it with even the most cursory study, we find one expression in it again and again, with a repetition which seems almost to be unnecessary: “My Father, My Father.” We see Jesus living with His eyes always fixed upon the face of the Father which is in heaven, with a blessed consciousness of His filial relationship to the Father, not only essentially in His Divine nature, but also in His human nature. His mind is lit with the light of this relationship; His heart rejoices in its joy; His will is always fixed in its posture and action by this relation; and the life of the Christ is emphatically and pre-eminently the life of sonship.

4. And the example of St. Paul agrees. In the words of our text, taken from the supreme chapter of St. Paul’s classic formulation of the meaning of Christianity, we hear the note of real and vital personal experience. From the midst of the clouds and darkness of human existence, the great spirit of St. Paul rose high in faith, and with trust and deep yearning cast itself upon the heart of the unseen Father, and not without response.

Out of the thunder came a human voice,

Saying, O heart I made, a heart beats here.

By the grace of God in Christ, by the power of the Father manifested in the Son, the spirit of adoption, of filiation, the spirit which can make men sons of God, went forth and transformed the spirit of St. Paul into the likeness of itself, and even in the hour of darkness and anguish he could find rest in the centre of his being by the faith which cried, “Abba, Father!”

We have—

I. The spirit of Bondage, that is, the spirit of a slave, which is a spirit of fear.

II. The spirit of Adoption, that is, the spirit of a son, a spirit which expresses itself in the glad cry, “Father.”

I

The Spirit of Bondage

1. This is another subtle variation in the use of “spirit.” From meaning the human spirit under the influence of the Divine Spirit the word comes to mean a particular state, habit, or temper of the human spirit, sometimes in itself, but more often as due to supernatural influence, good or evil. So here it is such a spirit as accompanies a state of slavery, such a servile habit as the human spirit assumes among slaves.

2. The “bondage” or “slavery,” which throughout this Epistle is contrasted with the liberty of the sons of God, is the bondage of sin ( Romans 6:6; Romans 6:16-17; Romans 6:20; Romans 7:25), and of corruption or death as the consequence of sin ( Romans 5:21). The Apostle’s readers, both Jews and Gentiles, had all been once under this bondage ( Romans 6:17) which tends “unto fear,” even the fear of death ( Hebrews 2:14-15).

3. What then (to be more particular) is this “spirit of bondage” which St. Paul says the Roman Christians had not received? That they had received some kind of spirit was to the Christians of that age a fact of experience, which no one doubted. The entrance into the Church was marked, as a general rule, for every believer, by an access of new spiritual emotions prompting him to unwonted utterances. So a Christian defined himself no less as a partaker of a Spirit from above than as a believer in a risen Lord. St. Paul therefore takes the receiving of a spirit for granted; the question is what kind of a spirit it was. He tells his readers emphatically that it was not one suitable to slaves, generating a habit of fear; they had not simply exchanged a heathen or a Jewish spirit of bondage for a Christian spirit of bondage; the Spirit received by the Church was—he does not here use the formally opposite phrase, one of freedom, but an equivalent and more instructive term—one of sonship.

4. Bondage means slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the spirit which makes men look up to God as slaves do to their taskmaster. Now, a slave obeys his master from fear only; not from love or gratitude. He knows that his master is stronger than he is, and he dreads being beaten and punished by him; and therefore he obeys him only by compulsion, not of his own goodwill. This is the spirit of bondage: the slavish, superstitious spirit in religion, into which all men fall, in proportion as they are mean, and sinful, and carnal, fond of indulging themselves, and bear no love to God or right things. They know that God is stronger than they; they are afraid that God will take away comforts from them, or even cast them into endless torment, if they offend Him; and, therefore, they are afraid to do wrong. They love what is wrong, and would like to do it; but they dare not, for fear of God’s punishment. They do not really fear God; they only fear punishment, misfortune, death, and hell.

If you wish to see how much slavery there may be in religion, you have but to glance at some of the heathen religions. They have not been all equally oppressive; where nature has been bright and free from terrors, there religion has generally had its cheerful and joyous elements. But how frightfully have some races been tormented by their religions! Having experience of arbitrary rulers and cruel enemies in the visible world, they have peopled the invisible with principalities and powers far more cruel and capricious. Their worship has been devil-worship. Imagine how the fear of their false gods must have harassed the souls of a people, before they would make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, to propitiate them. This seems the last extremity to which the spirit of bondage could drive human beings; but, short of that, the lives of men have been filled with misery and darkness in various degrees by the malevolent powers which they have placed in their heaven. 1 [Note: J. Ll. Davies.]

One in a vision saw a woman fair;

In her left hand a water jar she bare,

And in her right a burning torch she held

That shed around a fierce and ruddy glare.

Sternly she said, “With fire I will burn down

The halls of Heaven; with water I will drown

The fires of Hell,—that all men may be good

From love, not fear, nor hope of starry crown.

The fear of punishment, the lust of pay,

With Heaven and Hell shall also pass away,

And righteousness alone shall fill each heart

With the glad splendour of its shining ray.”

Such is the Hindoo legend quaintly told

In Bernard Picart’s famous folio old;

And ’neath this symbol ethnical, we may

A moral for the present time behold.

When fear of punishment and greed of pay

Shall faint and die in Love’s serener day,

Then shall the Kingdom of the Lord arrive

And earth become the Heaven for which we pray. 1 [Note: W. E. A. Axon.]

5. The spirit of bondage is due to world-weariness, to the torment of conscience, or to the fear of death.

(1) It is due to weariness with this world. Are we mere people of the world, loving money, pleasure, vanity, sin, loving to live as our own evil hearts incline us? And yet there are times when we tear ourselves away from these beloved things to say our prayers—to come to Church—to attend the Holy Communion—to read the Bible. Do we love to pray? Have we a delight in the service we attend? Do we find refreshment in the Sacrament? Is the word of God sweet to us? No; but, on the contrary, we are ready to exclaim, whilst engaged in any of these exercises, “What a weariness it is! when will it be over?” It is, in short, all part of our weariness with the world itself. We attend to these things partly in hope of finding pleasure in them, but chiefly out of some sense of duty or some fear of the consequence of neglect.

Dear Saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,

Nor suffering, which shuts up eye and ear

To all that has delighted them before,

And lets us be what we were once no more.

No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain

Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,

By what of old pleased us, and will again.

No, ’tis the gradual furnace of the world,

In whose hot air our spirits are upcurled

Until they crumble, or else grow like steel—

Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring—

Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,

But takes away the power—this can avail,

By drying up our joy in everything,

To make our former pleasures all seem stale. 1 [Note: Matthew Arnold.]

(2) It is due to the torment of a guilty conscience. The spirit of bondage is strikingly seen in the case of those who are just awakened to a sense and feeling of their sins. Observe a man in this condition who has not yet discovered the fulness and the freeness of the gospel offer of salvation. He sees himself a lost and ruined sinner. God’s holy and spiritual commandments are written up, as it were, before his eyes, and he looks at them as Belshazzar did at the handwriting on the wall—looks and trembles. And what does this poor trembling sinner do to mend his case? He labours with all his might to make himself acceptable to God; multiplies his prayers and duties; tries to keep the whole law; resolves to mortify his flesh, to forsake every evil habit, to practise every grace which his Bible recommends. As for the salvation of Christ Jesus, he has no other idea of what it means than to hope that he may render himself worthy of it by a strict obedience to the law. And yet he finds that his duties and observances lie heavy on him. They are but vain attempts to satisfy an accusing conscience and to heal a wounded spirit. He goes about them in a melancholy frame of mind, feeling all the time he is engaged in them that he has undertaken a work which is far beyond his strength. He feels just as Israel did at Sinai, when they saw God as “a consuming fire” and trembled under the voice of His commandments.

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts

And keep out sorrow from this room within,

Or memory could cancel all the notes

Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:

How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,

Discharged of such a loathsome company!

Or were there other rooms without my heart

That did not to my conscience join so near,

Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart

That I might not their clamorous crying hear,

What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,

Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!

But, O my Saviour, who my refuge art,

Let Thy dear mercies stand ’twixt them and me,

And be the wall to separate my heart

So that I may at length repose me free;

That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,

And I remain divided from my sin.

(3) The fear of death, and of the terrible possibilities (at least) which must be faced just beyond death, is, no doubt, the chief cause of that spirit of bondage which oppresses man in life. The feeling that we are in another’s hands, powerless alike over the duration and to a great extent over the circumstances of our own being, is a very formidable thing in itself. If we add to this, that the Power in whose hands we thus are is either unknown to us or supposed to be unfriendly, we have suggested a consideration which has exercised more influence than any other upon the religion, and through it upon the history, of the world. Hence all manner of superstitions: a powerful Being, absolute over our destiny, yet unknown to us in character, in will, and in intention, must be propitiated by such offerings as we possess or can discover, that He may be induced to use His power for protection and not for destruction. Thus the spirit of bondage is the very religion of the heathen.

Why am I loath to leave this earthly scene?

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?

Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:

Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms:

Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?

Or death’s unlovely, dreary, dark abode?

For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;

I tremble to approach an angry God,

And justly smart beneath His sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, “Forgive my foul offence!”

Fain promise never more to disobey;

But, should my Author health again dispense,

Again I might desert fair virtue’s way;

Again in folly’s path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute and sink the man;

Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

Who act so counter heavenly mercy’s plan?

Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to temptation ran.

O Thou, great Governor of all below!

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,

Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,

Or still the tumult of the raging sea:

With that controlling power assist even me,

Those headlong furious passions to confine;

For all unfit I feel my powers to be,

To rule their torrent in the allowed line;

O! aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine. 1 [Note: Robert Burns.]

II

The Spirit of Adoption

i. The Adoption

1. Adoption is that act whereby we are received into the family of God. We are none of us in God’s family by nature. It is not a matter, properly speaking, of birth; we are brought into it from without; literally, we are “adopted.” And the way in which it is brought about is this;—God has one only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; we are never God’s sons in exactly the same sense in which Christ is His Son: indeed, there is a word which is always confined in the Bible to Christ. That word conveys the idea of right, the right which Christ has really in Himself to be a Son. For instance, in the passage in St. John’s first epistle in which he says, “Now are we the sons of God,” the word is not the same, though it has been translated the same, as when Christ is called the Son of God. The word used concerning us is children. It is a close, dear, affectionate, blessed word; but it is not quite the same word as is used about Christ the Son. Christ, then, is the one Son of God. Into the Son, God elects and engrafts members. He elects them everywhere, and He engrafts them just as He pleases; but they are all chosen from without, and brought in. As soon as the union takes place between a soul and Christ, God sees that soul in the relationship in which He sees Christ. He gives it a partnership in the same privileges; He treats it as if it were His own child; He gives it a place and name “better than of sons and daughters.” In fact, He has “adopted” it.

2. We must not, however, confound “adoption” and the “spirit of adoption”—as though they were the same thing. They are never, indeed, very far apart; but still they are not the same thing. For adoption, if it stood alone, would be no blessing. Suppose a man’s relationships were changed, but his own actual state or moral condition remained unaltered—where would be the benefit? Would it not be an evil and an injury to him? Conceive a man to be placed as a son of God, and yet, all the while, to dislike and hate God; or conceive that a man were called to take his place in spiritual societies, and heavenly fellowships, for which he had, and felt that he had, no taste or fitness whatever; if to that new relationship there were attached particular duties, and the man had no power or adaptation to fulfil those duties—is it not evident that the man, though his position would be really a better one, would be no gainer, but rather a loser, by that change?

A rich man, well educated, “adopts” a poor illiterate child. The child moves in the circle of the society of his adopted father, and shares with him in the indulgences of his wealth. But because that child has no sense of affection towards his adopted father, or because he has no previous training to qualify him for his elevation, or because he has no habit of life to fit and prepare him for his position, the connection is absolutely irksome and injurious to that child; it were better that he never should be “adopted.” If the benefactor of that child be indeed a wise man, he will endeavour by kindness and education to give him a filial spirit, and the qualifications which are necessary for his elevation. But, if not, the “adoption,” however well intended, and however actually in itself a good thing, will only issue in disappointment and unhappiness.

3. How, then, will the spirit of adoption reveal itself?

(1) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of reverence. Not of slavish fear, but of filial reverence. No man can be happy without having some one to revere; some one whom, the more he knows of him, the more he reveres; some one towards whom that process of discovery which is inseparable from prolonged intercourse is a process wholly of increasing reverence, insomuch that they who stand nearest to His throne in heaven veil their faces as they worship ( Isaiah 6:2), and they who live nearest to Him on earth are ever found the most humble, the most self-abased, the most full of reverence and awe and godly fear.

David says, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before him with trembling.” Let some one make this rhyme for me;—to be joyful and to fear. My little son Hans can do it to me; but I cannot do it with God. For when I sit and write, or do anything, he sings a little song to me the while; and if he makes it too loud, and I tell him so, then he still sings on, but makes it softer, crooning on with a sweet, little, subdued voice, shyly watching me all the time. So would God have it with us; that we should be always rejoicing, yet with fear and reverence towards Him. 1 [Note: Luther.]

(2) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of submission. The cry, Abba, Father, is the expression of an entirely resigned will. It was so used on earth by Him who, though He was a Son, yet condescended to learn obedience by the things which He suffered ( Hebrews 5:8). “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” ( Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). “If this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done” ( Matthew 26:42). God grant us all betimes that spirit of adoption from which alone that prayer can rise heartily or be heard with acceptance! Well may he who knows that he has indeed a Father in heaven submit himself in all respects to His wise and fatherly will.

The son cannot be true to his sonship unless he is obedient to his father’s will; and whenever the Spirit of God is bearing witness to the Divine adoption, whenever the Christian is really living responsive to this witness, there always must be, not constraint, but a glad, free delight in obedience. How practical, how beautiful, is life thus lived under the sweet power of the witnessing Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, in the light of the Fatherhood of God, whom I may call Father. Aye, when memory grieves me for the past, here is my rest: “Like as a father pitieth his children, even so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” To be living thus in relation with the Lord God as my own Father, is to be living in peace and security, like a child shielded in its home amidst all the sorrows and perils of life. Then the joy of dying may be mine—I may fall asleep in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, with this last utterance issuing from my failing spirit, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” 1 [Note: Canon G. Body.]

There are few finer stories of obedience than that of Fénelon, the Prince-Archbishop of Cambrai. When his book was condemned by the Pope and cardinals, a book his own judgment told him to be orthodox and helpful, he accepted the public rebuke without a sign of protest. He received the news that the book was proscribed just as he was about to preach to his people in the cathedral. He at once laid aside his sermon, preached on obedience, and showed that he could practise what he preached by the following letter, which he sent to all the clergy:—“Our holy Father, the Pope, has condemned the book entitled Explication des Maximes des Saints, in a brief which is spread abroad everywhere, and which you have already seen. We give our adhesion to this brief, dear brethren, as regards the text of the book and the twenty-three points simply, absolutely, and without a shadow of doubt; and we forbid the faithful of the diocese to read or retain the book. God grant that we may never be spoken of save as a pastor who strove to be more docile than the least sheep of the flock, and whose submission knew no limit. Dear Brethren, may the grace of God be with you all. Amen.

François, Archbishop and Duke of Cambrai.”

It must have caused him much suffering to feel that he was looked upon as a heretic, that his enemies were triumphing over his submission; but he felt, and no doubt he was right, that obedience would bring a greater blessing to the Church than any protest. 2 [Note: G. H. S. Walpole, Personality and Power, 88.]

When our commissioners went a few years ago to Paris to treat with the Spaniards, the latter are said to have desired certain changes in the language of the protocol. With the polished suavity for which they are noted, the Spaniards urged that there be made slight changes in the words: no real change in the meaning, they said, simply in the verbiage. And our Judge Day, at the head of the American Commissioners, listened politely and patiently until the plea was presented. And then he quietly said, “The article will be signed as it reads.” And the Spaniards protested, with much courtesy. The change asked for was trivial, merely in the language, not in the force of the words. And our men listened patiently and courteously. Then Mr. Day is said to have locked his little square jaw and replied very quietly, “The article will be signed as it reads.” And the article was so signed. That is military usage. The surrender was forced. The strength of the American fleets, the prestige of great victory, were behind the quiet man’s demand. But that is not the law here. Jesus asks only for what we give freely and spontaneously. He does not want anything except what is given with a free, glad heart. This is to be a voluntary surrender. Jesus is a voluntary Saviour. He wants only voluntary followers. He would have us be as Himself. The oneness of spirit leads the way into the intimacy of closest friendship. And that is His thought for us. 1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]

(3) The spirit of adoption is a spirit of trust. Submission runs on into confidence. The one is a readiness to bear even though the stroke were in anger; the other is the assurance that the stroke will not be in anger, or that, beneath the anger, even if anger should be needful, will lie a deep purpose of eventual mercy. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him ( Job 13:15): for even from the very depths of the grave I know that He can and that He will at last raise me up ( Hebrews 11:19).

A child’s experience is marked above all things by this—freedom from anxiety. The father or mother may look round upon their children with anxious eyes. The demands are many, the resources are limited, the prospects are gloomy. They may have weary days and sleepless nights. But the child in the home has no anxiety; it goes on its way in a position of absolute dependence. The father never has failed, and never will fail; and it sleeps in absolute calmness. So it is when we go out into life. If there is one thing that mars the development of the Christian character within us it is that we should be consumed with corroding cares. Be not anxious. The cares of this world choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful; cares for those we love, cares for ourselves, cares and bitter anxieties over God’s own dear Church; cares at times for the tendencies of the life of the nation—multitudes of cares come in. How are we to be able to rise above them? It is all very well to say, Be not anxious—how can we fail to be anxious? God would not ask us to live in a fool’s paradise, and not face the actual facts under which we have to live. “Abba, Father,” all is in His hands. 1 [Note: Canon Body.]

I will not doubt, though all my prayers return

Unanswered from the still, white Realm above;

I shall believe it as an all-wise Love

Which has refused those things for which I yearn;

And though at times I cannot keep from grieving,

Yet the pure ardour of my fixed believing

Undimmed shall burn.

I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,

And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;

I shall believe the heights for which I strive

Are only reached by anguish and by pain;

And though I groan and tremble with my crosses,

I yet shall see, through my severest losses,

The greater gain.

I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea

Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;

I shall believe the hand that never fails

From seeming evil worketh good for me;

And though I weep because those sails are battered

Still will I cry, while my best hopes be shattered,

I trust in Thee. 2 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Love and Life, 13.]

(4) The spirit of adoption is, in the last place, and throughout, a spirit of love. It seems very wonderful that God should care for our love. But it is so. Not in awe, not in fear, not in dread is God glorified, but in that going forth of the human spirit to Him, as to One in whom alone it can rest and be satisfied; that return of love for love; that same yearning of the heart, after an affection unchangeable and inexhaustible, which upon earth, as directed towards a human object, is the source of all our deepest joys and of all our keenest sorrows; this it is which God would have turned towards Himself, and which, when once so turned, is as certain to be satisfied as it is in itself elevating and glorious. Herein is the spirit of adoption fulfilled. Reverence for God, submission to God, confidence in God, all meet and are consummated in the love of God. May He who has prepared for them that love Him such good things as pass man’s understanding, pour into our hearts such love towards Him, that we, loving Him above all things, may obtain His promises, which exceed all that we can desire, and “be filled with all the fulness of God.”

My God, I love Thee; not because

I look for Heaven thereby,

Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me

Upon the Cross embrace,

For me didst bear the nails and spear,

And manifold disgrace.

Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ,

Should I not love Thee well,

Not for the sake of winning Heaven,

Or of escaping Hell,

Not with the hope of gaining aught,

Not seeking a reward;

But as Thyself hast loved me,

O ever-loving Lord?

Even so I love Thee, and will love,

And in Thy praise will sing,

Solely because Thou art my God,

And my eternal King.

ii. The Cry

We have already seen that the word adoption distinguishes those who are made sons by an act of grace from the only-begotten Son. But we have also seen that the act of grace gives not only the status but the heart of sons. It is accordingly in this, the true and full, spirit of adoption that we are able to cry, Abba, Father.

1. “Abba, Father.” Our Lord, speaking in Aramaic, the vernacular of Palestine, is recorded by St. Mark to have said in His hour of agony “Abba.” And even in the Greek-speaking churches of St. Paul’s day, that sacred word was still used side by side with its Greek equivalent, according to the witness of this and the parallel passage, Galatians 4:6. St. Paul appears to be referring to some occasion on which the Church was in the habit of calling on God with the Aramaic and Greek words side by side, and it is more than likely that he is making a definite reference to the Lord’s Prayer, as recited by the Roman and Galatian Christians in the form prescribed for us in St. Luke’s version, beginning, “Father.” The retention by Greek Christians of an Aramaic word in a familiar religious formula is like the later retention by the Latins of the Greek prayer, Kyrie eleison, or the retention by us of the names Te Deum, Magnificat, etc. St. Paul’s meaning would come home to us better if we were to read—“whereby we cry Our Father.”

The repetition of this word, first in Aramaic and then in Greek, is remarkable, and brings home to us the fact that Christianity had its birth in a bilingual people. The same repetition occurs in Mark 14:36 (“Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee”) and in Galatians 4:6: it gives a greater intensity of expression, but would only be natural where the Speaker was using in both cases his familiar tongue. Lightfoot ( Hor. Heb. on Mark 14:36) thinks that in the Gospel the word “Abba” only was used by our Lord, and Father added as an interpretation by St. Mark, and that in like manner St. Paul is interpreting for the benefit of his readers. The three passages are, however, all too emotional for this explanation: interpretation is out of place in a prayer. It seems better to suppose that our Lord Himself, using familiarly both languages, and concentrating into this word of all words such a depth of meaning, found Himself impelled spontaneously to repeat the word, and that some among His disciples caught and transmitted the same habit. It is significant, however, of the limited extent of strictly Jewish Christianity that we find no other original examples of the use than these three. 1 [Note: Sanday-Headlam, Romans.]

From my recollections as a student in the New College, Edinburgh, I am able to supply an interesting instance of the influence of strong, deep feeling towards a polyglot expression. One morning in the course of his opening prayer in the Senior Hebrew Class, the late Rabbi Duncan was led to use the expression in Psalms 68:35, “O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places,” adding in the same breath, “Thou art Nôra” “venerandus.” Indeed the Rabbi had something of a habit of “polyglotting” (if I may coin a word) his ideas. 1 [Note: A. Thom, in The Expository Times, xx. 527.]

2. “We cry,” says the Apostle; and he uses a strong word (often followed by “with a great voice”). It denotes the loud irrepressible cry with which the consciousness of sonship breaks from the Christian heart in prayer.

3. What do we cry? Of all words which can ever express man’s thought, the word which comprises most of wisdom, tenderness, and love, is the name of “Father.” What a repose lies in that “My Father.” And if we were not so familiar with it, the wonder would never cease to awaken the deepest feeling of admiration that we are ever permitted to say of the great, the holy, the awful, the unseen, the unutterable Jehovah, “My Father.” And yet, as soon as the Spirit begins to work in a sinner’s heart, what is the very first thing that the Spirit plants there? “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say unto him, my father.” And if only we could take in the simple conception that God is a “Father,” well-nigh the whole work of our religion would be done. It is just what we want, for peace, for holiness, for heaven, to be able to say “My Father.” Thousands, indeed tens of thousands, acknowledge it as true; but few, very few think of how much has passed in the deepest counsels and in the sublimest operations of Almighty God, that we might use that paternal name. All heaven had to come down to earth that we might stand to God again in that lost relationship. All the blood of Christ could only purchase it; and no man could ever frame his heart to conceive or his lips to utter it, but by the power of the Holy Ghost; for none can cry, “Abba, Father,” but by the “spirit of adoption.” It will be a marvel, one day, to find what stupendous processes were necessary before we could really say the two first words of that prayer, which some people call, and most beautifully call, “Our Father.”

4. Now some of the signs of this filial spirit which cries “Father,” are these—

(1) Boldness in Prayer. A child does not ask a father as a stranger asks him. He goes as one who has a right,—as one who has never been refused all his life, and never can be refused to all eternity. If a son finds his father’s door for a moment closed, see how he knocks. “That door must open to me.” And life grows very earnest in that spirit; and that spirit is all real.

Boldness in prayer was a new ingredient put into the religious consciousness by Christianity, and is a distinctive feature of the Christian faith. To come boldly to the throne of grace is a new and living way ( Hebrews 10:19). This can be seen by a comparison between the way in which man approaches God under the OT dispensation, and the way in which the Christian approaches Him under the new covenant. In the OT man approaches God with fear and trembling; he stands afar off “at the nether part of the mount” ( Exodus 19:17); even “Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake” ( Hebrews 12:21). In the NT man approaches with boldness “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” “God the judge of all,” and “Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling” ( Hebrews 12:22-24). It will be found, too, that in this matter of boldness the Christian religion is distinct, not only from the Hebrew, but from all other religions. Fear and shrinking rather than boldness and confidence are, universally, the concomitants of the natural man’s approach to the Unseen and Eternal. The Christian alone has boldness of access to the throne of God. 1 [Note: D. Russell Scott, in Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 786.]

Of what an easie quick accesse,

My blessed Lord, art Thou! how suddenly

May our requests Thine ears invade!

To show that State dislikes not easinesse,

If I but lift mine eyes my suit is made;

Thou canst no more not heare then Thou canst die.

Of what supreme almightie power

Is Thy great arm, which spans the east and west

And tacks the centre to the sphere!

By it do all things live their measur’d houre;

We cannot ask the thing which is not there,

Blaming the shallownesse of our request.

Of what unmeasurable love

Art Thou possest, Who, when Thou couldst not die,

Wert fain to take our flesh and curse,

And for our sakes in person sinne reprove;

That by destroying that which ty’d Thy purse,

Thou mightst make way for liberalitie!

Since, then, these three wait on Thy throne,

Ease, Power, and Love, I value Prayer so,

That were I to leave all but one,

Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go;

I and deare Prayer would together dwell,

And quickly gain for each inch lost an ell. 1 [Note: George Herbert.]

(2) Service for Love. He does not want wages; but he receives rewards. He does not want them; he works for another motive; and yet he does not know that he has another motive, for he never stops to ask what his motive is. “Of course I love.”

It is just the old story of the way the birds got their wings. At first God gave the birds their wings as burdens, and bade them carry the burdens. They obeyed, and laid their burdens on their shoulders and wrapped them about their hearts, when lo! their burdens became their wings, and carried them. So it is with every life that in unselfish service takes up the tasks and duties God appoints. As we carry them on our shoulders and wrap them about our hearts, instead of weighing us down they carry us. Our burdens become our pinions, our duties our privileges, our Service becomes our reward, our sacrifice our song. Glory is a flame lit in the altar fires of service. Heaven is the homeland of all who travel a thorn-path of duty to the cross-crowned hill where life is laid down for the sake of others.

When God first made a little bird

For sheer delight,

He gifted it with power of song

But not of flight.

Then by its side He gently laid

Those untried things

That we, in human parlance, call

A pair of wings.

And said, “My little one, this load

Uplift and see,

Beneath this strange disguise, my love’s

Sweet thought for thee.”

The feathered darling serious grew;

A sudden sob

Choked all the music in its throat

And seemed to rob

The air of sunshine; yet it gave

A patient nod,

And said, “I’ll bear it for your sake,

Dear Father God.”

Then on reluctant shoulders, firm

The burden laid;

And lo, the merry winds of heaven

About it played,

Until in very ecstasy

It spurned the ground,

And, borne upon its lifted load,

Glad freedom found.

(3) Fulness of Possession. He has a present possession in the whole universe. All creation is his Father’s house, and he can say, “Everything in it,—everything that is great, and everything that is little,—everything that is happy, and everything that is unhappy,—every cloud and every sun-ray,—it is mine, on to death itself.”

John Kendrick Bangs tells about a little boy who one night cried for the moon. So his father, who was a kind and generous as well as a wise man, gave it to him. “You may have the moon,” said the father, “only you must not be selfish about it. The very best place to keep the moon is up there in the heaven, where it will give you light by night; and of course you want it to give light to me and your mother and other people also. You may have the moon just as long as you are unselfish, but when you grow greedy then the moon will belong to some one else who will make better use of it.” And one day when the lad wanted the ocean his father gave him that also on a similar condition. “You must not carry it away and bottle it up,” he said. “It is yours, but you must not be selfish. Let other people bathe in your ocean and sail boats on your ocean. Indeed, it is very much better for you to have others using your ocean, for it would not be nearly so interesting without ships sailing up and down to all parts of the world to bring you and me and your mother tea and coffee and bananas, and other fishing boats going out to catch our fish for us.” So when the lad wanted a great forest the father gave it to him, and when he asked for the mountains the father gave him the mountains also, until by and by he owned the whole universe, but always on condition that he would not be selfish but would let other people enjoy his moon and his ocean and his forest and his mountains with him.

It is not always easy to distinguish between the serious and the quizzical mood of Mr. Bangs, but I think in this instance he meant to read us a parable. All things are ours. The Great Father gave them to us, at the same time bestowing upon us the capacity to use and enjoy them. The forest belongs to the man who loves it, the mountain belongs to the man who loves it, and the crisp winter landscape belongs to the man who, to use Job’s phrase, has “entered into the treasures of the snow.” 1 [Note: F. O. Hall, Soul and Body, 139.]

(4) Readiness to Depart. For he knows very well what those ever-present words mean, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” And, if the love of an unseen Father has been so sweet, what will it be to look in His face?

Death is to Francis, the lover of all life, a dear and tender sister; to others of like mind, the mother of life, or a strong brother, angel of pity; and for St. Paul, to whom to live was Christ, to die was gain of Christ. Now, even I in my low measure begin to see my deep door as a gateway of fulfilment; and I must turn my eyes away to my place in God on this side of the door, lest even I desire death too much.

I have no tormenting fear; my door is mine alone, and beyond is my own place again. I know I have to dread no gloom which is not already mine; but while I am still on earth I would learn more of the life of Paradise foreshadowed here, that in the greater light I may see the beauty which is of Avalon.

Therefore, for all this cause, although I share the optimism of the saints, I dare not long for death as they have longed; in me nature groans and travails still. I look towards it only as a step in life which I hope that I shall gladly take when it comes before my waiting feet. I will call it a transfiguration towards my truth, and I will dread it only as I dread a truer vision of my truth. 2 [Note: “A Modern Mystic’s Way.”]

What if some morning when the stars were paling,

And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear,

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence

Of a benignant Spirit standing near;

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,

“This is our Earth—most friendly Earth, and fair;

Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow

Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air:

There is blest living here, loving and serving,

And quest of truth and serene friendships dear:

But stay not, Spirit! Earth has one destroyer—

His name is Death: flee, lest he find thee here!”

And what if then, while still the morning brightened,

And freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,

And take my hand, and say, “My name is Death.” 1 [Note: E. Rowland Sill.]

The Spirit of a Son

Literature

Davies (J. LI.), The Christian Calling, 29.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, i. 265.

Kingsley (C.), National Sermons, 403.

Neale (J. M.), Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, ii. 117.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, v. 313.

Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, i. 486.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxx. No. 1759.

Vaughan (C. J.), Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, 441.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iv. No. 486.

Christian World Pulpit, lx. 65 (Strong); lxiii. 150 (Body); 369 (Newsom).

Churchman’s Pulpit, xxviii. 37 (Roberts), 44 (Tait), 47 (Cotton), 49 (Newsom).

Verse 16

The Assurance of Sonship

The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.— Romans 8:16.

The subject is the Witness of the Spirit; and we may ask these questions about it—

I. What is the Spirit a Witness to?

II. Why is the Witness of the Spirit needed?

III. How does the Spirit make this Witness?

IV. Are there any ways of confirming the Witness?

I

To What is the Spirit a Witness?

1. In answer to this question the words of St. Paul are quite explicit. The witness is to our Sonship—“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.” “The Holy Spirit,” says Swete, “enables the members of Christ to realize their consecration by creating in them a sense of their filial relation to God, and opening and maintaining communication between God and the individual life. The Spirit in the human heart is ‘the spirit of the adoption’ which corresponds with the spirit of sonship in the Christ, and cries in us as in Him, Abba, Father.” 1 [Note: The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 346.]

2. The witness of the Spirit, then, is given to assure us of the fact of our sonship. Being adopted into the family of God we receive the Spirit of adoption, and in that Spirit we are able to express our filial desires; we cry, “Abba, Father.” But we need fuller, more sure, more abiding confirmation of our position as children. And the same Spirit of adoption provides it. For not only is His presence a witness to our adoption, but one of His very offices, if we may use the word, is that of suggesting and confirming the witness of our own spirits. Without that suggestion and confirmation we should have little confidence in our approach to God, and little joy in our Christian life.

A religious life dependent for its confidence on mere inference would always be exposed to those fluctuations which constitution and temperament encourage. Some impressions of the mind are healthy; some are morbid; some are presumptuous. In some cases the premises on which the soul founded its judgments would be false; or the process of reasoning would be unsound; or the reasoner himself prejudiced and incompetent. For, as a rule, no man is an infallible judge of his own feelings or actions. A tender conscience, a diffident estimate of one’s own character, a morbid tendency, would rob the truest soul of peace; while, on the other hand, a native buoyancy of disposition, a sunny temperament, an indulgent conscience, would interpret the most equivocal evidence in its favour. 1 [Note: R. N. Young.]

I would remind you that this is not a luxury, such as when one lies listlessly on one’s body by the Mediterranean, basking in the sunshine. God does not afford us privileges merely to increase the luxuriousness of the Christian life. I do not for a moment say that there is no life where this witness of the Spirit is not recognized and rejoiced in, but I do say there is no real Christian life where that witness is not. Wherever there is adoption, and adoption responded to, there is the witness of the adopting Spirit. Continually we come across people who are in a state of restlessness and perplexity, because they know nothing of the inner witnessing of the Spirit; and it may be after frequent interviews, when one seems baffled and beaten, that one drops some sentence which awakens a response, and the hearer says, “Oh, if that is what you mean, I know it already.” All believers know it, only they do not know they do. It is true you may be in a state of real living union with Christ and yet experience perplexity. But you will never come to be all that a Christian should be until this inner witness is clearly yours, and until you can say with full utterance, without any stammering whatever, “Abba, Father.” 2 [Note: Canon G. Body.]

II

Why is the Witness of the Spirit needed?

1. The Witness of the Spirit is needed to enable us to enter into perfect communion with God. This is the necessity and glory of Christian life; but until we feel His power possessing us, until we see the smile of the Father behind every sorrow, we shall fear Him, and flee from His presence; not until then can we perfectly commune with Him. In some natures, particularly in the stages of infancy and youth, God’s presence seems to address itself to the emotions. There is an instinctive yearning for a perfect and absolute object of love, trust, worship. A vast void waits to be filled with the apprehension of infinite excellence, infinite sympathy, infinite friendship. The heart cannot rest away from God. Till some unknown secret of love is distilled there, stabs of sudden pain are felt, grievous and incurable wounds, strain and distress of the sensibilities. The peace of home, the accord of marriage, the wealth of far-ranging friendship, only palliate the trouble for a time. At last a strange power of loving God springs up within the fevered, distraught, and half-famished affections. That implies and guarantees an accomplished reconciliation. The persuasion comes by the pathway of these tender, sensitive, love-craving conditions of temper, and seems to grow out of them. But it is the great Spirit Himself who witnesses in and through the affections. The heart-chords respond to some vibration in His own nature. A God who irresistibly makes Himself an object of love must be a God who is already reconciled. An assurance wrought in this way is just as authoritatively Divine as though proclaimed by a voice from the skies.

Wisest of sparrows that sparrow which sitteth alone

Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest:

Wisest of swallows that swallow which timely has flown

Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest:

Wisest of sparrows and swallows,

If I were as wise!

Wisest of spirits that spirit which dwelleth apart

Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest,

Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart

Over the eddy of life to that

Presence in rest:

Seated alone and in peace till

God bids it arise. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

2. We need the Witness of the Spirit in order to realize our spiritual inheritance. You know the feeling of sadness which comes when gazing at night into immensity—the thought that this short life will soon be over, and we shall be swept away and forgotten, like withered leaves before the drifting winds of autumn. Then how grandly comes the witness to our sonship, saying, “Thou cast down? Look up into immensity, it is all thine, fear not, thou art a child of the Infinite.”

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,

And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death,

And who knoweth which is best?

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,

And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness—

Round our restlessness, His rest. 1 [Note: Elizabeth Barrett Browning.]

3. And we need the Witness of the Spirit in order to comprehend the glory of suffering. Mark the connexion in Paul’s words between the sufferings of this life, and the glory to be revealed hereafter, as if he had said,—“as the suffering is great, so also shall be the glory.” None but the man who has the “witness of the Spirit” is able to look through the sorrow to the blessedness hereafter.

The paper you sent me speaks of the deteriorating effect of pain. I most entirely recognize the accuracy of the observation. It is one of the most terrible features of suffering. But then it must be remembered that anything, not only pain, may be deteriorating—either by fault of the will, if health and faculties are unimpaired, or, as is, we hope, often the case in illness, by failure of that physical organization through which the will acted soundly and loyally when the man was in health. And how terribly deteriorating is the effect sometimes, not merely of success, but of a simply quiet, undisturbed life. We are poor creatures, and yet we have in us the making of heroes and saints. 2 [Note: Life and Letters of Dean Church, 276.]

III

How does the Spirit bear Witness?

“The Spirit himself,” says the Apostle, “beareth witness with our spirit.” The verb which he employs denotes a joint testimony. The cry, “Abba, Father,” is a human cry. It expresses our consciousness of a filial relation to God. But it is also superhuman. For it is prompted by the Spirit of God, “ in whom we cry, Abba, Father.”

