Sermons on National Subjects Part 18

To all which St. Paul answers: "G.o.d was justified in the Spirit."

You do not see what that has to do with it? Then let me show you.

To be justified means to be shown and proved to be just, righteous.

Now what justified G.o.d to man was the Spirit of G.o.d, as He showed Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. For when G.o.d became man and dwelt among men, what sort of works were His? What was His conduct, His character; of what sort of spirit did He show Himself to be? He went, we read, doing good, for G.o.d was with Him. Not of His own will, but to do His Father's will, and because He was filled without measure by the Spirit of G.o.d, He did good, He healed the sick, He rebuked the proud and self-conceited hypocrite, He proclaimed pardon and mercy to the broken-hearted sinner, wearied and worn out by the burden of his sins. Thus, in every action of His life, He was fighting against evil and misery, and conquering it; and so showing that G.o.d hates evil and misery, and that the evil and the misery in the world are here against G.o.d's will. Strange as it may seem to have to say it, so it is. Jesus Christ showed that howsoever sin and sorrow came into the world, it is G.o.d's will and purpose to root them out of the world, and that He is righteous, He is loving, He is merciful, He does and will fight against evil, for those who are crushed by it; and help poor sufferers always when they call upon Him, and often, often, of His most undeserved condescension and free grace, when they are forgetting and disobeying Him. And so by the good, and loving, and just spirit which Jesus showed, G.o.d was justified before men, and showed to be a G.o.d of goodness and justice.

The next puzzle, I said, was about angels and spirits, whether we need to pray to them to help us, and not to hurt us. St. Paul answers: G.o.d, when He was manifested in the flesh of a man, was seen by these angels. And that is enough for us. They saw the Lord G.o.d condescend to be born in a stable, to live as a poor man, to die on the cross. They saw that His will to man was love. And they do His will. And therefore they love men, they help men, they minister to men, because they follow the Lord's example, and do the will of their Father in Heaven, even as we ought to do it on earth. Therefore we have no need to fear them, for they love us already. And, on the other hand, we have no need to pray to them to help us, for they know already that it is their duty to help us. They know that the Son of G.o.d has put on us a higher honour than He ever put on them; for He took not on Him the nature of angels, He took on Him the nature of man; and thus, though man was made a little lower than the angels, yet by Christ's taking man's nature, man is crowned with a glory and honour higher than the angels. Know ye not, says St. Paul, that we shall judge angels? And the angels, as they told St. John, are our fellow-servants, not our masters; and they know that; for they saw the Son of G.o.d doing utterly His Father's will, and therefore they know that their duty is to do their Father's will also; not to do their own wills, and set themselves up as our masters, to be pleaded with by us. They saw the Son of G.o.d take our nature on Him, when they sang to the shepherds on the first Christmas night: "Peace on earth, and good-will toward men;" and therefore they look on us with love and honour, because we wear the human nature which Christ their Master wore, and are partakers of the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, even as they are. For no angel or archangel could do a right thing, any more than we, except by the Holy Spirit of G.o.d. And that Holy Spirit is bestowed on the poorest man who asks for it, as freely as upon the highest of the heavenly host.

And this leads us on to the next puzzle of which I spoke: Men were apt, and are apt now, to say to themselves: Does G.o.d care whether I know what is right? Does G.o.d care to teach me about Himself? Is G.o.d desirous that I should do my duty? For if He does not care about my being good, why should I care about it?

To this St. Paul answers: "G.o.d, who was manifest in the flesh, was preached to the Gentiles."

G.o.d does care that men should know about G.o.d; for He loves them. He yearns after them as a father after his children, and He knows that to know G.o.d, to know the truth about G.o.d, is the beginning of all wisdom, the root of all safety and honour and happiness. He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth. And, therefore, when the Son of G.o.d died for our sins, He did not stop at that great deed of love; but He ordained Apostles, and put upon them especially and above all men, His Holy Spirit, that they might go and preach to all nations the good news that G.o.d had become flesh, and dwelt among men, and borne their sorrows and infirmities, and to baptize them into the very name of G.o.d itself, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; that so, instead of fancying now that G.o.d did not care for them, they might be sure that G.o.d so longed to teach them, that He called every child, even from its cradle, to come into His kingdom, and be taught the whole mystery of G.o.dliness.

