The language of the original, carefully considered, seems to me to
bear this interpretation, that the 'anointing' of the second clause
is the means of the 'establishing' of the first--that is to say, that
God confers Christian steadfastness of character by the bestowment of
the unction of His Divine Spirit.
Now notice how deep Paul digs in order to get a foundation for a
common virtue. There are many ways by which men may cultivate the
tenacity and steadfastness of purpose which ought to mark us all.
Much discipline may be brought to bear in order to secure that; but
the text says that the deepest ground upon which it can be rested is
nothing less divine and solemn than this, the actual communication to
men, to feeble, vacillating, fluctuating wills, and treacherous,
wayward, wandering hearts, of the strength and fixedness which are
given by God's own Spirit.
I suppose I need not remind you that from beginning to end of
Scripture, 'anointing' is taken as the symbol of the communication of
a true divine influence. The oil poured on the head of prophet,
priest, and king was but the expression of the communication to the
recipient of a divine influence which fitted him as well as
designated him, for the office that he filled. And although it is
aside from my present purpose, I may just, in a sentence, point to
the felicity of the emblem. The flowing oil smoothes the surface upon
which it is spread, supples the limbs, and is nutritive and
illuminating; thus giving an appropriate emblem of the secret,
silent, quickening, nourishing, enlightening influences of that
Spirit which God gives to all His sons.
And inasmuch as here this oil of the Divine Spirit is stated as being
the true ground and basis of Christian steadfastness, it is obvious
that the anointing intended cannot be that of mere designation to,
and inspiration for, apostolic or other office, but must be the
universal possession of all Christian men and women. 'Ye,' says
another Apostle, speaking to the whole democracy of the Christian
Church, and not to any little group of selected aristocrats
therein--'ye have an unction from the Holy One,' and every man and
woman who has a living grasp of the living Christ, receives from Him
this great gift.
Then, notice further that this anointing by a Divine Spirit, which is
a true source of life to those that possess it, is derived from, and
parallel with, Christ's anointing. We use the word 'Christ' as a
proper name, and forget what it means. The 'Christ' is _the Anointed
One_. And do you think that it was a mere accident, or the result of
a scanty vocabulary, which compelled the Apostle, in these two
contiguous clauses, to use cognate words when he said:--'He that
establisheth us with you in the _Anointed_, and hath _anointed_ us,
is God'? Did he not mean to say thereby, 'Each of you in a very true
sense, if you are a Christian, is a _Christ_'? You, too, are
anointed; you, too, are God's Messiahs. On you in a measure the same
Spirit rests which dwelt without measure in Him. The chief of
Christ's gifts to the Church is the gift of His own life. All His
brethren are anointed with the oil that was poured upon His head,
even as the oil upon Aaron's locks percolated to the very skirts of
his garments. Being anointed with the anointing which was on Him, all
His people may claim an identity of nature, may hope for an identity
of destiny, and are bound to a prolongation of part of His function
and a similarity of character. If He by that anointing was made
Prophet, Priest, and King for the world, all His children partake of
these offices in subordinate but real fashion, and are prophets to
make God known to men, priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices, and
kings at least over themselves, and, if they will, over a world which
obeys and serves those that serve and love God. Ye are
anointed--'Messiahs' and 'Christs,' by derivation of the life of
Jesus Christ.
And if these things be true, it is plain enough how this divine
unction, which is granted to all Christians, lies at the root of
steadfastness.
We talk a great deal about the gentleness of Christ; we cannot
celebrate it too much, but we may forget that it is the gentleness of
strength. We do not sufficiently mark the masculine features in that
character, the tremendous tenacity of will, the inflexible fixedness
of purpose, the irremovable constancy of obedience in the face of all
temptations to the contrary. The figure that rises before us is that
of the Christ yearning over weaklings far oftener than it is that of
the Christ with knitted brow, and tightened lips, and far-off gazing
eye, 'steadfastly setting His face to go to Jerusalem,' and followed
as He pressed up the rocky road from Jericho, by that wondering
group, astonished at the rigidity of purpose that was stamped on His
features. That Christ gives us His Spirit to make us tenacious,
constant, righteously obstinate, inflexible in the pursuit of all
that is lovely and of good report, like Himself. That Divine Spirit
will cure the fickleness of our natures; for our wills are never
fixed till they are fixed in obedience, and never free until they
elect to serve Him. That Divine Spirit will cure the wandering of our
hearts and bind us to Himself. It will lift us above the selfish and
cowardly dependence on externals and surroundings, men and things, in
which we are all tempted to live. We are all too like aneroid
barometers, that go up and down with every variation of a foot or two
in our level, but if we have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, it
will cut the bonds that bind us to the world, and give us possession
of a deeper love than can be sustained by, or is derived from, these
superficial sources. The true possession of the Divine Spirit, if I
might use such a metaphor, sets a man on an insulating stool, and all
the currents that move round about him are powerless to reach him. If
we have that Divine Spirit within us, it will give us an experience
of the preciousness and the truth, the certitude and the sweetness,
of Christ's Gospel, which will make it impossible that we should ever
cast away the confidence which has such 'recompense of reward.' No
man will be surely bound to the truth and person of Christ with bonds
that cannot be snapped, except he who in his heart has the knowledge
of Him which is possession, and by the gift of the Divine Spirit is
knit to Jesus Christ.
So, dear friends, whilst the world is full of wise words about
steadfastness, and exalts determination of character and fixity of
purpose, rightly, as the basis of much good, our Gospel comes to us
poor, light, thistledown creatures, and lets us see how we can be
steadfast and settled by being fastened to a steadfast and settled
Christ. When storms are raging they lash light articles on deck to
holdfasts. Let us lash ourselves to the abiding Christ, and we, too,
shall abide.