1. Now observe here, first of all, that Paul distinguishes between the Spirit of God and our “spirit.” For “the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.” His witness to our sonship is distinct from our personal consciousness of sonship. Again, “ we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” What He desires for us He must know; and there are times when He is able to draw us into perfect and intelligent sympathy with His own thought and His own longing; but there are other times when the great things that He desires for us transcend our vision and our hope; and then the Spirit who dwells in us carries on His intercession for us alone; He is too near to us, too intimately one with us, for us not to be conscious of the energy and earnestness of His desires; and we ourselves, as the result of His energy and earnestness, may have a vague and even a passionate longing for some infinite good, but what it is we cannot tell.

2. There are therefore two witnesses to our sonship. As two witnesses were required, under the Law, to establish a charge that was made against any man; so, under the Gospel, we have two witnesses to establish our claim to be the children of God,—first, the witness of our own spirit, and then the second and far greater Witness, the Holy Spirit Himself; and by the mouth of these two witnesses shall our claim be fully established. If our own spirit were our only witness, we might hesitate to receive its testimony, for it is fallible and partial; but when the infallible and impartial Spirit of God confirms the unfaltering witness of our own heart and conscience, then may we have confidence toward God, and believe without hesitation that we are indeed the children of the Most High God.

As you look at the clock in the tower of some great public building, you remember that behind the gilt letters of the dial there is an elaborate mechanism which moves the fingers. But you also remember that, after all, everything does not rest upon the exact weight and rhythm of the pendulum that swings there, or the faultless going-order of the well-cleaned wheels. It is possible for the local mechanism to be at fault and to vary in its time-keeping virtues, and the citizens are not left to the mercy of its supposed inerrancy. At noon a gun is fired or a ball made to fall, or some other delicate adjustment is brought into play by an electric current sent direct from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the centre of scientific precision and faultless and authoritative reckoning. There is local mechanism fairly trustworthy in its way, but that is guaranteed and controlled by the message of absolute astronomical truth. 1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

3. These two witnesses must agree. Notice the words: “the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit.” It is not so much a revelation made to my spirit, considered as the recipient of the testimony, as a revelation made in or with my spirit considered as co-operating in the testimony. It is not that my spirit says one thing, bears witness that I am a child of God; and that the Spirit of God comes in by a distinguishable process, with a separate evidence, to say Amen to my persuasion; but it is that there is one testimony which has a conjoint origin—the origin from the Spirit of God as true source, and the origin from my own soul as recipient and co-operant in that testimony.

To produce a perfect chord in music two things are necessary. The things brought into play must be attuned to each other. Unless there is this perfect adjustment when the notes are struck, instead of the faultless chord you will have jarring, dissonance, torture. So our wills must be brought into agreement with the will of the Spirit. We must forsake all sin, and give ourselves up to His skilful modulation and adjustment.

I saw on earth another light

Than that which lit my eye

Come forth, as from my soul within,

And from a higher sky.

Its beams still shone unclouded on,

When in the distant west

The sun I once had known had sunk

For ever to his rest.

And on I walked—though dark the night,

Nor rose his orb by day,—

As one to whom a surer guide

Was pointing out the way.

’Twas brighter far than noonday’s beam,

’Twas duty shone within,

And lit, as by a lamp from heaven,

The world’s dark track of sin. 1 [Note: Jones Very.]

(1) From the teaching of this passage, or from any of the language which Scripture uses with regard to the inner witness, it is not to be inferred that there will rise up in a Christian’s heart, from some origin consciously beyond the sphere of his own nature, a voice with which he has nothing to do; which at once, by its own character, by something peculiar and distinguishable about it, by something strange in its nature, or out of the ordinary course of human thinking, shall certify itself to be not his voice at all, but God’s voice. That is not the direction in which we are to look for the witness of God’s Spirit. It is evidence borne, indeed, by the Spirit of God; but it is evidence borne not only to our spirit, but through it, with it The testimony is one, the testimony of a man’s own emotion, and own conviction, and own desire, the cry, “Abba, Father.”

(2) Again, there are those who conceive that a certain feeling of assurance suddenly rises in the Christian, which is a conviction of his election, and that this feeling is the witness of the Holy Spirit. Hence, men have waited for it with anxiety. Many of the most earnest have prayed in tears of agony for its dawning. They have wasted many a darkened hour by the fear lest this feeling should never come, and have longed, like men watching for the morning, for the moment when it should suddenly flash across the darkness of the soul and light it with confident joy. Now, we need not dispute the fact that a sudden emotion may come, but this is certainly not the assurance of which Paul is speaking here. For he speaks of a Divine Spirit witnessing with our spirit; to rely on any emotion as certainty is to rely upon our own spirit bearing witness with itself; for if we trust to any feeling in us we are not trusting to the Spirit of God.

The substance of the conviction which is lodged in the human spirit by the testimony of the Spirit of God is not primarily directed to our relation or feelings to God, but to a far grander thing than that—to God’s feelings and relation to us. 1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

IV

How is the Witness confirmed?

The confirmation of sonship is the spirit of a son. There is no evidence that can supersede the actual recognition of God as Father, the actual filial affection which prompts the cry, “Abba, Father.” And so, there is no evidence of the Spirit and no confirmation of His witness to be compared to the fact that we are in our daily life bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit. But there are three ways in particular to be noticed here in which the evidence of the Spirit can be confirmed. They are the ways in which St. Paul is showing the operation of the Spirit.

1. Have we obtained deliverance from a carnal mind? “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” The carnal is not always the sensual; it includes those temptations into which a man’s spirit has infused a charm. Freedom from this is the first sign of sonship. Here, then, is the witness: the old affections are being uprooted; a deep desire is being created after perfect purity; the chains of sin are being snapped. The heart with its love, the head with its understanding, the conscience with its quick response to the law of duty, the will with its resolutions—these are all, as sanctified by Him, the witness of His Spirit; and the life with its strenuous obedience, with its struggles against sin and temptation, with its patient persistence in the quiet path of ordinary duty, as well as with the times when it rises into heroic stature of resignation or allegiance, the martyrdom of death and the martyrdom of life, this too is all (in so far as it is pure and right) the work of that same Spirit. The test of the inward conviction is the outward life; and they that have the witness of the Spirit within them have the light of their life lit by the Spirit of God, whereby they may read the handwriting on the heart, and be sure that it is God’s and not their own.

2. Have we the spirit of Prayer? Sometimes the Christian prayer transcends all words. The heart’s wounded affections—blighted hopes—unexpressed longings—all burn in one deep impassioned cry. This spirit of prayer possessing us is a sign of adoption.

3. Have we the spirit of Aspiration? “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” This is a sign of sonship—life’s imperfectness the ground of hope. The feeling that here there is no rest—the whole life becoming one prayer for more light, greater power, deeper love—not, mark, the cry for happiness, but the cry—

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

Even though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

That aspiration, possessing the soul, forms the power of the Christian, and is a witness to his sonship of the Father.

An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust, and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich. 1 [Note: Robert Louis Stevenson, El Dorado.]

The white doves brood low

With innocent flight.

Higher, my soul, higher!

Into the night!—

Into black night!

Beyond where the eagle

Soars strong to the sun.

Nought hast thou, if only

Earth’s stars be won—

Earth’s stars are won.

Beyond, where God’s angels

Stand silent in might,

Higher, my soul, higher!

Into the light!—

Straight to God’s light! 1 [Note: Maarten Maartens.]

The Assurance of Sonship

Literature

Beet (J. Agar), The New Life in Christ, 72.

Daviea (J. Ll.), Spiritual Apprehension, 16.

Denio (F. B.), The Supreme Leader, 100.

Evans (E. D. P.), in Sermons by Unitarian Ministers, ii. 27.

Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 253.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year, Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, 259.

McIntyre (D. M.), Life in His Name, 215.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Creed and Conduct, 39.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Expositions of Holy Scripture, Romans, 136.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 54.

Martineau (J.), Hours of Thought, i. 45.

Patton (W. J.), Pardon and Assurance, 18.

Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 175.

Walker (W. L.), The Holy Spirit, 61.

Young (R. N.), The Witness of the Spirit, 1.

Christian Age, xliii. 309 (Cuyler).

Christian World Pulpit, xxi. 138 (Beecher); xxix. 181 (Brierley); xlviii. 156 (Rawnsley); lxviii. 333 (Cuyler).

Churchman’s Pulpit (Eighth Sunday after Trinity), xi. 54 (Mackay), 57 (Moore).

Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, iii. 325 (Tasker).

Pulpit Encyclopædia, i. 327 (Maclaren * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] ).

Verse 17

Joint-Heirs with Christ

If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him.— Romans 8:17.

“The eighth chapter of Romans,” says Spurgeon, “is like the garden of Eden, full of all manner of delights. Here you have all necessary doctrines to feed upon, and luxurious truths with which to satisfy your soul. One might well have been willing to be shut up as a prisoner in Paradise; and one might well be content to be shut up to this one chapter, and never to be allowed to preach from any other part of God’s Word. If this were the case, one might find a sermon in every line; nay, more than that, whole volumes might be found in a single sentence by any one who was truly taught of God. I might say of this chapter, ‘All its paths drop fatness.’ It is among the other chapters of the Bible like Benjamin’s mess, which was five times as much as that of any of his brothers. We must not exalt one part of God’s Word above another; yet, as ‘one star differeth from another star in glory,’ this one seems to be a star of the first magnitude, full of the brightness of the grace and truth of God. It is an altogether inexhaustible mine of spiritual wealth, and I invite the saints of God to dig in it, and to dig in it again and again. They will find, not only that it hath dust of gold, but also huge nuggets, which they shall not be able to carry away by reason of the weight of the treasure.”

The subject of this verse of the chapter is the Inheritance of the children of God.

I. The Inheritance belongs to the Children.

II. The Inheritance is God.

III. It is a Joint-Inheritance with Christ.

IV. The condition of enjoying it is that we suffer with Christ.

I

The Inheritance belongs to the Children

“If children, then heirs.”

1. It is children of God who are heirs of God. It is by union with Christ Jesus, the Son, to whom the inheritance belongs, that they who believe on His name receive power to become the sons of God, and with that power the possession of the inheritance.

2. What, then, are the marks of sonship?

(1) If we are sons of God, we shall know it partly by the indwelling of the Spirit, as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”; and in the verse before our text we read, “The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.”

(2) The children of God have another mark by which they can be recognized, namely, that there is a likeness in them to their Heavenly Father. If a man says to you, “I am the son of So-and-so,”—some old friend of yours,—you look into his face to see whether you can trace any likeness to his father. So, when a man says, “I am a child of God,” we have the right to expect that there shall be at least some trace of the character of God visible in his walk and conversation.

(3) But the chief evidence of our being children of God lies in our believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” There are many evidences of the life of God in the soul, but there is no other that is so abiding as the possession of faith in Jesus Christ.

It is not easy to imagine a more cautious, lawyer-like record than that of Lord Eldon: “I was born, I believe, on the 4th of June 1751.” We may suppose that this hesitating statement refers to the date, and not to the fact, of his birth. Many, however, are just as uncertain about their spiritual birth. It is a grand thing to be able to say, “We have passed from death unto life,” even though we may not be able to post a date to it.

3. The Inheritance belongs to all God’s children. It does not always follow in human reckoning, “if children, then heirs,” because in our families but one is the heir. There is but one that can claim the heir’s rights, and the heir’s title. It is not so in the family of God. Man, as a necessary piece of political policy, may give to the heir that which surely he can have no more real right to, in the sight of God, than the rest of the family—may give him all the inheritance, while his brethren, equally true-born, may go without; but it is not so in the family of God. All God’s children are heirs, however numerous the family, and he that shall be born of God last shall be as much His heir as he who was born first. Abel, the protomartyr, entering alone into heaven, shall not have a more secure title to the inheritance than he who, last of woman born, shall trust in Christ, and then ascend into His glory.

II

The Inheritance is God

“Heirs of God.”

1. God Himself is His greatest gift. The loftiest blessing which we can receive is that we should be heirs, possessors of God. There is a sublime and wonderful mutual possession spoken of in Scripture: the Lord is the inheritance of Israel, and Israel is the inheritance of the Lord. “The Lord hath taken you to be to him a people of inheritance,” says Moses: “Ye are a people for a possession,” says Peter. And, on the other hand, “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,” says David: “Ye are the heirs of God,” echoes Paul. On earth and in heaven the heritage of the children of the Lord is God Himself. He is in them to make them “partakers of the Divine nature,” and for them in all His attributes and actions.

2. “Heirs of God”—can we enumerate some of the parts of our inheritance?

(1) The children of God are heirs of God’s Promises. If you turn to the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 14th verse, you will find that we are there called “heirs of salvation.” Looking on a little further in the same Epistle, in the 6th chapter, and the 17th verse, you will find that we are called “the heirs of promise.” In his Epistle to Titus, the 3rd chapter, and the 7th verse, Paul calls us “heirs according to the hope of eternal life”; while James says, in the 2nd chapter of his Epistle, at the 5th verse, that we are “heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him”; and Peter says, in his First Epistle, the 3rd chapter, and 7th verse, that we are “heirs together of the grace of life.”

The promises of men are often lightly given. “A canvassing party,” says Sir Wilfrid Lawson, “went to the house of an elector in Manchester, but only his wife was at home. They explained to her what they had come for, and on leaving said: ‘You know what we want, we want your husband’s vote for Mr. ——; do you think he’ll promise?’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I think he’ll promise, he’s promised every one who came yet.’ ” 1 [Note: G. W. E. Russell’s Memoir of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 97.] God promises nothing but what He knows He can perform, nothing but what He means to perform.

A living, loving, lasting word,

My listening ear believing heard,

While bending down in prayer;

Like a sweet breeze that none can stay,

It passed my soul upon its way,

And left a blessing there.

Then joyful thoughts that come and go,

By paths the holy angels know,

Encamped around my soul;

As in a dream of blest repose,

’ Mid withered reeds a river rose,

And through the desert stole.

I lifted up my eyes to see—

The wilderness was glad for me,

Its thorns were bright with bloom;

And onward travellers, still in sight,

Marked out a path of shining light

And shade unmixed with gloom.

Oh, sweet the strains of those before,

The weary knees are weak no more,

The faithful heart is strong.

But sweeter, nearer, from above,

That word of everlasting love,

The promise and the Song of Solomon 1 [Note: A. L. Waring.]

(2) We are heirs of God’s Possessions. When God gives Himself to us, He gives us with Himself all that He has. And this means treasures vast and immeasurable. The stars in their glittering splendour are the dust of His feet. The kingdoms of the world are to Him the small dust of the balance. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says: “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.”

I stood one time with a big-hearted friend of mine who has been for twenty years minister of a small church in a humble community where most of the people were fisher-folk winning their livelihood from the sea. The veranda of this man’s humble home overlooked the harbour and the ocean beyond. It was evening, and the lights were appearing one by one on the fleet of boats in the harbour. We had been speaking about the city, with its advantages and its enticements. My friend had grown meditative, and was evidently thinking of what he had missed in these twenty years of isolation. He said, “Sometimes I think I ought to go away from here—ought to have gone years ago. I should probably be more of a man if I had.” And then with an impulsive and indescribable gesture he stretched his hands out as if to embrace the harbour and the ocean itself, and said, “That compensates for all.” For a moment he made me feel my own poverty. He owned the ocean because he loved it. 2 [Note: F. O. Hall.]

(3) We are heirs of God’s Attributes. Is He omnipotent? His omnipotence is ours, to be our defence. Is He omniscient? His infinite wisdom is ours, to guide us. Is He eternal? His eternity is ours, that we may ever be preserved. Is He full of love and grace? Then all His love, as though there were not another to be loved, is mine, and all His grace, as though there were never another sinner to partake of it, is mine. “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.” “God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

My eyes for beauty pine,

My soul for Goddës grace:

No other care nor hope is mine;

To heaven I turn my face.

One splendour thence is shed

From all the stars above:

’Tis namèd where God’s name is said,

’Tis Love, ’tis heavenly Love.

And every gentle heart,

That burns with true desire,

Is lit from eyes that mirror part

Of that celestial fire. 1 [Note: Robert Bridges.]

3. But if the Inheritance which is God—God in all His promises, possessions, attributes—God Himself, is ours, when may we enter upon it? In its fulness, in the supremacy of its bliss, we must wait till the suffering is ended. But in some measure we may enter into possession here and now.

Our estates are not all beyond the river we call death. That is where we make an impoverishing mistake. We are heirs not only of “great expectations” but of great possessions. Superlatively rich are our expectations, but we have more than a competency by the way. Devonshire is a peculiarly rich and fruitful county, but it overflows into Somersetshire, and we are in the enjoyment of some of the glory before we reach the coveted spot. And so it is of heaven and ultimate glory.

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign;

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

But the glory overflows! There is something of the coveted country even in the highway of time—

The hill of Zion yields

A thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields

Or walk the golden streets. 2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

III

It is a Joint-Inheritance

“Joint-heirs with Christ.”

The proper possessor of the Inheritance indeed is “the Son of God,” the only-begotten of the Father. But His brethren are to share in it. All that glory, therefore, which the Lord had in enjoyment with the Father as His well-beloved Son before the Incarnation, together with whatever added glory the Incarnation and Atonement brought Him—all is to be shared with His brethren. He is the First-born, but He is the First-born among many brethren.

1. He cannot possibly be heir alone; for union with Christ is the very reason why we are heirs of God, and union with Christ must for us also culminate in glory. It is not merely because the joy hereafter seems required in order to vindicate God’s love to His children, who here reap sorrow from their sonship, that the discipline of life cannot but end in blessedness. That ground of mere compensation is a low one on which to rest the certainty of future bliss. But the inheritance is sure to all who here suffer with Christ, because the one cause—union with the Lord—produces both the present result of fellowship in His sorrows and the future result of joy in His joy, of possession of His possessions. The inheritance is sure because Christ possesses it now.

Our right to it stands or falls with Christ’s right to the same inheritance. We are co-heirs; if He be truly an heir, so are we; and if He be not, neither are we. Our two interests are intertwined and made one, we have neither of us any heirship apart from the other; we are joint-heirs, Christ jointly with us, ourselves jointly with Christ. So, then, it follows that if there be any flaw in the will, so that it be not valid, if it be not rightly signed, sealed, and delivered, then it is no more valid for Christ than it is for us. If we get nothing, Christ gets nothing; if there should be no heaven for us, there is no heaven for Christ. If there should be no throne for us, there would be no throne for Him; if the promise should utterly fail of fulfilment to the least of the joint-heritors, it must also fail of accomplishment to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

2. And this lets us see how great the inheritance is. For if we are to be joint-heirs with Christ, it cannot be a little thing that we are to share with Him. Can you imagine what the Father would give to His Son as the reward of the travail of His soul? Give yourself time to think what the everlasting God would give to His equal Son, who took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and who humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Can you think of a reward that would be large enough for Him? Let the Father’s love and the Father’s justice judge.

IV

The Condition

“If so be that we suffer with him.”

1. One condition of heirship the Apostle has stated already—that we be children of God. Is this another? It is not another in the same indispensable way. The one is the indispensable condition of all; the other is but the means for the operation of the condition. The one—being sons, “joint-heirs with Christ”—is the root of the whole matter; the other—the “suffering with him”—is but the various process by which from the root there come “the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear.” Given the sonship—if it is to be worked out into power and beauty, there must be suffering with Christ. But unless there be sonship, there is no possibility of inheriting God; discipline and suffering will be of no use at all.

2. Nor does the Apostle mean to tell us that if there were such a case as that of a man becoming a son of God, and having no occasion or opportunity afterwards, by brevity of life or other causes, for passing through the discipline of sorrow, his inheritance would be forfeited. We must always take such passages as this, which seem to make the discipline of the world an essential part of the preparing of us for glory, in conjunction with the other undeniable truth which completes them, that when a man has the love of God in his heart, however feebly, however newly, there and then he is fit for the inheritance.

3. Yet the condition is there—“if so be that we suffer with him.” And how can it be otherwise? Is not the whole secret of the inheritance that we be united to Christ—that it is a Joint inheritance? And when were ever two hearts united here that the union did not bring with it pain? It cannot be otherwise, and it has never been. “Let love clasp grief, lest both be drowned.”

A blue bird built his nest

Here in my breast.

O bird of Light! Whence comest thou?

Said he: From God above:

My name is Love.

A mate he brought one day,

Of plumage gray.

O bird of Night! Why comest thou?

Said she: Seek no relief!

My name is Grief. 1 [Note: Laurence Alma Tadema.]

i. Christ’s Suffering

1. Christ’s suffering is in one sense solitary. It stands as a thing by itself and unapproachable, a solitary pillar rising up, above the waste of time, to which all men everywhere are to turn with the one thought, “I can do nothing like that; I need to do nothing like it; it has been done once, and once for all; and what I have to do is simply to lie down before Him, and let the power and the blessings of that death and those sufferings flow into my heart.” The Divine Redeemer makes eternal redemption. The sufferings of Christ—the sufferings of His life and the sufferings of His death—both because of the nature which bore them and of the aspect which they wore in regard to us, are in their source, in their intensity, and in their character, and consequences, unapproachable, incapable of repetition, and needing no repetition whilst the world shall stand.

2. But Christ’s sufferings may in another sense be shared by us. The very books and writers in the New Testament that preach most broadly Christ’s sole, all-sufficient, eternal redemption for the world by His sufferings and death, turn round and say to us too, “Be planted together in the likeness of his death”; you are “crucified to the world” by the Cross of Christ; you are to “fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ.” He Himself speaks of our drinking of the cup that He drank of, and being baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with, if we desire to sit yonder on His throne, and share with Him in His glory.

3. All the suffering that came upon Christ came out of one of two roots—the root of obedience or the root of sympathy.

(1) Obedience. He went out on behalf of the word of truth, of meekness, and righteousness. He bore witness to the supernatural truth of His mission before the Sadducees. “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” He bore witness to the deep, vital, progressive righteousness which had found utterance in the older prophets, but full expression through the lips of the Son of Man. Before the face of the Pharisees He bore witness to the word of truth and righteousness linked by meekness. Again and again the people at large would have come and made Him a King. But the bruised reed would He not break, and the smoking flax would He not quench, nor would He cry nor cause His voice to be heard in the street; He bore witness to the word of truth and righteousness. All indignation, all opposition, all rejection, even death, came simply out of that obedience to the uttermost of His mission.

(2) Sympathy. His pain came also from deliberate sympathy. Our Lord describes the life of the selfish: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” Look at the grain of corn. It is the very symbol of a selfish life. There it is, a beautiful thing in its golden integument; but for ever, in its beauty, barren. It must give itself up to let the moisture of the ground rot that integument of its selfish life; for only in abandoning itself can the vital principle be made to germinate within it and bring forth fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold. So our Lord lays before us the principle of the selfish life which He, in His own example, utterly abandons. He hid not Himself from His own flesh; He would not use the supernatural or natural powers of His position to secure advantages to Himself. He simply went out, a man among men. He bore their sicknesses and carried their sorrows. 1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]

There is a great word used of Jesus, and by Him, nine times in the Gospels, the word compassion. The sight of a leprous man, or of a demon-distressed man, moved Him. The great multitudes huddling together after Him, so pathetically, like leaderless sheep, eager, hungry, tired, always stirred Him to the depths. The lone woman, bleeding her heart out through her eyes, as she followed the body of her boy out—He could not stand that at all. And when He was so moved, He always did something. He clean forgot His own bodily needs, so absorbed did He become in the folks around Him. The healing touch was quickly given, the demonized man released from his sore bonds, the disciples organized for a wider movement to help, the bread multiplied so that the crowds could find something comforting between their hunger-cleaned teeth. The sight of suffering always stirred Him. The presence of a crowd seemed always to touch and arouse Him peculiarly. He never learned that sort of city culture that can look unmoved upon suffering or upon a leaderless, helpless crowd. That word compassion, used of Him, is both deep and tender in its meaning. The word, actually used under our English, means to have the bowels or heart, the seat of emotion, greatly stirred. 2 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 103.]

ii. Our Suffering

1. If a Christian has the Spirit and life of Christ in him, his career will be moulded, imperfectly but really, by the same Spirit that dwelt in his Lord; and similar causes will produce corresponding effects. The life of Christ which—Divine, pure, incapable of copy and repetition—in one aspect has ended for ever for men, remains to be lived, in another view of it, by every Christian, who in like manner has to fight with the world; who in like manner has to resist temptation; who in like manner has to stand, by God’s help, pure and sinless, in so far as the new nature of him is concerned, in the midst of a world that is full of evil.

2. It is not meant that we are to go about seeking pain. It is not meant that we are to refuse the healthy joys that life offers us. It is not meant that we should be morbid and sentimental. It is meant that we should set ourselves to follow, deliberately and really, if imperfectly, the principles of our Lord’s living.

3. Of what nature, then, are the things which we have to suffer with Christ if we are to be glorified with Him?

(1) Trial. Let us learn to look upon all trial as being at once the seal of our sonship, and the means by which God puts it within our power to win a higher place, a loftier throne, a nobler crown, a closer fellowship with Him “who hath suffered, being tempted,” and who will receive into His own blessedness and rest them that are tempted. “The child, though he be an heir, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors.” God puts us here in the school of sorrow under that stern tutor and governor, and gives us the opportunity of “suffering with Christ,” that by the daily crucifixion of our old nature, by the lessons and blessings of outward calamities and change, there may grow up in us a still nobler, purer, and more perfect Divine life; and that we may so be made capable—more capable, and capable of more—of that inheritance for which the only necessary thing is the death of Christ, and the only fitness is faith in His name.

Amidst the eternal illusion that envelops us one thing is certain— suffering. It is the corner-stone of life. On it humanity is founded as on a firm rock. Outside it all is uncertainty. It is the sole evidence of a reality that escapes us. We know that we suffer, and we know nothing else. This is the base on which man has built everything. Yes, it is on the parched granite of pain that man has firmly established love and courage, heroism and pity, the choir of august laws and the procession of terrible or delightful virtues. If that foundation failed them, those noble figures would all crash together into the abyss of nothingness. Humanity has an obscure consciousness of the necessity of pain. It has placed pious sorrow among the virtues of the saints. Blessed are those that suffer, and woe to the fortunate! Because it uttered that cry the Gospel has reigned over the world for two thousand years. 1 [Note: Anatole France, On Life and Letters, 294.]

Do you remember a picture at Milan in which there is a little cherub trying to feel one of the points of the crown of thorns with his little first finger? It seemed to me a true thought. 2 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 3.]

(2) The Opposition of the World. Part of Christ’s sufferings sprang from the contact of the sinless Son of Man with a sinful world, and the apparently vain attempt to influence and leaven that sinful world with care for itself and love for the Father. If there had been nothing more than that, yet Christ’s sufferings as the Son of God in the midst of sinful men would have been deep and real. “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?” was wrung from Him by the painful sense of want of sympathy between His aims and theirs. “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then I would fly away and be at rest,” must often be the language of those who are like Him in spirit, and in consequent sufferings.

If we are living in oneness of spirit with our Lord, the same thing will sadden us that saddened Him—the world’s unbelief and sin, its cold contempt of God, its hard rebellion against His law, its proud rejection of His love. To share in His mission to the world will inevitably make us sharers in His trials and sufferings as we carry it on. We shall need to bear reproach as He did, to be evil-spoken-of as He was, to be shunned and stigmatized for the same faithfulness to God that drew down on Him the enmity of men. The more perfectly we resemble Him, the more of this we shall have to endure; indeed, the measure in which we suffer it will often be an accurate measurement of the extent of our resemblance to our Lord. 1 [Note: G. H. Knight.]

(3) Pity. Christ went out into the world in the spirit of sympathy with, and compassion for, the common weaknesses and infirmities and sins of men. We can share in the suffering which His pity brought Him. “Hide not thyself from thine own flesh.” We may clutch at the advantage of our worldly position to screen ourselves as much as ever we can from fellowship in the pains which the great mass of men have to share. “Hide not thyself from thine own flesh.” Have some contact with the suffering, and not in a general and vague philanthropy merely, but a real, actual sympathy with some suffering men or women. Have your own burden well in hand, well borne, so that you can lay open the spaces of your heart, and give some of your vacant time really to bear the burdens of others. There are some weaker than you in your office or round about you in your society, some poorer than you, some struggling with great difficulties or great temptations. Be at pains with a manly and intelligent sympathy to understand their difficulties, so that as you are walking on you may feel that you have been able to tide over the rough waters of this life some one or other whose case you really know; that you have been able to help through the moral difficulties and temptations all around some one whom you are drawing with you nearer to God. 1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]

(4) Sin. One part of the sufferings of Christ is to be found in that deep and mysterious fact on which one durst not venture to speak beyond what the actual words of Scripture put into one’s lips—the fact that Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation. There was no sin within Him, no tendency to sin, no yielding to the evil that assailed. “The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” But yet, when that dark Power stood by His side, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down,” it was a real temptation, and not a sham one. There was no wish to do it, no faltering for a moment, no hesitation. There was no rising up in that calm will of even a moment’s impulse to do the thing that was presented;—but yet it was presented, and when Christ triumphed, and the Tempter departed for a season, there had been a temptation and there had been a conflict. And though obedience be a joy, and the doing of His Father’s will was His delight, as it must needs be in pure and purified hearts; yet obedience which is sustained in the face of temptation, and which never fails, though its path lead to bodily pains and the “contradiction of sinners,” may well be called suffering.

4. Now there is one very comforting fact which we must take into account in all our thought of this mysterious subject. If we participate in the sufferings of Christ, if His death is reproduced and perpetuated, as it were, in our daily mortifying ourselves in the present evil world, Christ is with us in our afflictions. We need not hold that there is no reference here to that comforting thought, “In all our affliction he is afflicted.”

They tell us that in some trackless lands, when one friend passes through the pathless forests, he breaks a twig ever and anon as he goes, that those who come after may see the traces of his having been there, and may know that they are not out of the road. And when we are journeying through the murky night, and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed, and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrances and hidden strengths in the remembrance of Him as “in all points tempted like as we are,” bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us. 1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

5. We must not keep this thought of Christ’s companionship in sorrow for the larger trials of life. If the mote in the eye be large enough to annoy us, it is large enough to bring out His sympathy; and if the grief be too small for Him to compassionate and share, it is too small for us to be troubled by it. Let us never fear to be irreverent or too familiar in the thought that Christ is willing to hear, and help us to bear, the pettiest, the minutest, and most insignificant of the daily annoyances that may come to ruffle us. Whether it be poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing tiny mosquitoes, if we go to Him He will help us to endure it. He will do more, He will bear it with us; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us, and our oneness with Christ brings about a community of possessions whereby it becomes true of each trusting soul in its relations to Him, that “all mine (joys and sorrows alike) are thine, and all thine are mine.”

I could have sung as sweet as any lark

Who in unfettered skies doth find him blest,

And sings to leaning angels prayer and praise,

For in God’s garden the most lowly nest.

But came the cares—a grey and stinging throng

Of Lilliputian foes, whose thrust and dart

Did blind my eyes and hush my song in tears;

Their brushing wings flung poison to my heart.

I could have fought, in truth, a goodly fight,

Braved death, nor feared defeat before one foe;

Against these puny cares I strive in vain,

They sting my soul unto its overthrow. 2 [Note: Dora Sigerson Shorter.]

Joint-Heirs with Christ

Literature

Hall (F. O.), Soul and Body, 135.

Johnstone (V. L.), Sonship, 29.

Knight (G. H.), Divine Upliftings, 75.

Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 86.

Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 81.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, iii. 209, 329; vi. 113; viii. 313.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vi. No. 339; vii. No. 402; li. No. 2961; lvi. No. 3198.

Vaughan (J. S.), Earth to Heaven, 115.

Wilberforce (B.), Sanctification by the Truth, 119.

American Pulpit of the Day, iii. 366 (Perinchief).

Christian World Pulpit, lvi. 54 (Glover).

Clergyman’s Magazine, 3rd Series, xiv. 77 (Burrows).

Homiletic Review, lvi. 147 (Lee), 380 (Jones).

Verse 18

Another Good Reckoning

I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.— Romans 8:18.

1. The Bible never speaks despondingly about the future. If it has a becoming sense of the magnitude of the task of life, that is only the reverence of a great artist, nerving himself to accomplish some far-reaching design. The struggle and the stress are prophecies that the final consummation will be something greater than heart has conceived. Apostles and prophets alike, quickened by the spirit of inspiration, look across the ages to the last result, and never hesitate to declare that that result will amply compensate for all the toil and suffering. “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.”

2. “I reckon,” says the Apostle, as if he had deliberately weighed the one against the other, and had come to this conclusion, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present conflict are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in and upon us.” In the groans of Nature, the groans of Humanity, the groans of the Spirit of God within us, he detects tones which prove them to be groans of travail, of the birth-pangs which precede and foretell the advent of a new, purer, happier life; and he declares that, when this wondrous birth of time arrives, all groaning and pain shall be forgotten in the joy of the new better man, the new better humanity, that has come into the world. And, finally, rising into a dithyrambic fervour, he sings of the Divine fatherly Love which is ever at work for our redemption, as a Love from which nothing can separate us—neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, neither famine nor nakedness, peril nor sword, in the present age, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor any other and new creation into which we may pass in the ages to come.

The Apostle does not say, “I know,” for this might imply that he had fully experienced or realized both the sufferings and the glory. At the time of which he speaks he had not done this. He had not drained to the bottom the cup of earthly sorrow, and he had but tasted the cup of heavenly joy. But neither does he say, “I think or conjecture that the suffering is not worthy to be weighed with the glory”; for this would imply less than he had realized. Although he knew not the whole, he knew a great deal of the suffering, and not a little of the glory too. If “I know” would have been too strong, “I think” would have been too weak. “I reckon” is the language of faith, which is partly knowledge and partly anticipation; which accepts its present experience: which neither stands still upon the earth, content with the bare facts of life or husk of things, nor stares vaguely into heaven in mere passive expectation; but it is a pilgrimage between earth and heaven. Faith is the journey of the soul between the realized and the unrealized. It is ever leaving the actual behind and reaching forth to the ideal—never satisfied until it finds in the ideal the Eternal Seal. 1 [Note: F. Ferguson.]

3. It is a mathematical sum. “I reckon,” he says. And it must be admitted that no man that ever lived was more capable of working out this sum than this Apostle. On the one hand, he has given us, in the eleventh chapter of his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, a sketch of his own sufferings, such as, perhaps, the experience of no other mortal man could match. On the other hand, he had held personal converse with the Lord Jesus Christ; he is able to tell of “the abundance of his revelations”; already he had been “caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” Who, then, was so fit as St. Paul—in the wonderful contrast of his unparalleled life—to put the two together, and to decide the contrast?

In sufferings, who has come up to the Apostle? In revelations of the things which God has prepared for them that love Him, who has been equally honoured? When he wrote of the sufferings of this present time, he was not reclining on the couch of luxury and imagining the lot of the afflicted. He was in and surrounded by those very sufferings. In perils from his own countrymen, and in perils from false brethren, he was working with his own hands for his daily bread in the wealthy and dissolute Corinth. He bore about with him that thorn in the flesh, which, however difficult it may be for us to assign its nature, we know was the messenger of Satan to buffet him: which, with all his zeal, all the wonders and signs of an Apostle wrought by him, rendered his bodily presence weak, and his speech contemptible. Day by day he entered deeper than other men into that inward conflict between the good which he would do but could not, and the evil which he would not do but did. Of a character wonderfully susceptible and habitually introspective, he had, besides, his spiritual faculties penetrated and intensified by the abiding and indwelling Spirit of God, given him for his apostolic work. Mighty was He that wrought in him—weak and frail the earthen vessel by which that energy must be sustained. We hear him speak of bearing about death, of daily dying; we hear him crying out, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Truly, in sufferings, without and within, but One ever surpassed him—that Divine Master whom he followed, and of whom he says in his fervour that he fills up that which is lacking of His sufferings for the sake of the Church which is His body. 1 [Note: Henry Alford.]

I think man’s great capacity for pain

Proves his immortal birthright. I am sure

No merely human mind could bear the strain

Of some tremendous sorrows we endure.

Art’s most ingenious breastworks fail at length,

Beat by the mighty billows of the sea;

Only the God-formed shores possess the strength

To stand before their onslaughts, and not flee.

The structure that we build with careful toil,

The tempest lays in ruins in an hour;

While some grand tree that springs forth from the soil

Is bended but not broken by its power.

Unless our souls had root in soil divine

We could not bear earth’s overwhelming strife.

The fiercest pain that racks this heart of mine

Convinces me of everlasting life.

I

The Sufferings of this Present Time

There is perhaps no argument so frequently used against Christianity at the present day, or with such force, as the argument that the pain and misery of the world are irreconcilable with a God who is both good and powerful. Never was there an age so sensitive to pain as our own, and never an age therefore that found it so hard to reconcile the existence of pain with the love of God. Professor Huxley used to declare that his reason for rejecting the Christian creed was simply that he could not find in Nature the God of infinite love of which the New Testament speaks. The difficulties of miracles and the science of Genesis were nothing in comparison with “the impassable gulf between the anthropomorphism, however refined, of theology and the passionless impersonality of the Unknown and Unknowable which science shows in nature.” If other difficulties have slain the faith of thousands, the fact of pain has slain the faith of tens of thousands.

i. The Fact of Pain

St. Paul admits, he insists on, the pain, the waste, the imperfection, the bondage to vanity and corruption, to be found both in Nature and in Man. He depicts them in even darker colours than the materialist or the sceptic. And yet he aids us to bear the burden which seems intolerable. For he does not charge the evil that is in the world to any defect either in the power or in the goodness of the Maker of the world. He charges it, rather to the self-will, the depravity, of man; as indeed we ourselves do when in our common talk we say, “The world would be a very good world if only men were good enough to live in it.” Like Schopenhauer, he says, “The world is what men have made it,” and hence “the world is itself the judgment of the world.”

