'Thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph
in Christ and maketh manifest through us the savour of
His knowledge in every place.'--2 COR. ii. 14 (R.V.)
I suppose most of us have some knowledge of what a Roman Triumph was,
and can picture to ourselves the long procession, the victorious
general in his chariot with its white horses, the laurelled soldiers,
the sullen captives, with suppressed hate flashing in their sunken
eyes, the wreathing clouds of incense that went up into the blue sky,
and the shouting multitude of spectators. That is the picture in the
Apostle's mind here. The Revised Version correctly alters the
translation into 'Thanks unto God which always _leadeth us in_
triumph in Christ.'
Paul thinks of himself and of his coadjutors in Christian work as
being conquered captives, made to follow their Conqueror and to swell
His triumph. He is thankful to be so overcome. What was deepest
degradation is to him supreme honour. Curses in many a strange tongue
would break from the lips of the prisoners who had to follow the
general's victorious chariot. But from Paul's lips comes
irrepressible praise; he joins in the shout of acclamation to the
Conqueror.
And then he passes on to another of the parts of the ceremonial. As
the wreathing incense appealed at once to two senses, and was visible
in its curling clouds of smoke, and likewise fragrant to the
nostrils, so says Paul, with a singular combination of expression,
'He maketh _manifest_,' that is visible, the _savour_ of
His knowledge. From a heart kindled by the flame of the divine love
there will go up the odour of a holy life visible and fragrant, sweet
and fair.
And thus all Christians, and not Christian workers only in the
narrower sense of the word, who may be doing evangelistic work, have
set before them in these great words the very ideal and secret of
their lives.
There are three things here, on each of which I touch as belonging to
the true notion of a Christian life--the conquered captive; that
captive partaking in the triumph of his Conqueror; and the conquered
captive led as a trophy and a witness to the Conqueror's power. These
three things, I think, explain the Apostle's thoughts here. Let me
deal with them now.
I. First then, let us look at that thought of all Christians being in
the truest sense conquered captives, bound to the chariot wheels of
One who has overcome them.
The image implies a prior state of hostility and alienation. Now, do
not let us exaggerate, let us take Paul's own experience. He is
speaking about himself here; he is not talking doctrine, he is giving
us autobiography, and he says, 'I was an enemy, and I have been
conquered.'
What sort of an enemy was he? Well! He says that before he became a
Christian he lived a pure, virtuous, respectable life. He was a man
'as touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.'
Observant of all relative duties, sober, temperate, chaste; no man
could say a word against him; he knew nothing against himself. His
conscience acquitted him of wrong: 'I thought I ought to do many
things,' as I did them. And yet, looking back from his present point
of view upon a life thus adorned with many virtues, pure from all
manifest corruption, to a large extent regulated by conscientious and
religious motives of a kind, he says, 'Notwithstanding all that, I
was an enemy.' Why? Because the retrospect let him see that his life
was barren of the deepest faith and the purest love. And so I come to
some of my friends here now, and I say to you, 'Change the name, and
the story is true about you,' respectable people, who are trying to
live pure and righteous lives, doing all duties that present
themselves to you with a very tolerable measure of completeness and
abominating and trying to keep yourselves from the things that your
consciences tell you are wrong, yet needing to be conquered, in the
deepest recesses of your wills and your hearts, before you become
the true subjects of the true King. I do not want to exaggerate, nor
to say of the ordinary run of people who listen to us preachers, that
they commit manifest sins, 'gross as a mountain, open, palpable.'
Some of you do, no doubt, for, in every hundred people, there are
always some whose lives are foul and whose memories are stained and
horrible; but the run of you are not like that. And yet I ask you,
has your will been bowed and broken, and your heart overcome and
conquered by this mighty Prince, the Prince of Peace, the Prince of
Life? Unless it has, for all your righteousness and respectability,
for all your outward religion and real religiousness of a sort, you
are still hostile and rebellious, in your inmost hearts. That is the
basis of the representation of my text.
What else does it suggest? It suggests the wonderful struggle and
victory of weaponless love. As was said about the first Christian
emperor, so it may be said about the great Emperor in the heavens,
'_In hoc signo vinces!_' By this sign thou shalt conquer. For
His only weapon is the Cross of His Son, and He fights only by the
manifestation of infinite love, sacrifice, suffering, and pity. He
conquers as the sun conquers the thick-ribbed ice by raying down its
heat upon it, and melting it into sweet water. So God in Christ
fights against the mountains of man's cold, hard sinfulness and
alienation, and by the warmth of His own radiation turns them all
into rivers that flow in love and praise. He conquers simply by
forbearance and pity and love.
And what more does this first part of my text say to us? It tells us,
too, of the true submission of the conquered captive; how we are
conquered when we perceive and receive His love; how there is nothing
else needed to win us all for Him except only that we shall recognise
His great love to us.
