approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was
once spoken, but a book which is _now speaking_. The prophets habitually
said, "Thus _saith_ the Lord." They meant their hearers to understand
that God's speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past
tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God
was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a
child once born continues to be alive, or a world once created continues
to exist. And those are but imperfect illustrations, for children die
and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God endureth forever.
If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible
expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a
_thing_ which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than
a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.
_Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary
with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give
me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, "Speak, for thy
servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used
to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the
sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy
speaking Voice. Amen._
VII
_The Gaze of the Soul_
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.--Heb. 12:2
Let us think of our intelligent plain man mentioned in chapter six
coming for the first time to the reading of the Scriptures. He
approaches the Bible without any previous knowledge of what it contains.
He is wholly without prejudice; he has nothing to prove and nothing to
defend.
Such a man will not have read long until his mind begins to observe
certain truths standing out from the page. They are the spiritual
principles behind the record of God's dealings with men, and woven into
the writings of holy men as they "were moved by the Holy Ghost." As he
reads on he might want to number these truths as they become clear to
him and make a brief summary under each number. These summaries will be
the tenets of his Biblical creed. Further reading will not affect these
points except to enlarge and strengthen them. Our man is finding out
what the Bible actually teaches.
High up on the list of things which the Bible teaches will be the
doctrine of _faith_. The place of weighty importance which the Bible
gives to faith will be too plain for him to miss. He will very likely
conclude: Faith is all-important in the life of the soul. Without faith
it is impossible to please God. Faith will get me anything, take me
anywhere in the Kingdom of God, but without faith there can be no
approach to God, no forgiveness, no deliverance, no salvation, no
communion, no spiritual life at all.
By the time our friend has reached the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the
eloquent encomium which is there pronounced upon faith will not seem
strange to him. He will have read Paul's powerful defense of faith in
his Roman and Galatian epistles. Later if he goes on to study church
history he will understand the amazing power in the teachings of the
Reformers as they showed the central place of faith in the Christian
religion.
Now if faith is so vitally important, if it is an indispensable _must_
in our pursuit of God, it is perfectly natural that we should be deeply
concerned over whether or not we possess this most precious gift. And
our minds being what they are, it is inevitable that sooner or later we
should get around to inquiring after the nature of faith. What _is_
faith? would lie close to the question, Do I _have_ faith? and would
demand an answer if it were anywhere to be found.
Almost all who preach or write on the subject of faith have much the
same things to say concerning it. They tell us that it is believing a
promise, that it is taking God at His word, that it is reckoning the
Bible to be true and stepping out upon it. The rest of the book or
sermon is usually taken up with stories of persons who have had their
prayers answered as a result of their faith. These answers are mostly
direct gifts of a practical and temporal nature such as health, money,
physical protection or success in business. Or if the teacher is of a
philosophic turn of mind he may take another course and lose us in a
welter of metaphysics or snow us under with psychological jargon as he
defines and re-defines, paring the slender hair of faith thinner and
thinner till it disappears in gossamer shavings at last. When he is
finished we get up disappointed and go out "by that same door where in
we went." Surely there must be something better than this.
In the Scriptures there is practically no effort made to define faith.
Outside of a brief fourteen-word definition in Hebrews 11:1, I know of
no Biblical definition, and even there faith is defined functionally,
not philosophically; that is, it is a statement of what faith is _in
operation_, _not_ what it is _in essence_. It assumes the presence of
faith and shows what it results in, rather than what it is. We will be
wise to go just that far and attempt to go no further. We are told from
whence it comes and by what means: "Faith is a gift of God," and "Faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." This much is clear,
and, to paraphrase Thomas a Kempis, "I had rather exercise faith than
know the definition thereof."
From here on, when the words "faith is" or their equivalent occur in
this chapter I ask that they be understood to refer to what faith is in
operation as exercised by a believing man. Right here we drop the notion
of definition and think about faith as it may be experienced in action.
The complexion of our thoughts will be practical, not theoretical.
In a dramatic story in the Book of Numbers faith is seen in action.
Israel became discouraged and spoke against God, and the Lord sent fiery
serpents among them. "And they bit the people; and much people of Israel
died." Then Moses sought the Lord for them and He heard and gave them a
remedy against the bite of the serpents. He commanded Moses to make a
serpent of brass and put it upon a pole in sight of all the people, "and
it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh
upon it, shall live." Moses obeyed, "and it came to pass, that if a
serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he
lived" (Num. 21:4-9).