Are we offended at the cruelties of society? St. Paul knows them fully. “Filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, back-biters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful.” Are we perplexed because Christ has added to the world’s pain, and in the name of His Cross blood has been shed in torrents? “If we suffer with him.” Do we suppose that the physical agony of the brute creation is a modern discovery? “We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” As it has been said, “Here we have, as nowhere else in the Bible, perhaps nowhere else in ancient literature, a man who feels the pain of creation.” And this man, one of the world’s greatest intellects, who knew the whole world’s anguish, nevertheless declares throughout the whole Epistle that God is love. It is something at least to know that he knew all the facts.

Overmastering pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life—alas! pain has its own way with all of us; it breaks in, a rude visitant, upon the fairy garden where the child wanders in a dream, no less surely than it rules upon the field of battle, or sends the immortal war-god whimpering to his father; and innocence, no more than philosophy, can protect us from this sting. 1 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Child’s Play.]

1. St. Paul had abundant personal experience of suffering. He was a Jew outside the pale of Jews. He was a pariah among pariahs. The very Jews would not associate with him. He was “hated of all men for Christ’s name’s sake.” And, if in all the ranks of this hated subdivision of a sect there was one man who could be sensible of the scorn which was poured upon him, that man was the writer of these words. Born of the very bluest blood of Judaism—a Jew among Jews—educated as a conservative and a high churchman, with that bitter scorn of dissenters from his faith which then as now was the special mark of orthodox high breeding, he had come to be a dissenter among dissenters; not only a Christian but an advocate of opinions which among Christians themselves were unpopular and proscribed. “I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.… We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.” And there was not only moral but also physical torture. Wherever the ecclesiastical courts of his countrymen had jurisdiction, he received the “stripes” of a heretic. Wherever the civil courts of the Roman government took cognizance of him, he was “beaten” with the lictor’s “rods” as a disturber of the peace. There was death in front; there was ignominy and torture on either hand; there was that terrible mingling of moral humiliation with physical pain which to a sensitive nature like St. Paul’s is a thousand times worse than the agony of dying. 1 [Note: Edwin Hatch.]

2. In all times men have been born to sorrow. The history of our race is a history of pain. Nor is it certain that, as history has gone on, the pain has lessened. We hear from time to time of the alleviations of suffering which have marked the advance of civilization. We live in an age in which the effort to alleviate suffering forms a distinct feature in the organization of society. We cannot look at the photograph of contemporary life which is contained in a daily newspaper without seeing that benevolent institutions and social improvements occupy a large place in the thoughts and efforts of civilized mankind. But, for all that, the doubt remains whether the sum total of human misery has not increased. It would almost seem as though the onward march of civilization slays its thousands and maims its ten thousands. It is almost inevitable that it should be so. The whole machinery of society is so constructed as to make the difference between rich and poor wider as civilization increases. Wealth tends to accumulate in fewer hands. There is consequently not only a multiplication of the number of the poor, but a deepening of their poverty. The fact is so serious, and is becoming so prominent, that many of those who contemplate social phenomena from a scientific point of view regard it with undisguised alarm. Nor is its significance lessened by the fact that the newest of all philosophies is a philosophy of pessimism, a philosophy which is based on the conviction that we are going from bad to worse.

3. But we must not exaggerate the amount of suffering in the world. We cannot be blind to its existence; it meets us in every direction, and it seems startling to be told by science that it is inseparably bound up in the existence of the lowest forms of life. Yet this is one of those vivid statements that seem to mean much more than they really do. If it means that some portion of pain is the lot of every living thing, that is quite true. But If it conveys the notion that the pain predominates over pleasure, that is utterly false—that is a libel on God’s creation, whose “tender mercies are over all his works.” The generalization of Herbert Spencer is at once far truer and far more extended, and his conclusion is that the supreme law under which every creature is placed is what amounts to a law of love. Pleasures, he says, attend a creature, an organism, when it does what is good for it, what will promote its growth, develop its organization, increase the sum total of its happiness; and pains attend it when it is moving along hurtful lines, when it is spending its energy too quickly, when it is diminishing the sum of its enjoyment, which pains are only the precursors of greater pains if it will persist in going along that hurtful path. Thus all pains are only like little pricks which push off and deter a creature from harm, whilst all pleasures are like gentle incentives and loving encouragements for it to persevere in the way that will bring it the largest measure of delight.

Ye know not why God hath joined the horse-fly unto the horse,

Nor why the generous steed is yoked with the poisonous fly:

Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose his fervour of nerve

God hath appointed him this: a lustful and venomous bride.

Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk, to the sting,

Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds the shame of the sun;

They strive, but they strive for this: the fulness of passionate nerve;

They pant, but they pant for this: the speed that outstrips the pain.

Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is darkness upon my soul.

Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung to the roots of my heart.

But I have said in my breast: the birth succeeds to the pang,

And sons of the dust, behold, your malice becomes my Song of Solomon 1 [Note: Padraic Colum, Arab Songs.]

4. The great point to notice is that there are other facts in life which must be taken into account as well as sorrow. Professor Huxley spoke of the “Passionless Impersonality” which was all that he could find in nature. Had he never seen a mother? Is motherhood passionless? Motherhood is as much a part of the universe and a creation of its Creator as pain. That is what we have to recognize—this world is a problem, a mystery, not a simplicity. It is not that life is full of suffering and suffering only, and that this is the worst of all possible worlds. There would be no problem then—that would be simple enough. The mystery is that there is both justice and injustice, both pain and joy, both agony and love. There is the storm that hurries with fire and ruin over sea and land, and the pessimist says, “God is cruel.” But there are flowers by the wayside to contradict him. We have to account for the whole of the facts. How can we reconcile them? What shall we say? Shall we say that God is working out a glory in comparison with which the sorrows of this present are not worthy to be compared? Or shall we say that He is an “Infinite Indifference” who lighted by chance on the sweetness of human friendship and the rich cornfields and the splendours of the day and the night? Surely love is the easier solution, for these things are too great to be the creation of chance.

God loves and cares for the meanest creatures more tenderly, more gently, than the sweetest mother ever cared for her firstborn son. His arrangements for the happiness of everything that He has made are so large, so delicate, so considerate, so thoughtful, in a word so fatherly, that anything we know of earthly care and tenderness is only hard and unfeeling by its side. His love for the lowest zoophyte has led Him to do far more to promote its happiness than we have ever thought of doing for the one we love best. 1 [Note: W. D. Ground.]

A pessimistic novel of our day closes with the sentence, “The President of the Immortals had finished his sport with Tess.” But if the creed of the novel be true, we do not know that the sport is finished. If God has tortured us here, in all likelihood He will torture us hereafter. This may be the first of an endless series of torture chambers of increasing agony and woe. And the awful possibilities of disaster that loom before the imagination are horrible beyond description. But, as a matter of fact, we are not afraid. Why? Because we know that the joy of life is greater than the pain. Why not be honest? There is nothing here that makes impossible the faith that God is love—no sorrow that is too bitter for atoning. 1 [Note: E. A. French.]

ii. The Reason for Pain

1. There are two great reasons for the presence of suffering in the world and in human lives.

(1) At the root of this mystery of suffering lies the mystery of sacrifice. St. Paul lays down for us its principles: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Notice that word “therefore”—as a consequence of all that has gone before, the deep, and almost abstruse, argument about the relationship of God to man. Here is its result. God’s love, God’s power of sanctification, God’s redemption of man, issues in a living sacrifice of man to God; a giving up, a crucifying, of self and many cherished plans and hopes.

It is our reasonable service, the only tribute that a being with thought and understanding can make to the All-loving and All-merciful Father. Do not let us mistake the meaning of these words. They do not mean merely that we must give up wickedness, however much we love it; we must overcome the temptation to do wrong whenever it assails us. That, of course, is true, for these things are poison to the soul. But a man cannot live by merely avoiding poison. Sacrifice is a deeper thing than that. It penetrates into the inmost being, and demands self. It bids us give up things lawful because they are not always things expedient. Just as the man who is eager about his business life has to forgo ease and comfort, and often amusement, absolutely innocent things in themselves, but dangerous where misplaced, so we have to overcome by taking up our cross and following Him. If the innocent pleasure is misplaced, the cry of nature after it must be stifled, for they who seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness must learn the science of placing all things where God would have them. This effort means sacrifice—how hard the sacrifice is none can know till they begin to learn by experience. It is that plucking out of the offending eye, that cutting off of the offending hand, which our Lord in vivid imagery speaks of as the principle by which the whole body is saved from destruction.

Not merely the St. Peters and St. Pauls whose lives are high and wonderful beyond anything we see in our own, but plain, simple-minded men and women like ourselves, those who have learned, perhaps, to love the world and its plans and gains as well as we have, God has called over and over again to their true, highest self by the voices of disappointment and pain. In one sense it is the recorded opinion of shrewd, observant men. Some years ago one who was a notoriously shrewd judge of character said that in his experience he found men’s characters spoiled by prosperity and unspoiled by reverses. He mentioned one who had risen to high honour as a signal instance, I think he said the only instance he could recall, of a man absolutely unspoiled by success. That was the testimony of one who did not profess to speak of it from the point of view of spiritual discipline, but as an obvious fact of everyday experience. How infinitely more striking when we place side by side with that remark the plain, simple story of a poor woman lying in an East-End Hospital, suffering the agonies of one of the most painful diseases that baffle human skill. In her last moments she said to the clergyman who stood by her bedside: “I am so happy; I never knew what real happiness was until this last fortnight.” The story of the “Man of Sorrows” had illuminated the dark mystery of pain, and revealed its meaning. 1 [Note: E. J. Purchase.]

William Archer, reviewing a book by Robert Louis Stevenson, declared that Stevenson’s philosophy would break down with sickness. Yet at the very time Stevenson was a great sufferer and forbidden to speak for days, even for weeks. Afterwards he wrote to his critic, “I see a universe I suppose eternally different from yours—a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, where suffering is not wantonly inflicted, though it falls with dispassionate impartiality, but where it may be and generally is nobly borne, where, above all, any brave man may make out a life which shall be happy for himself, and, by being so, beneficent to those about him.”

I wait, in His good time to see

That as my mother dealt with me

So with His children dealeth He.

I bow myself beneath His hand:

That pain itself was wisely planned

I feel and partly understand.

The joy that comes in sorrow’s guise,

The sweet pains of self-sacrifice,

I would not have them otherwise. 1 [Note: Whittier.]

(2) The second reason for the presence of pain is that there are some things that are better than pleasure, things that enter into a far higher realm; and, in order to bring these nobler matters into existence, in order to provide for them a sphere in which they can grow and develop, it is in accordance with the most tender love to inflict a certain amount of pain. God has a great design, a design as wide as the universe, filling all time, a design to compass which He began to work untold millions of ages ago. Slowly He has laid the ascending courses; every organism has somehow entered into it, been a necessary part of it. This design was to provide a scaffolding on which man could stand, could be trained and educated, until in the “fulness of the time” he should be prepared for the Christ, could then behold His glory, be overcome by His beauty, and be changed into His likeness. And this end God saw to be so Divine that He felt justified, in order to attain it, in asking everything to suffer somewhat, taking care to make each one an abundant compensation. He is like some great contriver of earth, who has a large design needing many workers, and who takes care to be a generous master, paying liberally for every service that is rendered.

And now my grief I see

Was but that ancient shadow part of me,

Not yet attuned to good,

Still blind and senseless in its warring mood,

I turn from it and climb

To the heroic spirit of the prime,

The light that well foreknew

All the dark ways that it must journey through.

Yet seeing still a gain,

A distant glory o’er the hills of pain,

Through all that chaos wild

A breath as gentle as a little child,

Through earth transformed, divine,

The Christ-soul of the universe to shine. 2 [Note: “A. E.,” The Divine Vision.]

2. These two reasons—sacrifice and discipline—are summed up in the Apostle’s word “glory.” And we are led to consider what is involved in “the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.” But before doing so we might notice that the gain of suffering is not all kept for the life that is to come. We can believe that the suffering of men is working out such a glory because even in this earthly life sorrow and pain work out a glory that is worth the price. Take, for example, Dante, the Italian man of sorrows. Denied the woman he loved, driven an exile from his native land, sentenced to be burned alive, left alone, astonished amid the agony of life—yet but for this he had never written his poem. As Carlyle has said, had Dante not suffered, “Florence would have had another prosperous Lord Mayor, and the ten dumb centuries continued voiceless.” Give him the choice of his happiness! He knew not, more than we do, what was really happy, what was really miserable. The song was worth the price.

The world is full of beauty and joy; full, too, of suffering and pain. Suffer we must, each one of us. What shall we gain by it? Shall we suffer so that, when the pain has swept by, it leaves us nothing but the spirit of rebellion, the angry feeling of helpless despair? Or shall we suffer so that even our darkest moments are times of victory, so that out of the pain and anguish come God’s beautiful gifts that can turn sorrow into joy? That is the question we have to ask ourselves. Shall it be triumph or despair? Often enough we shall have to choose suffering, deliberately choose it, as the escape from defeat and despair. When sin has laid its defiling touch upon us, and there lie before us the two ways—the way of easy acquiescence in evil as inevitable, and the nobler, harder way of godly sorrow—we dare not hesitate; and this is but the picture of what God calls us to in the school of brave endurance where we are being trained, where the way of ease is the way of danger, and the pathway of the Cross the road to victory. 1 [Note: E. J. Purchase.]

And methought that beauty and terror are only one, not two;

And the world has room for love, and death, and thunder, and dew;

And all the sinews of hell slumber in summer air;

And the face of God is a rock, but the face of the rock is fair.

Beneficent streams of tears flow at the finger of pain;

And out of the cloud that smites, beneficent rivers of rain. 2 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Songs of Travel.]

II

The Glory that is to be Revealed

“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.” Just like the mist that in the early morning hangs dark, damp, and depressing round the earth, but in the evening has been lifted into the blue sky, and is irradiated with a dazzling light, so the present sorrow will be even beautiful when the glory has been revealed. If the glory cannot come without the pain, it is not unloving to inflict the pain. This is, it is true, only a practical solution of the problem. But the Bible meets only our practical needs. It does not tell us why pain is the way to glory—it tells us only that “God is love.” It is not strange that the suffering should now seem very great. For

Here alone

Is given thee to suffer for God’s sake.

In other worlds we shall more perfectly

Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him,

Grow nearer and nearer Him with all delight;

But then we shall not any more be called

To suffer, which is our appointment here.

Let us take heed in time

That God may now be glorified in us;

And while we suffer, let us set our souls

To suffer perfectly; since this alone

The suffering which is this world’s special grace

May here be perfected and left behind.

What a wonderful and illuminating thought it is when once we practically apply it! For where is the burden of the mystery of life if we not only hope for an immortality in which all the ravelled skeins of time will be pulled straight, but know that all the enravelment of this life, all its strange blending of evil with good, of sorrow with joy, of loss with gain, is intended to exercise us in discrimination, in manliness, in moral capacity and fervour and breadth; intended, therefore, for a discipline by which we shall be educated and made meet for the glory of a future life in which, redeemed from every bond of imperfection, every taint of corruption, we shall rise into an untrammelled freedom, a growing perfection, an eternal usefulness which shall also be an eternal joy? If this be verily so, if we are at last to learn once for all that our wills are ours that we may make them God’s, and so may ever see our will done both in heaven and on earth, may not we conclude, with the Apostle,” I deliberately reckon, I am fully persuaded, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in and upon us”? 1 [Note: S. Cox.]

i. The Glory

1. We might have expected joy to be placed over against suffering. It is glory, the perfection of our being—the blessedness of God. And what is glory? It is a vague word to many of us. But this passage may serve to clear it up. Glory is the manifestation of excellence. Applied to God, as in the phrase so common in Scripture, “the glory of God,” it means the manifestation of what God is, whether in power, or in wisdom, or in goodness, or in all of these together. Applied to men, to Christian men, in the sense here designed, it means the manifestation hereafter of what they are, not in themselves—for that could only be the exhibition of weakness, faultiness, and sinfulness—but in their relation to God as His children, to Christ as His redeemed, to the Holy Spirit as His dwelling-place and His temple.

2. We cannot in our present state say much about this glory. Our words are apt to darken rather than brighten the simple statement of the text. “Now we see through a glass, darkly,” and “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” But we are not, therefore, forbidden to think and speak of the future. If it is right to set our affection on heavenly things, it cannot be wrong to set our thoughts upon them too.

(1) We think of the glory of saved men as different from that of angels. The one is the brightness of robes never stained with sin; the other the brightness of those who have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. The one is the glory of those who have been born to wealth; the other that of those who from poverty have been made rich. The one is born in a palace; the other is taken from a pit, and, by the grace of God, led up to empire. It is the glory of a complete triumph over sin.

(2) Then there is the glory of the Judgment Day—of standing at the right hand of God, of being acknowledged as His own before heaven and earth and hell, of God Himself being glorified, and His way fully justified in our redemption. Who would compare the slanders of the wicked with such a recognition? Who would speak of the disgrace of the cross in view of such an honour?

(3) Involved in all this, and indeed but the figure or shadow of it, is the glory that literally shall be revealed in us. The glory of perfect conformity to Christ. The unfathomable blessedness of being altogether one with God—partaking of His strength and beauty, His freedom and eternity; enjoying at once the highest liberty and obeying the highest law; being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

How sparing the Holy Ghost is in the description of future glory! How chaste, if I may so speak, is He in depicting the future triumphs of the saints! It is well known by accurate observers of human nature that there is no one thing that would sooner wear out the frame and mind of man than exquisite enjoyment; and God, in mercy to our frail nature, has been sparing as to future scenes. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,” says Jesus to His disciples. So our God has many joys, much glory, much enjoyment for us; but we cannot bear it now; and so He puts it off until we attain to the maturity of manhood, and then the eternal weight of glory shall be revealed in us (or, as in the original, towards us, which, of course, means for our benefit). Sufferings are depressing, but glory hereafter will be exalting. Sufferings are disheartening, but glory will be exhilarating. Sufferings darken and sadden the countenance, but glory hereafter will brighten it. What is that glory, people of God? Do you believe it? Just as certainly as that the Man of Sorrows is now on a throne of joy—as certainly as that He who was crowned with the crown of thorns is now in the glory of His Father—so all the children of God shall, like Him, be crowned. As He has entered into His rest, where death has no more dominion over Him, so shall all the people of God for ever!—for He is the Head, and they are the members. Where the Head is, there shall also His members be. 1 [Note: J. Gregg.]

Be comforted, be comforted,

Ye tempest-tossed and worn,

Who wait amid the shadows

For hope’s celestial morn!

The valley hath its burden,

Its vision, and its song,

And strains of joy are wafted

From heaven’s immortal throng.

He makes my windows agates,

That I may dimly see

The glories that await me,

The joys prepared for me.

Oh, were the full effulgence

To break upon my sight,

My spirit were too eager

To take its upward flight!

Through mists of tears the bulwarks

Of Zion’s City rise;

I greet its pearly portals,

Its jasper meets mine eyes;

A mystic glory lightens it,

It shines upon my road,

And through my agate windows

My heart exults in God!

ii. The Greatness of the Glory

1. We have seen how great were the sufferings of this Apostle. Yet the mere mention of the sufferings and the glory together suggests that the former is unworthy of comparison with the latter. The magnanimity of St. Paul prevents him from dragging his afflictions into comparison with the glory of God. It is the mark of a great soul in every sphere of life to suffer quietly in the way of truth, and make no parade or comparison of its sufferings with the glory of the end for which it suffers. The thought that in any degree he had paid for the glory would be an offence. He does not strike a balance with mercenary spirit between what he gives and what he receives. If he makes any comparison at all, it is to show that his sufferings are part of the glory—that his wounds are his brightest ornaments; as the sears on the body of Jesus become shining tokens to all eternity of a love and valour that cast away self, and triumphed over death. The Apostle cares not to compare the prospect before him with the dark and rugged way that leads to it. The memory of past hardships is all but swallowed up in the enthusiasm of hope; and in this he follows his Master, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”

Do you feel you suffer more than others? Then remember that you can estimate better than others how great the glory will be. For the glory will be greater than the sufferings. Others measure the city of gold with the “measure of a man,” you with the “measure of an angel.” Remember that, whatever you have lost, you have gained a clearer vision of the glory that shall be. And through your sorrows you may also know God better. For sorrow is a revelation of God. Dr. Dale lost a little child, and years after, writing to comfort a friend, he said, “I learnt what God must feel at the loss of His children.” A lady once told me of the experience which led her to Christ. Her husband was very unkind to her and her life was very hard. But she had a little boy whom she dearly loved. One day he had committed some childish fault, and she felt it her duty to punish him for the first time in his life. It was agony to her to do it. And it suddenly flashed into her mind that she who had always thought God hard had misunderstood Him, that it must be infinitely greater pain to God to send her pain than for her to bear it. And, looking up through the sorrows that revealed the heart of God, she gave herself up to the love that dares to wound so deeply because it so truly loves. 1 [Note: E. A. French.]

2. How is it that the glory is so manifestly greater than the pain?

(1) Because the sufferings are necessarily physical, or, if mental, they have a physical side. The “glory revealed in us” is character, spiritual excellence, likeness to God. It is easy to see, then, that any amount of pain and loss that may come to us in the few short years of this mortal life cannot for a moment compare with a moral greatness that has been by that means acquired, a moral greatness which will continue for ever.

(2) Because suffering affects only our happiness, but the glory secures our holiness. The work which God undertakes for us is the most sublime that can be conceived. That task is to make men anew after the likeness of God; and if God is the most glorious Being in the universe, then obviously to make a man like Him must be a work the like of which cannot elsewhere be found.

(3) Because the suffering is for a time and the glory is for ever. There is something in goodness that is so intrinsically noble that, even if it continued but for this life, if men were only brightly coloured bubbles on the sea of time, yet to produce one great and good man would be worth any toil, and all true artists would say so; but when those splendours of righteous character are but feeble prophecies of a glory that our little faculties cannot conceive, which glory is to continue for ever, why, then, those toils receive a still nobler recompense.

There is another passage similar to this in its course of reasoning. It is the account of Moses in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The writer is describing Moses making his choice between the world and Christ. Now see how he loads the scales. On the world’s side, pleasures and treasures; on Christ’s side, reproaches and afflictions. Surely the world is best! But now mark how he re-adjusts the balance. With the world’s pleasures and treasures he throws in “for a season”; with the reproaches and afflictions he casts in “with the people of God”; and in a moment the world kicks the beam—“choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.”

I’m wearin’ awa’, John,

Like snaw wreaths in thaw, John,

I’m wearin’ awa’

To the land o’ the leal.

There’s nae sorrow there, John,

There’s neither cauld nor care, John,

The day is aye fair

In the land o’ the leal.

Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,

She was baith gude and fair, John,

And, oh! we grudg’d her sair

To the land o’ the leal.

But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,

And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John,

The joy that’s aye to last

In the land o’ the leal.

Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John,

Sae free the battle fought, John,

That sinfu’ man e’er brought

To the land o’ the leal.

Oh! dry your glist’ning e’e, John,

My saul langs to be free, John,

And angels beckon me

To the land o’ the leal.

Oh, haud ye leal and true, John,

Your day it’s wearin’ thro’, John,

And I’ll welcome you

To the land o’ the leal.

Now fare ye weel, my ain John,

This warld’s cares are vain, John,

We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain

In the land o’ the leal. 1 [Note: Lady Nairne.]

3. This power of a great hope may become the power of a great temptation. This dream of a glory to be revealed has played a baneful as well as a beneficial part in the history of Christianity. As long as we ourselves do not feel the misery of life, but only contemplate it from outside, there is nothing easier than to sit with folded hands, looking away from the wretchedness at our feet to the sunlit cloudland of the future. It has been the temptation of many men, and even of many good men, in all ages. It is this that underlies the tendency to monasticism, which fills so large a place in Christian history, and which is not wholly absent from us now. There were monks who felt as keenly as any of us could feel the misery and wickedness which surrounded them, and who painted, in more glowing colours than any one before or since has painted, the glory of the Jerusalem that is to come, and yet who made no single effort to lessen the misery or to bring the glory nearer. There are men among us still who, though not monks, but entangled in the network of common life, take the misery that they find there as an inevitable element of it, and wait in unmoving acquiescence, if not in placid self-satisfaction, until God sends some change. But this, so far from being hope, is rather its paralysis; for hope that does nothing is not hope, but an idle dream.

On the other hand, the power of a great hope may become the power of a great motive. There are few among us whose lives have not an element of sadness. For all of us the consolations of the future are still needed. But, if they come to us at all, they should come as a motive power; they should help to shape our character. It was so with St. Paul. His conception of the glory which should be revealed was not, as we have seen, so much a complete change in external circumstances as a change of the spirit and the inner life. It was a change of character and a change of power. It was the final victory of the spirit over the flesh. It involved the obligation to work towards it by new efforts after spiritual life. This is never lost sight of: “We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Again, after speaking of the earthly and the heavenly tabernacle, and of mortality being swallowed up in life, his inference is, “Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.” And again, St. John, after speaking of the same hope of immortality, adds, “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” That is a lesson which we may all take home. The life after the Spirit, the communion with God, the realization in our own characters of the character of Christ, which are the elements of the glory of the life to come, must have their beginnings in this present life below. In the struggle which this involves we may be content to live, for in the hope which it brings we may be glad to die.

Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought

So are the things that thou see’st; e’en as thy hope and belief.

Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against them.

Hast thou courage? enough, see them exulting to yield.

Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea’s furying waters,

(Violent say’st thou and hard, mighty thou think’st to destroy),

All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader,

All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue;

Still for their Conqueror call, and but for the joy of being conquered,

(Rapture they will not forego) dare to resist and rebel;

Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him,

Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe.

Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee,

Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth.

Not for the gain of the gold; for the getting, the hoarding, the having,

But for the joy of the deed; but for the Duty to do.

Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action,

With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth.

Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished,

Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good!

Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished,

What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then.

Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit

Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it.

This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little;

Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. 1 [Note: Clough.]

Another Good Reckoning

Literature

Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, iii. 374.

Cox (S.), The House and its Builders, 110.

Ferguson (F.), Sermons, 37.

French (E. A.), God’s Message through Modern Doubt, 28.

Gregg (J.), The Life of Faith, 218.

Hatch (E.), Memorials, 123.

Hickey (F. P.), Short Sermons, 2nd Ser., 130.

Maurice (F. D.), Sermons preached in Country Churches, 342.

Perinchief (O.), in American Pulpit of the Day, 3rd Ser., 294.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vi. 161.

Purchase (E. J.), The Pathway of the Tempted, 93.

Scott (M.), Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, 160.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iii. No. 407.

Vaughan (J. S.), Earth to Heaven, 115.

Wace (H.), in Sermons for the People, v. 130.

Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 316 (Ground); lvi. 369 (Campbell); lxxiv. 346 (Marshall).

Church Pulpit Year Book, iii. (1906), 155.

Churchman’s Pulpit; Fourth Sunday after Trinity, x. 190 (French), 192 (Cutting).

Clergyman’s Magazine, 3rd Ser., xiii. 155 (Proctor).

Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., vi. 48 (Maurice).

Verse 19

An Expectant Creation

For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.— Romans 8:19.

1. St. Paul realizes the coming of Christ as a power in the world. Christianity is not, with the Apostle, a saving truth, but a saving power, which Christ has brought into the world. Law and peace have come through Him, and the quickening of the mortal body through the indwelling Spirit. Sin is subdued, and men are made “children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” ( Romans 8:16-17). But it is impossible for him not to contrast this ideal of freedom with the continuing sufferings of the present time. The creation is still waiting for a redemption, of which man shall be, in a measure, the instrument. The present suffering may well be borne, through the strength of the hope that is before us. Rising to a sublimer height of diction, the Apostle exclaims that “the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.”

2. We are familiar with the thought of the expectation of Almighty God, of the patient long-suffering with which He waits, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” We also know well the exhortation to remember the expectation of the Blessed Ones, who, having finished their own course, gather as a great cloud of witnesses, to observe and long for our success. “Shall we not,” cries an old preacher, “hasten and run that we may see our fatherland? There a great multitude of dear ones, fathers, brothers, sons, are expecting us, and, saved themselves, are anxious for our salvation.” But we are not so familiar with the thought of the expectation of creation as a motive for which we should work out our salvation, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” Mankind is wont to regard itself as altogether apart from and above the other creatures of this world, which are apt to assume the humble office of an ornamental fringe to our lives, or of our lowly and necessary servants. Yet this mistaken view might well have been set right by a recollection of the teachings of the Bible, which show plainly that while man was made to be the head and crown of things earthly, yet, on one side of his being at least, he is brother to all of earth’s children.

3. The text, then, might be described as St. Paul’s statement of the doctrine of Evolution. Of course it would be quite absurd to claim for the Apostle any clear expression of the modern doctrine. No doubt the universe presents a very different picture to us from any which his mind could see, and it would be foolish to force his words into our modern ways of thought. Moreover, he is in this passage primarily thinking only of his little church at Rome, and giving them rules for their duty and loyalty, or what he calls “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” And yet, with the mind of a great philosopher—or, rather, with the vision of a great prophet—he is swept beyond the special case before him into the general principle which it involves, and in giving rules to Rome he is led to survey the method of the universe. The whole creation, he says, groans and travails in pain until now, as though it bore within itself the burden of the life that was to follow. It is to him what he calls an expectant creation—a prophetic anticipatory world. In the inanimate world there is, he thinks, a kind of dumb sympathy with the sin and struggle and redemption of man. Its history and process point on to the experience of man. Thus, in a large, poetic way, the universe looks to him like a connected and a growing whole, the life of man finding its prophecy and likeness in the life of things, and the life of the lower creation reaching up at last into the experience of man; and thus, it may be fairly said, there is at least a curious foreshadowing of ways of thought which have now grown familiar.

4. The expression of these truths is unique, but the truths themselves fall in with the entire scope of Scripture; and the renovation of the world forms as conspicuous a subject of the prophetic gospel as the renovation of society. It could not be otherwise; for the sympathy of Nature with man is written on the first page of the Bible and on the last. In the spiritual history of Genesis the earth is said to have been cursed for man’s sake. In the spiritual vision of the Apocalypse new heavens and a new earth are prepared for redeemed humanity. Meanwhile, the necessity of anxious toil, imposed upon us by the conditions of life in this season of our conflict, is designed by a Father’s love for salutary discipline; and on the other hand, we are encouraged to believe that “the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God”; waiteth, in due season, to reflect their glory even as they will reflect the glory of their Saviour at His Coming; waiteth, and yet not in mere idle and passive expectancy, but to receive a blessing towards which it has striven through a discipline of fruitful suffering. For “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

Who is the angel that cometh?

Pain!

Let us arise and go forth to greet him:

Not in vain

Is the summons come for us to meet him,

He will stay

And darken our sun:

He will stay

A desolate night, a weary day;

Since in that shadow our work is done,

And in that shadow our crowns are won,

Let us say still, whilst his bitter chalice

Slowly into our hearts is poured,

Blessed is he that cometh

In the name of the Lord.

The subject is Creation in Expectation—waiting earnestly for the revealing of the sons of God. Let us consider first the waiting of creation, and then the revealing of the sons of God.

I

The Waiting of Creation

St. Paul, with the eye at once of a poet and of a prophet, discerns in the present scene of created being tokens of a state of expectation. “The creation” is here a word of large import. It includes even the irrational, perhaps even the inanimate, portions of God’s handiwork on earth. The whole earth in its present state; the world of nature; the brute creation, as well as the human creation above and the material creation below it; all indicate a condition of imperfection, of suffering, of decay, all express, unconsciously where not consciously, a sense of want, of deterioration, of distress; all are, often and in many aspects, not what they would be, not what they were as they came fresh from the organizing hand of God; all denote, to one who looks on with the sympathy of humanity, much more with the reflection and discernment of one taught of God, a position very far removed from that which once they occupied, from that which they were designed to occupy, from that which they yet must occupy, under the sway of One as infinitely merciful as He is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Eternal. St. Paul does not hesitate to say that this degenerate, this suffering, this sin-contaminated world, expresses by signs not to be mistaken a longing and a yearning for those times of restitution of all things, those times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord ( Acts 3:19; Acts 3:21), which shall accompany the fulfilment of the mystery of God ( Revelation 10:7). The creation, he says, is watching as with outstretched head for the future unveiling of the sons of God.

i. Nature and Man

1. This whole creation of which St. Paul writes is to him not a dead but a living thing. Its movement is not the movement of machinery, but the movement of life. It groans and travails with its desire to fulfil itself. It is, he says, earnestly expectant; it waits for that which is to come. It is a sympathetic, a patient world. Instead of a blind, purposeless, mechanical process, this man sees a universe with an intention and a desire of its own, bringing forth at last, through the pains which we now call the struggle for existence, the state of things we see. Instead of a world-factory, grinding out with indifference its tides and storms, its plants and animals, and the emotions and ideals of men, he sees a universe working out with expectancy and desire a divinely appointed end. Thus he simply anticipates the whole series of philosophers and poets who have seen in Nature a living and purposeful process, manifesting at each step the presence of one comprehensive will. It might have been St. Paul instead of Herbert Spencer who wrote of “the naturally-revealed end toward which the power manifested in evolution works.” It might have been St. Paul instead of Tennyson who sang of

One far-off divine event

To which the whole creation moves.

2. By a strong figure, the Apostle represents all the universe, even to the dumb brutes, even to the lifeless fields and rocks and trees, as doing what in strict fact only sentient and intelligent man could do—grieving and sorrowing over the prevalence of misery and guilt, and longing for the day when these shall go for ever—awakened to a sense of the moral and physical evil to which it is subject, groaning under the bondage of its own corruption, and sustained only by the hope of a future emancipation into liberty worthy of the creature of God, and of a purification which shall bring it back to the goodness in which it was created at the first.

3. We have missed much in Christian thought by separating man as we have done from the great living creation around him. The poet went out to meet the sunrise with his eyes wide open, and he came back with a shining face and wonder streaming out of his eyes, and he sang, and would not be denied, of a speaking heart of creation that had responded to his own. The breezes had been whispering to him, the flowers had smiled upon him, the brooks had been chattering weary legends of the past, the great sun had been laughing the sorrow out of his soul, and he had caught a great eternal message, which showed that Nature and he were one. We easily tolerated the poet and listened to his pleasant voice, though we thought his words were wild, and even detected a gleam of insanity in his gaze. But now God is forcing us out of our useless isolation to realize that we are not isolated souls living in a nameless void, but a living and integral part of this splendid creation, that we live in it and it lives in us, that in some real sense it shares our travail and shall share our glory.

Not from his fellows only man may learn

Rights to compare and duties to discern!

All creatures and all objects, in degree,

Are friends and patrons of humanity.

There are to whom the garden, grove, and field,

Perpetual lessons of forbearance yield;

Who would not lightly violate the grace

The lowliest flower possesses in its place;

Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive,

Which nothing less than Infinite Power can give. 1 [Note: Wordsworth.]

ii. Nature sharing the Suffering and the Glory

1. Creation is represented as waiting in earnest expectation for the revelation of the sons of God, that is for their manifestation in glory, as the previous verses show, in which the Apostle speaks of their being glorified with Christ and of the glory that is to be revealed in them; in comparison with which, he says, present sufferings are of no account. The time of this revelation of the sons of God in glory is the advent of Christ, as explicitly stated in Colossians 3:4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.” The same is indicated also in 1 John 3:2: “Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is.” Well, for this revelation of the sons of God in glory, Creation, i.e. all nature animate and inanimate, as distinguished from mankind, waits in expectation.

Some of you may remember at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our College, how the students marched in a great torchlight procession, with many original transparencies and banners, and how the Freshman Class, then only a month old as students, carried at their head this motto: “The University has been waiting two hundred and fifty years for us.” That was very amusing; but to any one who could read the deeper facts of the University the motto conveyed a profound and solemn truth. All this great, historic, institutional life had been indeed slowly evolved for the sake of these newly-arrived light-hearted boys, and now on their conduct were resting the destinies of the future, and out of their wise uses of their student life were to come our later blessings. 2 [Note: F. G. Peabody (Harvard).]

2. No man will deny that there is a sense, a true and a weighty sense, in which all the lower creation is involved in the Fall of man. Who is there that does not know how much suffering man’s sin, man’s cruelty, and man’s thoughtlessness inflict day by day upon the poor dumb lower animals? For this is a case in which it is eminently true that “evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart.” Who is there that does not know that the dumb creatures suffer because man fell; that the fact that man is cruel, impatient, thoughtless—in short, sinful and fallen—is the cause of incalculable anguish and suffering to these guiltless beings? The over-driven horse, urged beyond its speed and strength; the starved and tortured dog or cat, are witnesses to us, as we walk the streets of any city, that creatures which could not sin are yet involved in that suffering which is sin’s sad result.

A man got up in a meeting to speak. It was down in Rhode Island, out a bit from Providence. He was a farmer, an old man. He had become a Christian late in life, and this evening was telling about his start. He had been a rough, bad man. He said that when he became a Christian even the cat knew that some change had taken place. That caught my ear. It had a genuine ring. It seemed prophetic of the better day coming for all the lower animal creation. So I listened. 1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]

One would almost think that Nature is obliged, by man’s sin, to do many things which she would not do if she could help it. Noble means and instruments are perverted to base and sinful ends. The atmosphere is constrained to carry from the speaker’s lip to the listener’s ear words which are false, which are impure, which are profane. Surely that beautiful, liquid ether was never made for that! Cannot you almost personify it, and think of it as rebelling against the base use to which sinful man turns it? Food is constrained to strengthen for sinful deeds. Is it not hard, so to speak, upon the innocent grain, upon the generous grape, that they should be compelled, whether they will or not, to yield their energy to the arm of the midnight murderer, as readily as to the hand that does the deed of mercy? 2 [Note: A. K. H. Boyd.]

I am the voice of the voiceless;

Through me the dumb shall speak;

Till the deaf world’s ear be made to hear

The cry of the wordless weak.

From street, from cage, and from kennel,

From jungle and stall, the wail

Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin

Of the mighty against the frail. 3 [Note: E. Wheeler Wilcox.]

