Law says, 'Make the tree good,' and does not try to do it. Christ
said, 'Make the tree good,' and proceeds to do it. And how does He
do it?
He does it by coming to us; to every soul of man on the earth, and
offering, first, forgiveness for all the past. I do not know that
amongst all the bonds by which evil holds a poor soul that struggles
to get away from it, there is one more adamantine and unyielding
than the consciousness that the past is irrevocable, and that 'what
I have written I have written,' and never can blot out. But Jesus
Christ deals with that consciousness. It is true that 'whatsoever a
man soweth that shall he also reap,' and the Christian doctrine of
forgiveness does not contradict that solemn truth, but it assures us
that God's heart is not turned away from us, notwithstanding the
past, and that we can write the future better, and break altogether
the fatal bond that decrees, apart from Him, that 'to-morrow shall
be as this day, and much more abundant,' and that past sin shall
beget a progeny of future sins. That fruitfulness of sin is at an
end, if we take Christ for our Saviour.
He makes the tree good in another fashion still; for the very
centre, as it seems to me, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that
into our spirits He will breathe a new life kindred with His own, a
new nature which is free from the law and bonds of past sin, and of
present and future death. The tree is made good because He makes
those who believe in Him 'new creatures in Christ Jesus.' Now, do
not turn away and say that that is mysticism. Be it mysticism or
not, it is God's truth. It is the truth of the Christian Revelation,
that faith in Jesus Christ puts a new nature into any man, however
sinful he may have been, and however deep the marks of the fetters
may have been upon his limbs.
Christ makes the tree good in yet another fashion, because He brings to
the reinforcement of the new life which He imparts the mightiest
motives, and sways by love, which leads to the imitation of the Beloved,
which leads to obedience to the Beloved, which leads to shunning as the
worst of evils anything that would break the communion with the Beloved,
and which is in itself the decentralising of the sinful soul from its
old centre, and the making of Christ the Beloved the centre round which
it moves, and from which it draws radiance and light and motion. By all
these methods, and many more that I cannot dwell upon now, the problem
is triumphantly solved by Christianity. The tree is made good, and
'instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree.'
You may say, 'That is all very well in theory. What about the
practice? I do not see such a mighty difference between you
Christians and us.' Well, for myself and my brethren, I accept the
rebuke. There is not such a difference as there ought to be. But do
you know why? Not because our great Gardener cannot change the
nature of the plant, but because we do not submit ourselves to His
power as we ought to do. Debit us with as many imperfections and
inconsistencies as you like, do not lay them to the charge of
Christ.
And yet we are willing to accept the test of Christianity which lies
in its power to change men. I point to the persecutor on the road to
Damascus. I point to the Bedfordshire tinker, to him that wrote
_Pilgrim's Progress_. I point to the history of the Christian
Church all down through the ages. I point to our mission fields to-day.
I point to every mission hall, where earnest, honest men are working,
and where, if you go and ask them, they will let you see people
lifted from the very depths of degradation and sin, and made honest,
sober, respectable, hard-working, though not very intelligent or
refined, Christian people. I suppose that there is no man in an
official position like mine who cannot look back over his ministry
and remember, some of them dozens, some of them scores, some of them
hundreds, of cases in which the change was made on the most hopeless
people, by the simple acceptance of the simple gospel, 'Christ died
for me, and Christ lives in me.' I know that I can recall such, and
I am sure that my brethren can.
People who are not Christians talk glibly about the failure of
Christianity to transform men. They have never seen the
transformations because they have never put themselves in the way of
seeing them. They are being worked to-day; they might be worked here
and now.
Try the power of the Gospel for yourselves. You cannot make the tree
good, but you can let Jesus Christ do it. The Ethiopian cannot
change his skin, nor the leopard his spots, but Jesus can do both.
'The lion shall eat straw like the ox.' It is weary work to be
tinkering at your acts. Take the comprehensive way, and let Him
change your character. I believe that in some processes of dyeing, a
piece of cloth, prepared with a certain liquid, is plunged into a
vat full of dye-stuffs of one colour, and is taken out tinged of
another. The soul, wet with the waters of repentance, and plunged
into the 'Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,' the crimson
fountain of the blood of Christ, emerges 'whiter than snow.' Let Him
'make the tree good and fruit will be good,' for if not we shall be
'hewn down and cast into the fire,' because we cannot bear any fruit
unto holiness, nor can the end be everlasting life.
'A GREATER THAN JONAS'
'A greater than Jonas is here.'--MATT. xii. 41.
There never was any man in his right mind, still more of influence
on his fellows, who made such claims as to himself in such
unmistakable language as Jesus Christ does. To say such things of
oneself as come from His lips is a sign of a weak, foolish nature.
It is fatal to all influence, to all beauty of character. It is not
only that He claims official attributes as a fanatical or dishonest
pretender to inspiration may do. He does that, but He does more--He
declares Himself possessed of virtues which, if a man said he had
them, it would be the best proof that he did not possess them and
did not know himself. 'I am the way and the truth and the life.' 'I
am the light of the world'--a 'greater than the temple,' a greater
than Jonah, a 'greater than Solomon,' and then withal 'I am meek and
lowly of heart.' And the world believes Him, and says, Yes! it is
true.
These three comparisons of Jesus with Temple, Jonas, and Solomon,
carry great claims and great lessons. By the first Jesus asserts
that He is in reality all that the Temple was in shadowy symbol, and
sets Himself above ritual, sacrifices, and priests. By the second he
asserts His superiority not only to one prophet but to them all. By
the third He asserts His superiority to Solomon, whom the Jews
reverenced as the bright, consummate flower of kinghood.
Now we may take this comparison as giving us positive thoughts about
our Lord. The points of comparison may be taken to be three, with
Jonah as one of an order, with Jonah in his personal character as a
servant of God, with Jonah as a prophet charged with a special work.