The next puzzle I mentioned was: "But this right life, this mystery of G.o.dliness, is it not something very strange and difficult, and past the understanding of simple men who are not extraordinarily clever and learned scholars or deep philosophers?" To that St. Paul answers: No. It is not past any man. It is not too deep or too difficult for the simplest, the most unlearned countryman. For, says St. Paul in the text, we Apostles have had proof of that; we have tried it; we Apostles preached the mystery of G.o.dliness, and it was believed on in the world. People of the world, plain working men and women going about their worldly business, who had no time to be great readers, or great thinkers, or to shut themselves up in monasteries to meditate on heavenly things, but had to live and work in the commonplace, busy, workday world--they believed our message. We Apostles told them that the Son of G.o.d had showed Himself in the likeness of man, and called on every man to repent, and to be such a man as He was. And worldly people believed us, and tried, and found that without giving up their worldly work, or deserting the station in which G.o.d had put them, they could live G.o.dlike lives, and become the sons of G.o.d without rebuke. They saw that scholarship was not wanted, leisure was not wanted, but only the humble heart which hungers and thirsts after righteousness. About their daily work, by their cottage firesides, among their poor neighbours, the Spirit of Almighty G.o.d gave them strength to live as Jesus their pattern lived; He filled them with all holy, pure, n.o.ble, brave, loving thoughts and feelings, fit for angels and archangels. He enabled them to rise out of their sins, to trample their temptations under foot, to leave their old low brutish sinful way of life behind them, and become new men, and persevere in every word, and thought, and action, in virtues such as the greatest heathen sages could not copy; ay, even to shed their life-blood freely and boldly in martyrdom, for the sake of G.o.d and the truth of G.o.d. They, these plain simple people, living in the world, could still live the life of G.o.d, and die like heroes for the sake of G.o.d.

And this again brings us to the last puzzle of which I spoke: "But what became of those holy and G.o.dlike people when they died? What reward did they receive for all they had done, and given up, and suffered? What will become of us after we die? What will the next world be like? What is heaven like? Shall I be able to enjoy it?

Shall I be a man there, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?"

To this St. Paul answers: That Christ, the Son of G.o.d, after He was manifested in the flesh, was received up into glory. He does not tell us what heaven is like; for though he had been caught up into the third heaven, yet what he saw there, he says, was unspeakable.

He neither ought to tell, or could tell, what he saw. Neither does St. Paul tell us what the next life will be like; for as far as we can find, G.o.d had not told him. All he says is: The man Christ Jesus, who walked this earth like other men, was received up into glory; and He did not leave His man's mind, His man's heart, even His man's body, behind Him. He carried up into heaven with Him His whole manhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to the print of the nails in His hands and in His most holy feet, and the wound of the spear in His most holy side. And that is enough for us. Because the man Christ Jesus is in heaven, we as men may ascend to heaven. Where He is we shall be. And what He is, in as far as He is man, we shall be.

What we shall be we know not; but this we know, that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And He is a man still; for it is written: "There is one Mediator between G.o.d and man, the man Christ Jesus." And He will be a man at the day of judgment; for it is written that: "G.o.d hath ordained a day in which He will judge the world by a man whom He hath chosen." And He will be a man for ever; for it is written: "This man abideth for ever." And He Himself said to His disciples: "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, till I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father." And again He declared, even when he was on earth, that He was the Son of Man who is in heaven. And in heaven nothing can grow less. But if Christ were not man for ever as well as G.o.d, He would become less; for He is now G.o.d and man also at once; but if He laid down His manhood, and so became not man any more, but G.o.d only, He would become less, which is not to be believed of Him of whom it is written: That Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For, as the Athanasian creed teaches us, He is not G.o.d alone, nor man alone, but G.o.d and man is one Christ; and therefore, when St. John declares that Christ shall reign for ever and ever, he declares that He shall reign not only as G.o.d, but as man also. Therefore whatever we do not know about the next life, we know this, that we shall be men there; not sinful, weak, and mortal, as we are here, but holy, strong, immortal, after the likeness of our Lord, the firstborn from the dead, who has ascended up on high and raised our human nature to the heaven of heavens, and is gone to prepare a place for us, into which we too shall enter in that day when He shall change these mortal and fallen bodies which we now wear, the bodies of our humiliation, the bodies by wearing which we are now a little lower than the angels; them the Lord will change, that they may be made like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He subdueth all things unto Himself, that we may see Him face to face, and dwell with Him in the glory of G.o.d the Father for ever.

