'And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands
upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And He marvelled because of
their unbelief.'--Mark vi. 5,6.
It is possible to live too near a man to see him. Familiarity with the
small details blinds most people to the essential greatness of any
life. So these fellow-villagers of Jesus in Nazareth knew Him too well
to know Him rightly as they talked Him over; they recognised His
wisdom and His mighty works; but all the impression that these would
have made was neutralised by their acquaintance with His former life,
and they said, 'Why, we have known Him ever since He was a boy. We
used to take our ploughs and yokes to Him to mend in the carpenter's
shop. His brothers and sisters are here with us. Where did _He_ get
His wisdom?' So _they_ said; and so it has been ever since. 'A prophet
is not without honour, save in his own country.'
Surrounded thus by unsympathetic carpers, Jesus Christ did not
exercise His full miraculous power. Other Evangelists tell us of these
limitations, but Mark is alone in the strength of his expression. The
others say '_did_ no mighty works'; Mark says '_could_ do no mighty
works.' Startling as the expression is, it is not to be weakened down
because it is startling, and if it does not fit in with your
conceptions of Christ's nature, so much the worse for the conceptions.
Matthew states the reason for this limitation more directly than Mark
does, for he says, 'He did no mighty works because of their unbelief.'
But Mark suggests the reason clearly enough in his next clause, when
he says: 'He marvelled because of their unbelief.' There is another
limitation of Christ's nature, He wondered as at an astonishing and
unexpected thing, We read that He 'marvelled' twice: once at great
faith, once at great unbelief. The centurion's faith was marvellous;
the Nazarenes' unbelief was as marvellous. The 'wild grapes' bore
clusters more precious than the tended 'vines' in the 'vineyard.'
Faith and unbelief do not depend upon opportunity, but upon the bent
of the will and the sense of need.
But I have chosen these words now because they put in its strongest
shape a truth of large importance, and of manifold applications--viz.,
that man's unbelief hampers and hinders Christ's power. Now let me
apply that principle in two or three directions.
I. Let us look at this principle in connection with the case before us
in the text.
You will find that, as a rule and in the general, our Lord's miracles
require faith, either on the part of the persons helped, or on the
part of those who interceded for them. But whilst that is the rule
there are distinct exceptions, as for instance, in the case of the
feeding of the thousands, and in the case of the raising of the
widow's son of Nain, as well as in other examples. And here we find
that, though the prevalent unbelief hindered the flow of our Lord's
miraculous power, it did not so hinder it as to stop some little
trickle of the stream. 'He laid His hands on a few sick folk, and
healed them.' The brook was shrunken as compared with the abundance of
the flood recorded in the previous chapter.
Now, why was that? There is no such natural connection between faith
and the working of a miracle as that the latter is only possible in
conjunction with the former. And the exceptions show us that Jesus
Christ was not so limited as that men's unbelief could wholly prevent
the flow of His love and His power. But still there was a restriction.
And what sort of a 'could not' was it that thus hampered Him in His
work? We know far too little about the conditions of miracle-working
to entitle us to dogmatise on such a matter, but I suppose that we may
venture to say this, that the working of the miracles was 'impossible'
in the absence of faith and the presence of its opposite, regard being
had to the purposes of the miracle and of Christ's whole work. It was
not congruous, it was not morally possible, that He should force His
benefits upon unwilling recipients.
Now, I need not do more than just in a sentence call attention to the
bearing of this fact upon the true notion of the purpose of Christ's
miraculous works. A superficial, and, as I think, very vulgar,
estimate, says that Christ's miracles were chiefly designed to produce
faith in Him and in His mission. If that had been their purpose, the
very place for the most abundant exhibition of them would have been
the place where unbelief was most pronounced. The atmosphere of
non-receptiveness and non-sympathy would have been the very one that
ought to have evoked them most. Where the darkness was the deepest,
there should the torch have flared. Where the stupor was most
complete, there should the rousing shock have been administered. But
the very opposite is the case. Where faith is present already, the
miracle comes. Where faith is absent, miracles fail. Therefore, though
a subsidiary purpose of our Lord's miracles was, no doubt, to evoke
faith in His mission, their chief purpose is not to be found in that
direction. It was a condescension to men's weakness and obstinacy when
He said, 'If ye believe not Me, believe the works.' But the works were
signs, symbols, manifestations on the lower material platform of what
lie would be and do for men in the higher, and they were the outcome
of His own loving heart and ever-flowing compassion, and only
secondarily were they taken, and have they ever been taken, when
Christian faith has been robust and intelligent, as being evidences of
His Messiahship and Divinity.
But there is another consideration that I would like to suggest in
reference to this limitation of our Lord's power, by reason of the
prevalence of an atmosphere of unbelief, and that is that it is a
pathetic proof of His manhood's being influenced by all the emotions
and circumstances that influence us. We all know how hearts expand in
the warm atmosphere of affection and sympathy, and shut themselves up
like tender flowerets when the cold east wind blows. And just as a
great orator subtly feels the sympathy of his audience, and is buoyed
up by it to higher flights, while in the presence of cold and
indifferent and critical hearers his tongue stammers, and he falls
beneath himself, so we may reverently say Jesus Christ _could_ not put
forth His mightiest and most abundant miraculous powers when the cold
wind of unbelieving criticism blew in His face.