3. Man can both sin and suffer. The inferior animals can suffer but not sin. And as for the landscape, as for the inanimate universe, it can neither sin nor suffer. How, then, you will say, can it be involved in man’s Fall? And we reply, that it is a mistake to fancy that a thing is perverted from the end contemplated by the Creator only when it knows the fact and suffers from it. This world, this inanimate creation, is involved in man’s Fall, according to its nature; it is fallen, in the way and the sense in which, by the make of things, it is possible that it should be fallen. Of course there is no guilt; it cannot sin. But there is perversion; degradation; turning of it aside from the wise, and kind, and beneficent purposes contemplated by the Creator; and in that sense Nature’s fall is real and deep.

Even that conduct in inferior animals which appears to us to contain something of a moral element, that which we call vice in an inferior animal, is always the result of some wrong conduct upon man’s part. Anything that is properly wrong in the actions of a dumb creature, anything that looks wicked, or intentionally malignant, is imported into its conduct from some previous sin or error on the part of Man_1:1 [Note: A. K. H. Boyd.]

His extraordinary sympathy with animals was one of the most singular and pleasing features in Thoreau’s character. Like St. Francis, he felt a sense of love and brotherhood towards the lower races, and regarded them, not as brute beasts without sensibility or soul, but as possessing “the character and importance of another order of men.” He protested against the conceited self-assurance with which man sets down the intelligence of animals as mere “instinct,” while overlooking their real wisdom and fitness of behaviour. They were his “townsmen and fellow-creatures,” whose individuality must be recognized as much as his own, and who must be treated with courtesy and gentleness. “There was in his face and expression,” says Mr. Conway, “a kind of intellectual furtiveness; no wild thing could escape him more than it could be harmed by him. The grey huntsman’s suit which he wore enhanced this expression. The cruellest weapons of attack, however, which this huntsman took with him were a spy-glass for birds, a microscope for the game that would hide in smallness, and an old book in which to press plants.” 2 [Note: H. S. Salt, Henry David Thoreau, 132.]

iii. Nature in Expectation

Thus, then, we have seen that it is truth the Apostle tells when he says that all Nature is in some sense fallen; involved in man’s Fall. But another fact asserted in the text is that all Nature is waiting for better days. “The creature,” that is, all creation, is in a condition of “earnest expectation.” In the case of the first fact, that Nature is fallen, we can find a thousand proofs from our own experience that the Apostle’s statement is just; and this second one, of Nature’s expectancy, might be received upon the same testimony, though it is the authority of revelation which here comes in to clear the teaching of experience from the suspicion of transcendentalism or mysticism. And, indeed, all things are unconsciously looking forward. There is a vague, dumb sense that surely better things are coming. All conscious things live in an undefined hope. We can discern many indications that this is so. How ready human beings are to listen to the assurance that there is “a good time coming.” And wherefore? Not, surely, that there is any great sign as yet of its approach, but simply from the belief that evil will one day die, and the reign of good begin!

1. The Greek word translated “earnest expectation” is a picture in itself. It is the expectation of a man with head erect, looking out afar towards the source from which the succour is to come. It presents to the eye the waiting of all creation for the manifestation or further work of the children of God; groaning meanwhile and travailing in pain. And so, as we read the great Apostle’s words, as we seek to picture to our minds their meaning, there rises before us, as some vast, majestic vision, the imagery of a whole world, a whole universe—fields, trees, rivers, clouds, and stars—great nations, thronged cities, endless crowds of immortal beings, numberless hosts of creatures animate yet without rational souls—all waiting, watching, looking out; standing with the head thrust forward, and silently, eagerly, gazing far away for something hoped and longed for—something that is slow, indeed, in coming, but that is sure to come at last.

I believe where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation, which the great Creator intends for them, under our government. 1 [Note: J. Woolman, Journal, chap. xi.]

2. Why is creation waiting so earnestly for the revealing of the sons of God? Because creation is subjected to vanity, that is, to instability, decay, corruption, from which it is to be delivered at the revelation in glory of the sons of God. To this vanity creation became subject not of its own will, i.e. not of its own doing or of its own fault. It was the appointment of the Divine Will. When man fell, God so ordained it that man’s sin should affect also the brute creation, and inflict a blight on even inanimate nature. It was thus that the intense evil of sin was broadly marked, and that man reaped bitter fruit of his own transgression in the deterioration of that which otherwise would have been unto him only and altogether a beauty and a joy. Subjected, however, as creation is to vanity, it is still a condition of hope, for it is to undergo a regeneration; it is to be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. And it is represented as being so conscious of this bondage, and so longing for deliverance, that the Apostle speaks of nature as like a woman in the pangs of childbirth, “groaning and travailing in pain together until now.”

(1) Creation longs to be delivered from the bondage of its own corruption. This deliverance depends upon the redemption of man; for, as the sins and degradation of the human race have cast their shadow of pain and desolation over the fair face of the earth, and the tares of evil in the heart of man have been imaged in the thorns and thistles of the field, so has there been also a wondrous sympathy in the upward path. Man’s nature is redeemed from degradation through the mercy of God, and Nature around him shares in his elevation. “The merciful man is merciful to his beast,” and societies for preventing cruelty to animals, and hospitals for the dumb creatures, attest the reality of this relationship. One of the first signs of improvement in a squalid house or street is the appearance in the windows of pots or boxes of plants which are evidently the objects of loving care. Even here and now we may catch glimpses of an age when the manifestation of the Divine Sonship in man shall not tolerate the devastation of the face of the earth by war, or the wasting of its beauty and usefulness by folly or ignorance. And for this more perfect era, this Eden of peace and wisdom, creation waits, “groaning and travailing in pain together until now.”

(2) But the expectation of creation is also that it shall yet become a good servant to the sons of God. Man is the head and king over the lower creatures, and creation longs for her head to be worthy of his place in the world. The earth is a storehouse full of things of use and beauty, which are designed by the great Creator to supply the intelligent needs of man. But in order that creation may thus be a good and gracious servant to our race, it needs eyes to see, ears to hear, wisdom to act. For how many ages has creation lain in travail with her choicest treasures in her womb, waiting the manifestation of the God-given skill of man to enable her to deliver them to the world! Generations gazed with stupid, uncomprehending eyes upon steam rushing from boiling water, and this creature of God waited until at last a man was enlightened to understand and use this mighty power, and with it to change the face of the earth.

Nature, ever since sin came into our world, has refused to give her strength. To man, fallen man, Nature has never gone forth in her fulness,—but then, when these “sons of God” walk this earth, she will put forth again, as at the first, her power, her loveliness, and her fragrance; and there will be such a bursting in “the new heavens and the new earth” as was never seen and never conceived before. 1 [Note: J. Vaughan.]

I came to lay my sorrow in the wood,

It had so heavy grown,

And on my way the little speedwells stood

And claimed it for their own.

I came to let my tears in anguish fall,

They were too great to bear,

And now the little speedwells hold them all.

I have no tears to spare.

There is no other sign, by flower or leaf,

To mark the road I came,

This tiny cup of blue bears all the grief

I had not strength to name. 2 [Note: Dollie Radford.]

(3) The highest reason why creation awaits “the manifestation of the sons of God” is that creation may praise its Maker perfectly, being itself made whole. The lower creatures, animate and inanimate, are faithful to their Maker, and dumbly praise and adore Him by their obedience to His laws; but man, the master of the garden, who should be the spokesman of all this inarticulate life, the precentor of the world’s Te Deum, is too often faithless and a blasphemer. So just as a fair strong body is ruined by the loss of its reason, so creation feels that, faithful to God as all the rest may be, man’s unfaithfulness is a piteous blot on her fair fame, man’s dumbness or discord robs of its dominant and most essential part her orchestra of praise. And so creation waits—waits for the perfected redemption of man’s nature, to restore the lost unity of her life; waits for man, as a son of God, to stand forth as her high priest, who shall interpret and offer up to Heaven her gratitude and love.

Shall only the children of Adam behold

Such glory unrolled?

Shall only the gaze of the earthborn desire

The miracle wrought with these wreathings of fire?

Not so. In the calm of the white sunrise

The Maker looks down with His holy eyes,

And the seraphs that stand

At His left and right hand

Chant the song of the season of sacrifice:

The psalm of the earth when, her harvesting done,

She lifts up her arms to the path of the sun,

And offers, with tithes of her vines and her sheaves,

The life of her leaves—

Their beauty of burning as praise

To the Ancient of Days. 1 [Note: Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer, Poems, 67.]

3. Are there any signs that the redemption of man is to work out the redemption of creation? Two lines of conquest over the powers of darkness go on together, the one overcoming physical obstacles, and the other spiritual.

(1) The physical process moves at an increasing rate. It began far back in history, and depends on the mental energies of man. Even the Syrian desert is not mere sand and rock, but consists of excellent soil—desert only by reason of man’s neglect. The barren sides of Lebanon have once had beautiful terraces in high cultivation. The terraces remain, but the culture has ceased with man’s apathy or relapse towards barbarism. In all civilized countries the soil is useful exactly in the degree in which man’s energy defends it from returning to wildness. Modern discoveries have in two ways lengthened life—by preserving health on one side, and by crowding into a given time far more achievement. All these conquests are gifts of God to man, and obtained through man. They are poured out profusely, and at the same time they are educating into higher skill the race that discovers them; and the race which produces more Newtons, and Watts, and Nasmyths, more Harveys and Pasteurs, will become the channel of a greater flood of beneficent inventions.

Here, for instance, is the extraordinary power which we call electricity. It is a creation of God. It has had its mysterious origin and history through all the clash and movement and conflict of the universe of God. It has gone its way, flashing and dancing across the sky, and giving men vague lessons of the power of God. But it was meant for more than this. It was meant to be the minister of human ends, of social utility. And for this it waits, until at last the ingenuity of man takes hold of its higher capacity. The force was always there, expectantly waiting—eager to serve the wants of man; but God’s purposes through it could be worked out only by the skill and insight of the sons of God. Finally, after ages of a patient creation, the inventor thinks God’s thoughts after Him, the sons of God are revealed in their relation to Nature, and then the creation moves on into its higher uses, and lights us, moves us, warms us—the familiar instrument of our days and nights.

Creation waits for man. The work of God is in the hands of the sons of God. Here is a vessel eager to reach her port, and God’s winds sweep gently over the sea and invite her to move on. But not the fairest wind can bring her on her way unless man does his part. The earnest expectation of the vessel waits until the captain spreads her sails; and then, man working with God, the creation which lay dead and lonely on the sea becomes a thing of life and motion, and leaps on her way. So it is, the Apostle seems to say, with all the higher movements of God’s creation. The method of God works through the participation of man. The whole creation pauses until the spirit of life takes command of the mechanism of life, like a captain giving orders on his ship. God may create the best of circumstances, but the whole creation simply groans and labours, like a vessel labouring in a sea until man steadies her with his sails and spreads them to catch God’s favouring breeze. The patient expectation of the vessel waits for the manifestation of the captain’s will. 1 [Note: F. G. Peabody.]

It was the laws of Evolution as we call them, meaning the laws of God, that gave man muscles and bones to lift and carry, but it was not till sons of God appeared who discovered that wind, and water, and steam, and electric energy were going man’s way and might fetch and carry for him, that he was delivered from his rude and animal drudgery. Natural law made man to be racked with ague in a fen, but creation had to wait till some son of God discovered the antidote under the bark of a tree. It was with many a bitter groan that the slaves waited for Wilberforce, that the prisoners of England waited for Elizabeth Fry, or the women of our city slums for Catherine Booth. Our whole complex civilization indeed, half godless though it still be, is what it is, in its care for human life, and its varied social activities, because of the sons of God who have already been manifested, the men and women who have given their brains and their hands and their hearts to the service of God and their fellows. It is on their forgotten shoulders that we stand to-day. It is through them that God’s plans have run.

’Tis God gives skill,

But not without men’s hands: He could not make

Antonio Stradivari’s violins

Without Antonio. 2 [Note: Arch. Alexander.]

(2) The other road of progress is the spiritual. On that road the pace is slower, the results more unequal, and there are intervals of heart-breaking failure and retrogression. The spiritual progress has never preserved in past centuries a steady and equal pace. No period of twenty years has ever equalled the grand outpouring of life of the first twenty years after the Resurrection. But the law has always been the same. Churches have prospered when peopled by faithful men; they have languished or died when faith has languished and sin has paralysed the will. “The river of grace,” says Fénelon, “never runs dry, it is true; but it often changes its course to water new districts, and leaves in its old channel nothing but arid sands. Faith will never be extinct; but it is not tied to any of the places which it enlightens, it leaves behind it a frightful night to those who have despised the day, and it carries its rays to purer eyes.”

’Tis weary watching wave by wave,

And yet the tide heaves onward;

We climb, like corals, grave by grave,

That pave a pathway sunward.

We’re driven back, for our next fray

A newer strength to borrow;

And where the vanguard camps to-day,

The rear shall rest to-morrow.

Though hearts brood o’er the past, our eyes

With smiling features glisten;

For, lo! our day bursts up the skies!

Lean out your souls, and listen!

The world is following freedom’s way,

And ripening with her sorrow.

Take heart! Who bears the cross to-day

Shall wear the crown to-morrow. 1 [Note: Gerald Massey.]

II

The Revealing of the Sons of God

1. Who are the sons of God? The Apostle has just told us: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” The sons of God, then, are simply the people led by God’s Spirit—people lifted by God, that is to say, into the higher capacities of their own spiritual life; and for such people, he announces, the whole creation waits. Without them the universal evolution pauses in its course. So runs his extraordinary statement of the method of creation. When we translate it into our ways of speech, the point seems to be this: the movement of the universe goes on its way from the beginning to a certain point under mechanical laws, fit for material things. Causes and effects, attractions and repulsions, heat and light and the rest—these have their way in moulding the world. But at a certain point the elements of evolution become changed; they become human, spiritual, personal. The problem of the universe is no longer to mould and harden a world—it is to unfold and quicken the higher faculties of man; and for this new work of God a new necessity appears—the help of man. Not God Himself can develop the possibilities of human institutions and human characters except through the instrument of human beings themselves. It is through them that God, in the higher ranges of His method, works. His ends are not reached by such laws as could create or maintain the world; they are reached through His sons.

Of all luggage man is the hardest to move. He won’t move unless he will. 1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]

Our natural Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to have us; and we may never cease from willing nor from longing till we have Him in fulness of joy; and then we may no more desire. 2 [Note: Julian, the Anchoress.]

2. And what does St. Paul mean by the revealing or manifestation of the sons of God? He explains this in the 23rd verse. It is their adoption, or rather the perfecting of their adoption, their being clearly proved the sons of God by the redemption of their whole nature. The inner Divine Life must grow within, and transfuse and shine through their earthly life by the sanctifying grace of the Holy Ghost, as the flame shines through the slides of the lantern. “Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; … and to brotherly kindness charity” ( 2 Peter 1:5 ff.). Christlike graces are to be cultivated, a Christlike character is by obedience and by Divine help to be formed, until the sonship to God is clearly manifested, the transfiguration of human nature from glory to glory completed. This, then, is the end for which creation waits, earnestly expecting man’s growth in holiness, or, in other words, his being shown forth in fact as a true son of the Heavenly Father.

I saw thee once, and nought discern’d

For stranger to admire;

A serious aspect, but it burn’d

With no unearthly fire.

Again I saw, and I confess’d

Thy speech was rare and high;

And yet it vex’d my burden’d breast,

And scared, I knew not why.

I saw once more, and awe-struck gazed

On face, and form, and air;

God’s living glory round thee blazed—

A Saint—a Saint was there! 1 [Note: J. H. Newman.]

3. But it is at the advent of Christ that, in the Apostle’s thought, the sons of God will be manifested. Then shall come to pass the full realization of their adoption, in their attainment to the full privileges of their sonship. Then, when Christ their life is manifested, shall they also with Him be manifested in glory. But this manifestation in glory is here contemplated in relation to a particular feature of it—freedom, the liberty of the glory of the children of God. The advent of Christ will be a glorious emancipation to the children of God. But from what?

(1) From that bondage to corruption, that subjection to vanity, under which they, in common with all creation, groan. Man is a dying creature. All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. Instability and decay cleave to him and to all that appertains to him. Vanity is written upon his person and his possessions, upon his plans and his projects, upon his pomp and his power. We all know this and feel it. From this, then, the children of God are to be set free. But not from this only. It is not simply in reference to mortality that they shall be manifested in glory.

(2) The liberty of the glory of the sons of God will not be merely freedom from dissolution and decay. It is not the liability to this under which they chiefly groan, but the infirmities of their nature, the moral corruption that attaches to them, the impotence for good, the tendency to evil, to which, by reason of the body, they are subject. The children of God are, indeed, regenerate, but the infection of the old nature still remains. They have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, but it is not dead; it still writhes and struggles. Though not dominant, sin still indwells. The reptile has received its death-blow, but it has still power to turn and sting. And thus from the lips of the saints proceed such plaintive confessions as these, “My soul cleaveth unto the dust”; “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing”; “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.… O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

At His first coming Christ became a partaker of flesh and blood, that through death He might destroy death, and bring life and immortality to light. To this, the gracious purpose of His first coming, He will give full effect when He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Then death shall be swallowed up in victory. Then, at His call, they that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, and they that are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Then will He change their body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory, and so corruption shall put on incorruption. Then, arrayed in a spiritual body, the children of God shall no longer be subject to pain, infirmity, decay, or bondage of any kind; they shall be as the angels of God, and, like them, able to serve God, day without night, for ever and ever. 1 [Note: A. R. Symonds.]

4. Thus in the time of St. Paul the creation stood in expectation with head erect, with far-off look, waiting for the dawn of that day which should make her deliverance through Christ complete. St. Paul knew not what would follow—that after eighteen centuries the expectant creation would still so stand, waiting for deliverance. Still the world is full of misery; still it waits for redemption; it is as far off from peace as ever. Strife and struggle, pain and death, are inscribed upon the world’s foundation stones. They are older than the fall of man. Long before man lived to be tempted and to fall we find their history in the stone book of creation. The creation was made subject to vanity; that is, to constant change. But He who so made it knew the issue. He subjected the same in hope. Only in the way of hope can we yet understand the great story of the creation.

We have waited nearly two thousand years, and the language used by those who have lost faith is that they can wait no longer; that the power of Christ is no more seen. “When the Hebrews,” says one of these hopeless writers, “were on their way to the Promised Land they perceived that God was with them. God had spoken and said, ‘It lies before you’; and by night a cloud of fire kindled and marched in their van. Now the celestial light is extinct. We are not quite sure that we have God over our heads. We possess no other light but our understanding, and with this glimmering guidance we must direct ourselves through the night. Oh that we could still be sure that there is a promised land; that others besides us would reach it; that this desert would end in something. This certainty is taken from us, and yet we advance continually, pushed forward by an indefatigable hope.” 1 [Note: Guyau, L’Irréligion de l’avenir, 337.] Beyond doubt, if the power of the Lord is gone, all is gone. He is not a doctrine, but a power. Surrounded by the sick and maimed, He heals them. When He speaks of the Divine law He does not fear to complete and enlarge it. What is the power that enables men to live no longer to themselves? “The love of Christ constraineth us,” replies St. Paul; and the word “constraineth” denotes a real compelling.

Thou with strong prayer and very much entreating

Willest be asked, and thou shalt answer then,

Show the hid heart beneath creation beating,

Smile with kind eyes and be a man with men.

Were it not thus, O King of my salvation,

Many would curse to thee and I for one,

Fling thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation,

Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun,

Ring with a reckless shivering of laughter

Wroth at the woe which thou hast seen so long,

Question if any recompense hereafter

Waits to atone the intolerable wrong:

Is there not wrong too bitter for atoning?

What are these desperate and hideous years?

Hast thou not heard thy whole creation groaning,

Sighs of the bondsmen, and a woman’s tears?

Yes, and to her, the beautiful and lowly,

Mary a maiden, separate from men,

Camest thou nigh and didst possess her wholly,

Close to thy saints, but thou wast closer then.

Once and for ever didst thou show thy chosen,

Once and for ever magnify thy choice;—

Scorched in love’s fire or with his freezing frozen,

Lift up your hearts, ye humble, and rejoice!

Not to the rich he came or to the ruling

(Men full of meat, whom wholly he abhors),

Not to the fools grown insolent in fooling

Most, when the lost are dying at the doors;

Nay but to her who with a sweet thanksgiving

Took in tranquillity what God might bring,

Blessed him and waited, and within her living

Felt the arousal of a Holy Thing.

Ay for her infinite and endless honour

Found the Almighty in this flesh a tomb,

Pouring with power the Holy Ghost upon her,

Nothing disdainful of the Virgin’s womb. 1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, St. Paul.]

5. The work of God moves on through the revealing of the sons of God. Now, suppose any soul fails of its higher capacities and remains stunted and unrevealed; is that merely a personal loss of happiness or of salvation? On the contrary, it is a loss so vast as to make every personal motive shrink into insignificance. It is simply retarding to that extent the perfect and universal work of God. There are purposes which God Himself cannot fulfil on earth except through us, and every sin of ours is a barrier set in God’s way. When a man says that to himself, he has a motive worth having. To be sinning, not against one’s self, but against the universe; in the petty yielding to our own indolence or neglect, to be a hinderer of God’s great ends in the world—that is what gives awfulness to every thought of sin. To injure, blot, ruin one’s self—that may be a small matter; but to hold back the vast mechanism of creation—that gives our little life significance. It is as some great factory where the looms go weaving with their leaping shuttles the millions of yards of cloth, and then of a sudden one thread breaks, and the loom stops short in its progress, lest the whole intricate work be marred.

There is one aspect of life of which I feel sure we take too little notice, and which is constantly hindering and paralysing many a sincere desire to do right. It is the sense of insignificance. A man looks at his life, and it is a poor, feeble, insignificant thing. He says to himself: “Here am I, with my infinitely unimportant life, influencing nobody. Of what earthly importance is it that I should struggle thus against the stream of my tendency and taste? Why not let my turbulent passions sweep me down their stream and bury my insignificant life in their unhindered current?” That is the unconscious defence of many a ruined life. For one man who errs by thinking too much of himself, ten, I believe, fail by not, in the true sense of the phrase, thinking enough of themselves. But now comes the Apostle into the midst of this sluggish, half-hearted, spurious modesty, and says to your soul: “Yes taken by itself your life is certainly a very insignificant affair; but placed as you happen to be placed, in the kind of a universe which God has happened to make, your life becomes of infinite importance. For God has chosen to work out His designs, not in spite of you, but through you; and where you fail, He halts. Almighty God needs you. You are not your own, either to be insignificant or to be great, but you are in the service of that which is greater than yourself, and that service touches your life with its own greatness.” It is as though you were a lighthouse-keeper set to do your duty on your bare rock. Can any life be more unpraised or insignificant? Why sit through weary nights to keep your flame alive? Why not sleep on, all unobserved, and let your little light go out? Because it is not your light—that is the point. You are not its owner; you are its keeper. That is your name. You are a light-keeper. You are set there with this as your trust. The great design of the Power you serve takes you thus out of your insignificance, and while you sit there in the shadow of your lonely tower, ship after ship is looking to you across the sea, and many a man thanks God that, while lights which burn for themselves go out, your light will be surely burning. The earnest expectation of many a storm-tossed sailor waits for the revealing of your friendly gleam. The safety of many a life that passes by you in the dark is trusted from night to night to you. 1 [Note: F. G. Peabody.]

There are some who quite sincerely advertise their limitations as the majority advertise their skill, who cannot suppose themselves—and dread lest others should suppose them—capable of any achievement away from the commonplace line, and who almost placard themselves with an announcement that they are less than nothing and vanity. In fact, it sometimes appears as if people found in their low self-estimates an actual source of pride. “Extremes meet,” said Emerson, “and there is no better example than the haughtiness of humility.” And the mood of self-depreciation is, moreover, one into which men and women of sensitive consciences and clear vision of spiritual ideals are perhaps particularly likely to fall, and a mood which they are particularly likely to carry too far. Precisely because of its near kinship with the virtue of real humility do we require to be on our guard against it. If self-depreciation be a less prevalent disease with us than conceit and egotism, it is at least prevalent enough to call for remembrance and mention when we are drawing up any catalogue of moral ills to which our human nature may be heir. One of the lessons very needful to be learnt is this—that, as Mr. Spurgeon put it, “it is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought.” 1 [Note: H. W. Clark, Studies in Character, 120.]

An Expectant Creation

Literature

Boyd (A. K. H.), The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 2nd Ser., 218.

Drummond (J.), Spiritual Religion, 216.

Holland (H. S.), Christ or Ecclesiastes, 85.

Lilley (A. L.), Nature and Supernature, 77.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Romans, 173.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iii. 114.

Martineau (J.), Hours of Thought, i. 191.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Counsels of Faith and Practice, 144.

Paget (E. C), Silence, 162.

Roberts (R.), My Jewels, 226.

Smyth (N.), Reality of Faith, 266.

Symonds (A. R.), Sermons, 12.

Vaughan (C. J.), Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, 325.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), No. 500.

Wilberforce (B.), Following on to know the Lord, 199.

Wilberforce (B.), Westminster Abbey Sermons, 1.

Cambridge Review, xiii. (1891), No. 315 (Wilson).

Christian World Pulpit, xviii. 364 (Beecher); xxxix. 113 (Peabody); xliii. 197 (Durward); xlvi. 6 (Abbott), 104 (Wilberforce); xlvii. 216 (Medley); l. 4. (Thomas); lxi. 204 (Rawnsley); lxviii. 358 (Story); lxxiv. 346 (Marshall); lxxvi. 248 (Houghton).

Churchman’s Pulpit: Fourth Sunday after Trinity, x. 205 (Story), 207 (Hall), 209 (Vaughan).

Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., x. 129 (Thomson).

Verses 24-25

The Saving Grace of Hope

For by hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.— Romans 8:24-25.

As compared with the importance and urgency claimed for faith on the one hand, and for love on the other, in the New Testament, it might almost seem as if hope is scarcely regarded as a duty, or as one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian character. Indeed, it would be difficult to show from the Gospels alone that our Lord Himself attached any importance to hope as a frame of mind to be cultivated; or that He ever enjoined or required it of His disciples, as He so very obviously and even urgently demanded of them an almost unbounded faith. It would not be too much to affirm that, according to the record, we have no positive knowledge that the word “hope” ever proceeded from the Saviour’s lips, or had any place among those many parables and Divine precepts which we associate directly with His earthly life. “O woman, great is thy faith”; “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel”; “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”—these are among the gracious and encouraging words which we are accustomed to consider as among the most vital and characteristic sayings of Jesus. We have to come to St. Paul to learn, for the first time, that “we are saved by hope.”

And yet the whole life on earth of Jesus, the very temper and disposition of our Lord, as we read of Him in the Gospels; His absolute reliance upon and confidence in His Father; the habitual sunny outlook, as it were, the glad and gracious confidence of the Son of Man amid the despairing and the sinful, and even when, as we know, He Himself had not where to lay His head; the entire absence of all fretfulness and complaining, of all bitterness, of all that in these modern days we call pessimism or cynicism, and in ordinary life down-heartedness or discouragement; the habitual cheerfulness, in short, of the Son of Man, even under what seem the most distressing conditions, till, at the last, He gives Himself up to God, fainting and tortured on the cross, with “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”—surely never before, and never since then, has such a lesson of hopefulness been read to the world; such a truly Divine example of a human being, as St. Paul says, “saved by hope.” And it is the very same lesson in life and in death—often too, as in the supreme case of our Lord, acted but unspoken, a lifelong “song without words”—the lesson of hope arising out of faith, that has been taught us ever since, by every one of those apostles, prophets, and martyrs, who have followed in the steps of the Divine Lord and Master, who came not to enjoy but to suffer, not to be ministered unto but to minister, not to rule but to serve, and so to “give his life a ransom for many.”

I

Salvation in Hope

If we were to seek to illustrate what seems to be the plain meaning of the text, we might take the case of a sailor, washed overboard and in imminent peril of drowning. He feels his strength ebbing, and is on the point of giving up, when the flash of a boat’s lantern and a hail give him fresh hope, so that, hope lending him vigour, he battles on until he is picked up by his rescuers. Of such a one we may say that he was saved by hope. Had hope not inspired him with fresh strength he would have been lost. Or, again, we may, as an illustration of this meaning of the text, remember how, within limits, patients tend to die or to recover according as they are despondent or hopeful. Such things, then, illustrate what seems to be the plain meaning of the text; and what they suggest is in fact true.

But the meaning thus suggested for our text, though true in fact, is not its real meaning. A better though a less simple translation is, “We were saved in hope.” The text does not tell us by what we were saved. It tells us of something involved in the salvation. Salvation has hope in the heart of it. It is not exhausted in the initial experiences. It is fraught with happy consequences, the hope of which characterizes all those who have been saved. There is an experience, salvation, and something involved in it, hope.

The older commentators for the most part took the dative here as the dative of the instrument, “by hope were we saved.” Most moderns take it as the dative of the manner, “in hope were we saved,” the main ground being that it is more in accordance with the teaching of St. Paul to say that we were saved by faith, or from another point of view—looking at salvation from the side of God— by grace (both terms are found in Ephesians 2:8) than by hope. 1 [Note: Sanday and Headlam, Romans.]

i. Hopefulness

Hopefulness is in a very real sense the keynote of all Christian aspiration; the one ever-present distinction of the Christian religion and life from all that ever went before it (with one notable exception), and from much that has obtruded itself as “philosophy,” even in these latter days.

1. We know how in pre-Christian times that vast Oriental system of Buddhism (which still counts more adherents, probably, than any other), even with many admirable moralities set forth in the way of precept, was pervaded throughout by a kind of philosophic pessimism; a hopelessness, in fact, which Schopenhauer in these latter days has only adopted and rendered into more modern terms of expression. The world is, at the best, according to that great Oriental philosophy, an illusion; at the worst, and as tested by human experience, a passing show of misery, disappointment, and vexation. It had been better for all of us not to have been born. Best now, for all of us, simply to cease to be. The only beatitude is Nirvana.

2. The pagan idolatries, into the midst of which Christianity was launched at the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, had no such definite incarnation in a single historic figure, nor perhaps any such definite philosophical outcome, as in the case of the religion of the Buddha. But in a pregnant word of St. Paul, addressed to those who had been “Gentiles in the flesh,” and who, under his teaching, had accepted Christ as their Lord, we find a most striking appeal to their own inward consciousness of the change that had been wrought in their spiritual state. “Wherefore remember,” he says, “that ye were at that time ( i.e. before their conversion) strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” ( Ephesians 2:11-12, R.V.).

3. But St. Paul could even have added to the force of such an argument had he been able to extend it to this present hour, through all the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem, the abominable persecutions of the Middle Ages, and the long endurance under injustice, confiscation, and proscription (even, alas! and mostly, by professing Christians) of which the Jewish communities scattered throughout the world have been, and are even now, the object. For the Jew, even in his worst national aberrations in the earlier days, and still more in the long years of exile and persecution, and more than ever in St. Paul’s time under the dominion of Rome, had maintained, as his most prominent and unique national characteristic, an undying inextinguishable hope as to the future of his race and country; a hope founded on faith in the one unchanging Jehovah, who had of old chosen and set apart Israel out of all the nations, and never would desert the people of His choice. This, indeed, is the very point of the Apostle’s appeal to the Gentile converts in the Epistle to the Ephesians: they were, he says, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” and therefore “having no hope, and without God in the world.”

Hope was the very life of Israel. “Our fathers trusted in thee.” “The Lord will be the hope of his people,” “the confidence of all the ends of the earth.” And, if the old fire of hope burned low in the ages of Pharisaic formalism, it blazed out again more brightly than ever when Christ our Lord brought life and immortality to light. Christ in us is the hope of glory, the one living power that could overcome the disgust and loathing of that hard old pagan world where hope was lost. And if its brightness was dimmed again in the dark times of Christian Pharisaism, it was never quite extinguished. Beyond the Dies irae rose Jerusalem the golden. 1 [Note: H. M. Gwatkin.]

ii. The Christian Hope

1. The Christian hope is not identical with hopefulness. We shall not understand how we are “saved in hope” unless we have a clear idea of the hope of which St. Paul speaks in the text. In so far as it is an act of the mind merely, it does not differ from the hope with which we are all familiar in daily life. Everybody remembers Lord Byron’s words to Hope:—

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Without hope endeavour would languish. No room would be left for design, or for rational enterprise of any kind. Life would become mere lazy, unconcerned trifling. Everybody feels this, and admits the power which that act of the mind, called by us hope, exercises in and upon our lives. But, though the hope of the text, in so far as it is a mere act of the mind, does not differ from natural hope, in other respects it does differ from it very widely.

As faith is the special counter-agent of materialism, so the counter-agent of pessimism is hope. Like faith, this has a natural basis, which is commonest and strongest in the young. But this natural hopefulness, which varies with temperament, can be confirmed into Christian hope only “by the power of the Holy Ghost.” For the mere natural hopefulness of a sanguine disposition fades when the troubles of life thicken with advancing years, as “the clouds return after the rain.” But “tribulation,” says St. Paul, “worketh patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope.” 1 [Note: J. R. Illingworth, Christian Character, 73.]

2. The importance of the Christian hope may be experienced—

(1) In our daily life.—There is the conflict with sin, in which we often seem to gain no ground, the same temptations recurring year after year with wearisome identity, or disappearing, when resisted, only to reappear in a new form, while our efforts after virtue seem daily to be renewed only that in like manner they may be daily disappointed. And in this long struggle with discouragement, hope is the sole secret of our success, for it is the one thing that enables us to rise after every fall, to take new heart after every failure, resolute to die fighting, rather than accept defeat.

Say not, the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

But though Watts calls his tremendous reality Hope, we may call it many other things. Call it faith, call it vitality, call it the will to live, call it the religion of to-morrow morning, call it the immortality of man, call it self-love and vanity; it is the thing that explains why man survives all things and why there is no such thing as a pessimist. If there be anywhere a man who has really lost it, his face out of a whole crowd of men will strike us like a blow. He may hang himself or become Prime Minister; it matters nothing. The man is dead. 1 [Note: Chesterton, Watts, 103.]

(2) In old age.—The decrease of capacity, the increase of infirmity, the prospect of the end, oppress the ageing man with gloom, and tempt him cynically to sadden others with the shadow of his own distress. But if we contrast Matthew Arnold’s melancholy picture of old age with the stirring trumpet-tones of Browning’s “Rabbi ben Ezra,” we see, in sharp contrast, how Christian hope has changed all this:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith, “A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

(3) In the last hours.—This is the climax of our Christian hope: “The righteous hath hope in his death.” “Death,” said Aristotle, “is of all things the most terrible, for it is an end.” And it is precisely because to the Christian it is not an end that his conduct is so different from that of the Greek—a contrast well drawn out by Browning in his “Old Pictures at Florence.” For the Greek and all who think with him must seek their full development in this world; whereas, in the Christian view “man has for ever,” he can afford to wait, and his whole life is conditioned by this fact. Hence his hope culminates in death, as being but the entrance to the life immortal; he dies looking forward and not backward, and therefore progressive to the very end; for hope is the mainspring of progress, and “the righteous hath hope in his death.”

Over the grave of the first Bishop of Manchester is inscribed the one Greek word which in our English Bible is translated “The trumpet shall sound”—a word which carries our minds forward to the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, and utters forth the note of expectancy in the place where all hopes might seem to have died. Contrast with this Christian inscription what has been found written over the grave of a priest of the religion of pagan Rome in its decay. “He gave to his devotees,”—such is the praise ascribed by the priest to the god he worshipped—“he gave to his devotees kisses and pleasures and fun.” 1 [Note: P. J. Maclagan.]

I often examine, with peculiar interest, the hymn-book we use at Carr’s Lane. It was compiled by Dr. Dale. Nowhere else can I find the broad perspective of his theology and his primary helpmeets in the devotional life as I find them there. And is it altogether unsuggestive that under the heading of “Heaven” is to be found one of the largest sections of the book? A greater space is given to “Heaven” than is given to “Christian Duty.” Is it not significant of what a great man of affairs found needful for the enkindling and sustenance of a courageous hope? And among the hymns are many which have helped to nourish the sunny endeavours of a countless host. 2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Into the dusk of the East,

Grey with the coming of night,

This we may know at least—

After the night comes light!

Over the mariners’ graves,

Grim in the depths below,

Buoyantly breasting the waves,

Into the East we go.

On to a distant strand,

Wonderful, far, unseen,

On to a stranger land,

Skimming the seas between;

On through the days and nights,

Hope in each sailor’s breast,

On till the harbour lights

Flash on the shores of rest!

3. Now it is obvious that when St. Paul says “We were saved in hope,” he is not regarding hope as an unstable or uncertain thing, nor is he regarding it as a quality which we may either take or leave according to our several liking. Far from this, we shall see, if we read the passage aright, that St. Paul is regarding hope as permanent and certain, and as an essential characteristic of the salvation which has already been begun in us; or, to put it more exactly, that very salvation itself is enshrined in hope. But it is noticeable that certain errors with regard to hope are constantly made. Let us see how these errors arise and how St. Paul’s teaching refutes them.

(1) Hope is commonly conceived of as if there were the idea of uncertainty implied in it—as if to say, I hope for a thing, were to say, I look for it doubtfully—I expect it in a measure, but I am not sure of it. But it is not so. The Apostle says: “For we are saved in hope: but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” Here he puts hope and present vision in contrast; it is not certainty and uncertainty that he is contrasting, but things seen and things not seen; and that there is no idea of uncertainty is plain from the 25th verse, “If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it,” expressing the peaceful, calm security in which the thing is looked for. Not the slightest indication is there here of any uncertainty involved in the expression “hope.” All that the Apostle conceived to be meant by it was the expectation of a future thing. Now, this being so, it is evident that a serious error is made, the moment we conceive of hope as involving in it uncertainty.