In the New Testament this important bit of history is interpreted for us
by no less an authority than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is
explaining to His hearers how they may be saved. He tells them that it
is by believing. Then to make it clear He refers to this incident in the
Book of Numbers. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15).
Our plain man in reading this would make an important discovery. He
would notice that "look" and "believe" were synonymous terms. "Looking"
on the Old Testament serpent is identical with "believing" on the New
Testament Christ. That is, the _looking_ and the _believing_ are the
same thing. And he would understand that while Israel looked with their
external eyes, believing is done with the heart. I think he would
conclude that _faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God_.
When he had seen this he would remember passages he had read before, and
their meaning would come flooding over him. "They looked unto him, and
were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed" (Psa. 34:5). "Unto
thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold,
as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the
eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon
the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us" (Psa. 123:1-2). Here
the man seeking mercy looks straight at the God of mercy and never takes
his eyes away from Him till mercy is granted. And our Lord Himself
looked always at God. "Looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and
gave the bread to his disciples" (Matt. 14:19). Indeed Jesus taught that
He wrought His works by always keeping His inward eyes upon His Father.
His power lay in His continuous look at God (John 5:19-21).
In full accord with the few texts we have quoted is the whole tenor of
the inspired Word. It is summed up for us in the Hebrew epistle when we
are instructed to run life's race "looking unto Jesus the author and
finisher of our faith." From all this we learn that faith is not a
once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God.
Believing, then, is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is
lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that
beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but
it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous Person, quietly
and without strain. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is
committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him the attention
will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird coming back to
its window.
I would emphasize this one committal, this one great volitional act
which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God
takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances He must
for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He
knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we
can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit
of soul is forming which will become after a while a sort of spiritual
reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part.
Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very
nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees
everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with
the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all.
While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves--blessed riddance.
The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but
repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering
with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at
Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting
done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.
Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward
Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out
of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has
twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put
self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer
who said, "I will set my throne above the throne of God." Faith looks
_out_ instead of _in_ and the whole life falls into line.
All this may seem too simple. But we have no apology to make. To those
who would seek to climb into heaven after help or descend into hell God
says, "The word is nigh thee, even the word of faith." The word induces
us to lift up our eyes unto the Lord and the blessed work of faith
begins.
When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet
friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the
Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of
experience is "Thou God seest me." When the eyes of the soul looking out
meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this
earth.
"When all my endeavour is turned toward Thee because all Thy endeavour
is turned toward me; when I look unto Thee alone with all my attention,
nor ever turn aside the eyes of my mind, because Thou dost enfold me
with Thy constant regard; when I direct my love toward Thee alone
because Thou, who art Love's self hast turned Thee toward me alone. And
what, Lord, is my life, save that embrace wherein Thy delightsome
sweetness doth so lovingly enfold me?"[1] So wrote Nicholas of Cusa four
hundred years ago.
I should like to say more about this old man of God. He is not much
known today anywhere among Christian believers, and among current
Fundamentalists he is known not at all. I feel that we could gain much
from a little acquaintance with men of his spiritual flavor and the
school of Christian thought which they represent. Christian literature,
to be accepted and approved by the evangelical leaders of our times,
must follow very closely the same train of thought, a kind of "party
line" from which it is scarcely safe to depart. A half-century of this
in America has made us smug and content. We imitate each other with
slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to
say the same thing that everyone around us is saying--and yet to find an
excuse for saying it, some little safe variation on the approved theme
or, if no more, at least a new illustration.
Nicholas was a true follower of Christ, a lover of the Lord, radiant and
shining in his devotion to the Person of Jesus. His theology was
orthodox, but fragrant and sweet as everything about Jesus might
properly be expected to be. His conception of eternal life, for
instance, is beautiful in itself and, if I mistake not, is nearer in
spirit to John 17:3 than that which is current among us today. Life
eternal, says Nicholas, is "nought other than that blessed regard
wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places
of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to
impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by
love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle
my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness,
and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to
make it increase and endure."[2]
Now, if faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but
the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then
it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. It would
be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the
range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.
Several conclusions may fairly be drawn from all this. The simplicity of
it, for instance. Since believing is looking, it can be done without
special equipment or religious paraphernalia. God has seen to it that
the one life-and-death essential can never be subject to the caprice of
accident. Equipment can break down or get lost, water can leak away,
records can be destroyed by fire, the minister can be delayed or the
church burn down. All these are external to the soul and are subject to
accident or mechanical failure: but _looking_ is of the heart and can be
done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in
his last agony a thousand miles from any church.
