it implied on the other hand trust as well as self-renunciation. When we
pray, ‘Lord, save me,’ we clearly recognise His saving power. We know
(as we are taught in Heb. vii. 25) that ‘He is able to save to the
uttermost all that come unto God by Him and therefore we come to God by
Him that we may be saved. The saving in that sense is exactly the same
as the saving in the text. It is not the first acceptance of the
repentant sinner seeking salvation, but it is the habitual saving
throughout the life; for the point of the text is that it is continued to
the uttermost, or to the end. It is a saving carried on after the first
great saving act is complete. I am anxious to press this on your
attention, because I am inclined to think that it is the secret of the
fresh help which many persons appear to have lately received. I cannot
say I am sure of it; for the statements on the subject are so confused,
that it is almost impossible to disentangle them. It is possible
therefore that I may be entirely mistaken. But, whether it is or not,
you will see in a moment the vast difference between knowing that there
is a Saviour able to save, and resting in a Saviour who is actually and
continually engaged in saving you; between being anxious to obtain the
help of a certain physician, and being under that physician’s care;
between hanging on a wreck and seeing a life-boat near you, and being in
the life-boat, and, though still beaten by the storm, safe in the strong
arm of the Deliverer. Now this is our position in Christ Jesus. We are
not seeking to reach the life-boat, for we are in it, as David was when
he said, ‘Lord, I am Thine.’ The storm is not over, the harbour is not
yet reached; but the harbour is in sight, and our Father is at the helm.
David clearly prayed to Him as to one who had already begun His saving
work, as you will clearly see if you compare the 88th and 93rd verses.
In the 88th he prays, ‘Quicken me after Thy loving-kindness;’ and in the
93rd he shows that the quickening was already begun, for he says, ‘I will
never forget Thy precepts, for with them Thou hast quickened me.’ You
will see in a moment what an enormous difference this distinction must
make in daily life. If you are looking up to Him as one from whom you
are only seeking help, you may be perfectly sure of His sufficiency, but
it will not satisfy the anxieties of your soul: but if you are actually
enjoying His help, so that you can say, as the Psalmist did, ‘My heart
trusted in Him, and I am helped,’ then you may add, as he did, ‘Therefore
my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my song will I praise Him.’ Look on
Him then as one who is engaged in bearing you home; acknowledge what He
has done in the past, trust Him for what He will do in the future, and
meanwhile rest in what He is doing now,—just as St. Paul did when,
speaking of temporal deliverance, he said (2 Cor. i. 10), ‘Who delivered
us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will
yet deliver.’ That one verse brings before us the past, present, and
future,—the ‘yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’—the Lord Jesus a very
present help, and a help to the end. He has redeemed you by His own most
precious blood, and saved you from all condemnation of the law: that is
done and perfected for ever. He has sanctified, or separated, you in
Christ Jesus, to be a purchased possession unto God: that is done
likewise, and done for ever. He has begun a good work in you, and made
you new creatures in Christ Jesus: that, too, is done, thanks to His
mercy! He is now holding you in His hand, guiding you by His counsel,
helping you by His power, and giving you the victory even over the
indwelling sin which still lives, though He will not let it reign, within
your heart. This is going on now: so that now, even now, He is
quickening you, and when you are deeply and profoundly humbled for all
that you have done and left undone, and when, under the painful
conviction of indwelling sin, you are compelled to acknowledge that your
‘soul cleaveth unto the dust,’ you may still in happy, peaceful, loving
trust, look up to Him who is even now bearing you in His arm, and say,
‘Lord, I am Thine: save me.’
THE HOLY NAME SANCTIFIED.
‘And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in
heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.’—LUKE, xi. 2.
WE are all in the habit of using this prayer every day,—for I hope that
there is not one amongst us who presumes to think that he has reached a
spiritual life beyond it. We use it with the utmost thankfulness,—for it
expresses the deep and unceasing wants of the human heart; and, as far as
I myself am concerned, I do not think that it occurs too often in our
liturgy. This clause may be called ‘The child’s first prayer.’ It is
the first desire of the child of God, poured forth morning by morning
into his Father’s ear. But have you ever considered how it bears on the
subject of Sanctification, which we have been recently considering? Are
you aware that the two words, to ‘hallow’ and to ‘sanctify,’ mean the
same thing, and may be interchanged one with another, so that exactly the
same idea would have been expressed had the clause been rendered,
‘Sanctified be Thy name?’ But so it is: and therefore in this prayer we
pray every day of our lives that God’s own name may be ‘sanctified.’