Every human hope is necessarily uncertain, because of the uncertainty of every thing under the sun, the uncertainty of our own life, the uncertainty, in fact, of every thing around us. No wonder that people accustomed thus to see hope doubtfully applied should have associated uncertainty with these words; but observe that the uncertainty is in that on which the hope rests; and, therefore, if a man gets a sure ground on which to judge, there is no need of uncertainty. Faith and hope, in religion, have a reference to the words of God, and these are sure and steadfast; there is, therefore, no reason why they should be uncertain things here. Introduce God as the teller, as the promiser, as the speaker, upon whose testimony our faith goes forth, upon whose promise our hope rests, and then all apology for uncertainty is removed. 1 [Note: J. M‘Leod Campbell.]

What can we do, o’er whom the unbeholden

Hangs in a night with which we cannot cope?

What but look sunward, and with faces golden

Speak to each other softly of a hope?

Can it be true, the grace he is declaring?

Oh let us trust him, for his words are fair!

Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing?

God shall forgive thee all but thy despair. 2 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]

(2) Hope has a reference to a future thing, not a reference to a present or a past thing, and it is confounding the objects of faith and the objects of hope to make that which Christ has done for us an object of hope, or to say that we hope that Christ died for us, or that we have an interest in His blood. What, then, is the object of hope? Just that which God is yet to do. The Gospel reveals God as the Governor of the universe, and sets forth the plan of His government; it makes us acquainted with what He has done, with what He is doing, and with what He has yet to do. The object of Christian hope is what God has yet to do. There is a personality, a reference to one’s own self, involved in it; but while this is the case, it is this great plan of God that is the direct object of hope, and the personality is just something arising out of what it tells us. We can find no words more definite than St. Paul’s own words in the context of our text, as showing what is the great object of hope. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”

(3) Hope is not to be regarded as an unnecessary grace. St. Paul says that there are three things which abide—three things, that is, which last under all the changes of fashion and of custom, and of the varying schemes of different generations—three things which remain as the abiding strands of the human character—and of those the first is faith and the second is hope. Now when we turn to consider hope we are brought face to face with this—that hope suffers from not being taken seriously, as faith is. Even those who feel most their lack of faith know that faith is essential; they know that “without faith it is impossible to please God,” and that those who come to God “must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” But with hope it is all different. We look upon hope, do we not, as a kind of beautiful fairy queen; and where hope is so beautiful we are apt to think she can do no useful work. She is like a beautiful woman whom people think to be above doing strong and useful work; but those who know her best, those who have seen the most tragic sides of life, know that although she is bright and beautiful on the bridal morning as the young couple come forth, and think that they are going to tread a path of flowers, yet it is on the tragic side of life that hope is at her best.

’Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead

Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,

And the pale weaver, through his windows seen

In Spitalfields, look’d thrice dispirited.

I met a preacher there I knew, and said:

“Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?”—

“Bravely!” said he; “for I of late have been

Much cheer’d with thoughts of Christ, the living Bread.”

O human soul! as long as thou canst so

Set up a mark of everlasting light,

Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow,

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam—

Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!

Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.

Thus Matthew Arnold. But what did he mean? He meant that Hope, the beautiful queen we think her, too beautiful to soil her hands or mar her face with work, goes up and down the slums of East London with the worker as he toils on through all his difficulties, and that from the worst disappointment he is saved in Hope.

A young man is working in his study. All the glamour of scientific discovery is sweeping over him, and his one great thought is to follow and back up his great master, Darwin. He is studying science, and he makes some of the most original experiments that have ever been made. But the exclusive use of the analytical reason, as in the case of his master, Darwin, clouds his faith. The boyish essay on Prayer is withdrawn from publication, and for years there rests upon his mind a cloud of awful doubt. But he had in his study, at his work, as his constant companion, something that never left him, something that always told him that truth could be learned, that some day his boyish faith would come back to him, something that kept him perfectly honest, perfectly sincere, perfectly true to himself through it all, and that thing was Hope. And when only a week before he died he walked up the Latin Chapel at Oxford, and as a firm believer received the Holy Communion in full possession of his magnificent faculties, it was Hope that walked in front of him, very reverently, having done her work. George Romanes was saved in Hope. It is a calumny, then, on Hope to look on her as a merely beautiful fairy queen. Hope is a nurse, Hope is a worker, Hope is a most delightful and sustaining intellectual friend. 1 [Note: Bishop Winnington Ingram.]

iii. The Power of Hope

St. Paul places hope as the second of the Christian graces. It is a tremendous thing to be placed between faith and love. What is the magic power of hope which places her in such a position in the Christian life?

1. The first thing which we notice about hope—and it wants watching to find out the peculiar magic of its power—is that it purifies the human character. “Every man that hath this hope in him,” says St. John, “purifieth himself, even as Christ is pure.” It would be weary dismal work indeed to mark, year after year, our little growth, our frequent failure; to find the same temptations still assaulting us, the same meanness or vanity or envy lurking in our hearts. At times, it may be, we have been half inclined to put up with a lower standard, and to come to terms with our sins; to acquiesce in their occupying some portion of God’s territory. But of His mercy, we are saved by hope. We renew the experience of the Psalmist, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” To see His goodness; yes, and to be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. There is the hope which from the triumph of the risen Saviour breaks out upon our souls even in the darkest moments of their self-reproach; we are not fighting only to make the best we can out of fifty or sixty years. We could hardly bear to think what we have wasted and misspent if that were all; we could hardly hold on with the knowledge of the failures that we are. What changes everything for us is that through the often baffled hopes, through the fearful resolutions of our faltering hearts, there comes the thrill of that surpassing, saving hope that by His grace we shall one day be brought where sorrow and sighing flee away; where there shall be no more curse, and no more failure; where the storm of temptation shall be utterly forgotten in the “peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”

Lord, many times I am aweary quite

Of mine own self, my sin, my vanity—

Yet be not Thou, or I am lost outright,

Weary of me.

2. But not only has hope this purifying power, not only will it make us believe that we are meant to live with angels and not herd with animals, not only will it lift a man into a different state of mind altogether, and purify his character, but hope is also the strongest influence that we can exert over other people.

If you have read a little story for children called Little Lord Fauntleroy you have read a magnificent account of the influence of hope on others. You remember how the little lad goes to stay with his grandfather, and that grandfather is one of the most selfish, one of the meanest and most unkind of old men that have ever lived. But the boy believes in him. The boy, only about fourteen, keeps saying to his grandfather, “Oh, grandfather, how they must love you; you are so generous, you are so kind, you are so considerate to every one you meet.” And the lesson of that beautiful story is the influence of hope on character. The old gentleman cannot withstand the belief of his boy; and he grows to be the unselfish generous man that the boy thought him.

3. Hope is the greatest inspirer of corporate work. And here we have to beware of a travesty of hope. Those who serve on boards and committees know that we do not believe very much in the merely sanguine man—the man who has always got a scheme which he thinks perfectly infallible, which he carries through in spite of all advice, and who, by his glib tongue and power of talk, sometimes drags the committee or board into miserable disaster. Now in our proper fear of the merely sanguine man do not let us despise the hopeful man. So far from hope being a hindrance upon boards or committees, social settlements, or any other corporate work, hope is the inspirer that keeps them going. You have sometimes seen the summer breeze sway down the cornstalks in a great field; they all bow beneath its magic power; that is how souls are bowed down by the influence of hope. One hopeful man will save a garrison; one hopeful woman will inspire a parish.

The men of hope carry forward their fellows, as Matthew Arnold has well described, in words that gain impressiveness from their contrast to his own prevailing sadness—

Beacons of hope, ye appear!

Languor is not in your heart,

Weakness is not in your word,

Weariness not on your brow.

Ye alight in our van! at your voice,

Panic, despair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall

The stragglers, refresh the outworn,

Praise, re-inspire the brave.

Order, courage, return;

Eyes rekindling, and prayers,

Follow your steps as ye go.

Ye fill up the gaps in our files,

Strengthen the wavering line,

Stablish, continue our march,

On, to the bound of the waste,

On, to the City of God.

iv. The Sphere of Hope

1. “Hope that is seen is not hope.” The whole point of St. Paul’s argument in these two verses is that the attitude of hope, so distinctive of the Christian, implies that there is more in store for him than anything that is his already. And not only is this principle true with regard to the future life and things unseen, but it is supremely true with regard to a building up of character. For to whatever height of excellence men may attain, they will always see above them a vantage-ground which invites fresh effort.

The sphere of hope is “things not seen.” “Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” Therefore a Christian’s real possession is not what he sees. Suppose God prospers him in this world and he has riches; let him be grateful, but let him confess that those are not his treasures. One hour with the Lord Jesus Christ will bring more satisfaction to the believer than the largest measure of wealth. Although he may have prospered in this world, the saint will ridicule the idea of making the world his portion. A thousand worlds with all the joy which they could yield are as nothing compared with our appointed inheritance. Our hope does not deal with trifles; she leaves the mice of the barn to the owls, and soars on eagle wings where nobler joys await her.

2. Now the greater part of our salvation belongs to the “things not seen.” “If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Our salvation is partly of the past, but more of the future. For with God there are no unfinished beginnings, no inadequate completions. He is not like the foolish builder, who, without counting the cost, lays foundations wide and deep, and cannot complete the stately tower for which the foundations were planned. When God has appointed Jesus Christ as the chief corner-stone, what will the superstructure be? We may meanwhile obscure the magnificence of His plan by the foolishness of our building. But though it be by the destruction of our work, His spiritual house shall be completed, of which apostles and prophets are the foundation, and victorious martyrs the pillars, and every stone a blameless saint. All this was before St. Paul’s mind when he wrote, “in hope were we saved.”

In ancient times when God delivered His people from the bondage of Egypt, what pledge did He give them? “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I WILL BE hath sent me unto you.” “I WILL BE,” that is the name by which God would be known. “I will be” what? It was for hope to fill it up. The promise was magnificent by its very vagueness. The children of Israel could fill it up in part by what they knew of God. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The promise of the name means that, and goes beyond it. The name is not “I AM,” a revelation of the self-sufficiency of God. It is “I WILL BE,” a promise of God’s inexhaustible sufficiency through the future for all His people’s need. And so it is now. This God of the “will be” of the future, is the God of our salvation. 1 [Note: P. J. Maclagan.]

Something I may not win attracts me ever—

Something elusive, yet supremely fair;

Thrills me with gladness, yet contents me never,

Fills me with sadness, yet forbids despair.

It blossoms just beyond the paths I follow,

It shines beyond the farthest stars I see;

It echoes faint from ocean caverns hollow,

And from the land of dreams it beckons me.

It calls, and all my best, with joyful feeling,

Essays to reach it as I make reply;

I feel its sweetness o’er my spirit stealing,

Yet know ere I attain it I must die.

II

Waiting with Patience

1. What are we waiting for?—The first thing the Apostle mentions with respect to the goal of our Christian hope is that all things and all life shall be set in their proper places once for all. “Waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” The sons of God are hidden now, and the throne of glory has not been unveiled. Things are not in their right places. The light has been put under a bushel; the sun has been obscured. The true order of things has not been set in the light of heaven.

The whole passage preceding the text deals with the goal of our hope. There is one point, however, on which it is of utmost importance that we should be clear and allow no misconception to arise. St. Paul says we are “waiting for our adoption—the redemption of our body.” Now by this word “adoption” he does not mean our acceptance as the sons of God; nor does the “redemption” mean atonement through the precious blood of Christ; for both these are complete already. But they both mean the final deliverance of the children of God at the second coming of our blessed Saviour, when all God’s people shall be set free from every impediment, and, as adopted children, or as a chosen bride, shall be presented spotless, in perfect freedom before the throne of the Lord.

The traveller in an unknown land, who wishes to explore it, to know how it lies, what it contains, how far its forests and its plains extend, looks out for some mountain from the elevation of which he can best survey it. He climbs to one height, and it takes him clear of the wood, showing how the forest in the distance is bounded by a low range of hills. If he climbs to a higher point, he hopes to see what lies beyond that range. Patiently he toils up the slope, until he gains the desired outlook and beyond the low hills he sees a vast and verdant plain, through which a river flows shining in the sun. But still on the utmost verge his view is restricted by sloping downs, which seem to indicate the presence of the sea beyond. If he can climb to the summit, he hopes to see what now he surmises. In patience, then, he toils upward once more, hour after hour, until, standing on the mountain top, he sees all round the mighty expanse. The forest lies beneath, a dark olive patch; the low hills seem hardly distinguishable from the surrounding plain; the great river is a thin silver streak; and beyond lie stretches of moorland, valley, and grassy downs; and farther still, lies the open sea, like a polished shield, extending far away, until lost on the horizon. At each point, his hope of what he wished to see became reality; it was no longer hope; for what a man sees is not hope, but knowledge. But hope of wider knowledge spurred him on, and, in patience, he plodded upwards, waiting until the object of his new hope was reached. Then all that he had thought and surmised, all that he had toiled for, was accomplished. 1 [Note: J. E. Manning.]

2. What is the value for the present life of this hopeful waiting?—“If we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” There are three tests of the value of a truth for this life. One is the bearing of its burdens; another is victory over our sins; the third is service for the Kingdom of God. Apply these three tests, and bring the Christian hope to bear upon them. Who can bear his burdens, the burdens of this lower life, its weariness, its monotony, its pain, its sorrows—who can bear them like the man who believes in the coming liberty of the glory of the children of God? “I reckon,” said the Apostle, “that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” That faith makes every burden light. If we have that hope, we will bear our cross with a glad heart, and we will sing while bearing it: “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” And the weight of sorrow shall pass away for ever. And who will fight for purity in his own life and spirit like the man who believes that purity is ordained to determine the destiny of every created thing, like the man who believes that purity means ultimately unfathomable glory? That hope of glory will condemn the impure heart, will burn like a blazing fire in the bones of the man who does not keep his garments white. And the man with this hope will work with the most glowing enthusiasm. Who can work with such greatness of purpose, and might of heart, and strength of arm, as the man who believes in this glorious unfolding, who believes that man is destined for this wonderful central position in God’s new creation, and that this earth of ours, these men and women we see around us, may be sons of God, the dazzling centre of a new creation in a world of everlasting glory? And so this hope fills us with inspiration. For the way is bright before us, and vast shall be the unfoldings of the future.

There is a fine story told of Carlyle,—one welcomes anything about that great genius which tends to show him sympathetic with the Christian attitude, inclined towards the Christian faith. He was walking with the late Bishop Wilberforce in the grounds of a country mansion, and speaking of the death of Sterling, the associate and friend of both. “Bishop,” Carlyle said suddenly, “have you a creed?” “Yes,” was the answer of the other—fine in its own way too—“and what is more, the older I grow, the firmer that creed becomes under my feet. There is only one thing that staggers me.” “What is that?” asked Carlyle. “The slow progress that creed seems to make in the world.” Carlyle remained silent for a second or two, and then said slowly and seriously, “Ah! but if you have a creed, you can afford to wait!” 1 [Note: W. A. Gray.]

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

“ Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Eight onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.” 2 [Note: Emerson.]

Verse 26

How to Pray as we Ought

In like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.— Romans 8:26.

The subject contains two parts—our own prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit in us. St. Paul speaks of two ways in which the Holy Spirit works in us—by helping our infirmity, and by making intercession for us. Obviously the work of the Holy Spirit comes first; we cannot even begin to pray without His Divine inspiration. St. Paul starts from this point—“The Spirit helpeth our infirmity.”

We shall, therefore, take two main divisions—

I. The Intercession of the Spirit.

II. Our Prayer.

I

The Intercession of the Spirit

1. Let us consider first of all what is the practical value to us of faith in the Holy Ghost. “The Spirit,” says the Apostle, “helpeth our infirmity.” It is when we faint before the mystery and the terror of the universal life, and of human life, that we grow most profoundly conscious of this “infirmity,” and feel most keenly that we are not wise enough, or strong enough, for the task imposed upon us by our own conscience and by the law of God; that in and of ourselves we cannot cease to do evil and learn to do well; that we cannot rise from imperfection to perfection. And it is just then, says St. Paul, just when we most need help and feel our need of it, that the Spirit of God “helpeth our infirmity,” that His wisdom is made perfect in our folly, His strength in our weakness.

The Spirit “makes intercession,” literally goes out to meet the helpless creature for the purposes of intercourse and consultation, then intervenes by taking up his cause and pleading on his behalf—it is the work of a true Paraclete. The Son of God is such an Advocate on high. We can hear Him pray for both inner and outer circles of His disciples in John 17, and now that He has entered upon the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, we can imagine, and trust to, His yet more efficacious High-priestly work on our behalf yonder. But He is far away, and the wings of faith and imagination are weak and often fail us. What is needed is a Helper within, one who not so much prays for us, as prays in us. If men had invented such a phrase for themselves it would have been laughed at as an impossibility, or rejected as blasphemy; surely a man must do his own praying to the God who is over him. But a characteristic feature of Christianity is the oneness of the God over us with the God in us, and the Spirit Himself undertakes our cause with yearnings that can find no words. 1 [Note: W. T. Davison.]

If “the Spirit helpeth our infirmity,” we have no excuse for those infirmities for which we so readily apologize as being natural to man. They may be so, they may be part of our own fallen and evil nature, but it is the special work of the Spirit to deliver us from them, and to make us strong just where we were weak. A Christian who bears on him some chronic infirmity, whether of temper or of appetite, or of will, just as some men bear on their bodies marks of chronic ill-health, is one who has never realized what the Spirit of God might have done for him, and would have done, had he not hindered Him by his unbelief. 2 [Note: G. S. Barrett.]

(1) He who is able to make the confession “I believe in the Holy Ghost” has found a Divine Friend. For him the Spirit is not an influence, an energy, of One far off, but a present Comforter whom Christ has sent to fulfil His work, a present Guide ready to lead him into all the truth, a present Advocate waiting to gain acceptance for the deep sighings of the heart before the throne of God. So it is that Scripture speaks of His relation to us: so it is that we can understand how His Presence among men is dependent on the exaltation of Christ in His human nature to the right hand of the Father.

The subject on which my mind has been dwelling of late is God’s sympathy with man in his weakness and sin. I preached the other Sunday on the text, “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity,” and the subject has been on my mind ever since. The idea of the Great Spirit being always and everywhere present as the sympathizing friend and helper of man has laid hold of my mind with new power. I used to think of the missionary going, and taking the Spirit with him where he went. Now I think of the Spirit as being already there, and inviting the missionary to come and join Him in the work. The Spirit was in China before I was born, and He brought me in to be a co-worker with Himself. And so everywhere and always. What would have become of the world but for the presence of the Divine Spirit in it? People seem to think that the heathen world has been without God all these centuries. The heathen, it is true, have not known God, but God has known them all the time. The measure of men’s knowledge of God is not the measure of what God is to men. If God had not been in China, China would have been a hell. “What keeps a man from becoming a demon? Is it not the presence of the Spirit in his soul? I have had more tenderness of soul in dealing with men ever since this truth has been brought home to me by God’s Spirit. How thankful ought we to be that hard theological views and dogmas are giving way, and that the Spirit of Christ is coming in and quietly taking their place. 1 [Note: Griffith John, Life, 457.]

(2) Again, he who is able to make this confession recognizes the action of One who is moulding his single life. Each believer is himself a temple to be prepared for the Master’s dwelling. The same Spirit who shapes the course of the whole world hallows the soul which is offered to Him for a Divine use. The Christian believer is in one sense alone with God, and God alone with him. He has a work to do, definite, individual, eternal, through the ordinary duties and occupations and trials of common business; and this the Spirit sent in Christ’s name, bringing to him the virtue of Christ’s humanity, will help him to perfect.

The Holy Spirit is the immediate source of all holiness. The missionary must, above all things, be a holy man. The ideal teacher of the Chinese is a holy man. “He is entirely sincere, and perfect in love. He is magnanimous, generous, benign, and full of forbearance. He is pure in heart, free from selfishness, and never swerves from the path of duty in his conduct. He is deep and active like a fountain, sending forth his virtues in due season. He is seen, and men revere him; he speaks, and men believe him; he acts, and men are gladdened by him. He possesses all heavenly virtues. He is one with Heaven.” This is a lofty ideal; but the Chinese do not look upon it as existing in fancy or imagination only. They believe that it has been realized in some instances at least; and I am convinced that no Christian teacher can be a great spiritual power in China in whom this ideal is not embodied and manifested in an eminent degree. 1 [Note: Griffith John, Life, 324.]

(3) Life is indeed full of mysteries of which we can give no interpretation, of griefs for which we can gain no present remedy. Nay, rather, we must feel them deeply if we are to know God; and then the faith in the personal help of the Holy Spirit—the complement of the Incarnation—is sufficient for our needs. The prayer of the warrior of old time bewildered by the darkness was: “Give light and let me die.” We can say: “Help us to live and the light will come,” come through life itself.

The Holy Spirit is the source of all spiritual illumination. Knowledge, even religious knowledge, without spiritual illumination is of the letter, and its possession brings no spiritual power. The things of God as facts and doctrines are fully revealed in this blessed Book. Still the Bible is not enough for us. The vital question is, how are we to know “the things that are freely given us of God”? How are we to reach the sunlit summits of full assurance about them? 2 [Note: Ibid. 323.]

2. But now, more particularly, let us see what the intercession of the Spirit does for us. “The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” We should observe three ways in which the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

(1) The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in union with our own spirit.—The verb translated “maketh intercession” is one of those beautiful words, or compounds, in which the Greek language is so rich. Literally, it means “to meet with some one in a place agreed upon” who is “for” us, i.e. who is on our side, in whose grace and favour we stand. The words have sometimes been explained as if Paul meant to say that the Holy Spirit is literally praying in heaven for men, and hence the idea has arisen that the Eternal Father waits the personal intercession of the Spirit before His gifts are given. That idea is opposed to the very words of the Apostle, for he has spoken of the men in whom are the first-fruits of the Spirit as “groaning within themselves,” as waiting in hope for the redemption of the body; and this groaning within ourselves corresponds to the “groanings which cannot be uttered.” He then passes on to say, “He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,” and all this points to the interpretation that the Holy Spirit, in the soul, pleads as the author of prayer. His idea seems, therefore, to be this—There is a spirit within you, possessing you, which gives rise to longings earnest and unutterable—that is the Holy Ghost within, interceding with God. The whole passage in which the text is found illustrates in even a startling manner the truth and reality of the “coming” of the Holy Ghost, the extent to which He has separated Himself—as Christ did at His Incarnation—from His eternal glory and blessedness, and entered into the life of man.

Have we understood that in the Holy Trinity all the Three Persons have a distinct place in prayer, and that the faith in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable as the faith in the Father and the Son? How clearly we have this in the words, “Through Him (Christ) we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Just as prayer must be to the Father, and through the Son, it must be by the Spirit. And the Spirit can pray in no other way in us than as He lives in us. It is only as we give ourselves to the Spirit living and praying in us, that the glory of the prayer-hearing Father, and the ever-blessed and most effectual mediation of the Son, can be known by us in their power. 1 [Note: Andrew Murray.]

(2) The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in union with Christ’s intercession.—The “intercession of the Spirit” on our behalf (carried on, it is implied, “in the hearts” of the saints, which only God searches) is mentioned nowhere in the New Testament but here. But it is not to be separated from the intercession of Christ which is mentioned just below. Christ’s intercession is “at the right hand of God,” but also He has by the Spirit taken us up into His own life. He dwells in us by His Spirit. By His Spirit we are knit into one and made His body. Doubtless, then, dwelling thus by the Spirit in the body, Christ intercedes for us. This is the intercession of the Spirit, which is also the intercession of Christ—an intercession gathering up into one, and sustaining and connecting and perfecting, all the imperfect prayers of all the saints.

Kuyper distinguishes between the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Christ in this way:—

( a) Christ intercedes for us in heaven, and the Holy Spirit on earth. Christ, our Holy Head, being absent from us, intercedes outside of us; the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, intercedes in our own heart, which He has chosen as His temple.

( b) There is a difference, not only of place, but also in the nature of this twofold intercession. The glorified Christ intercedes in heaven for His elect and redeemed, to obtain for them the fruit of His sacrifice: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” ( 1 John 2:1). But the object of the Holy Spirit’s petitions is the laying bare of all the deep and hidden needs of the saints before the eye of the Triune God.

( c) In Christ there is a union of God and man, since, being in the form of God, He took upon Himself the human nature. Hence His prayer is that of the Son of God, but in union with the nature of man. He prays as the Head of the new race, as King of His people, as the one that seals the covenant of the New Testament in His blood. In like manner, there is to some extent a union between God and man, when the Holy Spirit prays for the saints. For, by His indwelling in the hearts of the saints, He has established a lasting and most intimate union, and, by virtue of that union, putting Himself in their place, He prays for them and in their stead. 1 [Note: A. Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, 637.]

(3) The Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.—The “groaning” of believers find expression, adequate or inadequate, in their prayers, and in such utterances as this very passage of Romans; but there is a testimony to the glory awaiting them more profound and passionate than even this. It is the intercession of the Spirit with “groanings” (or sighs) that baffle words. St. Paul has represented the “whole creation” as sending up to God a cry of weariness and suffering and hope; the heavens and the earth and all living things were created for a perfection which, as yet, they have not reached, but towards which they have been moving through unmeasured ages—“the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” The cry of weariness and suffering and hope also rises from the whole Church of the redeemed on earth; we too are longing for a perfection as yet unattained: “We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And then the Apostle attributes the same cry of weariness, of suffering, of hope, to the Spirit of God Himself; He is longing to raise all that are in Christ to an unachieved power and blessedness; the sins of the Church, its infirmities, its errors, its sorrows, are a heavy burden to Him. He is “resisted” and He is “grieved”; His intercession for us—so intimately does He share all the evils of our condition—is a kind of agony; He “maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

The Holy Spirit helps us, not by revealing to us precisely what we should ask for in each particular emergency, but by securing that our groanings, even though they cannot be articulately expressed, shall serve the purpose of prayer. The Spirit makes intercession for us with these very groanings that cannot be uttered; that is, He not only prompts them, but presents them to God in such a way that they are heard and answered. He who is the hearer of prayer searches the hearts, and does not need that their desires should be expressed in words, in order that He may know what they are. 1 [Note: J. S. Candlish.]

All deep emotions are too large for language—they outsoar the narrow range of human speech. Both great joys and great sorrows break forth in tears. Profound longings express themselves in inaudible yearnings. The grandeur of God in nature—the sunset skies, with their pageantry of clouds, the ocean raging in storm, the mountains “crowned with snow and fire”—can awaken thoughts “too deep for tears.” So in a profounder sense, when the soul is touched by the Spirit of God, emotions are awakened which, transcending all expression, break out in deep unutterable aspiration. He knows little of the power of prayer to whom such moments are unknown. Thus, by the inspiration of the Spirit, our wants are felt to be too deep for language, while the fulness of God’s love transcends them all, and, rapt in faith and love, the soul kindles with irrepressible emotion. 2 [Note: E. L. Hull.]

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed

If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:

My unassisted heart is barren clay,

That of its native self can nothing feed:

Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,

That quickens only where Thou say’st it may:

Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way

No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.

Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind

By which such virtue may in me be bred

That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread;

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,

That I may have the power to sing of Thee,

And sound Thy praises everlastingly. 1 [Note: Wordsworth.]

II

Our Prayer

1. Prayer.—Prayer must be regarded as twofold. It is a natural instinct, and it is an acquired art. It should be remembered, moreover, that the one depends closely upon the other; for, whereas the former precedes the latter, it is only in proportion as the practice of prayer is persevered in and cultivated that the ability of living in the atmosphere of prayer becomes possible.

This is what the Apostle means when he admonishes us to pray without ceasing, and in such prayers all words and brisk emotions of the heart are for the time in suspense. Such prayers issue calmly forth, being in this respect like the solar light, whose approach we cannot hear, but which is yet accompanied by a warmth that testifies to its presence. Yes, there is a deep, hidden colloquy of holy souls with God, which never ceases any more than does the beating of the pulse in a living man. It consists in an inward tending and aspiring of the soul towards its Source, and, although calm and silent, it influences and governs all the thoughts and volitions of him in whom it takes place. There are instances of the earth sending up from its lowest depth a tepid breath, which is scarcely perceptible to our senses, but which permeates the waters upon its surface, and impregnates them with medicinal virtues. And it is even so with the prayer peculiar to the man of piety; it hinders him in none of his avocations; rather, where it obtains, do these all thrive and prosper.

Day hath her hours told out, her toil for all,

Her time of sunrise and of noon to keep;

Her hour of setting, and of dusky calm,

Her nightfall fragrant with the breath of sleep.

The lark he keepeth his appointed time,

The linnet boasteth of her little span;

Fluff owlets render up their shrill account,

And man hath seasons for his toil with man.

What is for God? Are all His times bespoke?

Remaineth none undedicate to earth?

Are all impregnate with the dews of toil,

Hath Time forgotten in his age his birth?

Abideth yet an hour, most still and grey,

Whose confines all are indeterminate;

Nor to the sun nor stars pertaineth she,

But on the borders is content to wait.

One wing she poiseth on the lap of sleep,

One wing she reacheth to the bridegroom day;

Work is of God, but prayer forerunneth work—

Even so, Father—let us pray!

Silence in Heaven for a space; Amen!

The night shall certify, and the day tell—

But one hour halloweth, with a voiceless speech:

Even so, Father: it is well! 1 [Note: C. C. Fraser-Tytler.]

If thou wouldst acquire this peculiar kind of prayer which transcends both place and time, thou must begin with the humility of a child to pray at the particular place appointed by God for the purpose, which place is the sanctuary or the silent closet. Prayer is an art, and every art requires to be learned with pains. Do not therefore shrink from what may seem to thee the trouble of attending at the time and place which God has been pleased to assign. All art, however, by slow degrees, becomes at last a second nature; and so likewise, as thou wilt find, does the art of prayer. And when thou shalt have attained to such proficiency, then thou wilt “neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father,” but wilt raise the memorial of His name at any spot on the face of the earth. 2 [Note: A. Tholuck.]

Soul, bid thy tossings cease!

Down in the deep profound,

Sink to thy being’s ground,

And there find peace.

Thy God is at thy side!

Offshoot of Him thou art,

And so with thee His heart

Must still abide.

2. The art of praying as we ought.—“For we know not how to pray as we ought.” This clause, depending on the principal one,—“The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity”—makes it clear that the weakness which the Spirit helps is due to our ignorance. In the Greek, the whole clause “how to pray as we ought” is the object of the verb “we know not.” We are brought here, then, to a consideration of our ignorance in asking.

I heard lately of a beautiful instance of a poor man’s trust in the sufficiency of God’s understanding. A sudden storm had overtaken an East Coast fishing fleet, causing them to run for shelter. All got safely home except one boat belonging to an old man who was alone on board it. An anxious crowd gathered at the pier head, but there was no sign of the frail craft on the tumbling waters. At last, when hope had nearly died, it was discerned coming in, and in due time, amid a breathless suspense, reached haven. The old man was plied with questions as to how he had managed to win safely through, and some one asked, “Did ye pray?” “Ay,” said the old fisherman, “I prayed.” “What did ye say?” asked the questioner. “Weel,” was the reply, “I hadna ony great wale o’ words, but I just said to the Lord that surely He wouldna forget an auld man in an open boat in sic a sea as this.” 1 [Note: Arch. Alexander.]

(1) Broadly speaking, we do know what we are to pray for—the perfecting of salvation, but we do not know what we are to pray for “as we ought”—according as the need is at the moment; we know the end, which is common to all prayers, but not what is necessary at each crisis of need in order to enable us to attain this end.

(2) Probably it is true to say that the advanced Christian learns to pray more definitely for spiritual things as he grows in spiritual discernment and sees more distinctly what God’s moral will is for himself and others. But there is no similar growth to be expected in the knowledge of what outward gifts will really help or hinder us and others. And it is with his eye chiefly on the outward conditions of the Christian’s life that St. Paul here says that we know not what we should pray for as we ought; and teaches us that the Spirit “maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” We must be content to recognize, even while we half-ignorantly pray for what we think we need, that “all (outward) things work together for good to them that love God.” St. Paul had learned that lesson when he himself “besought the Lord thrice” that his great physical trouble might be removed from him, and was refused. The Son of Man Himself prayed only “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” and learned in experience that it was not possible. These lessons may suffice to humble any one who grows over-confident that he knows what outward circumstances are best for himself or his friends or the Church.

Whichever way the wind doth blow,

Some heart is glad to have it so;

Then blow it east or blow it west,

The wind that blows, that wind is best.

My little craft sails not alone;

A thousand fleets from every zone

Are out upon a thousand seas;

And what for me were favouring breeze

Might dash another, with the shock

Of doom, upon some hidden rock.

And so I do not dare to pray

For winds to waft me on my way,

But leave it to a Higher Will

To stay or speed me; trusting still

That all is well, and sure that He

Who launched my bark will sail with me

Through storm and calm, and will not fail,

Whatever breezes may prevail,

To land me, every peril past,

Within His sheltering Heaven at last.

Then whatsoever wind doth blow,

My heart is glad to have it so;

And blow it east or blow it west,

The wind that blows, that wind is best. 1 [Note: Caroline Atherton Mason.]

Grant, O my God, that in uniform equanimity of mind I may receive whatever happens; since we know not what we should ask, and since I cannot wish for one thing more than another without presumption, and without setting up myself as a judge, and making myself responsible for those consequences which Thy wisdom has determined properly to conceal from me. O Lord, I know that I know but one thing; and that is, that it is good to follow Thee, and evil to offend Thee! After that, I know not what is better or worse in anything; I know not what is more profitable for me, sickness or health, wealth or poverty, nor any other of the things of this world. This was a discovery beyond the power of men or angels; it is veiled in the secrets of Thy providence, which I adore, and which I do not desire to fathom. 1 [Note: Blaise Pascal.]

3. Praying under the direction of the Holy Spirit.—There are four very simple lessons that the believer who would enjoy the blessing of being taught to pray by the Spirit of prayer must know.

(1) Let us believe that the Spirit dwells in us. Deep in the inmost recesses of his being, hidden and unfelt, every child of God has the Holy, Mighty Spirit of God dwelling in him. He knows it by faith, the faith that, accepting God’s word, realizes that of which he sees as yet no sign. “We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” As long as we measure our power for praying aright and perseveringly by what we feel or think we can accomplish, we shall be discouraged when we hear of how much we ought to pray. But when we quietly believe that, in the midst of all our conscious weakness, the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of supplication is dwelling within us, for the very purpose of enabling us to pray in such manner and measure as God would have us pray, our hearts will be filled with hope. We shall be strengthened in the assurance, which lies at the very root of a happy and fruitful Christian life, that God has made an abundant provision for our being what He wants us to be. We shall begin to lose our sense of burden and fear and discouragement about praying sufficiently, because we see that the Holy Spirit Himself is praying in us.

(2) Let us beware above everything of grieving the Holy Spirit. If we do, how can He work in us the quiet, trustful, and blessed sense of that union with Christ which makes our prayers well-pleasing to the Father? Let us beware of grieving Him by sin, by unbelief, by selfishness, by unfaithfulness to His voice in conscience. The Holy Spirit Himself is the very power of God to make us obedient. The sin that comes up in us against our will, the tendency to sloth, or pride, or self-will, or passion that rises in the flesh, our will can, in the power of the Spirit, reject. Let us accept each day the Holy Spirit as our Leader and Life and Strength; we can count upon Him to do in our heart all that ought to be done there. He, the Unseen and Unfelt One, but known by faith, gives there, unseen and unfelt, the love and the faith and the power of obedience we need, because He reveals Christ unseen within us, as actually our Life and Strength. Let us also see to it that we grieve not the Holy Spirit by distrusting Him, because we do not feel His presence in us. Especially in the matter of prayer let us grieve Him not. That is the best and truest prayer, to put ourselves before God just as we are, and to count on the hidden Spirit praying in us. “We know not how to pray as we ought”; ignorance, difficulty, struggle, mark our prayer all along. But, “the Spirit helpeth our infirmity.” “The Spirit Himself” deeper down than our thoughts or feelings, “maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” When we cannot find words, when our words appear cold and feeble let us just believe: The Holy Spirit is praying in us. Let us be quiet before God, and give Him time and opportunity; in due season we shall learn to pray.

(3) Let us be filled with the Spirit. It is only the healthy spiritual life that can pray aright. The command comes to each of us: “Be filled with the Spirit.” That implies that while some rest content with the beginning, with a small measure of the Spirit’s working, it is God’s will that we should be filled with the Spirit. That means, from our side, that our whole being ought to be entirely yielded up to the Holy Spirit, to be possessed and controlled by Him alone; and, from God’s side, that we may count upon and expect the Holy Spirit to take possession and fill us. Has not our failure in prayer evidently been owing to our not having accepted the Spirit of prayer to be our life; to our not having yielded wholly to Him, whom the Father gave as the Spirit of His Son, to work the life of the Son in us?

(4) Last of all, let us pray in the Spirit for all saints. The Spirit, who is called “the Spirit of supplication,” is also and very; specially the Spirit of intercession. It is said of Him, “the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” “He maketh intercession for the saints.” It is the same word as is used of Christ, “who also maketh intercession for us.” The thought is essentially that of mediation—one pleading for another. When the Spirit of intercession takes full possession of us, all selfishness—as if we wanted to have Him separate from His intercession for others, and to have Him for ourselves alone—is banished, and we begin to avail ourselves of our wonderful privilege to plead for men. We long to live the Christ-life of self-consuming sacrifice for others, as our heart unceasingly yields itself to God to obtain His blessing for those around us. Intercession then becomes, not an incident or an occasional part of our prayers, but their one great object. Prayer for ourselves then takes its true place, simply as a means of fitting us better for exercising our ministry of intercession more effectually.