This picture of the triumph comes with a solemn appeal and
commandment to every one of us professing Christians. Think of these
men, dragged at the conqueror's chariot-wheels, abject, with their
weapons broken, with their resistance quelled, chained, yoked,
haled away from their own land, dependant for life or death on the
caprice of the general who rode before them there. It is a picture of
what you Christian men and women are bound to be if you believe that
God in Christ has loved you as we have been saying that He does. For
abject submission, unconditional surrender, the yielding up of our
whole will to Him, the yielding of all our possessions as His
vassals--these are the duties that are correspondent to the facts of
the case.
If we are thus won by infinite love, and not our own, but bought with
a price, no conquered king, dragged at an emperor's chariot-wheels,
was ever half as absolutely and abjectly bound to be his slave, and
to live or die by his breath, as you are bound to your Master. You
are Christians in the measure in which you are the captives of His
spear and of His bow; in the measure in which you hold your
territories as vassal kings, in the measure in which you say,
stretching out your willing hands for the fetters, 'Lord! here am I,
do with me as Thou wilt.' 'I am not mine own; be Thou my will, my
Emperor, my Commander, my all.' Loyola used to say, as the law of his
order, that every man that became a member of the Society of Jesus
was to be like as a staff in a man's hand, or like as a corpse. It
was a blasphemous and wicked claim, but it is but a poor fragmentary
statement of the truth about those of us who enter the real Society
of Jesus, and put ourselves in His hands to be wielded as His staff
and His rod, and submit ourselves to Him, not as a corpse, but yield
yourselves to our Christ 'as those that are alive from the dead.'
II. Now we have here, as part of the ideal of the Christian life, the
conquered captives partaking in the triumph of their general.
Two groups made up the triumphal procession--the one that of the
soldiers who had fought for, the other that of the prisoners who had
fought against, the leader. And some commentators are inclined to
believe that the Apostle is here thinking of himself and his fellows
as belonging to the conquering army, and not to the conquered enemy.
That seems to me to be less probable and in accordance with the whole
image than the explanation which I have adopted. But be that as it
may, it suggests to us this thought, that in the deepest reality in
that Christian life of which all this metaphor is but the expression,
they who are conquered foes become conquering allies. Or, to put it
into other words--to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with
Christ. And the praise which breaks from the Apostle's lips suggests
the same idea. He pours out his thanks for that which he recognises
as being no degradation but an honour, and a participation in his
Conqueror's triumph.
We may illustrate that thought, that to be triumphed over by Christ
is to triumph with Christ, by such considerations as these. This
submission of which I have been speaking, abject and unconditional,
extending to life and death, this submission and captivity is but
another name for liberty. The man who is absolutely dependent upon
Jesus Christ is absolutely independent of everything and everybody
besides, himself included. That is to say, to be His slave is to be
everybody else's master, and when we bow ourselves to Him, and take
upon us the chains of glad obedience, and life-deep as well as
life-long consecration, then He breaks off all other chains from our
hands, and will not suffer that any others should have a share with
Him in the possession of His servant. If you are His servants you are
free from all besides; if you give yourselves up to Jesus Christ, in
the measure in which you give yourselves up to Him, you will be set
at liberty from the worst of all slaveries, that is the slavery of
your own will and your own weakness, and your own tastes and fancies.
You will be set at liberty from dependence upon men, from thinking
about their opinion. You will be set at liberty from your dependence
upon externals, from feeling as if you could not live unless you had
this, that, or the other person or thing. You will be emancipated
from fears and hopes which torture the men who strike their roots no
deeper than this visible film of time which floats upon the surface
of the great, invisible abyss of Eternity. If you have Christ for
your Master you will be the masters of the world, and of time and
sense and men and all besides; and so, being triumphed over by Him,
you will share in His triumph.
And again, we may illustrate the same principle in yet another way.
Such absolute and entire submission of will and love as I have been
speaking about is the highest honour of a man. It was a degradation
to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of conquering general, emperor,
or consul--it broke the heart of many a barbarian king, and led some
of them to suicide rather than face the degradation. It is a
degradation to submit ourselves, even as much as many of us do, to
the domination of human authorities, or to depend upon men as much as
many of us do for our completeness and our satisfaction. But it is
the highest ennobling of humanity that it shall lay itself down at
Christ's feet, and let Him put His foot upon its neck. It is the
exaltation of human nature to submit to Christ. The true nobility are
those that 'come over with the Conqueror.' When we yield ourselves to
Him, and let Him be our King, then the patent of nobility is given to
us, and we are lifted in the scale of being. All our powers and
faculties are heightened in their exercise, and made more blessed in
their employment, because we have bowed ourselves to His control. And
so to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ.