Now it will be clear in a moment to every one of you, that when the
expression is thus applied to God Himself, and to His name, it must mean
something very different to what it does when it is applied to ourselves.
It cannot mean separation unto God, for it is applied to Him who from all
eternity has been essentially separate. Nor can it be used in the sense
of ‘making holy,’ for perfect and unblemished holiness is the very
essence of His Godhead. What then does it mean? It means that the
holiness of His name should be known and honoured; and that whenever His
name is named, there should be the recognition and exhibition of His
holiness. It is a prayer, in fact, that His holiness may be glorified,
and that throughout the world He may be obeyed and revered as a holy God.
This sanctifying, or hallowing, of the name of God Himself shall be our
subject for this morning. And may He Himself grant that His name may be
sanctified in this very sermon! Let our prayer be, ‘Our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.’
The first point to which I would draw your attention is that He is
sanctified in His people. His power is manifest in the world: His
holiness in His Church. It is by the Church that is to be known, even to
principalities and powers in heavenly places, the manifold wisdom of God.
The Church of God is gathered from a rebel world in order that God in it
may display His holiness, and so make proof of His character. He
manifests himself amongst His people, and this manifestation is witnessed
by the world. You see this very clearly in such a passage as Ezek.
xxxvi. 23: ‘The heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord
God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.’ God would be
so sanctified in His people that the heathen should be persuaded of His
Godhead. So you read in Levit. x. 3: ‘I will be sanctified in them that
come nigh Me, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ Now mark
what a lesson there is in this for ourselves. In one sense we are all
come nigh to God, for we have all been baptized into His name. We all
meet in His house as His worshippers; and many of us delight in the
sacred privilege of drawing near to Him in His sacramental feast. I hope
it may be said of many in the reality of their souls’ salvation, as it
may certainly be said of all in the externals of their Christianity,—that
they are ‘a people nigh unto Him.’ But if so, He is to be sanctified in
us. We who draw nigh unto Him, are to be like the glass reflecting His
image: it is in us that His character is to be exhibited, and His
holiness made manifest before the world. We are to be changed into His
image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, so that in us ought to be seen
that image, and in us the holiness of His name should be exalted amongst
men.
But now follows the question,—In what way and by whom, must His name be
hallowed, or sanctified, in His people? In answer to this we shall find,
if we study Scripture, that it will be sanctified by His people, and also
by Himself. It will be however sufficient for our present purpose if we
confine our attention to its sanctification by His people, as described
in these words of the prophet Isaiah: ‘They shall sanctify my name, and
sanctify the Holy One of Jacob.’
The great question, therefore, for us to consider is, In what way may we
glorify God? And the answer is given in the words of our Lord Himself,
as written in John, xv. 8: ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear
much fruit.’ You will observe that it is not merely by feeling, or even
by communion with God, but by fruit. I know that joy and peace are
amongst the first-fruits of the Spirit, and God forbid that I should say
one word that could possibly be understood as spoken lightly of such a
gift as communion with God! It is the most sacred privilege that it is
possible for a ransomed spirit to enjoy, and nothing but the finished
ransom could ever admit us to it. But we must not confound it with the
fruit that springs from it, or suppose that to enjoy communion is the
same as to be holy. The sap is essential to the life of the tree, but
the sap is not the fruit, and there is a great deal of sap in many trees
where there is no fruit at all. The fruit is something practical,
something contributed, and if it glorifies God, it will be visible to our
fellow-men. So our Lord said (Matt. v. 16), ‘Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father
which is in heaven.’
Nor must we confine it to a victory over sin. I sometimes meet with
books in which this victory appears to be described as the sum and
substance of holiness. Now I do not doubt for one moment that it is a
part of it; but it is only a part: the negative side, and not the
positive. It would not satisfy your mind to be assured there were no
thorns on your roses, or no poisonous berries on your vines; you want
flowers on the rose, and grapes on the vine. I do not know that there
was any harm in the fig-tree that stood by the way-side from Bethany: I
never read that it yielded poison; but it bore no fruit, and the Lord
withered it. So it is that we stop utterly short of the true character
of Christian holiness if we describe it simply as a victory over sin.
Suppose that we really had overcome, and that there had been such a
conquest in deed, in word, and in thought, that we should have no
occasion for the confession, ‘We have done those things which we ought
not to have done;’ we might still be as fruitless as the barren fig-tree,
and have reason to throw ourselves, in the deepest and most profound
repentance, before His feet, and cry, ‘We have left undone those things
which we ought to have done.’ True fruit is positive service: something
that pervades our life. Thus of the fruits of the Spirit, as described
in Gal. v. 22,—‘Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance,’—by far the greater number relate to our
practical conduct amongst our fellow-men. In the account of heavenly
wisdom given by St. James they are all of the same character: ‘The wisdom
that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without
hypocrisy.’ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that
make peace.’