To intercede is to be like the Spirit, to breathe His atmosphere and temper, to join hands with the Advocate above. Intercession is a priestly benediction in which the youngest Christian can exercise his priestly office. Intercession is an offering of love. Intercession is sacrificial. 1 [Note: J. F. Vallings.]

Christ suffers not that one should pray for himself alone, but for the whole community of all men. For He teaches us to say, not, “My Father,” but “Our Father.” Prayer is a spiritual, common possession; therefore we must despoil no one of it, not even our enemies. For as He is the Father of us all, He wills that we shall be brothers amongst each other, and pray for one another, as for ourselves. 2 [Note: Martin Luther.]

She prays so long! She prays so late!

What sin in all this flower-land

Against her supplicating hand

Could have in heaven any weight?

Prays she for her sweet self alone?

Prays she for some one far away,

Or some one near and dear to-day,

Or some poor, lorn, lost soul unknown?

It seems to me a selfish thing

To pray for ever for one’s self;

It seems to me like heaping pelf

In heaven by hard reckoning.

Why, I would rather stoop, and bear

My load of sin, and bear it well,

And bravely down to burning hell,

Than ever pray one selfish prayer! 1 [Note: Cincinnatus Hiner Miller.]

How to Pray as we Ought

Literature

Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 35.

Bishop (J. W.), The Christian Year and the Christian Life, 261.

Candlish (J. S.), The Work of the Holy Spirit, 106.

Cox (S.), The House and its Builder, 93.

Davison (W. T.), The Indwelling Spirit, 137.

Gore (C.), Romans, i. 321.

Hull (E. L.), Sermons, iii. 1.

Jackson (G.), Memoranda Paulina, 240.

Jay (W.), Short Discourses, ii. 639.

Maurice (F. D.), Sermons preached in Country Churches, 80.

Meyer (F. B.), Present Tenses, 101.

Moore (E. W.), The Spirit’s Seal, 123.

Murray (A.), The Ministry of Intercession, 116.

New (C.), Sermons preached in Hastings, 147.

Nicoll (W. R.), Ten-Minute Sermons, 19.

Tholuck (A.), Hours of Christian Devotion, 199.

Vallings (J. F.), The Holy Spirit of Promise, 136.

Westcott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 103.

Verse 28

Love’s Prosperity

We know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.— Romans 8:28.

I

All for Good

“All things work together for good.”

i. All things

The phrase is to be taken in the widest possible sense. It includes everything mentioned in Romans 8:35; Romans 8:38-39. We naturally think of “all things” as sharply divided into two parts. There are the dark things of life and there are the bright things. But St. Paul says “ all things work together for good.”

1. The dark things.—The reference of the text is perhaps more especially to the dark side of things, because the early Christians were more familiar with this aspect. Now, St. Paul’s philosophy of the facts of life is this, that, amid these earthly scenes, the upright, the humble, the pure are in process of being prepared for the power and glory of an endless life. This is his explanation of the world so far as the children of God are concerned with it. Bodily pain, mental disquiet, the secret grief, the burden, bitterness, heaviness that lies upon the heart, behind the mask, often, of a smiling face, the whole complement of experience, is steadily and surely leading up toward a day of interpretation.

When Jacob’s sons returned to Canaan, and told him what had befallen them in Egypt, they seemed to infect him with their own fear. He refused to see anything but the dark side of things. There is a plaintive cadence in his words—

Me have ye bereaved of my children:

Joseph is not, and Simeon is not,

And ye will take Benjamin away:

All these things are against me. ( Genesis 42:36.)

And he adds forebodings of mischief, grey hairs, sorrow, and Sheol ( Romans 8:38). Melancholy Jacob’s faith is not yet perfected. Nursing his sorrow, saturating his mind with self-pity, he finds a dreary pleasure in counting his troubles, and inferring that they are all (the grand total is three!) against him; while we, who know how the drama is unfolding, perceive that all the things in question, and many more, are working together for his good, and that he will live to confess that God has redeemed him out of all evil. God conceals “His bright designs” in order that His servants may learn to trust Him in the dark as well as in the light. It has been finely said, by George Macdonald, that “the secrets God keeps must be as good as those He tells.” And as our knowledge of Him increases, we find, with Whittier,

That more and more a providence

Of love is understood,

Making the springs of time and sense

Sweet with eternal good. 1 [Note: J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, pt. ii. 125.]

Hours there will come of soulless night,

When all that’s holy, all that’s bright,

Seems gone for aye:

When truth and love, and hope and peace,

All vanish into nothingness,

And fade away.

Fear not the cloud that veils the skies,

’Tis out of darkness light must rise,

As e’er of old:

The true, the good, the fair endure,

And thou, with eyes less dim, more pure,

Shalt them behold. 2 [Note: F. M. White.]

The Apostle does not ignore or belittle the disorder and evil that exist; he concedes that the constitution and course of things is not perfectly satisfactory, that man is born to trouble, and that society is full of confusion and sin; he only asks us to postpone sentence upon the facts until the time when an intelligent decision will be possible. The philosophical doctrine called Pessimism,—that the world, if not the worst possible, is worse than none at all—finds no countenance in the Bible. Nevertheless the Bible recognizes the deep and awful disorder that prevails, and the evil that clings to both man and nature.

Love understands the mystery, whereof

We can but spell a surface history:

Love knows, remembers: let us trust in Love:

Love understands the mystery.

Love weighs the event, the long pre-history,

Measures the depth beneath, the height above,

The mystery, with the ante-mystery.

To love and to be grieved befits a dove

Silently telling her bead-history:

Trust all to Love, be patient and approve:

Love understands the mystery. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

2. The bright things.—When St. Paul says “All things work together for good to them that love God,” he is not taking a merely negative view of life. It is not only of trials and calamities, of losses and sufferings, that he is speaking. He does not say all trials, but all things—health, strength, youth, beauty and intellect, vigour of mind and vigour of body.

Do honour to your bodies. Reverence your physical natures, not simply for themselves. Only as ends they are not worthy of it, but because in health and strength lies the true basis of noble thought and glorious devotion. A man thinks well and loves well and prays well, because of the rich running of his blood. 2 [Note: Phillips Brooks.]

We should be as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as possible; for those who can finally issue from self by the portal of happiness know infinitely wider freedom than those who pass through the gate of sadness. 3 [Note: Maurice Maeterlinck.]

One shivering evening, cold enough for frost, but with too high a wind, and a little past sundown, when the lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles in the growing dusk, a brace of barefooted lassies were seen coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold you would have thought no one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music. The person who saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader. 1 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Notes on Edinburgh.]

Spirit of sacred happiness,

Who makest energy delight,

And love to be in weakness might;

Now with enlivening impulse bless,

Now re-confirm our steadfastness,

And make us vigorous and bright. 2 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 90.]

ii. Working together for Good

1. Now first observe a very important distinction. St. Paul does not assert that all things are good, but he does affirm that all things work together for the ultimate good. Even the most, apparently insignificant affairs in life work out for our greatest benefit in the future. Something that occurs to-day may be the beginning of a series of circumstances which will not come to fruition for the next twenty years, but the next twenty years will prove how essential the almost unnoticed circumstance was for our later good. One of the most interesting features of history is to observe how things of an apparently opposite nature have worked together for some universal benefit—things which at first sight could scarcely have been believed to have any possible connection with each other. And yet they have been as closely connected as the links of a chain or the cog-wheels that work into each other in a piece of machinery.

When the physician has prescribed some medicine, we go to the chemist to have it made up; and he takes one ingredient from this phial, and another from that, and another from elsewhere; any one of these taken alone might kill us outright, but when they have been well compounded and mixed they work together for a perfect cure. 3 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]

All that is harmony for thee, O universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for thee is too early or too late for me. 4 [Note: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.]

The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;

Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do;

Amid the things allowed thee live and love;

Some day thou shalt it view. 5 [Note: Clough.]

2. In the second place, we must make no mistake about what St. Paul means by “good.” When the Apostle declares that all things work together for good, he is thinking of good in God’s sense of that word. Happiness is one thing, good is another and a very different thing. Good in this sense will, in the long-run, no doubt bring in its turn perfect blessedness; it will bring unsullied and unmixed joy; but good is not happiness, good is not freedom from strife, care, and pain. If we think that all things work together to give the godly man all he desires, to deliver him from trial, trouble, worry, and distress, to make him prosperous, smiling, contented with everything about him, and unruffled in temper, person, and estate, we entirely misread these words, and I we shall in all probability be woefully disappointed.

Many think that the chief end of life is to secure ease and happiness, and they say that the object of all our social and political endeavours should be to provide the greatest possible amount of happiness for the greatest number. That may be good utilitarianism, but it is not Christianity. It is not the Divine idea. If this world had been intended mainly to make the people who live in it perfectly happy, we can only say that it has been constructed on wrong principles. We can easily conceive of a world in which there would be much more happiness than there has ever been, or ever will be, in this. God has a higher purpose. It is to make the world a moral school, a training-place for character; a place in which patience may be learned, and righteousness and strength of soul, and Christ-likeness; a training-place which is to prepare for a better and fuller life hereafter. Those who are called after God’s purpose are called for this—to be conformed to the image of Christ. And St. Paul was thinking of this end, and of this end only, when he used the words,” All things work together for good to them that love God.”

For some of us, perhaps, those words may be associated with a feeling of impatience. We may have heard them used with a narrow view of good, and of the lovers of God, or with a deficient sense of the demand that is being made for faith and farsightedness, or with some lack of that deep and burning reality whereby heart speaks to heart, and wins an answering of assent. But they are among the words that experience fills with light—the words that are real to us in proportion as we ourselves are real. Only lot us try to have a right judgment as to what good is, and we shall rind that there is no sort of trouble that may not work for good to those whose hearts are set, though it be but timidly, towards God; to those who love Him, though it be but vaguely, and who long to know and love Him more. If good meant only comfort and success and security and satisfaction with one’s self, and a life without harassing or pain, the words would be false in principle and in fact. But if good means that for which men were made; if it means purity of heart, and unselfishness, and nearness and likeness to God and liberty and peace, and the power to help others, and the beginning or faint forecast of the life of heaven amidst the things of earth, then one need not live long to see how the words come true. Even the strangest miseries, the saddest hours, the bitterest disappointments, do work for good in this, the one true sense. God sees to it that those who want to serve Him better are not blinded or overborne by these things in His pity He shows them what the trouble really means, Ha releases for them the blessing that is hidden in it. And so that great love of His, which no violence can wrench aside from the souls He seeks, fulfils itself in many ways; even the wildest tumult of this world is constrained and overruled to do Him service; and men look back to the days that were full of anguish and perplexity as the very time when He did most for them—the dawn of clearer light within their hearts, the awaking to truer thoughts of life and higher aims, the first guiding of their feet into the way of peace. 1 [Note: Francis Paget, The Redemption of War, 66.]

Have you seen that beautiful play called Eagerheart? The little heroine of the piece has set her heart on entertaining the King in her little room. When she has got everything ready, a poor tired workman comes with his wife and child, very badly dressed, looking very worn and footsore, and says: “Will you take me in for to-night?” Poor little Eagerheart, who has prepared everything for her King, says: “Not to-night; any night except to-night.” “Oh,” says the poor man, “that is what they all say! I have been all through this city, and they have all said ‘Any night except to-night.’ ” Then the poor little woman’s heart melts. “Oh, well, come in, come in! Farewell, my idle dream!” she cries, disappointed, broken-hearted, to think she has lost her chance. Then follow the shepherds and the wise men, and, to her astonishment, they come in their search for the King—to her door; and she says: “But there must be some mistake. This is my poor little humble dwelling; there is no King here.” “Yes,” the wise men say, “he is here.” And there in a blaze of glory, was the infant King of Kings, whom she had taken in in her disappointment. 1 [Note: Bishop Winnington Ingram.]

II

Reciprocal, Love

“Them that love God.” “Them that are called.”

Here St. Paul presents the two complementary aspects of the religious life. There is the human side of the relation, “love,” and the Divine side, “the call.” While St. Paul has already spoken of the love of God to us, he has not before mentioned our love to God, and this is the only instance in Romans. He speaks several times of love to others ( Romans 12:9-10; Romans 13:8-9). He has mentioned faith again and again; hope has just been his theme; and now he completes the trinity of graces by mentioning love. It has been noted that he says much more about faith in God than love to God; but, in laying the foundation doctrines of the Christian life, faith must necessarily be more prominent, and faith in God must surely be accompanied by love to God. The grace which faith grasps shows and gives the love of God, and God’s love must needs awaken in man its own likeness, man’s love, which cannot be directed merely outward to his fellows, but must also return upward to the Giver.

i. Our love to God

1. “To them that love God”—but there are many who say, “We do not, we cannot love God. We love wife, child, mother, friend, more, far more, than we love the Infinite Abstraction called God, whom no man hath seen at any time.” Now, such people are making a difficulty which does not exist. God has not called upon us to love an Infinite Abstraction. Let them be thankful that they do know human love. Such love is no bad foundation; for this love, when real, is nature at her highest, and nature is also Divine, and is the pioneer to the higher. First that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual, is the Divine order. But the Invisible Parent Spirit has anticipated our objection. He has presented Himself to us under a form which, when recognized, must take our hearts captive, and which appeases the soul’s yearning desire for personality in the Being who is universal.

In Jesus, the whole moral life of the Absolute is manifested in integrity and completeness. Can we not love Him? Can we not go even as far as Renan, whom no man would accuse of superstition, credulity, or theological narrowness? And Renan, in his Vie de Jésus, apostrophizes the Incarnate One in these words: “Thou Jesus shalt become the corner-stone of humanity, inasmuch as to tear Thy name from the world would be to shake it to its very foundations; no more shall men distinguish between Thee and God.” 1 [Note: B. Wilberforce.]

Begin from first when He encradled was

In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay,

Between the toilful ox and humble ass,

And in what rags, and in how base array,

The glory of our heavenly riches lay,

When Him the silly shepherds came to see,

Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.

From thence read on the story of His life,

His humble carriage, His unfaulty ways,

His cancred foes, His flights, His toil, His strife,

His pains, His poverty, His sharp assayes,

Through which He passed His miserable days.

Offending none, and doing good to all,

Yet being maliced both of great and small.

Then thou shalt feel thy spirit so possessed

And ravished with devouring great desire

Of His dear self, that shall thy feeble breast

Inflame with love, and set them all on fire

With burning zeal, through every part entire,

That in no earthly thing shalt thou delight,

But in His sweet and amiable sight. 2 [Note: Spenser.]

2. If at any time we should be shaken in our conviction of the blessed end of God’s dealing, by the fear that we do not satisfy the condition of loving Him, then let us remember that this love is not so much a feeling as a posture or habit of the soul. It is clinging to Him. And if He should seem too distant to be grasped, too remote for us to touch even the hem of His garment, so that we cry, “Oh that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!” then let us still further remember that the essence of love is obedience: “This is love, that we should walk after his commandments.” And if we seek to follow His guidance, and submit ourselves to His hand, if we are willing to be made what we wish to become, and to be fashioned after the image of Christ, He will make good His word to us, and perfect that which concerneth us.

Perhaps there is no better daily prayer for the Christian than the collect of St. Gelasius: “O God, who hast prepared for them that love Thee such good things as pass man’s understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward Thee, that we, loving Thee above all things, may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

3. It is the Divine love that draws the human. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” “We love, because he first loved us.” Our immediate consciousness is just this; we love. Not, we have read the book of life; we have had a glimpse of the eternal purpose in itself; we have heard our names recited in a roll of the chosen; but, we love. We have found in Him the eternal Love. In Him we have peace, purity, and that deep, final satisfaction, that view of “the king in his beauty,” which is the summum bonum of the creature. It was our fault that we saw it no sooner, that we loved Him no sooner. It is the duty of every soul that He has made to reflect upon its need of Him, and upon the fact that it owes it to Him to love Him in His holy beauty of eternal love. If we could not it was because we would not. If we cannot it is because, somehow or other, we will not—will not put ourselves without reserve in the way of the vision. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Because Love is the fountain, I discern

The stream as love: for what but love should flow

From fountain Love? not bitter from the sweet!

I ignorant, have I laid claim to know?

Oh teach me, Love, such knowledge as is meet

For one to know who is fain to love and learn. 1 [Note: C. G. Rossetti.]

ii. God’s love to us

1. Those who simply and genuinely love God are also, on the other side, purpose-wise, His called ones. They are not merely invited, but brought in; not evangelized only, but converted. In the case of each of the happy company—the man, the woman, who came to Christ, came to love God with the freest possible coming of the will, the heart. Yet each, having come, had the Lord to thank for the coming. The human personality had traced its orbit of will and deed as truly as when it willed to sin and to rebel. But lo, in ways past our finding out, its free track lay along a previous track of the purpose of the Eternal; its free “I will” was the precise and fore-ordered correspondence to His “Thou shalt.” It was an act of man; it was the grace of God.

2. With this lesson of uttermost humiliation, the truth of the heavenly Choice, and its effectual Call, brings us also an encouragement altogether Divine. Such a “purpose” is no fluctuating thing, shifting with the currents of time. Such a call to such an embrace means a tenacity, as well as a welcome, worthy of God. “Who shall separate us?” “And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” That is the motive of the words in this wonderful context, where everything is made to bear on the safety of the children of God, in the midst of all imaginable dangers.

Have you not stood sometimes amidst the scene of an awful tragedy; some ancient castle to which has clung the story of dreadful wrong? And, lo, about the walls the ivy creeps, and in the crevices the flowers cluster; and the happy song of the birds and the cooing of doves has gladdened the loneliness; and forth from the ancient towers you have looked across the meadows where the cattle lie, and past the winding river to the silvery sea. Over all the scene was sunshine, stillness, and beauty. Nature had bent in pity and covered up the shame, and breathed about it all a perfect peace. So is it that our Heavenly Father transforms us by His unceasing love and unwearied patience. He doth not slumber nor sleep. It means that no possibility of advantage is suffered to pass unused; no budding promise within us is neglected or withered by the frost; no lightest chance or opportunity of gain is thrown away. Ever watchful, ever careful, ever eager for our greatest good, He that keepeth thee shall neither slumber nor sleep. 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse.]

On easy terms with law and fate,

For what must be I calmly wait,

And trust the path I cannot see,—

That God is good sufficeth me.

III

Knowing

“We Know.”

In a life like this, where nobody seems able to do more than conjecture, surmise, suppose, imagine, or speculate, it is a comfort to find even one man who can honestly declare he knows. And it is still more remarkable, and still more comforting, to find that what he knows is exactly that about which we have had most doubt. Hence no words in the Bible come to us with more welcome or more wonder than the words of the text. We often quote the words, not so much because we believe them as because we should like to believe them. We may envy the man who could announce them, as St. Paul did, with unhesitating, unquestioning conviction. His grand certainty really startles us, as well as the sweeping universality of the statement: “We know that to them that love God all things work together for good.” If he had said “most things” we might have given a reluctant consent; but the “ all things” puts a tremendous strain upon our faith.

There is an old German tale which might be a parable of the purpose in our life of the unintelligible things. The story is told of a baron who, having grown tired of the gay and idle life of the Court, asked leave of his King to withdraw from it. He built for himself a fort on a rugged rock, beneath which rolled the Rhine. There he dwelt alone. He hung wires from one wing of the fort to the other, making an Æolian harp, on which the winds might play to solace him. But many days and nights had passed, and winds had come and gone, yet never had there been music from that harp. And the baron interpreted the silence as the sign of God’s unremoved displeasure. One evening the sky was torn with wild hurrying clouds, the sun was borne away with a struggle, and as night fell a storm broke out which shook the very earth. The baron walked restlessly through his rooms in loneliness and disquiet. At length he went out into the night, but stopped short upon the threshold. He listened, and behold the air was full of music. His Æolian harp was singing with joy and passion high above the wildness and the storm. Then the baron knew. Those wires, which were too thick to give out music at the call of common days, had found their voice in a night of stress and storm. 1 [Note: John A. Hutton, Guidance from Browning, 101.]

You doubt if there be any God?

Doubt is the torpid man’s complaint;

Still hibernating ’neath your clod,

Your sins and virtues grow too faint.

But come where life is all ablow:

Be a murderer or a saint,

And you will know. 2 [Note: Anna Bunston.]

Who of us, in the face of the broad features of everywhere-abounding suffering, dares to repeat the Apostle’s words, or is able to say that he partakes of the bold confidence of his assertion? And yet, how desirable to be able to do so! For that man is certainly to be envied who can contemplate impending famine, pestilence, and war with unmoved confidence as to the issue; who can call to mind all our military establishments armed for conflict, our gaols with their usual quota of men of violence and crime, our madhouses and their deplorable inmates, our hospitals and their patients, our poorhouses and their mass of pauperism, the accidents and fatalities that attend our life, the destitution that everywhere abounds; the different forms of vice and crime that roam at large unassailable by our laws, and, in the presence of all, maintain unmoved that all things work together for good to those who love God.

Fifty years or so before Christ, a cultivated Roman represents himself as discoursing pleasantly with his friends on the momentous question of the supreme good. With great skill and clearness he states and explains the views of the rival philosophers who had made this the subject of elaborate discussion. But, after a calm and dispassionate survey of the whole field, he puts down his pen without a word to indicate in which direction his own preference lay. In this, perhaps, he represented the majority of the thoughtful men of his time. To them, life was a problem without any sure key to its solution, an arena on which incongruous and conflicting forces, whose laws and tendencies were alike inscrutable, played themselves out. It baffled speculation. It refused to be amenable to any theory.

About fifty years after Christ, or a century later, there were living in Rome and its adjacent districts a community of men who had arrived at the most novel and astonishing conclusions on this very point. Though they were few in number, of insignificant position, and counting scarcely any of the learned in their ranks, they were persuaded that all the complex and varied experiences of life were specially disposed to enable them to reach the highest blessedness, and they were not in the least doubt as to what that blessedness was. “We know,” says the Apostle, speaking for his readers as well as for himself, “that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.” 1 [Note: C. Moinet.]

1. How did St. Paul arrive at this state of certainty?—When St. Paul says “ We know.” he is speaking under a persuasion or conclusion to which he was compelled by his religious feeling rising to the degree and temperature of certainty. If God is such an one as we are obliged to believe Him to be, He will surely take care of His own. This is the argument. He frequently uses this formula, “We know.” Thus he says, “We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain … waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Again, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands.” Again, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.” He calls these high matters subjects of knowledge, but in the last analysis they belong to faith, an inward persuasion carried clear up to the threshold of certainty. This spiritual instinct, inward witness, secret inspiration which enabled St. Paul to declare “We know” in relation to invisible, eternal things, is a highly important possession and a rare endowment. There is too much conjecture and doubt in the matter of religious truths, and too little conviction and certitude. We do not get joy out of religion because we are not sure enough about it. Most Christians lack that private assurance which with St. Paul was equivalent to knowledge. This is a great defect in current religious experience; we grope in a fog, we set foot on a void, we do not feel solidity and resistance beneath our tread.

2. How can we arrive at such a state of certainty?

(1) In the first place, we must find an answer to another question—How do we know anything with certainty? Now, we can know a fact intuitively, such as that two straight lines having no inclination towards each other cannot intersect. Or we can know it upon premises of argument and deduction, as when a boy at school assents to a demonstration in Euclid. Or we may be said to know a fact by reason of confidence in the authority or veracity of others, belief in such a case becoming knowledge for all practical purposes.

(2) Now extend the same line of argument to the higher knowledge. It is noticeable that, as we approach the great leading principles and rules of life and conduct and the fundamental thinking that underlies our action, the mind is thrown more upon its own native original powers and capacities; it perceives, it seizes intuitively, in place of calling for laboured proofs and long deductions. For instance, take man himself, and what is good for him, what he ought to be, what type of character he ought to elaborate, how he ought to live and act; or take the idea of God, the Supreme Being, His existence, disposition, and attributes; or take nature, the external world of phenomena, its reality, its uses, value for man; take these large general conceptions that underlie all our life, and the nearer we approach them the more evident it becomes that if they are apprehended at all it must be by the quick instinct and native affinity of the mind for them. This was the origin of St. Paul’s sanguine optimism. His conclusion was not a deliverance of any of the five organic senses; it was not necessarily supernatural inspiration; it was an inference from a set of rational premises. If there is a personal God, who loves rectitude, purity, goodness, then it follows that they also who love these things shall be at one with Him. This is surely a valid piece of reasoning, that God will not disown or ignore in the creature qualities which constitute His own essence and glory. Such moral inconsistency is not conceivable in a being worthy of reverence and worship.

“ We know”—we may say with St. Paul—with the cognition of faith; that is to say, because God, absolutely trustworthy, guarantees it by His character, and by His word. Deep, even insoluble, is the mystery, from every other point of view. The lovers of the Lord are indeed unable to explain, to themselves or to others, how this concurrence of “all things” works out its infallible issues in them. And the observer from outside cannot understand their certainty that it is so. But the fact is there, given and assured, not by speculation upon events, but by personal knowledge of an Eternal Person. “Love God, and thou shalt know.” 1 [Note: Bishop Moule.]

Love’s Prosperity

Literature

Albertson (C. C), The Gospel According to Christ, 127.

Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have won Souls, 144.

Bell (C. D.), The Name above every Name, 124.

Burrell (D. J.), The Cloister Book, 262.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 250.

Dix (M.), Christ at the Door of the Heart, 27.

Forson (A. J.), The Law of Love, 3.

Gardner (C. E. L.), in A Book of Lay Sermons, 181.

Greenhough (J. G.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, 165.

Ingram (A. F. W.), The Mysteries of God, 66.

Jones (J. S.), The Invisible Things, 112.

Liddon (H. P.), Christmastide Sermons, 306.

Livesey (H.), The Silver Vein of Truth, 9.

Mackenzie (R.), The Loom of Providence, 9.

Meyer (F. B.), Present Tenses, 132.

Moinet (C.), The Great Alternative, 263.

Moule (H. C. G.), The Epistle to the Romans, 235.

Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 59.

Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 253.

Pulsford (W.), Trinity Church Sermons, 93.

Robinson (C. S.), Studies in the New Testament, 14.

Selby (T. G.), in Great Texts of the New Testament, 153.

Tulloch (J.), Some Facts of Religion and Life, 106.

Wellbeloved (C. H.), in The Outer and the Inner World, 103.

Wilberforce (B.), Feeling after Him, 65.

British Congregationalist, Jan. 16, 1908, 60 (Jowett).

Christian World Pulpit, lx. 294 (Norton); lxxiii. 56 (Marshall); lxxvii. 170 (Ingram); lxxix. 101 (Barson).

Homiletic Review, lii. 65.

Verse 32

The Inclusive Gift

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?— Romans 8:32.

1. The chapter from which these words are taken is full of encouragement and comfort. The Apostle’s object, at least in the latter part of it, is to point out the peculiar privileges of believers, and the certainty of the foundation on which their hopes and prospects rest.

2. St. Paul seems to have in mind especially the outward condition of believers, as if the meanness of their external condition, and the peculiar trials and afflictions to which they are often exposed, might be looked upon as an objection to the truth and reality of those spiritual privileges of which he has shown that they were possessed, and as inconsistent with the special love and favour which God has been said to bear to them. In opposition to this notion, the Apostle shows, with conclusive reasoning and impressive eloquence, that everything connected with even their outward condition is the result of God’s sovereign and gracious appointment. The whole of their history, and everything connected with them, composes a great scheme, originating in infinite love, arranged from eternity by infinite wisdom and executed in time by infinite power; and their various trials and afflictions, however numerous and remarkable, instead of being inconsistent with God’s special love to them in Christ, are just proofs or expressions of it. For they are the means which infinite wisdom had selected as the best fitted, and which infinite power would certainly overrule, to promote the great object which God has in view in all His dealings with them, the bringing of them to that incorruptible and unfading inheritance which He has prepared for them that love Him.

I

The Gift of His own Son

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.”

1. “Spared not.”—In this word we have an allusion to, if not a distinct quotation from, the narrative in Genesis, of Abraham’s offering up of Isaac. The same word which is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, to translate the Hebrew word rendered in our Bible as “withheld,” is employed here by the Apostle and rendered “spared not.” And there is evidently floating before his mind the thought that, in some profound and real sense, there is an analogy between that wondrous and faithful act of giving up, and the transcendent and stupendous gift to the world, from God, of His Son.

The analogy seems to suggest to us, strange as it may be, and remote from the cold and abstract ideas of the Divine nature which it is thought to be philosophical to cherish, that something corresponding to the pain and loss that shadowed the patriarch’s heart passed across the Divine mind when the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Not merely to give, but to give up, is the highest crown and glory of love, as we know it. And who shall venture to say that we so fully apprehend the Divine nature as to be warranted in declaring that some analogy to that is impossible for Him? Our language is, “I will not offer unto God that which doth cost me nothing.” Let us bow in silence before the dim intimation that seems to flicker out of the words of the text, that so He says to us, “I will not offer unto you that which doth cost me nothing.” “He spared not his own Son”—withheld Him not from us.

While we must be careful to exclude from the idea conveyed by the language of the text anything like a struggle or conflict between opposite principles and feelings existing in the Divine mind, we are entitled, and even expected, to view the act of God in giving up His own Son with feelings substantially the same in kind as those with which we would contemplate an act of heroic self-denial, or of generous sacrifice, performed by one of our fellow-men for the advancement of our happiness. 1 [Note: W. Cunningham.]

There is a story of a poor family in Germany who were ready to perish in a time of famine. The husband proposed to the wife to sell one of their children for bread. At length she consented. But the difficulty arose—which of them should it be? The eldest was named. This was their first-born, and the beginning of their strength. The second was named. He was the living image of the father. The third was named. In him the features of the mother breathed. The last was named. He was their youngest, the child of their old age. They agreed to starve together rather than sacrifice one.

2. “His own Son.”—The reality of the surrender is emphasized by the closeness of the bond which, in the mysterious eternity, knits together the Father and the Son. As with Abraham, so in this lofty example of which Abraham and Isaac were but as dim wavering reflections in water, the Son is His own Son. The force of the analogy and the emphasis of that word, which is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English, “his own Son,” point to a community of nature, to a uniqueness and singleness of relation, to a closeness of intimacy, to which no other is a parallel. And so we have to estimate the measure of the surrender by the tenderness and awfulness of the bond. “Having yet therefore one Son, his well-beloved, he sent him.”

3. “Delivered him up.”—The greatness of the surrender is made more emphatic by the contemplation of it in its negative and positive aspect, in the two successive clauses. “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up,” an absolute, positive giving of Him over to the humiliation of the life and to the mystery of the death.

(1) He delivered Him up to Suffering.—If it behoved Christ to become man, He might have been spared the trials that are generally the lot of men, trials which they very rightly deserve because of their sins. Let the one sinless Man be spared the sufferings that sinners meet with as their due. But no! Very few, if any, are the sufferings incident to human life that Jesus was exempted from. He was not spared the endurance of poverty. Into poverty He was born, in poverty He lived, and in poverty He died. Poorer than the foxes that had holes, and the birds of the air that had nests, He often had not where to lay His head.

(2) He delivered Him up to Temptation.—He was in all points tempted like as we are. Tempted to distrust God, tempted to presumption, tempted to worldliness. And very bitter enmity was His portion. Perhaps few have been more utterly detested than He was while in the world. It is true that for a time He was popular with the multitude, but, it would seem, only so long as they thought He would provide them with loaves and fishes. But the hatred that assailed Him was intense: it expressed itself in many vile and abusive epithets, in many false accusations, in many attempts, public and private, to take away His life.

(3) He delivered Him up to Ingratitude.—“Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” That was only one instance out of multitudes in which those whom He benefited showed their utter unthankfulness. His own brethren did not believe in Him, but said that He was mad, and would have kept Him under restraint like a lunatic.

(4) He delivered Him up to Death.—He was spared nothing that could make His sufferings terrible: the treachery of Judas; the cowardice of the other Apostles; the barbarous, brutal treatment to which He was subjected by Herod, and by the soldiers under Pontius Pilate. Of all the deaths that man could die, there was none more torturing than the death of the cross, and there was none so degrading; He was not spared that. And to make it all the worse, to add to the contempt and shame, He was crucified between two thieves. Amply true are the Apostle’s words, “God spared not his own Son.”

Enough, my muse, of earthly things,

And inspirations but of wind;

Take up thy lute, and to it bind

Loud and everlasting strings,

And on them play, and to them sing,

The happy mournful stories,

The lamentable glories

Of the great crucified King!

Mountainous heap of wonders! which dost rise

Till earth thou joinest with the skies!

Too large at bottom, and at top too high,

To be half seen by mortal eye;

How shall I grasp this boundless thing?

What shall I play? What shall I sing?

I’ll sing the mighty riddle of mysterious love,

Which neither wretched man below, nor blessed spirits above

With all their comments can explain,

How all the whole world’s life to die did not disdain!

I’ll sing the searchless depths of the compassion divine,

The depths unfathomed yet

By reason’s plummet, and the line of wit;

Too light the plummet, and too short the line;

How the eternal Father did bestow

His own eternal Son as ransom for His foe;

I’ll sing aloud that all the world may hear

The triumph of the buried Conqueror;

How hell was by its prisoner captive led,

And the great slayer, Death, slain by the dead.

Methinks I hear of murdered men the voice

Mixed with the murderers’ confused noise,

Sound from the top of Calvary;

My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see

Who ’tis hangs there, the midmost of the three;

O! how unlike the others He;

Look! how He bends His gentle head with blessings from the tree,

His gracious hands, ne’er stretched but to do good,

Are nailed to the infamous wood!

And sinful man does fondly bind

The arms which He extends to embrace all human kind. 1 [Note: Abraham Cowley.]

4. “For us all.”—He delivered Him up for us all. There was a national election of the Jew in which the Gentile had no part; but the drift of the Apostle’s argument is that the highest blessing and the fulness of that blessing are for Jew and Gentile alike. The Gospel is catholic; it knows nothing of national predestination and privilege. If God gave His Son for us all, He will not distribute unequally the blessings which flow from that unspeakable gift. Whatever were the national and temporal blessings of the Jew, the Greek and barbarian shall equally share with him in the sovereign gifts of grace. And so the gifts of grace are not given unequally among the various classes of society. “The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.” It is for the Christian Church to do its utmost to put all nations in possession of their spiritual inheritance.

Soul, which to hell wast thrall,

He, He for thine offence

Did suffer death, who could not die at all.

O sovereign excellence!

O life of all that lives!

Eternal bounty, which all goodness gives!

How could Death mount so high?

No wit this point can reach;

Faith only doth us teach,

For us He died, at all who could not die. 1 [Note: William Drummond.]

II

With Him all Things

“How shall he not also with him freely give us all things?”

After the gift of Jesus Christ, every other gift is comparatively a small matter. Abraham did not spare his son Isaac, but delivered him up to God. In his mind, in his heart, he surrendered him as truly as if he had slain him and burned him on the altar. And after that proof of love to God, do you suppose Abraham possessed anything that he would have been unwilling to give? If God had asked his flocks and his herds, his silver and his gold, we may well suppose that Abraham would have given all without a murmur. And God having given us Christ, we cannot imagine Him unwilling to bestow any favour that would really be a favour.

He will give all things for these reasons—

(1) The greater gift implies the less. We do not expect that a man who hands over a million pounds to another, to help him, will stick at a farthing afterwards. If you give a diamond you may well give a box to keep it in. In God’s gift the lesser will follow the lead of the greater; and whatsoever a man can want, it is a smaller thing for Him to bestow, than was the gift of His Son.

Southey told an anecdote of Sir Massey Lopes, which is a good story of a miser. A man came to him and told him he was in great distress, and £200 would save him. He gave him a draft for the money. “Now,” says he, “what will you do with this?” “Go to the bankers and get it cashed.” “Stop,” said he, “I will cash it.” So he gave him the money, but first calculated and deducted the discount. 1 [Note: Greville Memoirs, ii. 61.]

There is a beautiful contrast between the manners of giving the two sets of gifts implied in the words of the original, perhaps scarcely capable of being reproduced in any translation. The expression that is rendered, “freely give,” implies that there is a grace and a pleasantness in the act of bestowal. God gave in Christ what we may reverently say it was something like pain to give. Will He not give the lesser gifts, whatever they may be, which it is the joy of His heart to communicate? The greater implies the less. 2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

(2) This one great gift draws all other gifts after it, because the purpose of the greater gift cannot be attained without the bestowment of the lesser. He does not begin to build and then find Himself unable to finish; He does not miscalculate His resources, or stultify Himself by commencing upon a large scale and then have to stop short before the purpose with which He began is accomplished. Men build great palaces and are bankrupt before the roof is put on. God lays His plans with the knowledge of His powers, and having first of all bestowed this large gift, is not going to have it bestowed in vain for want of some smaller ones to follow it up.

Men are fond of distinguishing between general and particular providences. They are willing to acknowledge the finger of God in some striking event, or in the swift flashing out of God’s sword of justice. They do not hesitate to admit that life as a whole is under God’s direction; but they hesitate to say that He is concerned with its ordinary commonplaces, valueless as the sparrow’s fall, slight as the hair of the head. Miles if you like; but not steps. But love refuses to believe this teaching. It looks on it as practical atheism. It feels that God cannot afford to let the thread of its life pass from His hands for a single moment. 3 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]

(3) This great blessing draws after it, by necessary consequence, all other lesser and secondary gifts, inasmuch as, in a very real sense, everything is included and possessed in Christ when we receive Him. “With him,” says St. Paul, as if that gift laid in a man’s heart actually enclosed within it, and had for its indispensable accompaniment, the possession of every smaller thing that a man can need. Jesus Christ is, as it were a great Cornucopia, a horn of abundance, out of which will pour, with magic affluence, all manner of supplies according as we require.

O world, great world, now thou art all my own,

In the deep silence of my soul I stay

The current of thy life, though the wild day

Surges around me, I am all alone;—

Millions of voices rise, yet my weak tone

Is heard by Him who is the Light, the Way,

All Life, all Truth, the centre of Love’s ray;

Clamour, O Earth, the Great God hears my moan!