Oh my friends, who is sufficient for these things? What shall we say of man? Is he not indeed fearfully and wonderfully made? Here we are, weak creatures, more liable to disease and death than the dumb beasts round us; full of poverty, and adversity, and longings which are never satisfied; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts full of false conceit, full of spite and folly, struggles, murmurings, quarrellings; our consciences full of the remembrance of sins without number. The greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was not a more miserable and pitiable animal upon the earth than man. He knew no better. He could not know better. How could he, when G.o.d had not yet been manifest in the flesh? How could he dream that the Lord G.o.d would condescend to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show man His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth--how could he dream that? And more than all, how could he dream that G.o.d, instead of throwing away our human nature when He rose again, as if it was too great a degradation for Him to be a man one moment more, should condescend to take up His human nature, His man's body, soul, and spirit, with Him into everlasting glory, that He might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls of those who trust in Him, so as to make them fit for us at the last day, to share in His everlasting life? The old heathen poet knew as well as you or I that there was an everlasting life beyond the grave; that men's souls were immortal, and could not die: but the thought of it was all dark, and dreary, and uncertain to him and to all mankind, till the Son of G.o.d brought life and immortality to light, when He was manifest in the flesh.

Wonderful mystery of G.o.dliness! Wonderful love of G.o.d to man!

Wonderful condescension of G.o.d to man! Still more wonderful patience of G.o.d to man!

Oh you who live still in sin, when the Son of G.o.d died and rose again to make you righteous; you who defile your bodies with sins worse than the brutes, when the Son of G.o.d offers to raise those bodies of yours to be equal with the angels; how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation; if you despise this unspeakable love; if you trample under foot, like swine, the everlasting glory and happiness which G.o.d offers you freely, without fee or price, for the sake of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died to buy them for you?

XLIV--THE WORK OF G.o.d'S SPIRIT

If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me: of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more: of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.--JOHN xvi. 7-11.

I no not pretend to be able to explain to you the whole meaning of this text, or even more than a very small part of it. For it speaks of G.o.d; of G.o.d the Holy Spirit. And G.o.d is boundless; and, therefore, every text which speaks of G.o.d is boundless too, as G.o.d is. No man can ever see the whole meaning of it, or do more than understand dimly a little of its truth. But what we can see, we must think over and make use of. What can we see, now, from this text?

First, we may see that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is a person. Not a mere thing, or a state of our own hearts, or a feeling in us, or a power, like the powers and laws by which the trees and plants grow, and the sun and moon move in their courses; but a person, just as each of us is a person. He, the Holy Spirit, gives life to trees and plants, sun and moon: but He is not their life. He gives them their life; and, therefore, that life of theirs is not He, or He could not give it; for you can only give something which is not you.

The Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit, not as it, but as He; as a person, and not as a thing; as a person who can speak to men's souls, guide and teach them.

"When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself."

But we may see also that the Holy Spirit is neither G.o.d the Father, nor the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Lord speaks of Him, the Holy Spirit, as a different person either from Him or from the Father.

"The Spirit," He says, "shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."

But we may see also that there is no difference in will, or opinion, or love, between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son. For the Spirit does not speak of Himself; there is no self-will in Him.

There is not one will of the Father, and another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one love of the Father, another love of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one righteousness of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost: or, one mercy and grace of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost. For then there would be three G.o.ds and three Lords; and the substance of G.o.d would be divided. But they have all one will, and one love, and one righteousness, and one mercy. And such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

And remember always, that the Holy Spirit is very and indeed G.o.d.

For He is the Spirit of holiness itself, of righteousness itself, of goodness itself, of love itself, of truth itself; and, therefore, He is the Spirit of G.o.d, who is the perfect holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love. All other holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love, are only pictures and patterns of G.o.d, just as the sun's reflection in water, or in a gla.s.s, is a picture and pattern of the sun. As the Epistle for to-day tells us: "Every good gift and every perfect is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."

But the Spirit of G.o.d must be G.o.d. For else what do the words mean?