And the same thought may be yet further illustrated. That submission
which I have been speaking about so unites us to our Lord that we
share in all that belongs to Him and thus partake in His triumph. If
in will and heart we have yielded ourselves to Him, he that is thus
joined to the Lord is one spirit, and all 'mine is Thine, and all
Thine is mine.' He is the Heir of all things, and all things of which
He is the Heir are our possession. 'All things are yours, and ye are
Christ's.' Thus His dominion is the dominion of all that love Him,
and His heritage is the heritage of all those that have joined
themselves to Him; and no sparkle of the glory that falls upon His
head but is reflected on the heads of His servants. The 'many crowns'
that He wears are the crowns with which He crowns His followers.
Thus, my brother, to be overcome by God is to overcome the world, to
be triumphed over by Christ is to share in His triumph; and he over
whom Incarnate Love wins the victory, like the patriarch of old in
his mystical struggle, conquers in the hour of surrender; and to him
it is said: 'As a prince thou hast power with God and hast
prevailed.'
III. Lastly, a further picture of the ideal of the Christian life is
set before us here in the thought of these conquered captives being
led as the trophies and the witnesses of His overcoming power.
That idea is suggested by both halves of our verse. Both the emblem
of the Apostle as marching in the triumphal procession, and the
emblem of the Apostle as yielding from his burning heart the fragrant
visible odour of the ascending incense, convey the same idea, viz.
that one great purpose which Jesus Christ has in conquering men for
Himself, and binding them to His chariot wheels, is that from them
may go forth the witness of His power and the knowledge of His name.
That opens very wide subjects for our consideration which I can only
very briefly touch upon. Let me just for an instant dwell upon some
of them. First, the fact that Jesus Christ, by His Cross and Passion,
is able to conquer men's wills, and to bind men's hearts to Him, is
the highest proof of His power. It is an entirely unique thing in the
history of the world. There is nothing the least like it anywhere
else. The passionate attachment which this dead Galilean peasant is
able to evoke in the hearts of people all these centuries after His
death, is an unheard of and an unparalleled thing. All other teachers
'serve their generations by the will of God,' and then their names
become speedily less and less powerful, and thicker and thicker mists
of oblivion wrap them round until they disappear. But time has no
power over Christ's influence. The bond which binds you and me to Him
nineteen centuries after His death is the very same in quality as,
and in degree is often far deeper and stronger than, the bond which
united to Him the men that had seen Him. It stands as an unique fact
in the history of the world, that from Christ of Nazareth there rays
out through all the ages the spiritual power which absolutely takes
possession of men, dominates them and turns them into His organs and
instruments. This generation prides itself upon testing all things by
an utilitarian test, and about every system says:--'Well, let us see
it working.' And I do not think that Christianity need shrink from
the test. With all its imperfections, the long procession of holy men
and women who, for nineteen centuries, have been marching through
history, owning Christ as their Conqueror, and ascribing all their
goodness to Him, is a witness to His power to sway and to satisfy
men, the force of whose testimony it is hard to overthrow. And I
would like to ask the simple question: Will any system of belief or
of no belief, except the faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice, do the
like for men? He leads through the world the train of His captives,
the evidence of His conquests.
And then, further, let me remind you that out of this representation
there comes a very stimulating and solemn suggestion of duty for us
Christian people. We are bound to live, setting forth whose we are,
and what He has done for us. Just as the triumphal procession took
its path up the Appian Way and along the side of the Forum to the
altar of the Capitol, wreathed about by curling clouds of fragrant
incense, so we should march through the world encompassed by the
sweet and fragrant odour of His name, witnessing for Him by word,
witnessing for Him by character, speaking for Him and living like
Him, showing in our life that He rules us, and professing by our
words that He does; and so should manifest His power.
Still further, Paul's thanksgiving teaches us that we should be
thankful for all opportunities of doing such work. Christian men and
women often grudge their services and grudge their money, and feel as
if the necessities for doing Christian work in the world were
rather a burden than an honour. This man's generous heart was so full
of love to his Prince that it glowed with thankfulness at the thought
that Christ had let him do such things for Him. And He lets you do
them if you will.
So, dear friends, it comes to be a very solemn question for us. What
part are we playing in that great triumphal procession? We are all of
us marching at His chariot wheels, whether we know it or not. But
there were two sets of people in the old triumph. There were those
who were conquered by force and unconquered in heart, and out of
their eyes gleamed unquenchable malice and hatred, though their
weapons were broken and their arms fettered. And there were those
who, having shared in the commander's fight, shared in his triumph
and rejoiced in his rule. And when the procession reached the gate of
the temple, some, at any rate, of the former class were put to death
before the gates. I pray you to remember that if we are dragged after
Him reluctantly, the word will come: 'These, mine enemies, which
would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them
before Me.' Whereas, on the other hand, for those who have yielded
heart and soul to Him in love and submission born of the reception of
His great love, the blessed word will come: 'He that overcometh shall
inherit all things.' Which of the two parts of the procession do you
belong to, my friend? Make your choice where you shall march, and
whether you will be His loyal allies and soldiers who share in His
triumph, or His enemies, who, overcome by His power, are not melted
by His love. The one live, the other perish.