Prayer is the talisman that gives us all,

We conquer God by force of His own love,

He gives us all; when prostrate we implore—

The Saints must listen; prayers pierce Heaven’s wall;

The humblest soul on earth, when mindful of

Christ’s promise, is the greatest conqueror. 1 [Note: Maurice Francis Egan.]

1. All things.—All things are ours in Christ. All things necessary to our salvation from sin, to the purification of our nature, to the safety of our spirit amid infinite besetments, to the fulness of our joy, to our present and everlasting triumph, all are guaranteed in our Divine Redeemer. All other gifts are assured in the accomplished gift of Calvary. He who spared not His own Son will not withhold anything that is necessary for the completion of the gracious design. He who has laid the foundation at such amazing cost will not spare to complete the edifice.

(1) Whatever is necessary for our justification will be given. How vain are all our misgivings in the presence of the infinite sacrifice! Our sins are crimson in colour, colossal in magnitude, countless in number; yet let us once appreciate the merit and mercy of Calvary, and we know the peace of God which passeth understanding. Our city rivers are foul enough; but the Atlantic Ocean receives them into her emerald depths, purifies them from pollution, and imparts to them a strange splendour and song. Our city smoke belches forth by day and night, threatening to darken and defile the very heavens; but the ampler air refines the base vapours, they leave no shadow or spot, and lose themselves in the lights and colours and mysteries of the firmament. So are our sins swallowed up in the redeeming love, to be remembered against us no more. “It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

(2) Whatever is necessary for our sanctification is sure. Great as is the task of perfecting a nature that has gone so utterly to the bad as ours, it is nevertheless gloriously possible in the infinite affluence of our ascended Lord. He now exerts the fulness of the Spirit, and saves to the uttermost all who come to Him. The doctrine of the perfectibility of human nature, apart from evangelical grace, is a dream of dreams, the most hopeless of ideals, the wildest of fictions, a mocking and cruel apocalypse of the bible of philosophy. But the perfectibility of man in the power of Him who has received the Spirit without measure is a doctrine we may welcome without doubt or fear.

(3) Whatever is necessary for our eternal life and glory is also freely given. Christ has obtained eternal redemption for us. Everything for the life that now is, everything for the life that is to come, is richly ours in our crucified and ascended Lord. The greatest possible act of God’s love is the giving up of His Son; in that whatever else can be wished for lies enclosed.

This is a democratic age—the people everywhere claim a full share in everything. After ages of slavery and feudalism, of monopoly and exclusion, the multitude are awaking to a sense of larger right and privilege. They claim their full share in the authority of the sceptre, in the distribution of wealth, in the spoils of knowledge, in the flowers of pleasure. Our day may in some wise remind us of the apostolic age, when narrow privilege gave way to cosmopolitan rights and gifts. But is the claim for right and privilege to go no farther than material things and political influence? Alas, if it stops there! The best things of all, the heavenly things, belong equally to all, and they must not be forgotten. In the faith of Christ we find peace of mind, purity of heart, strength to live nobly, victory over all things mean and base, patience, charity, humility, kindness, peace, and abounding hope; these are the gifts most earnestly to be coveted, the gifts without which other blessings are vain. What a glorious day will dawn when the democracy awake to their rights and privileges in the Kingdom of God—when they clamour for the sceptre of self-government, when they solicit the wisdom that is more precious than rubies, when they array themselves in white raiment, when they agitate for the inner riches of love and light, of pureness and strength, which are the true riches! The rarest prizes are still largely unclaimed. The city of God awaits the democracy; its liberties and riches, its glories and joys, are theirs. 1 [Note: W. L. “Watkinson.]

2. Freely.—He will give all things freely. He gave us His dear Son freely. He did not even wait to be asked to deliver Him up for us all. The gift of Christ was no answer to prayer. It was the purely spontaneous bounty of God. Nowhere in Scripture can we discern the slightest reluctance or hesitation on God’s part as to the bestowment of that gift, great as was the suffering which it cost the Giver as well as the Gift. It was not to a world all penitent and in tears, prostrate at His throne in anguish and despair, that God gave His well-beloved Son; but to a world still at enmity against Him, still disobedient, impenitent, hard-hearted. And yet He gave Him freely. And therefore we surely may not, must not, think of any unwillingness on God’s part to give these other gifts. Freely? Yes, of course. Whatever God gives, He gives freely. He loveth a cheerful giver, for He is Himself a cheerful giver. And there is not a gift of grace, there is not a gift that concerns us, whether for time or for eternity, that He will not freely give with Christ to all who ask Him.

There are some hearts like wells, green-mossed and deep

As ever summer saw,

And cool their water is, yea, cool and sweet;

But you must come to draw.

They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content,

And not unsought will give;

They can be quiet with their wealth unspent,

So self-contained they live.

And there are some like springs, that bubbling burst

To follow dusty ways,

And run with offered cup to quench his thirst

Where the tired traveller strays;

That never ask the meadows if they want

What is their joy to give;

Unasked, their lives to other life they grant,

So self-bestowed they live.

And One is like the ocean, deep and wide,

Wherein all waters fall;

That girdles the broad earth, and draws the tide,

Feeding and bearing all.

That breeds the mists, that sends the clouds abroad,

That takes again to give;—

Even the great and loving heart of God,

Whereby all love doth live.

The vital things of nature, the manifold riches of sea and shore, of earth and sky, are free gifts. We often reason as if we had paid handsomely for all things, and then grumble as if we had got short measure; but it is the greatest possible blunder. If we reject free gifts, we must send back every beam of the sun, every drop of rain and flake of snow, every green leaf, every spray of blossom, every purple cluster, every golden sheaf. Neither does God sell His glorious gifts of intellect. There was no king’s ransom ready in the house where Shakespeare was born. All may see that Heaven does not dispense its most splendid talents where wealth is, or greatness; the immortal painter, singer, or inventor is born in attic, cellar, or cottage into which no other royalty ever looked. And God does not sell anything that belongs to the realm of the soul. The principle of barter has no place in the highest world. If we thought to purchase the noblest things with silver or gold, with gifts or sacrifices, we are sternly reproved: “Thy money,” thy goods, thy goodness, “perish with thee.” And as it is not God’s way to sell His glorious things to pride and greatness, we certainly have no ability to buy them. All is, must be, free.

When in the days of your youth the infinite passion, for the first time, lit up its glow in you, was there anything that you could do for the maiden of your heart that you would not do? Was there anything that you esteemed too precious for the creature to whom you had given your heart? In giving where you had given your heart, your whole nature was in force, and was one pleasure. That is the basis of the “freely.” 1 [Note: John Pulsford.]

3. With Him.—The expression “all things,” unlimited as it is in the letter, must be limited in the spirit. Than the idea of God giving us all things that we might wish and ask for there could be nothing more perilous, more certain to prove destructive. What would become of us if God were in this unqualified manner to give us all things? There are in the text two words that are very important. They are the words “with him,”—“shall he not also with him freely give us all things?” The “all things” that He will give us are all things with Christ, and the expression suggests a certain relationship of congruity or fitness. Suppose a man makes his son a present of a microscope, the probability is that he will, with the instrument, give him all the apparatus necessary for making full use of the instrument. Or if he gave his son a house, he might, perhaps, with the house give him the furniture suitable for it, that so he might with comfort live in the house that was given him. And God will give us, and freely give us, all things with Christ, all things that are connected with the gift of Christ, all things that will make the gift of Christ of practical service to us. So all things with Christ are all things that stand related to Christ, and to the purpose which God in the gift of Christ has in view.

I would be quiet, Lord,

Nor tease, nor fret;

Not one small need of mine

Wilt Thou forget.

I am not wise to know

What most I need;

I dare not cry too loud,

Lest Thou shouldst heed;

Lest Thou at length shouldst say,

“Child, have thy will;

As thou hast chosen, lo!

Thy cup I fill!”

What I most crave, perchance

Thou wilt withhold;

As we from hands unmeet

Keep pearls, or gold;

As we, when childish hands

Would play with fire,

Withhold the burning goal

Of their desire.

Yet choose Thou for me—Thou

Who knowest best;

This one short prayer of mine

Holds all the rest! 1 [Note: Julia C. R. Dorr.]

“With Him,” observe; not without Him. It may be that, without Christ, God will in His providence give us many things, and many good things too. He may give us health, He may give us riches, He may give us much worldly comfort and prosperity. But these His best gifts, really far the best, the gifts of His grace, in forgiveness, holiness, life eternal, He gives only with Christ, only to those who in faith and thankfulness accept Christ.

There is often a strange coldness and unbelief in men when precious things are pressed upon them. One of our later poets has noticed this blindness and insensibility:

A dog will take

The bone you throw to him; a mortal stares

In obstinate hostility if one,

Longing to swell the number of his joys,

From laden hand beseech him to be blest.

Teach men to suffer, and the slaves are apt;

Give them fresh hope, entreat them to delight,

They grow as stubbornly insensible

As miser to a beggar’s eloquence,

Clutching their clownish imbecility

As the gods grudged them that.

But surely this unwillingness to accept high blessing brought to our very doors finds its last and strangest expression in the insensibility of men to the gift of God in Christ! Let us thankfully, exultantly, promptly, open our heart to the full noon of spiritual blessing which shines upon us in the Son of God.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil’s booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking;

’Tis heaven alone that is given away,

’Tie only God may be had for the asking. 2 [Note: Lowell.]

The Inclusive Gift

Literature

Brown (H. S.), Manliness and other Sermons, 346.

Cunningham (W.), Sermons, 174.

Faithful (R. C.), My Place in the World, 90.

Hoare (E.), Fruitful or Fruitless, 143.

Jay (W.) Short Discourses, ii. 253.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Romans, 191.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, xi. 57.

Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 251.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Christ in the Old Testament, 47.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869), No. 255; lvi. (1910), No. 3204.

Spurgeon (C. H.), (Mrs.), Carillon of Bells, 1.

Watkinson (W. L.), Studies in Christian Character, ii. 7.

Christian World Pulpit, xvii. 296 (Pulsford).

Verses 33-34

No Case

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is [even] at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.— Romans 8:33-34.

Before anything can be done with these verses it is necessary that some attention should be given to their punctuation. That the punctuation is difficult, no one will deny. The Revised Version, putting only a semicolon after “justifieth,” throws together the two clauses—“It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? That is not satisfactory. In the margin of that version the first of these clauses is turned into a question. According to this suggestion the two verses would contain four questions, going two and two together. Thus—(1) Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Shall God that justifieth? (2) Who is he that shall condemn? Shall Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us? This method is followed by Bishop Moule in the Expositor’s Bible, who says, “We adopt the interrogative rendering of all the clauses here: it is equally good as grammar, and far more congenial to the glowing context.” Professor Roberts, who was one of the Revisers, adopts the same punctuation and tells the following story: A friend who visited Archbishop Whately when near his end writes as follows: “The Sunday before his death he seemed unconscious, and I read Romans 8 (a chapter for which he has asked more than once during his illness). Instinctively I read Romans 8:33-34 as he had taught me to do: ‘Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Is it God that justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? Is it Christ that died?’ The eyes of the dying man opened for a moment. ‘That is quite right,’ he whispered.” 1 [Note: Clergyman’s Magazine, 3rd Ser., xii. 253.]

To take all the clauses as questions does appear to bring out the Apostle’s meaning. But the same result may be produced more easily by supplying two words which were in the Apostle’s thought, but which, in the rapidity of writing, he did not insert. Let us insert these two words in brackets—“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? [God?]. God is he that justifieth. Who is he that shall condemn? [Christ?]. Christ Jesus is he that died.”

St. Paul’s argument is that against God’s elect there is no case. Why is there no case? He gives two sufficient reasons.

First, who is to bring a charge against them? Their sin is against God, therefore none but God has any interest in bringing a charge against them or any right to bring it. Will God bring a charge? God has already justified them. He has acquitted them of every charge and declared them righteous.

Second, if a charge is brought who is to condemn them? The judge is Christ, and there is no other. Will Christ condemn them? Christ Jesus is the very person who has by His death, resurrection, session, and intercession made sure that they shall not be condemned.

I

The Charge

“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”

1. Who is the charge supposed to be laid against? God’s elect. And who are God’s elect?

(1) God’s elect are not the self-elect. Look at these two men, the Pharisee and the publican. Says the Pharisee, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, or even as this publican”; says the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” “I tell you”—this is the judgment of Jesus—“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. The Pharisee, self-elect, is Divinely reprobate. The publican, self-reprobate, is Divinely elect. Or look at the prodigal—what self-accusation, what self-condemnation—“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” And where is the father’s condemnation? There is no condemnation. The father falls on his son’s neck, and kisses him, and then cries commandingly to his servants, “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Behold a type, a representative of the elect of God!

All this costly expense

For a few white souls forgiven,

For a smiling throng of a few elect,

White harpers harping in heaven.

Lord, Thy glance is wide,

And Thy wide arms circle the whole;

Shall out of Thy net of loving glide

One wand’ring human soul? 1 [Note: Hannah Parker Kimball, Two Points of View.]

(2) God’s elect have also elected Him. His choice of them always issues in their choice of Him. Hence there comes in here a question. You ask whether God has chosen you. I ask whether you have chosen God. You let me put a ringer upon your pulse; let me sound the beating of your heart. Is there no Godward throbbing there—no outbreathing of desire? That desire was not self-originated. It was grace, not nature, that inspired it. “We love him.” How? Why? “Because he first loved us.” He is always first. Your desire for Him, your choice of Him is but responsive to His desire for you, His choice of you. Let not the thought of the Divine election trouble you. God in Christ is on your side. Get up to this high tower, and from its summit ring out the challenge without doubt or dread—“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who is he that condemneth?”

Your distress is that God Almighty knows from eternity who will be saved. Which is true, for He knows all things—the drops in the sea, the stars in heaven, the roots, branches, twigs, leaves of every tree; He has numbered the hairs of all heads. From this you conclude that, do what you will, good or bad, God knows already whether you will be saved or not: which is true. And, further, you think more of damnation than of salvation; and thereupon you despair, and know not how God is minded towards you. Wherefore I, as a servant of my dear Lord Jesus Christ, write you this, that you may know how God the Almighty is minded towards you. God Almighty does know all things, so that all worlds and thoughts in all creatures must happen according to His will. But His earnest will, and mind, and decree, ordered from eternity, is “that all men shall be saved,” and shall become partakers of eternal joy. God willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live. If, then, He willeth that sinners, wherever they live and wander under the broad high heavens, should be saved, will you, by a foolish thought, suggested by the devil, sunder yourself from all these, and from the grace of God? God the Father Himself, with His own finger, points out to you how He is minded towards you, when, with loud, clear voice, He cries, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” And even if you were ever so hard and deaf, and, as a despairing man turned to stone, could not look up to heaven, or hear God the Father calling to you on those heights, yet can you not fail to hear the Son, who stands in the highway by which every one may pass, and, as with a mighty trumpet, calls, “ Venite—Come, come.” 1 [Note: Luther.]

Love makes the life to be

A fount perpetual of virginity;

For, lo, the Elect

Of generous Love, how named soe’er, affect

Nothing but God,

Or mediate or direct

Nothing but God,

The Husband of the Heavens;

And who Him love, in potence great or small,

Are, one and all,

Heirs of the Palace glad,

And inly clad

With the bridal robes of ardour virginal. 2 [Note: Coventry Patmore.]

2. What is the charge? Anything. The Apostle looks over the entire history of life from first to last; he does not confine himself to the consideration of a particular portion of it; he does not confine himself to the consideration of a particular aspect of it; he views it in the light of the law with its changeless sanctions, in the light of eternity with its retributive decisions; he arraigns it before God in the perfection of His nature and government, in the very perfection of His entire judicial administration, and, as dauntless as ever, he comes forth like the old champion with this sweeping, absolute, universal challenge, “Who shall lay anything”— anything—“to the charge of God’s elect?” Are there not thousands of things which may be made matter of charge against them? May not everything in their life-history from the day of their birth be made matter of charge against them? Yes, everything. No, nothing.

3. Who makes the charge? The Apostle seems at first to look round the universe—Who is he that shall dare to do it? He does not confine himself to the world, he does not confine himself to time, he projects himself into eternity with all its spiritual intelligences, powers, realities; he faces “death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, any other creation,” every other creation; and, dauntless, like a hero-champion in full armour who offers himself for combat to any one who will enter the lists with him, he throws down the gauntlet. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Every mouth is stopped. Every mouth but one. God Himself may bring this charge. No one else has the right—has He? No, not even God can make a charge against His own elect. For has He not justified them? He is the very last person to be likely to make it.

St. Paul, you see, has no doubt at all about this point. He says boldly, “It is God that justifieth.” That is as much as to say, “I know, verily, that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is on our side; that He takes our part. And, therefore, I do not care who takes the other side; there may be a host of enemies that seek to destroy us. But there is one Friend whose will is to save us, and I verily think He is stronger than they are.” 1 [Note: F. D. Maurice.]

Thank God that God shall judge my soul, not man!

I marvel when they say,

“ Think of that awful Day—

No pitying fellow-sinner’s eyes shall scan

With tolerance thy soul,

But His who knows the whole,

The God whom all men own is wholly just.”

Hold thou that last word dear,

And live untouched by fear.

He knows with what strange fires He mixed this dust.

The heritage of race,

The circumstance and place

Which make us what we are—were from His hand,

That left us, faint of voice,

Small margin for a choice.

He gave, I took: shall I not fearless stand?

Hereditary bent

That hedges in intent

He knows, be sure, the God who shaped thy brain,

He loves the souls He made;

He knows His own hand laid

On each the mark of some ancestral stain.

Not souls severely white,

But groping for more light,

Are what Eternal Justice here demands.

Fear not; He made thee dust.

Cling to that sweet word—“Just.”

All’s well with thee if thou art in just hands. 1 [Note: Anne Reeve Aldrich, The Eternal Justice.]

It is on the doctrine of justification by faith alone that I delight to dwell when I am inclined to despond; I then throw myself without reserve at the feet of Christ. You, my dear Wood, understand me in what I say, and know very well that I am not pleading the cause of Antinomianism. Nothing is more easy than to reconcile St. Paul and St. James, when we understand the scheme of redemption as revealed in the Gospel. I only refer to that doctrine which is our greatest comfort and consolation when we are humbled and laid in the dust. It is not the only doctrine of Scripture, and therefore we shall miss the truth if we consider it without reference to others which limit and elucidate it; but it is the doctrine that gives life and health to the humble and lowly of heart. 2 [Note: Dean Hook, Life and Letters, i. 224.]

II

The Condemnation

“Who is he that shall condemn?”

Even if a charge is made, who will condemn? The Judge, of course. And who is the Judge? It is none but Christ. Will Christ Jesus condemn? Christ Jesus is the very person who has made condemnation impossible. He has died for that purpose. More than that, He has risen; He has even taken His seat at God’s right hand; He also makes intercession for us.

The reasons which are given are four in number. They have been compared to the ropes which are used in mining operations. Every strand of these ropes is warranted to bear the weight of the entire tonnage which in their corded combination they are ever required to bear. That they will stand the utmost strain which may be put on them in use is thus absolutely sure. In like manner each of the grounds on which justification by God is said to rest is all-sufficient to sustain it. What should be said of them when viewed in their entire and perfect combination?

1. Christ Jesus died.—That He died is certain. Respecting the fact of Calvary there is no serious dispute. Infidelity has no foothold to assail it. But how came He to die? Death is the penalty of transgression. He must have been made under the law, of which it is the penalty. Was He a transgressor of it? No. Then how came He to die? “It is Christ that died.” “It is Christ”—the Sent of God, to be the Saviour of the world, the Divinely commissioned and appointed Surety of sinners. “It is Christ that died”—“the just for the unjust”—to make atonement for their sins. There it is; His death was vicarious—in their stead; penal—the punishment of their sins; expiatory—magnifying the Divine law, satisfying the Divine justice on their behalf; their condemnation was fully borne in it; it left nothing for them to bear; in point of law it was as much their condemnation as it was His; and hence no legal claim remains to be made upon them and no judicial condemnation to be passed upon them; their absolution, justification, acquittal is, in short, a matter of common equity, of necessary justice. A debt cannot be paid twice over. The first settlement of the claim is its final settlement.

Pearson gives three reasons for the death of Christ: (1) First, it was necessary, as to the Prophetical office, that Christ should die, to the end that the truth of all the doctrine which He delivered might be confirmed by His death. (2) Secondly, it was necessary that Christ should die, and by His death perform the Sacerdotal office. For Christ had no other sacrifice to offer for our sins than Himself. Therefore if He will offer sacrifice for sin, He must of necessity die, and so make His soul an offering for sin. If Christ be our passover, He must be sacrificed for us. (3) Thirdly, there was a necessity that Christ should die, in reference to His Regal office. “O king, live for ever” is either the loyal or the flattering vote for temporal princes; either the expression of our temporal desires, or the suggestion of their own: whereas our Christ never showed more sovereign power than in His death, never obtained more than by His death. 1 [Note: Exposition of the Creed (Camb. ed.), 409.]

When shadows of the valley fall,

When sin and death the soul appal,

One light we through the darkness see—

Christ on the Cross,

We cry to Thee! 2 [Note: Tudor Jenks.]

2. Christ Jesus rose again.—Regarded in its expiatory character, the death of Christ carried in it an all-satisfying virtue, a Divinely and therefore an infinitely satisfying virtue. All that the circumstances of the case required, all that law and justice demanded, was fully met in it. In this respect the argument of the text has quite enough to warrant it in the first strand of the rope by which it holds: “It is Christ that died.” At the same time, this warrant might not have thus appeared to be all-decisive. If Christ had been detained among the dead, the thought might not unnaturally have arisen, Can it be that He has failed? Where is the evidence that the expiation of His atonement is Divinely satisfying? Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? For it is very great. The stone is rolled away. “He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” “It is Christ that died; yea rather, that is risen again.”

The resurrection of Christ has a twofold value. It is the pledge of victory and it is the manifestation of acceptance. He has conquered death. “O death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?” But His resurrection is also His Father’s testimony to the sufficiency of the atonement by the cross. “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”

By the resurrection, says Pearson, we are assured of the justification of our persons; and if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, it will be imputed to us for righteousness; for He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” By His death we know that He suffered for sin, by His resurrection we are assured that the sins for which He suffered were not His own. Had no man been a sinner, He had not died; had He been a sinner, He had not risen again; but, dying for those sins which we committed, He rose from the dead to show that He had made full satisfaction for them, that we believing in Him might obtain remission of our sins, and justification of our persons. “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” and, raising up our Surety from the prison of the grave, did actually absolve, and apparently acquit, Him from the whole obligation to which He had bound Himself, and in discharging Him acknowledged full satisfaction made for us. 1 [Note: Exposition of the Creed, 506.]

“Yea rather!” The emphasis is on these two words. “Yea.” “It is Christ that died.” Behold the expiation of all your guilt, the atonement for all your sins. “Rather.” “It is Christ that is risen again.” Behold the discharge of all your legal obligations, the authoritative receipt of all your debts as paid by Him in full. “Yea rather.” Behold the two together, His death and His resurrection always both together. For in the same character and for the same purpose that He died, in the same character and for the same purpose was He raised. 2 [Note: E. A. Thomson.]

“He is dead,” we cried, and even amid that gloom

The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day

Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb

And the stone rolled away.

It is the hour! We challenge heaven above

Now, to deny our slight ephemeral breath

Joy, anguish, and that everlasting love

Which triumphs over death. 3 [Note: Alfred Noyes, Resurrection.]

3. Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God.—He who was once despised and rejected of men now occupies the honourable position of a beloved and honoured Son. The right hand of God is (1) the place of majesty and favour. Our Lord Jesus is His people’s representative. When He died for them, they had rest; when He rose again for them, they had liberty; when He sat down at His Father’s right hand, they had favour, and honour, and dignity. The raising and elevation of Christ is the elevation, the acceptance, the enshrinement, the glorifying of all His people, for He is their head and representative. This sitting at the right hand of God, then, is to be viewed as the acceptance of the person of the Surety, the reception of the Representative, and, therefore, the acceptance of our souls. But the right hand is (2) the place of power. Christ at the right hand of God hath all power in heaven and in earth. Who shall fight against the people who have such power vested in their Captain? If Jesus is our all-prevailing King, and hath trodden our enemies beneath His feet; if sin, death, and hell are all vanquished by Him, and we are represented in Him, by no possibility can we be destroyed.

Above the “Yea rather” there is an “Even,” and such an “even”! It is omitted in the Revised Version; but there is good manuscript authority for its retention, and it deserves to be retained. “Who is even at the right hand of God.” “Even”! Put the emphasis on “even.” Once He was low indeed. Once He was in the grave. Now He is high indeed. Now He is on the throne even, “even at the right hand of God.” 1 [Note: E. A. Thomson.]

Sometimes we say, Can there be a stronger argument for non-condemnation than that which is taken from the death of Christ? And we are ready to conclude that there is not, and that there cannot be. But here we see that there is a stronger “Yea rather.” And sometimes we say, But can there be a stronger argument for non-condemnation than that which is taken from the resurrection of Christ? And again we are ready to conclude that there is not, and that there cannot be. But here again we see that there is yet a stronger. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son”; “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son?” To which of them does He say, “Sit thou at my right hand”? And what then? If Christ is thus at the right hand of God, in the very highest post of honour and of dignity in the heaven of heavens, for the purpose of righteous judgment, of universal judgment, shall He condemn those for whom He died?

The profession of faith in Christ, as sitting on the right hand of God, is necessary: First, to mind us of our duty, which must needs consist in subjection and obedience. The majesty of a king claimeth the loyalty of a subject; and if we acknowledge his authority we must submit unto his power. Nor can there be a greater incitation to obedience than the consideration of the nature of His government. Subject we must be, whether we will or no; but if willingly, then is our service perfect freedom; if unwillingly, then is our averseness everlasting misery. Enemies we all have been, under His feet we shall be, either adopted or subdued. A double kingdom there is of Christ: one of power, in which all are under Him; another of propriety, in those which belong unto Him: none of us can be excepted from the first; and happy are we if by our obedience we show ourselves to have an interest in the second, for then that kingdom is not only Christ’s but ours. Secondly, it is necessary to believe in Christ sitting on the right hand of God, that we might be assured of an auspicious protection under His gracious dominion. For God by His exaltation hath given our Saviour “to be head over all things to the church”; and therefore from Him we may expect direction and preservation. There can be no illegality where Christ is the lawgiver; there can be no danger from hostility where the Son of God is the defender. The very name of “head” hath the signification not only of dominion but of union; and therefore while we look upon Him at the right hand of God, we see ourselves in heaven. This is the special promise which He hath made us since He sat down there: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” How should we rejoice, yea rather how should we fear and tremble, at so great an honour! 1 [Note: Exposition of the Creed, 537.]

4. Christ Jesus intercedes for us.—This completes the argument. It crowns the climax. It is at the very top of the ladder.

“Yea,” “Rather,” “Even,” “Also.” Put the emphasis upon Also, as after all as last of all. Are you not faithless, but believing? Then, if condemned at all, you must be condemned by Christ who is even at the right hand of God. God has there vested in Him as Lord and King the prerogative of judgment, and therefore of condemnation. Will He, your Advocate and Intercessor within the veil, condemn His own clients, for whom He died, and rose again, and ascended even to the right hand of God? Will He ignore, annul, His righteous advocacy, His meritorious intercession, by an adverse judgment, an unrighteous judgment? To do so would issue in the degradation of His office, the prostitution of His trust, the annihilation of His honour, the extinction of Himself. 1 [Note: E. A. Thomson.]

As men have made the Death of Christ a sacrifice to the Divine wrath; the substitution of an innocent Victim for the guilty, as though God must have blood, and cared not whose—when they ought to have remembered how Scripture always tells of the love of God in giving, in not sparing, His own Son, but freely surrendering Him for us all—even so they have made the Intercession of Christ a perpetual coming between the Destroyer and His condemned, a constant pleading of that blood which alone appeased the anger, a daily and hourly standing between the Hand that would smite and the souls crouching beneath it. O terrible perversion of the sweet and blessed reality! “I and my Father are one” is as true of the Intercessor as it was true of the Sacrifice. Christ the Intercessor bears upon His heart in heaven all the sufferings and all the sins of mankind, not that He may restrain God from punishing, but that He may evermore apply to them that Divine love which first sent and gave Him. That is the Intercession. It is the bearing upon the soul of the Redeemer in His glory every distress and every peril and every temptation and every sin which may interfere with the realization of His salvation in even the humblest and most lost creature for whom He shed His precious blood. It is not the violent extorting for them from an unwilling God of an exemption from wrath; it is the representation of them, in their woes and weaknesses, before Him whose love for them is as strong and as prompt and as self-sacrificing as His own. 2 [Note: C. J. Vaughan.]

(1) The intercession of Christ consists in His appearing in the presence of God for us, and presenting the memorials of His sufferings on our behalf. The Jewish high priest went of old on the Day of Atonement into the most holy place, to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice before the mercy-seat. No human being was permitted to accompany him. The worshippers remained without; but bells of gold were placed upon the hem of his robe round about, that their sound might announce to them the safety of the high priest, and the acceptance of the sacrifice. Our great High Priest is not entered into the holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself. He is gone there, not with the blood of goats or of calves, but with His own blood. The fragrance of His sacrifice fills the land of glory; and the merits of His cross are mingled with all the splendours of His throne. Not one pang which He suffered, and not one effort which He made for our salvation, can be forgotten. The traces of the blood of the Lamb are to be seen on every garment, and on every blessing there. And the Gospel which we hear is a joyful sound from the great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens, announcing to us that His offering and sacrifice were to God of a sweet-smelling savour, and that because He lives, we shall live also.

(2) The intercession of Christ consists also in His declaring it to be His will that the blessings He has purchased should be bestowed on the objects of His mercy. He prays, “Lord, let it alone this year also,” and the sentence on the barren fig-tree is suspended. He prays, “Father, forgive them,” and the sins of the guilty are blotted out. He prays for the consolation of the good, and the Comforter descends to save the afflicted who lie low in grief. He prays for their protection, and the Almighty’s hand is stretched down to shield the feeble and the defenceless. He prays for their sanctification, and the grace of God makes them perfect in every good work and word. He prays, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am,” and the commandment is issued, “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation that keepeth the truth may enter in.”

(3) The intercession of Christ consists in His answering all the accusations which Satan advances against His people. Satan is the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before God day and night; but no charge can he urge against them which their Advocate is not qualified to answer. Their imperfect services He is able to beautify, and there is expiation for their sins in His atoning blood. He is perfectly aware of all that Satan intends to advance. There are no unguarded moments with Him, in which He may be taken by surprise. The subtlety of their accuser cannot perplex their Advocate, nor his audacity confound Him, nor his pertinacity exhaust His patience.

(4) The intercession of Christ consists in His presenting the services of His people to the Father. “An angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.” Their tears of penitence, their labours of faith and love, their songs of gratitude, their gifts of charity, and their vows of obedience He lays before His Father, as purified by His gracious influence, and solicits for them His acceptance.

My Redeemer and my Lord,

I beseech thee, I entreat thee,

Guide me in each act and word,

That hereafter I may meet thee,

Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning,

With my lamp well trimmed and burning!

Interceding

With these bleeding

Wounds upon thy hands and side,

For all who have lived and erred

Thou hast suffered, thou hast died,

Scourged, and mocked, and crucified,

And in the grave hast thou been buried!

If my feeble prayer can reach thee,

O my Saviour, I beseech thee,

Even as thou hast died for me,

More sincerely

Let me follow where thou leadest,

Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest,

Die, if dying I may give

Life to one who asks to live,

And more nearly,

Dying thus, resemble thee. 1 [Note: Longfellow.]

No Case

Literature

Belfrage (H.), Sacramental Addresses, 330.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, 6th Ser., 264.

Davies (J. A.), Seven Words of Love, 146.

Dewhurst (E. M.), The King and His Servants, 112.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Ascension to Trinity, 63.

Leitch (R.), The Light of the Gentiles, 100.

Maurice (F. D.), Sermons Preached in Country Churches, 179.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial Sermons, ii. 206.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, v. (1859), No. 226; xxi. (1875), No. 1223.

Thomson (E. A.), Memorials of a Ministry, 68.

Thorold (A. W.), Questions of Faith and Duty, 78.

Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 278 (Tuck); xxv. 282 (Johnson).

Verses 38-39

An Inseparable Love

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.— Romans 8:38-39.

1. We always think of this chapter as St. Paul’s finest composition, and perhaps the most precious legacy which he bequeathed to the Church. It is a noble piece of literary work, full of choice language and deep philosophic thought. As a picture of the Christian life and its possessions and hopes, it reaches a sublime elevation which is nowhere else attained except in the lofty sayings of Jesus. And the best of it is kept to the last. The climax and peroration are where they ought to be. They form the grand Hallelujah Chorus which brings the oratorio to a close.

A great French critic remarks upon St. Paul’s indifference to style, the rough, rugged sentences of the Apostle, with their abrupt transitions, their lack of grace and finish, falling gratingly on the Frenchman’s sensitive ear. And no reader of St. Paul’s writings will challenge the truth of this criticism, for there is absolutely nothing of the conscious rhetorician about him; he is too intent upon pouring out his mind and heart, too eager to get into direct, living contact with men, to think of elegance of style. But, now and again, when he becomes impassioned, when in the progress of argument or exhortation some of the grander truths of life, or some of its vivifying hopes, come pressing upon him, then the preacher, the expounder, the controversialist, the counsellor, the pastor, becomes a seer. Brain and heart getting on fire, the thoughts that come, come molten, and fashion themselves naturally, without any need of art, into forms of beauty; and so we have his hymn to Charity, his ode to Immortality, and here his pæan to Love Divine.

2. These rapturous words are the climax of the Apostle’s long demonstration that the Gospel is the revelation of “the righteousness which is of God by faith,” and is thereby “the power of God unto salvation.” What a contrast there is between the beginning and the end of this argument! It started with sombre, sad words about man’s sinfulness and aversion from the knowledge of God. It closes with this sunny outburst of triumph. Like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through narrow rifts in gloomy ravines, it reaches at last fertile lands, and flows calm, the sunlight dancing on its broad surface, till it loses itself at last in the unfathomable ocean of the love of God.

What we have before us is, first of all, love—a love which brings us into indissoluble union with God in Christ; it is called “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Next, we have a rapid list of the forces in the universe which might be conceived capable of separating us from that love. And then we have the persuasion which prevails above them all. The persuasion is mentioned first, but it may be taken last, as it closes the great argument.

I. A Love that will not let go.

II. Powers that are Powerless.

III. A Persuasion that Prevails.

I

A Love that will not let go

i. The Love of God

“Who shall separate us from the love of God?”

1. “The love of God” may mean our love to God or God’s love to us: which does St. Paul mean? He certainly means God’s love to us: “Who shall separate us from the love of God?” In the argument of this Epistle the reality of God’s love is confidently assumed. St. Paul was no shallow optimist, easily contented with the colour and glitter of the surface of things; he recognized as frankly and vividly as any pessimist can do the dark enigmas of nature and life; yet, notwithstanding this recognition, the fact of God’s love is the fundamental article of his creed. Whatever may perplex him, he never suspects that the cosmic trouble may arise in some defect of this love; in his conviction it is the primary, central truth of the universe.

Readers of Matthew Arnold will remember that in his essay on St. Paul he interprets our text as if the Apostle were exulting in his own love of God instead of God’s love of him; exulting in a love proceeding from himself instead of a love which found him and carried him away with it. It shows almost as strange a lack of insight as does the same writer’s conception of the God of Israel as an impersonal force. The secret of St. Paul’s calm outlook and triumphant hope, the power that enabled him to rise above all evil and fear of evil was, most assuredly, not his own love of God, but God’s love of him. The great saints of the Church have never thought much of their own love of God. It is His love of them and their fellows—a love greater than their hearts—that possessed them. “I think I am the poorest wretch that lives,” said the dying Cromwell; “but I love God, or rather (correcting myself) I am loved of God.”

I love; but ah! the whole

Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee.

Lord Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,

Always Thou lovedst me.

In his Reminiscences of Frederick Denison Maurice the late Mr. Haweis relates this incident: “I remember asking him one day, ‘How are we to know when we have got hold of God? because sometimes we seem to have got a real hold of Him, whilst at other times we can realize nothing.’ He looked at me with those eyes which so often seemed to be looking into an eternity beyond, whilst he said in his deep and tremulously earnest voice, ‘You have not got hold of God, but He has got hold of you.’ ”

Niagara stopped once! Owing to an ice dam thrown across the river the waters failed, the rainbow melted, the vast music was hushed. But there has been no moment in which the love of God has failed toward the rational universe, when its eternal music has been broken, or the rainbow has ceased to span the throne. There never will be such a moment. The crystal tide flows richly, and flows for ever. 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson]

Let me no more my comfort draw

From my frail hold of Thee;

In this alone rejoice with awe,—

Thy mighty grasp of me.

Thy purpose of eternal good

Let me but surely know;

On this I’ll lean, let changing mood

And feeling come and go:

Glad when Thy sunshine fills my soul,

Nor lorn when clouds o’ercast,

Since Thou within Thy sure control

Of love dost hold me fast.