True fruit again is something yielded up to God. When a missionary gives
up home, and life itself for the Gospel, that is fruit. When the
Sunday-school teacher devotes the day of rest to labour for God, that is
fruit. When people bring freely of their substance, and throw large
gifts into the treasury of God, that is fruit. When people in family
life, heads of families, servants, young people, lay themselves out to
make all happy around them, and by their loving, gentle conduct, commend
the Gospel to all with whom they are brought in contact, that is fruit.
It may not be the fruit of the hot-house, enjoyed only by the rich; or
like some of those fruits which look so beautiful aloft on our orchard
trees, that all admire: for we must remember that some of our best fruits
grow in the cottage gardens, close to the ground. So God is often best
glorified by the holy, humble, and self-denying zeal of the humble
believer, keeping alow by the ground, and there, in humble life,
‘adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.’
But you will observe in our Lord’s words, that it is not merely by fruit,
but by much fruit, that God is glorified. All trees of the same kind are
not equally fruitful, nor are all believers; thus it by no means follows
that all believers glorify God, or that those who do so, do so equally.
Our Lord Himself describes four degrees in His parable of the sower.
First, there are those who are choked by the cares, and pleasures, and
riches, of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. The plant is not
altogether dead, and there may be a little fruit formed; but there is
none ripened, nothing worth having, nothing that glorifies God. I fear
there is a terrible number of those choked-up Christians in the Church of
God. Then where there is real fruitfulness, there are different degrees.
Some yield their thirty, some their sixty, and some their hundred-fold.
How earnest ought we to be that every one may be what I may term,
hundred-fold Christians,—people abounding in the fruits of the Spirit,
spending and being spent for God!
And why not? The sacred privilege of glorifying God does not belong to
some peculiar class of Christians,—to persons who have been suddenly
lifted into what they term ‘the higher life,’—but to all those who are
abiding in Christ Jesus, and have Him abiding in them; for He says, ‘He
that abideth in Me, and I in him; the same bringeth forth much fruit.’
You may have reason therefore to be most deeply humbled under the
conviction of indwelling sin, and to be most heartily grieved for the
mixed thoughts and motives that have intruded themselves into the holiest
acts of your whole lives; you may be utterly displeased with yourselves
for the utter poverty of your best services; you may be so convinced of
what you consider the peculiar difficulties of your own character, that
you may think it quite impossible that you yourselves should ever rise to
a high standard of Christian holiness: but there is a power in the Lord
Jesus so to raise you above your difficulties that you may not only be
saved, but actually raised to such a standard that, though you may not
know it, you may bring glory to His name. Nothing could be more
hopelessly dead than Aaron’s rod, but in one night it ‘budded and brought
forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded fruit.’ Nothing could be
more hopeless than the case of David when he was in the horrible pit and
the miry clay; but the Lord ‘set his feet on a rock and established his
goings, and put a new song into his mouth, even praise unto his God,’ and
the result was that God was glorified in his deliverance; for he adds,
‘Many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.’ So you may
say that you are dead, that you cannot rise, that there is no hope,—and
there is no hope in your own efforts at self-quickening,—but He who
raised the dead to life can so triumph even over your deadness as to
bring out of your dead heart such an abundance of beautiful fruit,
through the power of His own grace, that He Himself may be pleased with
your loving and faithful service. Nay, more! Though you may never be
able to see it, and though you may to the last be humbled to the dust for
your shortcomings, He may still fulfil in you, and towards you, the
prayer which St. Paul prayed for the Thessalonians: ‘That the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him, according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’
Aim then at the highest possible standard. Never settle down contented
with anything that falls short of it. Never consider that your case is
too difficult for the Lord, the Deliverer, but trust Him so to abide in
you with power, that His own words may be fulfilled: ‘Herein is my Father
glorified, that ye bear much fruit.’
EXPOSITORY NOTES.
NOTE A.—ROMANS, VII.
I BELIEVE that a great deal of the difficulty felt respecting the seventh
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, arises from a mistaken idea that
the different chapters are descriptive of consecutive periods of the
Christian life. Persons are supposed to be justified in the fifth,
brought to a new life in the sixth, and to be living in perfect peace in
the eighth, and thus the conflict of the seventh is thought to be out of
place. But surely there is no such consecutiveness to be found in the
passage.