Is not the spirit of a man, a man? Is not your spirit, what you call your soul, you? Is not your soul you, just as much as your body is you; ay, a hundred times more? Just so, the Spirit of G.o.d is G.o.d, G.o.d Himself; and the G.o.dhead of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

This, then, is the glorious promise made to you, and to me, and to all who believe and are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that that Spirit will come to us, and take charge of our spirits, and work in them, and teach them. We cannot see Him with our eyes, or hear Him with our ears; we cannot even feel Him at work in our hearts and thoughts. For He is a Spirit; and His likeness, the thing in this world which is a pattern of Him, is the wind; as indeed the name Spirit means. You cannot see the wind, you cannot even really feel the wind or hear it: you only know it by its effects, by what it does: by the noise among the branches, the force against your faces, the bending boughs, and flying dust. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so is every one who is born of the Spirit. On him the Spirit of G.o.d will work unseen, and unfelt, only to be discovered by the change which He makes in the man's heart and thoughts; and first by the way in which He convinces him of sin, because men believe not on Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit shows men that the sins of the world, the sin of all sins, the sin which is the root of all other sins, is not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was because they would not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they had been falling into every other sort of sin.

But you may say: "How could they believe on Him before He came, and was born in Judaea of the Virgin Mary? How could they believe on Him when He was not there?" Ah! my friends, who told you that the Lord Jesus Christ was not there in the world all along? Not the Bible, certainly. For the Bible tells us that He is the Light who lights every man who cometh into the world; that from Him came, and have come, all the right thoughts and feelings which ever arose in the heart of every human being. The Bible tells us that when G.o.d created the world, He was daily rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men. The Bible tells us that He was in the world, and the world knew Him not; that all along, through the dark times of heathendom, the Lord Jesus Christ was a light shining in darkness, which the darkness could not close round, and hide and quench.

Not merely to the Jews, but to all heathens who hungered and thirsted after righteousness, did the Lord Jesus show something of His truth; as it is written, G.o.d is no acceptor of persons; that is, no shower of partiality, or unjust favour: but in every nation, he that feareth G.o.d and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.

But at the time that the Lord Jesus sent down His Holy Spirit, men were not working righteousness. There was not one who did good, no not one. For men had forgotten what righteousness was like, what a righteous man ought to do and be. Men are ready to forget it every day. You and I are ready to forget it, and invent some false righteousness of our own, not like Jesus Christ, but like what we in our private fancies think is most graceful, or most agreeable, or most easy; or most grand, and far-fetched, and difficult. But the Holy Spirit came to convince men of righteousness; to show them what true righteousness was like.

And how? In the same way that He must convince us of righteousness, if we are ever to know what righteousness is, or are ever to be righteous ourselves. He must show us goodness; or we shall never see it, or receive it, or copy it.

And where is this righteousness, this perfect goodness of which the Holy Spirit will convince us? Where, but in the Lord Jesus Christ?

In the Lord Jesus's character, the Lord Jesus's good works; His love, His patience, His perfect obedience, His life, His death. The Holy Spirit, if we give up our hearts to be taught by Him, will make us believe, and be sure, and feel in our very inmost hearts, how n.o.ble, how beautiful, how holy, how perfectly G.o.dlike, was He who was born of a poor virgin, who walked this earth for thirty-three years in toil and sorrow, who gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting, who died upon a cross between two thieves. And the Holy Spirit will convince us of righteousness, by making us feel what the Lord Jesus's righteousness consisted in; what was the root of all His goodness and holiness, namely His perfect obedience to His Father and our Father in heaven. That is the righteousness, which is not our own, but G.o.d's; the righteousness which comes by faith; not to trust in ourselves, but in G.o.d; not to please ourselves, but G.o.d; not to do our own will, but G.o.d's will. That is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which G.o.d set His seal on and approved, when He exalted Him far above all princ.i.p.ality and powers, and set Him at His own right hand for a sign to all men, and angels, and archangels; that righteousness means to trust and to obey G.o.d even to the death.

3. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

This may seem a puzzling speech at first. We shall understand it best, I think, by considering who the prince of this world was in our Lord's time, and what he was like. A little before our Lord's time the Roman emperor had conquered almost the whole world which was then known, and kept all nations in slavery, careless about their doing right, provided they obeyed him and paid him tribute; nay, forcing them and tempting them into all brutal and foul sin and ignorance, that he might keep up his own power over man.

