The more deeply we ponder the history of professing Christians,
whether as furnished by the pen of inspiration, or as coming within
the range of personal observation, the more fully we must see the vast
importance of a complete break with the world, at the outset. If there
be not this, it is vain to look for inward peace, or outward progress.
There may be a measure of clearness as to the doctrines of grace, the
plan of salvation, as it is called, justification by faith, and the
like. But unless there is the thorough judgment of self, and the
complete surrender of this present evil world, peace and progress must
be out of the question. How can there be peace where _self_, in some
one or other of its thousand shapes, is fostered? And how can there be
progress where the heart is hankering after the world, halting between
two opinions, and vacillating between Christ and present things?
Impossible. As well might a racer expect to get on in the race while
still lingering about the starting post, and encumbering himself with
heavy weights.
Is it then, that peace is to be found by denying self and giving up
the world? Most certainly not. But neither can peace ever be found
while self is indulged and the world retained. True peace is found
_only_ in Christ--peace of conscience in His finished work--peace of
heart in His blessed Person. All this is clear enough. But how comes
it to pass that hundreds of people who know, or profess to know, these
things have no settled peace, and never seem to take a single step in
advance? You meet them, week after week, month after month, year after
year, and there they are in the same position, in the same state, and
with the same old story, chronic cases of self-occupation, stereotyped
world-borderers, "ever learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth." They seem to delight in hearing the gospel
clearly preached, and truth fully unfolded. In fact, they cannot
endure anything else. But, for all that, they are never clear, bright
or happy. How can they be? They are halting between two opinions; they
have never broken with the world; they have never surrendered a whole
heart to Christ.
Here, we are persuaded, lies the real secret of the whole matter as
regards that class of persons now before us. "A double-minded man is
unstable in all his ways." A man who tries to keep one eye on the
world, and the other on Christ, will be found to have no eye for
Christ, but both eyes for the world. It must be so: Christ must be all
or nothing; and hence it is the very height of absurdity to talk of
peace or progress, where Christ is not the absorbing object of the
soul. Where He is, there will never be any lack of settled peace; and
there will be progress. The Holy Ghost is jealous for the glory of
Christ, and He can never minister comfort, consolation, or strength to
a heart divided between Him and the world. It could not be. He is
grieved by such unfaithfulness; and instead of being the minister of
comfort, He must be the stern reprover of indulged selfishness,
worldliness, and vacillation.
Let us look at the case of our apostle. How refreshing it is to
contemplate his thorough-going style! His starting was of the right
sort. "He forsook all and followed Christ." There was no halting here,
at all events; no vacillating between Christ and present things.
Boats, nets, fish, natural ties, all are unhesitatingly and
unreservedly surrendered, not as a matter of cold duty or legal
service, but as the grand and necessary result of having seen the
glory and heard the voice of the Son of God.
Thus it was with Simon Peter, at the opening of his remarkable career.
All was clear and unequivocal, whole-hearted and decided, so far as
the starting was concerned; and we must bear this in mind, as we
pursue his after history. No doubt, we shall find mistakes and
stumblings, failure, ignorance, and sin; but, underneath, and in spite
of all this, we shall find a heart true to Jesus--a heart divinely
taught to appreciate the Christ of God.
This is a grand point. Blunders may well be borne with, when the heart
beats true to Christ. Some one has remarked that, "The blunderers do
all the work." If this be so, the reason is that those blunderers have
real affection for their Lord; and that is precisely what we all want.
A man may make a great many mistakes, but if he can say when
challenged by his Lord, "Thou knowest that I love Thee," he is sure to
come right in the end; and not only so, but, even in the very midst
of his mistakes, our hearts are much more drawn to him than to the
cold, correct, sleek professor, who thinks of himself, and seeks to
make the best of both worlds.
Simon Peter was a true lover of Christ. He had a divinely given sense
of His preciousness, of the glory of His Person, and the heavenly
character of His mission. All this comes out, with much force and
freshness, in his varied confessions of Christ, even before the day of
Pentecost. We shall glance at one or two of these, not with any view
to chronological order, but simply to illustrate and prove the lovely
devotedness of this true-hearted servant of Christ.
Let us turn to Matt. xvi. "When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea
Philippi, he asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the
Son of man, am?" Weighty question! Upon the answer to this question
hangs the whole moral condition and future destiny of every human
being under the sun. All really depends upon the heart's estimate of
Christ. This it is, which like a great moral indicator, reveals a
man's true state, character, bent and object, in all things. It is not
merely a question of his outward life, or of his profession of faith.
The former may be blameless, and the latter orthodox; but, if
underneath all this blameless morality and orthodox profession, there
be not one true pulsation of the heart for Christ, no divinely wrought
sense of what, and who, and whence He is, then verily all the morality
and the orthodoxy are but the trappings with which a guilty,
hell-deserving sinner adorns himself in the eyes of his fellows, or
with which he deceives himself as to the awful eternity which lies
before him. "What think ye of Christ?" is the all-deciding question;
for God the Holy Ghost has emphatically declared that, "If any
man"--no matter who or what he be--"love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be Anathema Maranatha" (1 Cor. xvi. 22).
