Now, as I have remarked already, and as many of you know, there is a
slightly different, twofold form of this phrase in Scripture. I need
not trouble you with the minute distinction between the one and the
other. Both forms coincide in the important point on which I wish to
touch. That representation of believing on Christ carries us away at
once from the mere act of acceptance of His word on His authority to
the far more manifestly voluntary, moral, and personal act of reliance
upon Him. The metaphor is expanded in various ways in Scripture, and
instead of offering any thoughts of my own about it, I would simply ask
attention to three of the forms in which it is set forth in the Old and
in the New Testaments.
The first of them, and the one which we may regard as governing the
others, is that found in the words of Isaiah, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a
stone, a sure Foundation'; and, as the Apostle Peter comments, 'He that
believeth on Him shall not be confounded.' There the thoughts presented
are the superposition of the building upon its Foundation, the rest of
the soul, and the rearing of the life on the basis of Jesus Christ.
How much that metaphor says to us about Him as the Foundation, in all
the aspects in which we can apply that term! He is the Basis of our
hope, the Guarantee of our security, the Foundation-stone of our
beliefs, the very Ground on which our whole life reposes, the Source of
our tranquillity, the Pledge of our peace. All that I think, feel,
desire, wish, and do, ought to be rested upon that dear Lord, and
builded on Him by simple faith. By patient persistence of effort
rearing up the fabric of my life firmly upon Him, and grafting every
stone of it—if I might so use the metaphor—into the bedding-stone,
which is Christ, I shall be strong, peaceful, and pure.
The storm comes, the waters rise, the winds howl, the hail and the rain
'sweep away the refuge of lies,' and the dwellers in these frail and
foundationless houses are hurrying in wild confusion from one peak to
another, before the steadily rising tide. But he that builds on that
Foundation 'shall not make haste,' as Isaiah has it; shall not need to
hurry to shift his quarters before the flood overtake him; shall look
out serene upon all the hurtling fury of the wild storm, and the rise
of the sullen waters. So, reliance on Christ, and the honest making of
Him the Basis, not of our hopes only, but of our thinkings and of our
doings, and of our whole being, is the secret of security, and the
pledge of peace.
Then there is another form of the same phrase, 'believing on,' in which
is suggested not so much the figure of building upon a foundation, as
of some feeble man resting upon a strong stay, or clinging to an
outstretched and mighty arm. The same metaphor is implied in the word
'reliance.' We lean upon Christ when, forsaking all other props, and
realising His sufficiency and sweetness, we rest the whole weight of
our weariness and all the impotence of our weakness upon His strong and
unwearied arm, and so are saved. All other stays are like that one to
which the prophet compares the King of Egypt—the papyrus reed in the
Nile stream, on which, if a man leans, it will break into splinters
which will go into his flesh, and make a poisoned wound. But if we lean
on Christ, we lean on a brazen wall and an iron pillar, and anything is
possible sooner than that that stay shall give.
There is still another form of the metaphor, in which neither building
upon a foundation, nor leaning upon a support which is thought of as
below what rests upon it, are suggested, but rather the hanging upon
something firm and secure which is above what hangs from it. The same
picture is suggested by our word 'dependence.' 'As a nail fastened in a
sure place,' said one of the prophets, 'on Him shall hang all the glory
of His Father's house.'
'Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.'
The rope lowered over the cliffs supports the adventurous bird-nester
in safety above the murmuring sea. They who clasp Christ's hand
outstretched from above, may swing over the deepest, most vacuous
abyss, and fear no fall.
So, brother, build on Christ, rely on Him, depend on Him, and it shall
not be in vain. But if you will not build on the sure Foundation, do
not wonder if the rotten one gives way. If you will not lean on the
strong Stay, complain not when the weak one crumbles to dust beneath
your weight. And if you choose to swing over the profound depth at the
end of a piece of pack-thread, instead of holding on by an adamantine
chain wrapped round God's throne, you must be prepared for its breaking
and your being smashed to pieces below.
III. The last exhortation that comes out of this comparative study of
these phrases is—Believe into Christ.
That is a very pregnant and remarkable expression, and it can scarcely,
as you see, be rendered into our language without a certain harshness;
but still it is worth while to face the harshness for the sake of
getting the double signification that is involved in it. For when we
speak of believing unto or into Him, we suggest two things, both of
which, apparently, were in the minds of the writers of the New
Testament. One is motion towards, and the other is repose in, that dear
Lord.
So, then, true Christian faith is the flight of the soul towards
Christ. Therein is one of the special blessednesses of the Christian
life, that it has for its object and aim absolutely infinite and
unattainable completeness and glory, so that unwearied freshness,
inexhaustible buoyancy, endless progress, are the dower of every spirit
that truly trusts in Christ. All other aims and objects are limited,
transient, and will be left behind. Every other landmark will sink
beneath the horizon, where so many of our landmarks have sunk already,
and where they will all disappear when the last moment comes. But we
may have, and if we are Christian people we shall have, bright before
us, sufficiently certain of being reached to make our efforts hopeful
and confident, sufficiently certain of never being reached to make our
efforts blessed with endless aspirations, the great light and love of
that dear Lord, to yearn after whom is better than to possess all
besides, and following hard after whom, even in the very motion there
is rest, and in the search there is finding. Religion is the flight of
the soul, the aspiration of the whole man after the unattainable
Attainable—'that I may know Him, and be found in Him.'