Both the sixth and seventh chapters are an answer to the question in the
first verse of the sixth, ‘Shall we continue in sin?’ And this answer is
founded on the principle that we must not do so, because such conduct
would be inconsistent with the great change that has taken place in us.
This change is then described under three figures.
(1.) A death unto sin through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ch.
vi. 3–15.)
(2.) A change of service. (Ch. vi. 16–23.)
(3.) A release from the law, as a woman is loosed from the law of her
husband when he dies (Ch. vii. 1–6); the result of which is that,
therefore, we are now free from condemnation, etc. (Ch. viii. 1). The
‘therefore’ of this verse depends on the deliverance described in ch.
vii. 6, and the intermediate passage (ver. 7–25) is a parenthesis. It is
in the parenthesis that the difficulty is supposed to lie; and by the
place which that parenthesis occupies in the argument that it must be
explained.
In his argument the Apostle had connected sin with the law, which of
course suggested the idea that the law was sinful; an idea which would
have been shocking to Jewish minds, and was entirely contrary to his own.
In accordance, therefore, with his usual style, he broke off from the
direct line of his argument, in order to protect the truth against any
such objection; and thus introduced the parenthesis.
This consists of two questions, with their respective answers.
The first is in the seventh verse: ‘What shall we say then? Is the law
sin? God forbid.’ This he answers by a reference to his own history,
and by showing that the law, so far from being sin, had served to
discover and develope it; and by doing so had slain him. (Ver. 7–12.)
Thus far the passage is clearly historical, and the ‘I’ is his own
historical self, as I believe it to be throughout.
But this answer suggested a further difficulty: viz., that a good thing
had been the means of slaying him; and this led to the second question
(ver. 13): ‘Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid.’
To this the answer was that the fault was not in the law, but in himself;
for even in his new condition, when he heartily loved the law, the old
nature of the flesh was still so powerful that he could not fulfil it as
he would. (Ver. 14–24.)
This explains the strong language of the fourteenth verse,—‘I am carnal,
sold under sin,’—which people find it difficult to reconcile with the
account of complete deliverance in the sixth verse.
For my own part I have no difficulty, for
(1.) The explanation is suggested by the account he gives of the ‘me’ in
the eighteenth verse. ‘In me, _that is_, _in my flesh_, dwelleth no good
thing.’ It is clear that he is speaking there of his fallen human
nature; and it is not unreasonable to believe that the explanation there
given covers the fourteenth verse as well.
(2.) This is the only meaning that the words can bear in the context.
He is showing that his death under the law was not the fault of the law,
but of his own nature. And, therefore, he says, ‘The law is spiritual,
but I am’ (by nature, that is) ‘carnal, sold under sin.’ He does not
contradict his own words in ch. vi. 11, where he directs his readers to
‘reckon themselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,’ for he
is not speaking of his position in Christ Jesus, but asserting that by
nature he was carnal; so that the law was not to blame for having been
made death unto him. There is no difficulty in the use of the present
tense if we bear in mind that the old nature is not eradicated by the new
birth. He, so far as his nature was concerned, was as bad as ever to the
last day of his life.
The remainder of the parenthesis is a proof of this corruption of his
nature derived from his present experience. And the exclamation of the
twenty-fourth verse is the cry of a holy man who, being regenerate, loved
the law, and longed to be set free from that power of a fallen nature
which kept him back from its complete fulfilment. He had been delivered
from the law as a condemning power; but he delighted in it as a rule of
life, and longed to be free from his evil nature, that so he might obey
it without impediment.
NOTE B.—1 JOHN, III. 6.
_Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not_.
THESE words, if detached from their context and from the remainder of the
Epistle, apparently teach the absolute and perfect sinlessness of all
those who abide in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if the words, ‘sinneth
not,’ describe an entire freedom from all sin, they clearly do so.
But this cannot possibly be their meaning; for if it were,
(1.) The remainder of the verse would teach us that if any person should
ever sin in thought, word, or deed, he would be thereby proved never to
have seen or known Christ. ‘He that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither
known Him.’
(2.) In the same manner the eighth and ninth verses would teach us that
if any person ever did wrong in any way whatever, he would be of the
devil, and not born of God. ‘He that committeth sin is of the devil.’
(Ver. 8.) ‘Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.’ (Ver. 9.)