How awful is this! And how remarkable to find it at the close of such
an epistle as the first to the Corinthians! How forcibly it declares
to all who will only bend their ears to listen, that love to Christ is
the basis of all sound doctrine, the motive spring of all true
morality! If that blessed One be not enthroned at the very centre of
the heart's affections, an orthodox creed is an empty delusion; and an
unblemished reputation is but dust cast in a man's eyes to prevent him
seeing his true condition in the sight of God. The Christians at
Corinth had fallen into many doctrinal errors and moral evils, all
needing rebuke and correction; but when the inspiring Spirit
pronounces His awful anathema, it is levelled, not at the introducers
of any one special error, or moral pravity, but at "any man who loves
not the Lord Jesus Christ."
This is peculiarly solemn at all times; but specially so for the day
in which our lot is cast, when the Person and glory of Christ are so
little thought of or cared for. A man may actually blaspheme Christ,
deny His deity or His eternal Sonship, and yet be received into
professing Christian circles, and allowed to preside at so-called
religious meetings. Surely all this must be dreadful in the sight of
God, whose purpose it is "that all men should honor the Son even as
they honor the Father;" and that every knee should bow, and every
tongue confess to Jesus as Lord of all. God is jealous for the honor
of His Son; and the man that neglects, rejects, and blasphemes that
blessed One will yet have to learn and own the eternal justice of that
most solemn decree, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be Anathema Maranatha."
How momentous, therefore, the question put by our Lord Christ to His
disciples, "Whom do _men_ say that I, the Son of man, am?" Alas, alas!
"men" knew nothing, cared nothing about Him. They knew neither who He
was, what He was, nor whence He was. "Some say that thou art John the
Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets."
In a word, there was endless speculation, because there was utter
indifference and thorough heartlessness. The human heart has not so
much as a single true thought about Christ, not one atom of affection
for Him. Such is the awful condition of the very best of men until
renewed by divine grace. They know not, they love not, they care not
for the Son of God--the Beloved of the Father's heart--the Man on the
throne of heaven's majesty. Such is their moral condition, and hence
their every thought, word, and act is contrary to God. They have not a
single feeling in common with God, for the most distinct of all
reasons, that the One who is everything to Him is nothing to them.
Christ is God's standard, and every one and everything must be
measured by Him. The heart that does not love Christ has not a single
pulsation in unison with the heart of God; and the life that does not
spring from love to Christ however blameless, respectable, or splendid
in the eyes of men, is a worthless, objectless, misspent life in the
judgment of God.
But how truly delightful to turn from all the heartlessness and
indifference of "men," and harken to the testimony of one who was
taught of God to know and own who the Son of man was! "Simon Peter
answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Here was the true answer. There was no vain speculation here, no
uncertainty, no may be this, or may be that. It was divine testimony
flowing from divinely given knowledge. It was not yea and nay, but yea
and amen to the glory of God. We may rest fully assured that these
glowing words of Simon Peter went up, like fragrant incense, to the
throne of God, and refreshed the heart of the One who sat there. There
is nothing in all the world so precious to God as a heart that, in any
measure, appreciates Christ. Let us never forget this!
"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My
Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art
Peter; and upon this Rock I will build My Church; and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it."
Here we have the very first direct allusion to the Church, or Assembly
of Christ; and the reader will note that our Lord speaks of it as yet
future. He says, "I _will_ build My Church." He was the Rock, the
divine foundation; but ere a single stone could be built on Him, He
must die.
This is a grand cardinal truth of Christianity--a truth which our
apostle had yet to learn, notwithstanding his brilliant and beautiful
confession. Simon Peter was not yet prepared for the profound mystery
of the cross. He loved Christ, and he had been taught of God to own
Him in a very full and blessed manner; but he had yet much to learn
ere he could take in the soul-subduing truth that this blessed Son of
the living God must die, ere even he, as a living stone, could be
built upon Him. "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His
disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things
of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be
raised again the third day."
Here the solemn truth begins to break through the clouds. But Simon
Peter is not prepared for it. It withered up all his Jewish hopes and
earthly expectations. What! The Son of the living God must die! How
could it be? The glorious Messiah be nailed to a cross! "Then Peter
took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, (or
pity Thyself) Lord, this shall not be unto Thee."
Such is man! Such was even Simon Peter! He would fain turn the blessed
Lord away from the cross! He would, in his ignorance, frustrate the
eternal counsels of God, and play into the hands of the devil! Poor
Peter! What a rock he would be for the Church to be built upon! "The
Lord turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art
an offence unto Me; for thou savorest not the things that be of God,
but those that be of men."
Withering words? Who would have thought that "Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona," should so speedily be followed by, "Get thee behind Me,
Satan?"