But now the Lord of all the earth, and the Prince of men's hearts and thoughts, was come to visit that poor enslaved and sinful world. He came; the princes of this world knew Him not, and crucified the Lord of Glory. They crucified the righteous and the just One; and so they were judged. They judged themselves; they condemned themselves. For they showed that what they admired and what they wanted was not righteousness and love, but wealth and power. They showed that no doing of good, no healing of the sick, or giving of sight to the blind, or preaching the gospel to the poor, no holiness, no love, not the perfect likeness of G.o.d's own goodness, which shone forth in the spotless Jesus, was anything to them; was any reason why they should not put Him to death with the most cruel torments, because they were afraid of His taking away their power. He said He was a King; and therefore they crucified Him, lest His kingdom should interfere with theirs; and for the same reason these same Roman emperors and their magistrates, for hundreds of years afterwards, persecuted the Christians, and hunted them down like wild beasts, and put them to death by all horrible tortures, for the same reason that Cain slew Abel; became his brother's deeds were righteous, and his own wicked.

So these Roman emperors, and their magistrates and generals were judged. They had shown what was in their evil hearts. They had been tried in G.o.d's balances, and found wanting. The sentence of the Lord G.o.d had gone forth against them. The man Christ Jesus, whom they rejected, G.o.d accepted, and raised to His own right hand. They crucified Him; but G.o.d gave Him all power in heaven and earth: and the Lord Jesus used His power; yea, and uses it still. He gave His saints and martyrs strength to defy those Roman tyrants, and to witness to all the earth that the righteous Son of G.o.d was the King of heaven and earth, and that the princes of this world, who wished to break His yoke off their necks, and crush all nations to powder for their own pleasure, and fatten themselves upon the plunder of all the earth, would surely come to naught, as it is written in the second Psalm: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and His Anointed. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron: thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

And they did come to naught. That great Roman empire rotted away miserably after years of such distress as had never been seen on the earth before; and the emperors came, one after another, to shameful or dreadful deaths. And all the while the gospel spread, and the Church grew, till all the kingdoms of the Roman empire had become the kingdoms of G.o.d and of His Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in men's hearts, and showing them, as our Lord said He would, that Jesus of Nazareth was both Lord and King. And so was fulfilled the Lord's words in the gospel for to-day: "The Holy Spirit shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.

All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I that He should take of mine, and show it unto you."

Oh my friends, pray for yourselves, and join me while I pray for you, that the holy and righteous Spirit of G.o.d may convince you, and me, and all mankind, more and more, day by day, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Pray to that Holy Spirit to convince you of sin day by day, whensoever you do the least wrong thing. Pray to Him to keep your consciences tender and quick, that you may feel instantly, and lament deeply, every wrong thing you do.

Pray to Him to give you, every time you do wrong, that G.o.dly sorrow which brings peace and health, that heart-repentance never to be repented of. Pray to Him to convince you more and more, as you grow older, that all sin comes from not believing in Jesus Christ, not believing that He is near you, with you, in you, putting into your hearts all right thoughts and good desires, and willing, if you will, to help you to put those thoughts and desires into good practice.

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of righteousness; to make you see what righteousness is; that it is the very character and likeness of G.o.d the Father, because it is the character and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person. Pray to Him to make you see the beauty of holiness: how fair, and n.o.ble, and glorious a thing goodness is; how truly Solomon says: "that all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it."

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of judgment, and to make you sure that the Lord is King, a righteous Judge, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, whose fan is in His hand, who thoroughly purges His floor, who comes quickly, and His reward is with Him, and who surely casts out of His kingdom, sooner or later, all things that offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Pray to Him to make you sure by faith, though you cannot see it, that the prince of this world is judged; that evil doing, oppression, tyranny, injustice, cheating, neglect of man by man, cannot and will not prosper upon the face of G.o.d's earth; for the everlasting sentence and wrath of G.o.d is revealed forth every moment against all unrighteousness of men, which He will surely punish, yea, and does hourly punish by Him by whom He judges the world, Jesus Christ, the Lord, who is exalted high above all princ.i.p.alities and powers, and has all power given to Him in heaven and earth, which He uses, as He used it in Judaea of old, utterly and always for the good of all mankind, whom He hath redeemed with His most precious blood.

XLV--THE GOSPEL