(3.) This passage would be in direct contradiction to the first chapter,
in the seventh verse of which those who are walking in the light are
described as being cleansed from sin; in the eighth, as having sin; in
the ninth, as confessing it, and being forgiven; and in the tenth, as
having sinned.
Some other meaning, therefore, must be sought for the expression,
‘sinneth not.’ What this meaning is may be gathered from the great
object of the Epistle: which was to correct the leading heresies of the
day. (See ch. ii. 26.) Of these heresies one of the most prominent was
that of the Gnostics, who taught that if a man had the knowledge, or the
light, he might live as he pleased in practical life. Against that
corrupt notion this passage is directed; and its great object is to show
that if there be the new birth, or a union with the Lord Jesus, there is
certain to be a practical change of life and character. That this is the
meaning is plain from the context. It is there proved that he is
speaking of practical and habitual religion.
I. OF PRACTICAL RELIGION.
In the seventh verse he shows that all true religion is practical: ‘He
that _doeth_ righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.’ Our
Blessed Lord was practically righteous, so His people will be the same.
In the eighth verse he shows that the practice of sin is of the Devil:
‘He that _committeth_ sin is of the Devil.’
In ver. 5–8 he teaches that to destroy the works of the Devil was the
great object of the manifestation of our Blessed Redeemer: ‘For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the _works_
of the Devil.’
In the tenth verse he asserts that this practical righteousness is the
distinguishing test between the children of God and the children of the
Devil. It was clearly such conduct as was visible to other men, or the
distinction would not have been manifest. ‘In this the children of God
are manifest, and the children of the Devil.’
II. OF HABITUAL RELIGION.
The present tense, indicating a continued habit, is employed throughout
the passage. So the word sometimes rendered ‘committeth,’ and sometimes
‘doeth,’ is used to express the habit. This may be seen from the use of
it in these words of our Blessed Saviour (John, ix. 19): ‘None of you
keepeth the law.’ If we adopt the rendering of that verse, and
substitute ‘keepeth’ for ‘committeth’ in this passage there will be very
little difficulty in understanding the meaning of the Apostle. The
fourth verse would then be, ‘He that keepeth sin transgresseth also the
law;’ and the eighth, ‘He that keepeth sin is of the Devil.’
The whole passage teaches us the great importance of being most earnest
in urging the necessity of a practically consistent life on the children
of God, and in showing that there must be a change in heart, in
principle, and in habitual practice, whenever a person is born of God;
but it has no reference whatever to the secret heart-struggles of the
true believer in his earnest conflict with indwelling sin. They are not
the subject of the passage. There are other Scriptures which speak of
them, but this refers to practical and habitual conduct.
NOTE C.—ON THE WORD ‘PERFECT.’
The word τέλειος is of so frequent occurrence in Scripture that it
requires our careful study.
Its original sense is ‘complete,’ and the corresponding verb τελειόω is
to complete, or finish. The derived senses will vary with the subjects
to which it applied.
(1.) In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, it stands for
sincere, upright, undivided in heart.
‘Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked
with God.’ (Gen. vi. 9.)
Amaziah had a great deal of religion about him, but he was inconsistent;
and, therefore, it says of him, ‘He did that which was right in the sight
of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.’ (2 Chron. xxv. 2.)
(2.) In Matt. v. 48, it means complete, or comprehensive, as opposed to
being limited and partial.
Our Lord is exhorting His disciples to love their enemies as well as
their friends (verses 43, 44); and says, ‘That ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’
He then goes on to show that there is no value in merely partial love
(46, 47); and concludes with the words, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’ That is, like Him; show your
love to your opponents as well as to your brethren.
(3.) In Heb. v. 14, it is used of those who are ‘of full age,’ or
complete in their growth, and therefore capable of strong meat; as
contrasted with those who are babes, and therefore fed on milk. It is
the same in Eph. iv. 13, 14; and 1 Cor. xiv. 20.
(4.) In 1 Cor. ii. 6, it means ‘fully initiated.’ A mystery was
something not known to the world, but revealed to those who were
initiated, and those who were initiated were called τέλειοι. So here St.
Paul says, ‘We speak wisdom amongst them that are perfect,’ or the
initiated: ‘yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this
world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our
glory.’
I am not sure whether Phil. iii. 15, expresses full initiation, or full
manhood. I am inclined to think that it means initiation, as the verse
speaks of a yet further manifestation of God’s will. ‘Let us therefore,
as many as be perfect,’ or initiated, ‘be thus minded: and if in anything
you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.’
At all events it is perfectly clear that it does not mean personal
perfection, for St. Paul says, verse 12, ‘Not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect.’