II. In the next place, notice the aim or purpose of this Christian
steadfastness.
'He stablisheth us with you in Christ,' or as the original has it
even more significantly, _into_ or '_unto_ Christ.' Now that seems to
me to imply two things--first, that our steadfastness, made possible
by our possession of that Divine Spirit, is steadfastness in our
relations to Jesus Christ. We are established in reference or in
regard to Him. In other words, what Paul here means is, first, a
fixed conviction of the truth that He is the Christ, the Son of God,
the Saviour of the world, and my Saviour. That is the first step. Men
who are steadfast without their intellect guiding and settling the
steadfastness are not steadfast, but obstinate and pigheaded. We are
meant to be guided by our understandings, and no fixity is anything
better than the immobility of a stone, unless it be based upon a
distinct and whole-brained intellectual acceptance of Jesus Christ as
the All-in-all for us, for life and death, for inward and outward
being.
Paul means, next, a steadfastness in regard to Christ in our trust
and love. Surely if from Him there is for ever streaming out an
unbroken flow of tenderness, there should be ever on our sides an
equally unbroken opening of our hearts for the reception of His love,
and an equally uninterrupted response to it in our grateful
affection. There can be no more damning condemnation of the
vacillations and fluctuations of Christian men's affections than the
steadfastness of Christ's love to them. He loves ever; He is
unalterable in the communication and effluence of His heart. Surely
it is most fitting that we should be steadfast in our devotion and
answering love to Him. And Paul means not only fixedness of
intellectual conviction and continuity of loving response, but also
habitual obedience, which is always ready to do His will.
So we should answer His 'Yea!' with our 'Amen!' and having an
unchanging Christ to rest upon, we should rest upon Him unchanging.
The broken, fluctuating affections and trusts and obediences which
mark so much of the average Christian life of this day are only too
sad proofs of how scant our possession of that Spirit of
steadfastness must be supposed to be. God's 'Yea' is answered by our
faltering 'Amen'; God's truth is hesitatingly accepted; God's love is
partially returned; God's work is slothfully and negligently done.
'Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord.'
Another thought is suggested by these words--viz. that such
steadfastness as we have been trying to describe has for its result a
deeper penetration into Jesus Christ and a fuller possession of Him.
The only way by which we can grow nearer and nearer to our Lord is by
steadfastly keeping beside Him. You cannot get the spirit of a
landscape unless you sit down and gaze, and let it soak into you. The
cheap tripper never sees the lake. You cannot get to know a man until
you summer and winter with him. No subject worth studying opens
itself to the hasty glance. Was it not Sir Isaac Newton who used to
say, 'I have no genius, but I keep a subject before me'? 'Abide in
Me; as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine, no
more can ye except ye abide in Me.' Continuous, steadfast adhesion to
Him is the condition of growing up into His likeness, and receiving
more and more of His beauty into our waiting hearts. 'Wait on the
Lord; wait, I say, on the Lord.'
III. Lastly, notice the very humble and commonplace sphere in which
the Christian steadfastness manifests itself.
It was nothing of more importance than that Paul had said he was
going to Corinth, and did not, on which he brings all this array of
great principles to bear. From which I gather just this thought, that
the highest gifts of God's grace and the greatest truths of God's
Word are meant to regulate the tiniest things in our daily life. It
is no degradation to the lightning to have to carry messages. It is
no profanation of the sun to gather its rays into a burning glass to
light a kitchen fire with. And it is no unworthy use of the Divine
Spirit that God gives to His children, to say it will keep a man from
hasty and precipitate decisions as to little things in life, and from
chopping and changing about, with a levity of purpose and without a
sufficient reason. If our religion is not going to influence the
trifles, what is it going to influence? Our life is made up of
trifles, and if these are not its field, where is its field? You may
be quite sure that, if your religion does not influence the little
things, it will never influence the great ones. If it has not power
enough to guide the horses when they are at a slow, sober walk, what
do you think it will do when they are at a gallop and plunging? 'He
that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.' So
let us see to two things--first, that all our religion is worked into
our life, for only so much of it as is so inwrought is our
religion--and, second, that all our life is brought under the sway of
motives derived from our religion: for only in proportion as it is,
will it be pure and good.
And as regards this special virtue and prime quality of steadfastness
and fixedness of purpose, you can do no good in the world without it.
Unless a man can hold his own, and turn an obstinate negative to the
temptations that lie thick about him, he will never come to any good
at all, either in this life or in the next. The basis of all
excellence is a wholesome disregard of externals, and the cultivation
of a strong self-reliant and self-centred, because God-trusting and
Christ-centred, will. And I tell you, especially you young men and
women, if you want to do or be anything worth doing or being, you
must try to get your natures hardened into being 'steadfast,
unmovable.' There is only one infallible way of doing it, and that is
to let the 'strong Son of God' live in you, and in Him to find your
strength for resistance, your strength for obedience, your strength
for submission. 'I have set the Lord always before me; because He is
at my right hand, I shall not be moved.'
There are two types of men in the world. The one has his emblem in
the chaff, rootless, with no hold, swept out of the threshing-floor
by every gust of wind. That the picture of many whose principles lie
at the mercy of the babble of tongues round about them, whose
rectitude goes at a puff of temptation, like the smoke out of a
chimney when the wind blows; who have no will for what is good, but
live as it happens. The other type of man has his emblem in the tree,
rooted deep, and therefore rising high, with its roots going as far
underground as its branches spread in the blue, and therefore green
of leaf and rich of fruit 'We are made partakers of Christ if we hold
fast the beginning of our confidence, steadfast until the end.'