Since believing is looking it can be done _any time_. No season is
superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts. God never made
salvation depend upon new moons nor holy days or sabbaths. A man is not
nearer to Christ on Easter Sunday than he is, say, on Saturday, August
3, or Monday, October 4. As long as Christ sits on the mediatorial
throne every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation.
Neither does _place_ matter in this blessed work of believing God. Lift
your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a
sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. You
can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.
Now, someone may ask, "Is not this of which you speak for special
persons such as monks or ministers who have by the nature of their
calling more time to devote to quiet meditation? I am a busy worker and
have little time to spend alone." I am happy to say that the life I
describe is for everyone of God's children regardless of calling. It is,
in fact, happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is
beyond the reach of none.
Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much
thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit
of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their
hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their
conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is
within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but
be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to
God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that
even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from
whom or from how many I cannot possibly know.
I do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace
have no value. They most assuredly have. Private prayer should be
practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will
purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our
outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity;
all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. But at the
bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward
habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop
within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are
seeing the scenes of this passing world.
Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all
proportion, that the "us" of the New Testament is being displaced by a
selfish "I." Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all
tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are
of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard
to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met
together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each
other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious
and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body
becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole Church of
God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a
higher life.
All the foregoing presupposes true repentance and a full committal of
the life to God. It is hardly necessary to mention this, for only
persons who have made such a committal will have read this far.
When the habit of inwardly gazing Godward becomes fixed within us we
shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with
the promises of God and the mood of the New Testament. The Triune God
will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of
simple duty here among men. We will have found life's _summum bonum_
indeed. "There is the source of all delights that can be desired; not
only can nought better be thought out by men and angels, but nought
better can exist in mode of being! For it is the absolute maximum of
every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be."[3]
_O Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee and
be satisfied. My heart longs to respond, but sin has clouded my vision
till I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own
precious blood, and make me inwardly pure, so that I may with unveiled
eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I
be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in the day when Thou shalt
appear to be glorified in Thy saints and admired in all them that
believe. Amen._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nicholas of Cusa, _The Vision of God_, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New
York, 1928. This and the following quotations used by kind permission of
the publishers.
[2] _The Vision of God_
[3] _The Vision of God_
VIII
_Restoring the Creator-creature Relation_
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above
all the earth.--Psa. 57:5
It is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right
relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper
position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not
otherwise.
I have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human
miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God
and to each other. For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most
certainly a sharp change in man's relation to his Creator. He adopted
toward God an altered attitude, and by so doing destroyed the proper
Creator-creature relation in which, unknown to him, his true happiness
lay. Essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation
between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the
Creator-creature relation.
A satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in
relation between God and the sinner; not a judicial change merely, but a
conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner's whole nature.
The atonement in Jesus' blood makes such a change judicially possible
and the working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally satisfying. The
story of the prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase. He
had brought a world of trouble upon himself by forsaking the position
which he had properly held as son of his father. At bottom his
restoration was nothing more than a re-establishing of the father-son
relation which had existed from his birth and had been altered
temporarily by his act of sinful rebellion. This story overlooks the
legal aspects of redemption, but it makes beautifully clear the
experiential aspects of salvation.
In determining relationships we must begin somewhere. There must be
somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured,
where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say "IS" and make
no allowances. Such a center is God. When God would make His Name known
to mankind He could find no better word than "I AM." When He speaks in
the first person He says, "I AM"; when we speak of Him we say, "He is";
when we speak to Him we say, "Thou art." Everyone and everything else
measures from that fixed point. "I am that I am," says God, "I change not."
As the sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so
we may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God.
We are right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to
God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other
position.
Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our
unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We
insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own
image. The flesh whimpers against the rigor of God's inexorable sentence
and begs like Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal
ways. It is no use. We can get a right start only by accepting God as He
is and learning to love Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him
better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that God is just
what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we
spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. In those holy moments the
very thought of change in Him will be too painful to endure.
So let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before all is God;
first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity
and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and all
things exist out of Him and for Him. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to
receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things,
and for thy pleasure they are and were created."
Every soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and
What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable
relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete
submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to
give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.
The pursuit of God will embrace the labor of bringing our total
personality into conformity to His. And this not judicially, but
actually. I do not here refer to the act of justification by faith in
Christ. I speak of a voluntary exalting of God to His proper station
over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of
worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance makes
proper.
The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this
determination to exalt God over all we step out of the world's parade.
We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world, and
increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way. We shall acquire a
new viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us;
a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its
outgoings.