Oh, how such thoughts ought to shame us who call ourselves Christians!
Growth, progress, getting nearer to Christ, yearning ever with a great
desire after Him!—do not the words seem irony when applied to most of
us? Think of the average type of sluggish contentment with present
attainments that marks Christian people—tortoises in their crawling
rather than eagles in their flight. And let us take our portion of
shame, and remember that the faith which believes Him, and that which
believes on Him, both need to be crowned and perfected by that which
believes towards Him, of which the motto is, 'Forgetting the things
that are behind, I reach forward to the things that are before.'
But there is another side to this last phase of faith. That true
believing towards or unto Christ is the rest of the soul in Him. By
faith that deep and most real union of the believing soul with Jesus
Christ is effected which may be fitly described as our entrance into
and abode in Him. The believer is as if incorporated into Him in whom
he believes. Indeed, the Apostle ventures to use a more startling
expression than _incorporation_ when he says that 'he that is joined to
the Lord is one Spirit.' If by faith we press towards, by faith we
shall be in, Christ. Faith is at once motion and rest, search and
finding, desire and fruition. The felicity of this last form of the
phrase is its expression of both these ideas, which are united in fact
as in word. A rare construction of the verb _to believe_, with the
simple preposition _in_, coincides with this part of the meaning of
_believing unto_ or _into_, and need not be separately considered.
With this understanding of its meaning, we see how natural is John's
preference for this construction. For surely, if he has anything to
tell us, it is that the true Christian life is a life enclosed, as it
were, in Jesus Christ. Nor need I remind you how Paul, though he starts
from a different point of view, yet coincides with John in this
teaching. For, to him, to be 'in Christ' is the sum of all blessedness,
righteousness, peace, and power. As in an atmosphere, we may dwell in
Him. He may be the strong Habitation to which we may continually
resort. One of the Old Testament words for trusting means taking
refuge, and such a thought is naturally suggested by this New Testament
form of expression. 'I flee unto Thee to hide me.' In that Fortress we
dwell secure.
To be in Jesus, wedded to Him by the conjunction of will and desire,
wedded to Him in the oneness of a believing spirit and in the obedience
of a life, to be thus in Christ is the crown and climax of faith, and
the condition of all perfection. To be in Christ is life; to be out of
Him is death. In Him we have redemption; in Him we have wisdom, truth,
peace, righteousness, hope, confidence. To be in Him is to be in
heaven. We enter by faith. Faith is not the acceptance merely of His
Word, but is the reliance of the soul on Him, the flight of the soul
towards Him, the dwelling of the soul in Him. 'Come, My people, into
thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee … until the indignation be
overpast.'
'NEVER IN BONDAGE'
'We… were never in bondage to any man: how gayest Thou, Ye shall be
made free!'—JOHN viii. 33.
'Never in bondage to any man'? Then what about Egypt, Babylon, Persia,
Syria? Was there not a Roman garrison looking down from the castle into
the very Temple courts where this boastful falsehood was uttered? It
required some hardihood to say, 'Never in bondage to any man,' in the
face of such a history, and such a present. But was it not just an
instance of the strange power which we all have and exercise, of
ignoring disagreeable facts, and by ingenious manipulation taking the
wrinkles out of the photograph? The Jews were perhaps not
misunderstanding Jesus Christ quite so much as these words may suggest.
If He had been promising, as they chose to assume, political and
external liberty, I fancy they would have risen to the bait a little
more eagerly than they did to His words.
But be that as it may, this strange answer of theirs suggests that
power of ignoring what we do not want to see, not only in the way in
which I have suggested, but also in another. For if they had any
inkling of what Jesus meant by slavery and freedom, they, by such words
as these, put away from themselves the thought that they were, in any
deep and inward sense, bondsmen, and that a message of liberty had any
application to them. Ah, dear friends! there was a great deal of human
nature in these men, who thus put up a screen between them and the
penetrating words of our Lord. Were they not doing just what many of
us—all of us to some extent—do: ignoring the facts of their own
necessities, of their own spiritual condition, denying the plain
lessons of experience? Like them, are not we too often refusing to look
in the face the fact that we all, apart from Him, are really in
bondage? Because we do not realise the slavery, are we not indifferent
to the offer of freedom? 'We were never in bondage'; consequently we
add, 'How sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free?' So then, my text brings
us to think of three things: our bondage, our ignorance of our bondage,
our consequent indifference to Christ's offer of liberty. Let me say a
word or two about each of these.