2. But the love of God to us carries with it our love to God. Without a response to God’s love how can we be persuaded of it? As God’s love to us is rich and everlasting, surviving all variations of time and circumstance, we will respond to His love with a love as like His own as it is possible for the creature to give. Mutuality is of the essence of love. We have thinkers who recommend the substitution of nature for God. They assure us that when we properly know the universe we can regard it with awe and fear, with admiration and love. Nature is infinitely interesting, infinitely beautiful; there is food for contemplation which never runs short; it gives continually exquisite pleasure, and the arresting and absorbing spectacle, so fascinating by its variety, is at the same time overwhelming by its greatness and glory. But reciprocity is surely of the essence of love; and however we admire, love, and praise the creation, it cannot return our affection. We smile upon it, yet there is no answering flash; we extol it, but find no sympathetic response; appreciation passes into adoration, and still our worship is unrequited. We see the folly of falling in love with a statue, notwithstanding its beauty; and nature is that statue. “They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; neither speak they through their throat.” In nature-worship, as in all idol-worship, mutuality is not possible; all thought and feeling, confidence and sacrifice are on one side. But with God in Christ fellowship becomes a fact. He declares His love to the race most convincingly, and we love Him because He first loved us. He stretches forth His hand out of heaven, we clasp it; henceforth we are inseparable, no fortune or misfortune can unclench the grip. The love of the Eternal is one link of gold, our love to Him is another, and together they bind us to His throne for ever.

For though “The love of God is broader than

The measure of man’s mind,” yet all in vain

The broad sun shines apace for him who hath

No window to his house; and human love

Must make an eastern outlook for the soul

Ere it can see the dawn. He cannot dream

Of oceans who hath never seen a pool. 1 [Note: Anna Bunston, The Porch of Paradise, 8.]

Cynics speak scornfully of love; yet we may remember that it is the sublime element in our nature which most clearly reflects the Divine and Eternal. It sets at naught all the categories of time and sense, and identifies us with the infinite and timeless. It is indifferent to environment. It does not rise and fall with the fortune of the beloved, as the quicksilver in the glass responds to the weather; it is delightfully unconscious of secular vicissitude. It is unaffected by distance:

Mountains rise and oceans roll

To sever us in vain.

Duration does not weaken it. On receipt of his mother’s portrait Cowper wrote: “It is fifty-two years since I saw her last, but I have never ceased to love her.” Fifty-two centuries would not have chilled his affection. Death does not quench love. In Pompeii they showed me the bone of a human finger with the ring still upon it: fine symbol of the immortality of love and loyalty!

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

ii. In Christ Jesus

“Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

1. St. Paul does not find the proof of God’s love and the justification of ours in nature, history, or life. The love of God in creation is in eclipse, or at least in partial eclipse; and if we are to construe the Divine character from the facts of nature, we must hesitate and fear. The light is not clear, and thinkers are sorely puzzled. Here, then, comes in the mission of the Christian Church—to affirm the love of God in Christ Jesus to all mankind. The justification of an absolute confidence in God’s unfailing love is found not in the sphere of nature, but in the sphere of redemption. The austere science of our day has put entirely out of court the rosy philosophy of the old deism. It annihilates sentiment; it will have none of it. If men are now to admire, reverence, and love God, they must find another basis than nature for their worship. There is none other except redemption; more than ever is the world shut up to that glorious fact. It is enough. Here the eternal love blazes out with irresistible demonstration. We cannot deny it, we cannot doubt it. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.”

To-day two great schools of scientists seriously differ in their interpretation of the world. One holds that nature knows only force, selfishness, and violence; whilst the other, recognizing the large play of egotism and violence in the evolution of things, discerns that sympathy and sacrifice are prominent facts of the physical universe; the first denies love, the second acknowledges it. The contention between the philosophers will go on interminably, for really they are occupied with the diverse aspects of a paradoxical world, the moral of their controversy being that love is not absent in the creation, but revealed only partially, faintly, fitfully. In many creatures the evidences of love are conspicuous, in others there seems a denial of it. The delightful element is unmistakable in doves, butterflies, nightingales, and a thousand more lovely things; it is painfully lacking in hawks, sharks, crocodiles, rattlesnakes, and microbes. But men do not argue at noon whether the sun shines or not; and in the presence of Calvary there is an end of all strife touching the nature of God and the design of His government. Naturalism may doubt God’s love, may deny it, but at the Cross we no longer guess and fear. He who died for us loves us, whatever enigmas may mock. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—the face marred more than any man’s. What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord? 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

What is it to the circling hours,

The life they take or bring?

What is it to the winds and showers?

They know not anything.

But somehow, ere I am aware,

There comes a hush and thrill,

For all the sunshine and the air

A Presence seems to fill;

And from the sudden-opening sky,

A low Voice seems to say,

“I am the Resurrection, I

The Life, the Truth, the Way.

This Nature, which you idly blame,

Is but the robe I wear;

From Me the human spirit came,

And all its griefs I bear.

The smile whose light thou canst not see,

The grace that left thy side,

Though vanished from the earth, with Me

For ever they abide.”

With Him I cannot be at strife;

Then will I kneel and say,

“In love He gave me that sweet life,

In love He took away.

And love’s unfailing life, in Him,

Outlasts this arching sky;

For worlds may waste and suns grow dim,

But love can never die.”

2. God’s love is illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but it is a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make it, a vague, half-nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic, half-made universe; but all is gathered in that great Light which rules the day—even in Him who said: “I am the Light of the World.” In Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all who are in the house.

The love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord is the heart of the Christian Gospel. It was what won the world at the beginning to the Christian obedience, and it is what holds the world now and will hold it as long as there are sins to be forgiven and hearts hungering for reconciliation with God. It is independent of much knowledge which may be discredited, and of much opinion which may become a fashion of the past. Whatever else which passes for Christianity and is supposed in some way to uphold it may decrease and disappear, this will increase and rise with purer and greater brightness upon the world. Every one of our intellectual conceptions of the mystery of the Godhead, of the Incarnation and the Atonement, may undergo a change, but the love which spoke, and acted, and lived in Jesus Christ will always touch the human heart with the deepest conviction and assurance of the love of God, and be the revelation and symbol of the Divine disposition towards the children of men.

Ideas and ideals do not manifest the love of God to men—only what God has done shows that. 1 [Note: Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 137.]

3. If we would know God and love Him, we must find Him in Christ, in that Perfect Man—so strong and yet so gentle, so true, yet so tender—who moves before us in the Gospels. Is it difficult to love Him? It is not difficult to admire and praise Him. There is hardly a man in Christendom who does not do that. Even those who reject His claim to be one with the Father, even those who hold the Gospel to be but a late and imperfect tradition overlaid with many incredible fables, even those whose keen eyes detect flaws in His character and teaching—even these admit that no man ever lived or spake like Him, that He is beyond all rivalry, the wisest and best of the sons of men. It is easy, then, to admire and praise Christ; but to love Him is not so easy; for that takes faith.

“God so loved the world”—not merely so much, but in such a fashion—“that”—that what? Many people would leap at once from the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between I that universal love and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two conditions, one on God’s part, one on man’s God’s love reaches its end, namely, the bestowal of eternal life, by means of a Divine act and a human response. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So all the universal love of God for you and me and for all our brethren is “in Christ Jesus our Lord,” and faith in Him unites us to it by bonds which no foe can break, no shock of change can snap, no time can rot, no distance can stretch to breaking. 1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

4. As we look at the love of God in Christ what do we find to be its most striking characteristics?

(1) It was a universal love, including all, even the most unworthy, in its embrace. It was not arrested by the prejudices of His time, nor did it even acknowledge their presence. It was not obsequious to the Pharisees, and cold or suspicious to the publicans. None of the numerous parties which were then struggling for ascendancy in Judea established the slightest preference to His regard. None could allege that by His partiality for others He displayed a proportionate indifference to them. Even that deep and almost impassable gulf between Gentile and Jew closed up before Him. In Him love placed itself at the disposal of every man without being deterred even by his sin. Indeed, the greater the sin the more earnestly it strove for a hearing. But its purpose was always the same—to save us from what it knew to be our deadliest foe, and to win us to the cause of holiness and truth. And it never despaired even of the most abandoned, or allowed him to go on to destruction because it was impotent to help him.

(2) Another characteristic of the love of God in Christ is that it issued in the most perfect act of self-sacrifice. It is often said that love sets no limits to itself, and this is true. It is the complete negation of selfishness. When it works it imposes no restraints upon its efforts, for their cessation would mean its own cessation also. When it forgives it forgives till seventy times seven, and then starts afresh. When it suffers there is no point at which it stops and refuses to go further, for that would be to acknowledge its own exhaustion. Now, in Christ Jesus we see this love as it never had been seen on earth before. In Him it shrank from no labour or humiliation. It carried Him from the cradle to the cross without ever pausing or hesitating on the way. He left nothing undone which might accomplish its purpose, and when the supreme act of obedience was demanded He did not shrink. “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” Among His last words was a prayer for His murderers: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” So “he loved us and gave himself for us.” “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

(3) Another characteristic of the love of God in Christ is that it invests us with all it has. It not only spares nothing in effecting our salvation from sin, but it enriches us with its whole possession. It is too frequently conceived as having exhausted itself in the great act of atonement, so that no surplus survives for further use, or as though it had then completed its work and remains henceforth in a state of quiescence. But Christ gave Himself for us that He might be able to give Himself to us—always the last ambition of love, short of which it never rests. Hence He prayed for His disciples: that the love wherewith His Father loved Him might be in them, and He in them. And St. Paul prays that our knowledge of the love of Christ may lead to our being “filled with all the fulness of God.”

(4) And, lastly, it follows from all this that the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord is a love which clings inseparably to its object. Whoever gives himself wholly to another with a perfect knowledge and understanding of what he is, can have no conceivable reason for finally renouncing him. Nothing in his own nature can urge him to do so, for this is precluded by the very fact of his self-surrender; and nothing in the person for whom that surrender has been made, for that has already been considered and overcome. So it is with the love of Christ. If it had stopped at any point short of a complete sacrifice of Himself, then it might, so to speak, have retraced its steps. It would not have been irretrievably committed. But Christ has committed Himself. He is pledged to go the whole length which our complete salvation requires. So that there can be nothing in Him which at any moment can move Him to let us go. He has left Himself no place of repentance.

Passing the prison of one of our large cities early in the morning, I once saw what seemed to be a mother in a humble cart from a distant village, waiting at the entrance, for the release, perhaps of her son, that day from his term of bondage. There were the vacant seat beside her, the little basket of dainty food, change of outer garments, and her tearful, eager glances at the door, all telling, very affectingly, to how much love the prisoner was about to be liberated, and how readily he would be transported to his far-off home. There was only a step for him from exile and shame to the parent’s resources, the parent’s dwelling, the parent’s arms, the parent’s joy—all these anxiously waiting for the moment of his discharge. 1 [Note: Charles New.]

A poor lad once, and a lad so trim—

A poor lad once, and a lad so trim,

Gave his love to her that loved not him.

“And,” says she, “fetch me to-night, you rogue,

Your mother’s heart to feed my dog!”

To his mother’s house went that young man—

To his mother’s house went that young man,

Killed her, and took the heart and ran,

And as he was running, look you, he fell—

And as he was running, look you, he fell.

And the heart rolled on the ground as well.

And the lad as the heart was a-rolling heard—

And the lad as the heart was a-rolling heard

That the heart was speaking, and this was the word:

The heart was weeping and crying so small—

The heart was weeping and crying so small,

“Are you hurt, my child, are you hurt at all?” 2 [Note: Jean Richepin, A Mother’s Heart.]

II

Powers that are Powerless

“Who” or “What,” demands the Apostle, “shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And in his reply he gives us two catalogues of the various powers and influences which we fear as likely to weaken or to alienate our love from Him in whose love we live. In his first catalogue he enumerates “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword”; in his second catalogue he enumerates “death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present and things to come, height and depth.” As we follow and consider his words, the first catalogue presents no difficulty to our thoughts; we feel, we acknowledge, that the rigours of pain, want, hunger, danger have often strangled love; we forbode that, were we long exposed to them, our love might die. But the second catalogue is more difficult. We ask, for instance, How should “height” or “depth”; or, again, How should “angels” separate us from the love of Christ? And it is not until we perceive that St. Paul is indulging in one of those passionate and rhetorical outbursts which are characteristic of his style that his words shoot into light. But then, when we seize this clue and follow it, we understand that, in the rapture and exaltation of his spirit, he defies all heaven and earth to extinguish, or even to lessen, his love for Christ, or Christ’s love for him; the very “angels and principalities” of heaven, supposing them capable of the endeavour, could not shake him from his rest; nor all the “powers” of hell—no vicissitudes of time, whether “present” or “to come”; nor aught within the bounds, the “heights and depths,” of space. Strong in the love of Christ, he is more than conqueror over them all.

Observe the difference in order between the Authorized and Revised Versions. There is overwhelming manuscript authority for placing “powers” after “things to come.” We naturally expect them to be associated with “principalities,” as in 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 1:21. It is possible that in one of the earliest copies the word may have been accidentally omitted, and then added in the margin and reinserted at the wrong place. But it is perhaps more probable that in the rush of impassioned thought St. Paul inserts the words as they come, and that thus “nor powers” may be slightly belated. When not critically controlled, the order of association is a very subtle thing. 1 [Note: Sanday and Headlam, Romans, 223.]

The possible enemies may be taken in four groups—(1) those of our own Experience, gathered under the two comprehensive words death and life; (2) those of the world of Spirits, called angels, principalities, powers; (3) those of Time, “things present and things to come”; and (4) those of Space, “nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation.”

i. Our own Experience

“Neither death, nor life.”

1. Death! What a crude fact it is, driving its iron wedge into the limits of this strange, mysterious life of ours; and the whole question of immortality comes quivering up into consciousness with such a sentence as this. Death, that seems to end things, but leaves us so far apart from our beloved! Shall death end thought also, and shall the dream that has been so fair—that beyond the world there lived a Heart that cared for us—vanish into thick darkness and leave us utterly alone? Death shall not separate us from the love of God; death is but a moment in life, an incident in a soul’s career; and if God has loved us once He will love us for evermore, and on beyond the boundaries of the world God’s love waits to be gracious. Death need make no man afraid who has believed in the love of God.

That men fear death, as likely to separate them from the love of God, to impair their union with Him, or, perchance, to put them beyond His reach, is beyond a doubt. There is nothing that most men fear so much as death; nothing, alas, that most Christians fear so much. We have an instinctive and natural dread of it, which even faith finds it hard to conquer, and to which our imperfect faith often lends an additional force. It is not only the darkness and decay of the tomb that we dread; it is also the judgment which lies beyond the tomb. It is not only that we are loth to part with those whom we love; we also fear, lest, in the pangs of death, we should relax the grasp of faith. And, hence, in the Service for the Dead, we use a prayer than which few are more pathetic: “O Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.” A most pathetic, and yet, as we often mean it, a most un-Christian prayer! For what we too commonly imply by it is that if, amid the pangs of dissolution and the darkness of death, we should cease to see God by faith and to put our trust in Him, He will forsake us; that if, oppressed by mortal weakness, we loosen our hold upon Him, He will let us fall; that at the very crisis, and in the very circumstance, in which an earthly friend would strengthen his comforting grasp on us, our heavenly Friend will relax His grasp and let us drop into the darkness which waits to devour us up Whereas Christ has taught us that God’s help is nearest when we most need His help, that He perfects His strength in our weakness, that our redemption from all evil depends, not on our fluctuating sense of His Presence, or on our imperfect love for Him, but on His being with us although we know it not, and His eternal unbounded love for us. 1 [Note: Samuel Cox.]

2. It is a great thing to be persuaded that this power we call death, which has been so feared and fought against, cannot sever the ties which unite us to God. It seems to separate the children of men from so much. Every day we see it in its own ancient and awful way invading human homes, breaking up circles of friendship, and laying its touch upon the dearest attachments. But let us not make too much of the isolating power of death even from this point of view. There is a love between soul and soul which death cannot destroy—a love that loves on though the outward presence has vanished, and is often conscious of even a closer communion than when each could only half express itself through the poor medium of the body. Death means invisibility, but not the loss or destruction of love; not separation, perhaps not even distance. And how much more must it be true of God that death cannot divide us from Him, cannot pluck us out of His hands, cannot crush us out of existence? To be loved by God is to be preserved and cherished. We are His children, therefore we must live on with Him and be cared for by Him.

To God death and the hereafter are not the mysteries and barriers they are to us. Those who die to us live to Him. They are in His care wherever they are. They have not passed from His sight because they have passed from our sight—gone beyond the range of our eye and ear. The mere passage from the seen to the unseen cannot touch His influence, His love to them, His power to help them and to hold communion with them. Death can have no manner of dominion over the Love that gave us their love, and gave it, not that it might perish, but for everlasting life. 2 [Note: J. Hunter.]

I thought the road would be hard and bare,

But lo! flowers,

Springing flowers,

Bright flowers blossoming everywhere!

The night, I feared, would be dark and drear,

But lo! stars,

Golden stars,

Glorious, glowing stars are here!

And my shrinking heart, set free from dread,

Sees Love

(Lo! it is Love.)

God’s love crowning with Death my head! 1 [Note: Margaret Blaikie, Songs by the Way, 56.]

It happened in 1901—if I may introduce a personal illustration—that my only child fell ill, and for a time, as it seemed, dangerously ill. One day she fell into a troubled sleep, in which it was evident that her dreams were disquiet. She tossed about and cried aloud. Her mother bent over her, touched her, and she awoke. The eyes of the little sufferer opened. She looked up at her mother’s face, and oh! what a change passed over her own; and she said, “Oh, mother dear, I have been dreaming such dreadful things. I dreamt that I was far away in a dark place, and that I called and called and you could not hear, and did not answer. And then you touched me, and I opened my eyes, and there you were.” The language of the child reminded me of the language of a saint, one of the greatest that ever lived, in a prayer addressed to the King of kings and Lord of lords: “We sleep, o our Father, on Thy tender and paternal bosom, and in our sleep we sometimes dream that all is wrong, only to wake and find that all is right.” 2 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

The truest and tenderest earthly love says to its beloved, what is said on Charles Kingsley’s tombstone in Eversley Churchyard: Amavimus, amamus, amabimus.

Even for the dead I will not bind

My soul to grief; death cannot long divide,

For is it not as if the rose that climbed

My garden-wall had bloomed the other side?

3. Nor life.—We know death—that black cloud which is ever travelling towards us across the waste and will presently touch us with its cold shadow. St. Paul bids it come. Ay, and life too. His defiance rises from death to life; for life, did we but realize it, is a worse enemy than death—more perilous, more mysterious, more awful.

Many there be that seek Thy face

To meet the hour of parting breath;

But ’tis for life I need Thy grace:

Life is more solemn still than death.

What dread chances it holds! what appalling chances of disaster, of suffering, of shame! Who can forecast what may be on the morrow? Perhaps poverty, or disease, or insanity, or—worse than all—disgrace. Many a man has succumbed to a sudden temptation, and, in one passionate moment, has defamed the honour of his blameless years. Surely life is more terrible than death, and it is nothing less than a deliverance and a triumph when a wayfarer arrives at his journey’s end and is laid to rest without reproach.

Out of the sleep of earth, with visions rife

I woke in death’s clear morning, full of life:

And said to God, whose smile made all things bright,

“That was an awful dream I had last night.”

4. Not a few honest and devout souls in these days are compelled by their experience to interpret “life” in our text as including intellectual perplexities and doubts, suspensions of judgment on important matters of faith, uncertainties, even positive disbelief in things once surely believed among us. Growing knowledge in many directions, physical discovery, the advance of philosophical thought, the new study of comparative religion, the more purely critical study and interpretation of our sacred religious literature—these and other causes are operating to unsettle and change traditional ways of thinking about many things and to make ancient symbols fade and fail. Let us not be anxious or fearful. The mind must obey its laws; and to feel and obey the sacred claims of truth is to love God with the mind. The truth of things is also the thought of God in things.

(1) Realizing the love of God in Jesus Christ, we more than triumph over all the mystery of life. The natural tendency of the painful things of human life is to induce a depressed mood, to render us sceptical towards the greatest truths. Many are not affected by the dark aspects of nature and history: they give these no place in their thought; they never brood over them, wondering what they mean; thoughtless and shallow, they eat and drink and sleep. It is very different with others. They cannot rest because of the suffering and sorrow of the world, and the natural action of such brooding is to work havoc in the soul. Reason fails to solve the cruel problems; then scepticism sets in, and despair by scepticism. But so long as I can say “He loved me and gave himself for me,” I am immune from the baneful power of mystery and intellectual bewilderment: the darkness emphasized by science and felt by us all cannot blind and destroy me. He who has saved me from death in His own death will one day clear up these painful puzzles; they are incidental and temporary. Love in the heart means light in the eye. Believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, I keep my hold on the eternal truths which ensure eternal life.

In the sunless deeps are animals with eyes of extraordinary size. And the marvellous thing is that these particular creatures have in a high degree the power of manufacturing their own light, and the economizing of the delicate phosphorescence has developed in them eyes of remarkable magnitude and power. With their self-created luminousness these abyssal fish withstand the blackness of their environment, and indirectly the darkness has secured for them eyes far more splendid than those of their shallow-water relatives. Thus is it in the abyss in which we live, and which proves to so many a gulf of dark despair. There are thousands of noble men and women with splendid eyes. They see God as clearly as any angel in heaven can see Him; they behold His government over them causing all things to work together for their good; they view the golden consummation to which the universe tends. The very darkness that presses upon them has taught them the secret of making light in themselves, and it has developed in them a power of vision that pierces to the heart of things. 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

What, then, is to be done in this rickety, crazy world, so mad, so tumultuous, so vexatious in its moral mysteries? This brings us right away to Bethlehem, to Calvary, to the Christ. I grow in the conviction that nothing can reconcile all mysteries and contradictions, and illuminate all perplexing darkness, but the light which streams from the priesthood of Him whom I worship as God the Son. He keeps the world alive; inquire more deeply into that suggestion, and find how large and true it is. Christ is the life of the world and the light of the world, and though He be statistically outnumbered, He is influentially supreme. 1 [Note: Joseph Parker, Well Begun, 169.]

O Thou, in all Thy might so far,

In all Thy love so near,

Beyond the range of sun and star,

And yet beside us here,—

What heart can comprehend Thy name,

Or, searching, find Thee out,

Who art within, a quickening Flame,

A Presence round about?

Yet though I know Thee but in part,

I ask not, Lord, for more;

Enough for me to know Thou art,

To love Thee and adore.

O sweeter than aught else besides,

The tender mystery

That like a veil of shadow hides

The Light I may not see!

And dearer than all things I know

Is childlike faith to me,

That makes the darkest way I go

An open path to Thee. 2 [Note: Frederick Lucian Hosmer.]

(2) In the consciousness of the Divine love we more than triumph over all the suffering of life. The sorrow of life does not harm. Conquerors are often much the worse for the battle. A victorious fleet is a shattered fleet, often scarcely able to find a spar on which to hang the flag of victory; a triumphant army is a stricken host that moves spectators to tears; a conquering athlete is a ghastly sight. But the Apostle intimates that this stern fight unto death shall inflict upon us no serious and abiding wound. If we could for a moment transcend carnal limits and peep into glory, we should see that our glorified ancestry are not one whit the worse for their life of hardship and martyrdom, They suffered great tribulation, but they have survived all without a scar.

Not long ago I visited a flower-show, and, following the crowd, found myself amid a delightful host of orchids. It is needless to say what wonderful shapes and colours were displayed; masters of language need the wealth of poetry to describe the grace and magnificence which they unfold; they epitomize the perfection of the world. They are strangely privileged plants, gorgeous children of the sun, and they show what can be done under blue skies in depths of safety, in balmy air, with brilliant light. But before leaving the exhibition I wandered into another department, where the Alpine plants were being exhibited. Not expecting much this time, I was surprised and delighted by triumphs of form and colour. They did not suffer in comparison with the tropical blooms. Delicate, curiously beautiful, inexpressibly elegant, vivid in colour, of manifold dyes, perfumed with subtle scents of sweetness, they charmed and dazzled eyes that had just been satiated by the butterfly colours of Eastern beauties. And the Alpine gems owed all that they were to what they had suffered. Their sparkle is the gleam of the ice-age; their whiteness that of the eternal snows on whose border they sprang; they caught their royal blue whilst dizzy peaks thrust them into the awful sky; they are so firm because the rock on which they grew has got into them; they are so sensitive because they trembled so long on the precipice. They are the children of night and winter, the nurslings of blizzards; cataracts, glaciers, and avalanches perfected their beauty. In a vast, savage, elemental war they won the glory which makes them worthy to stand by the picked blooms painted by all the art of perpetual summer. Thus the sanctified sternness of human life blossoms in great, pure, beautiful souls which adorn heaven itself. 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

Thou hast visited me with Thy storms,

And the vials of Thy sore displeasure

Thou hast poured on my head, like a bitter draught

Poured forth without stint or measure;

Thou hast bruised me as flax is bruised;

Made me clay in the potter’s wheel;

Thou has hardened Thy face like steel,

And cast down my soul to the ground;

Burnt my life in the furnace of fire, like dross,

And left me in prison where souls are bound:

Yet my gain is more than my loss.

What if Thou hadst led my soul

To the pastures where dull souls feed;

And set my steps in smooth paths, far away

From the rocks where men struggle and bleed;

Penned me in low, fat plains,

Where the air is as still as death,

And Thy great winds are sunk to a breath,

And Thy torrents a crawling stream,

And the thick steam of wealth goes up day and night,

Till Thy sun gives a veiled light,

And heaven shows like a vanished dream!

What if Thou hadst set my feet

With the rich in a gilded room;

And made me to sit where the scorners sit,

Scoffing at death and doom!

What if I had hardened my heart

With dark counsels line upon line;

And blunted my soul with meat and with wine,

Till my ears had grown deaf to the bitter cry

Of the halt and the weak and the impotent;

Nor hearkened, lapt in a dull content,

To the groanings of those who die!

My being had waxed dull and dead

With the lusts of a gross desire;

But now Thou hast purged me throughly, and burnt

My shame with a living fire.

So burn me, and purge my will

Till no vestige of self remain,

And I stand out renewed without spot or stain.

Then let Thy flaming angel at last

Smite from me all that has been before;

And sink me, freed from the load of the past,

In Thy dark depths evermore. 1 [Note: Sir Lewis Morris, From the Desert.]

ii. The World of Spirits

“Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers.”

“Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers;” this is a Jewish phrase for the spiritual hierarchy. The modern equivalent is the unseen forces which encompass us, those mysterious powers and operations which act upon our lives, and compel them to unthought-of issues. They lie without us, mysterious, incalculable, uncontrollable, invading us unexpectedly, shaping our experience, and determining our destiny. We never know what they will be doing with us.

This second set of enemies is still more mysterious and strong. The experiences of this world shall not separate us, but what is there beyond this world? What is that unseen which lingers near us and sometimes almost breaks through into sight—angels, principalities, and powers? There have been different views of what this means.

(1) It is important, says Maclaren, to observe that this expression, when used without any qualifying adjective, seems uniformly to mean good angels, the hierarchy of blessed spirits before the throne. So that there is no reference to “spiritual wickedness in high places” striving to draw men away from God. The supposition which the Apostle makes is, indeed, an impossible one—that these ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, should so forget their mission and contradict their nature as to seek to bar us out from the love which it is their chiefest joy to bring to us. St. Paul knows it to be an impossible supposition, and its very impossibility gives energy to his conclusion, just as when in the same fashion he makes the other equally impossible supposition about an angel from heaven preaching another gospel than that which he had preached to them.

(2) On the other hand, Kelman says: If we study the thought of St. Paul’s day we shall find a very orderly and detailed system of demonology, in which they conceived a brood of evil spirits who tempt the souls of men. There are those who still hold that view, and there are those who take other views of such matters. You may call it that, or you may call it nerves, or you may call it any name you please; the difficulty is not in what you call it, but in what you find it to be in your daily experience. And whatever may be the ultimate explanation of these things, this remains true, that some day we waken with our whole heart set upon doing the will of God and pleasing Him, and before the day is half-done some power from without or from within in this strange mechanism of body and spirit in which we live, some power like a great evil hand, has laid hold upon our life and broken it across, and everything has gone wrong with us, and we. try in vain to right it. The day is handed over to the powers, of darkness. And if there is anything in our experience which makes it difficult to remember and believe in the love of God, it is just such a thing as this. In any sort of bitterness, so long as it be a smooth-flowing experience, we can continue to believe; but when this sort of thing happens, God has gone from heaven, and all things are left the sport of evil power. But we are in His universe, and these are but the hounds of God that He holds in the leash in His hand and will not let too far upon the souls He loves. That also is part of the great love of God, and His love has not been defeated by angels, or principalities, or powers. He loves us still through the worst day of it all.

Lord, whomsoever Thou shalt send to me,

Let that same be

Mine Angel predilect;

Veiled or unveiled, benignant or austere,

Aloof or near;

Thine, therefore mine, elect.

So may my soul nurse patience day by day,

Watch on and pray

Obedient and at peace;

Living a lonely life in hope, in faith;

Loving till death,

When life, not love, shall cease.

… Lo, thou mine Angel with transfigured face

Brimful of grace,

Brimful of love for me!

Did I misdoubt thee all that weary while,

Thee with a smile

For me as I for thee? 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

iii. Time

“Nor things present, nor things to come.”

1. “Nor things present, nor things to come” is the Apostle’s next class of powers impotent to disunite us from the love of God. The rhythmical arrangement of the text deserves to be noticed, not only as bearing on its music and rhetorical flow, but as affecting its force. We have first a pair of opposites, and then a triplet: “death, nor life”; “angels, nor principalities, nor powers.” We I have again a pair of opposites: “things present, nor things to come”; again followed by a triplet: “height, nor depth, nor any other creature.” The effect of this is to divide the whole into two, and to throw the first and second classes more closely together, as also the third and fourth. Time and Space, these two mysterious ideas, which work so fatally on all human love, are powerless here.

2. Men believe in the gay dawning of youth, and in the brilliant days when all things are fair, and the longest day is never too long, nor the hardest work too hard, and all things appear in the charm of life in which we began it. But how much disillusion comes, and the grey skies succeed the blue, and hopes do not fulfil themselves, and life is not what it seemed to promise! Then shall we have to give the venture up at the last, clinging to spar after spar of our wrecked ship, until at last it is altogether water-logged and sinks, and we are like to perish. When will the day come that the love of God also will die out, and we shall be left loveless in this ghastly universe? That day will never come.

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy Plummet’s pace;

And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,

Which is no more than what is false and vain,

And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,

And last of all, thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood:

When every thing that is sincerely good

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme Throne

Of Him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,

When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall climb,

Then, all this Earthy grossness quit,

Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death and Chance, and thee O Time. 1 [Note: Milton.]

The great Revelation of God, on which the whole of Judaism was built, was that made to Moses of the name “I AM THAT I AM.” And parallel to the verbal revelation was that symbol of the Bush, burning and unconsumed, which is so often misunderstood. It appears wholly contrary to the usage of Scriptural visions, which are ever wont to express in material form the same truth which accompanies them in words, that the meaning of that vision should be, as it is frequently taken as being, the continuance of Israel, unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution. Not the continuance of Israel, but the eternity of Israel’s God is the teaching of that flaming wonder. The Burning Bush and the Name of the Lord proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying Being. And what better symbol than the bush burning, and yet not burning out, could be found of that God in whose life there is no tendency to death, whose work digs no pit of weariness into which it falls, who gives and is none the poorer, who fears no exhaustion in His spending, no extinction in His continual shining? And this eternity of Being is no mere metaphysical abstraction. It is eternity of love, for God is love. That great stream, the pouring out of His own very inmost Being, knows no pause; nor does the deep fountain from which it flows ever sink one hair’s-breadth in its pure basin. 2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

iv. Space

“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.”

1. While our Revisers had the courage of their scholarship in dealing with Romans 8:19-21, that courage seems to have failed them in dealing with this 39th verse, where the same Greek word is used, and where therefore it should, by their own rule, be rendered by the same English word. Instead of putting “nor any other creation” into the text, they have banished the word “creation” into the margin, and retained the word “creature” in the text, although every one must admit that between a single creature and a whole creation there is a considerable, even an enormous, difference.

There may yet, says the Apostle, be some fresh transformations. I know not what new environment may yet confront me, what strange world, what undreamed-of surroundings, what play of forces more dread and solemn than I have hitherto experienced; but I fear not even that. For there is nothing here, nothing there, nothing anywhere about which I need to fret or trouble; because, wherever I may be and whatever may happen, I shall have the love of God for my comrade and my portion.

2. As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural life which we call Space. Height or depth, it matters not. That diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down, it is all the same. The distance from the centre is equal to zenith or to nadir. Here we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. “Thou God seest me” may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailer’s eye is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall as expect any thought of God but one to make a man read that grand 139th Psalm with joy: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there.” So may a man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain, “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” But how different it all is when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our text: “Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

Love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,

Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,

The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,

Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.

And I shall behold Thee, face to face,

O God, and in Thy light retrace

How in all I loved here, still wast Thou!

Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,

I shall find as able to satiate

The love, Thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder

Thou art able to quicken and sublimate

With this sky of Thine, that I now walk under,

And glory in Thee for, as I gaze

Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways

Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine—

Be this my way! And this is mine! 1 [Note: Browning, Christmas Eve.]

III

A Persuasion that Prevails

“I am persuaded.”

1. “I am persuaded,” says the Apostle, and this is one of his great phrases. Wherever it occurs, it expresses, not merely an assured faith, a strong conviction, but a faith in something which is not obvious or indisputable, and a conviction which has been reached after many a doubt and many a struggle, after much questioning and long groping in the darkness. The Apostle has had to feel his way through the tangle out into the open. And thus, when he says “I am persuaded,” he is proclaiming a conviction which has satisfied his deepest need.

The assurance came to him, as it comes to every man who makes the glad discovery, out of his experience. He looked back along the road which he had travelled blindly, with bleeding feet and a troubled heart, and he saw that an unseen hand had been guiding him and shaping his lot and making all things work together for his good. And thus he was “persuaded.” This is the surest, if indeed it is not the only, evidence of God. It is not the teleological or ontological argument that has compelled my faith. No, it is this—that I have found God in my life, and have seen there the operation of His grace and goodness, His wisdom and strength. I recognize, as I look back, that, when I thought I was wandering alone in the darkness, He was leading me all the time, and the experiences which were so painful and distressing at the moment have proved the most precious of all and have brought me enlargement and enrichment.

2. It is a great thing to be able to use such words as these with regard to the supreme verities. It is like having one’s house built upon a rock instead of upon the shifting sand. It is like having one’s course clearly marked upon the chart, and one’s rudder and compass in perfect order, as compared with the man who has neither chart nor compass, and simply drifts. This explains why, on the scientific side of life, men in this age are so strong, and on the religious side so weak; they are sure of their science; they are not sure, or at least not so sure, of their religion. Agnostics, that is what so many call themselves to-day—not atheists, not infidels. Few say there is no God. What they say is, “We do not know”; and the uncertainty paralyses religious, action. “I am persuaded,” wrote the Apostle, and, being persuaded himself, he has persuaded millions more; for your convinced men, the men certain of their ground, the men who can ring out, “It is so,” “I know,” “I do verily believe”—these are the strong men, the men who do most work, the men of widest, most potent influence. For the masses are always attracted by confidence, and will embrace the wildest superstition, embark on the most Quixotic enterprise, if one who has absolute faith in his cause leads the way; while what is in itself an unquestionable truth will hardly touch them if it is advanced with hesitancy or faltering. It is the men who, like St. Paul, can say, “I am persuaded,” “I know whom I have believed,” or, like Luther, “Ich kann nicht anders,” “I cannot do otherwise,” that move the world; for if doubt is contagious, thank God faith is contagious too.

It is still the evident and immediate duty of many people living in Christian lands to set themselves at once to know God as He has been revealed to the world by Jesus Christ. To know Him is to have an untroubled and unlimited confidence in Him, and their want of confidence shows that they do not know Him. Right knowledge of God is everything for strength and peace. It is told of one of our Scottish martyrs, that, looking up to the hills of his native Nithsdale, he cried out, “I could pass through these mountains were they clothed in flame if I could only be sure that God loves me.” 1 [Note: J. Hunter.]

One Sunday night, as I was preaching in my own place, I had finished the sermon, as I thought, with the declaration of the sufficiency of Christ. I had closed the sermon, and had passed down to the vestry, when a plain working man followed me in. He said, “Did you finish your sermon just now?” I said, “Yes, I think so; I meant to.” “I think,” he said, “there is something you did not say; you spoke about the forgiveness of sins, and the sufficiency of Christ, and the love of God in Redemption; but there is something else you did not say, and it is a part I never like to be left out.” I said, “What is it?” “Why,” he said, “years ago I was brought to Christ; and a terrible load I took to Him. I placed it down at the Cross, and I thought all was right. But the next morning my skies were grey. The next day I was beaten in the Valley of Humiliation fighting with Apollyon. He won. My temptation was too strong, I failed and I fell, I failed again, till everybody ceased to believe in me; and I ceased to believe in myself, and held myself in contempt. At last, one day, in desperation, I raised my hands to heaven and said, ‘Lord Jesus, I claim Thy promise, I claim Thy power, look at me to-night.’ ” The man, continuing, said, “For five years He has kept me as I am, and I am amongst the living to praise Him. Preach, I beseech you, next time you approach this subject, preach that Christ is able to save to the uttermost. The Saviour can battle with temptation, and make us sufficient, every time the assault comes, to win the victory for the glory of God.” 1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

The motto of the order of knighthood called St. Patrick is “Quis separabit”: “Who shall separate?”

Yea, of this I am persuaded—

Neither Death, nor Life, nor Angels—

No, not the Celestial Hierarchy,

Not “they that excel in strength”—

Nor the present world, nor the world to come;

Nor the height of Heaven,

Nor the abyss of Hades,

Nor aught else in God’s creation,

Shall avail to sever us from the love of God,

The love incarnated in the Messiah, in Jesus,

Our Lord—ours! 2 [Note: A. S. Way.]

An Inseparable Love

Literature

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Greenhough (J. G.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul. 47.

Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 171.

Iverach (J.), The Other Side of Greatness, 170.

Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 319.

Maclaren (A.), The Secret of Power, 145.

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