If that is true, what a glimpse it gives us of the conditions of His
earthly life, and how wonderful it makes that love which, though it
was hampered, was never stifled by the presence of scorn and malice
and of hatred. He is our Brother, bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh; and even when the divinity within was in possession of the
power of working the miracle, the humanity in which it dwelt felt the
presence of the cold frost and closed its petals. 'He could do no
mighty works,' and it was 'because of their unbelief.'
II. But now, secondly, let us apply this principle in regard to
Christ's working on ourselves.
I have said that there was no such natural connection between faith
and miracle as that miracle was absolutely impossible in the absence
of faith. But when we lift the thought into the higher region of our
religious and spiritual life, we do come across an absolute
impossibility. There, in regard to all that appertains to the inward
life of a soul, Christ _can_ do no mighty works, in the absence of our
faith. By faith, I mean, of course, not the mere intellectual
reception of the Christian narratives or of the Christian doctrines as
true, but I mean what the Bible means by it always, a process
subsequent to that intellectual reception--viz., the motion of the
will and of the heart towards Christ. Faith is belief, but belief is
not faith. Faith is belief _plus_ trust. And it is that which is the
condition of all Christ's gifts being received by any of us.
Now, a great many people seem to think that what Jesus Christ brings
to the world, and offers to each of us, is simply the escape from the
penal consequences of our past transgressions. If you conceive
salvation to be nothing else than shutting the doors of an outward
hell, and opening the doors of an outward Heaven, I can quite
understand why you should boggle at the thought that faith is a
condition of these. For if salvation is such a material, external, and
forensic matter as that, then I do not see why God should not have
given it to everybody, without any conditions at all. But if you will
understand rightly what Christ's gifts are, you will see that they
cannot be bestowed upon men irrespective of the condition of their
wills, desires, and hearts.
For what is salvation? What are the blessings that Jesus Christ
bestows? A new life, a new love, new desires, a new direction of the
whole being, a new spirit within us. These are the gifts; and how can
these be given to a man if he has not trust in the Giver? Salvation is
at bottom that a man's will shall be harmonised with the will of God.
But if a man has not faith, his will is discordant with the will of
God, and how can it be harmonised and discordant at the same time?
What are the powers by which Christ works upon men's hearts? His
truth, His love, His Spirit. How can a truth operate if it is not
believed? How can love bless and cherish if it is not trusted? How can
the Spirit hallow and cleanse if it is not yielded to? The condition
is inherent in the nature of God the Giver, of man the receiver, and
of the gifts bestowed.
And so we understand the metaphors that put that inevitable connection
in various forms. Faith is 'a door.' How can you enter if the door be
fast closed? He knocks; if any man opens He comes in. If a man does
not open,
'He can but listen at the gate,
And hear the household jar within.'
Faith is the connection between the fountain and the reservoir. If
there be no such connection, how can the reservoir be filled? Faith is
the hand with stretched-out empty palms, and widespread fingers for
the reception of the gifts. How can the gifts be put into it if it
hangs listless by the side, or in obstinately closed and pushed behind
the back? He 'can do no mighty works' on an unbelieving soul.
Now, brethren, let me insist, in one sentence, on this solemn truth;
God would save every man if He could, faith or no faith. But the
condition which brings faith into connection with salvation as its
necessary prerequisite is no arbitrary condition. The love of God
cannot alter it. In the nature of things it must be so. 'He that
believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned.'
That is no result of an artificial scheme, but of the necessities of
the case.
Again, let me remind you that the measure of our faith is the measure
of our possession of these gifts. Our Lord more than once put the
whole doctrine of this matter, in regard, however, to the lower plane
of miracle, when He said, 'According to your faith be it unto you,'
'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.' We have an inheritance like
that of men who get a piece of land in some mining district: so much
as we peg out and claim is ours, and no more.
Let me narrate a parable of my own making. There was once a king who
told all his people that on a given day the fountain in the
market-place in the centre of the city would flow with wine and other
precious liquors, and that every man was free to bring his vessel and
carry away as much as he would. The man that brought a tiny wineglass
got a glassful; the man that brought a gallon pitcher got that full.
The measure of your desires is the measure of your possessions of
Christ's power. Our faith determines the amount of His cleansing,
healing, vivifying energy which will reside in us. The width of the
bore of the water-pipe that is laid down settles the amount of water
that will come into your cistern. The water may be high outside the
lock. If the lock-gate be kept fast closed, the height of the water
outside produces no raising of the low level of that within, If you
open a chink of the gate a trickle will pass through, and if you fling
the gates wide the levels will be the same on both sides. The only
limit of our possession of God is our faith and desire. The true limit
is His own boundlessness. It is possible that a man may be 'filled
with all the fulness of God; but the real working limit for each of us
is our own faith. So, brethren, endless progress is possible for us,
on condition of continual trust.
III. Lastly, let us apply this principle in regard to Christ's working
through His people.
Jesus Christ cannot work mightily through a feebly believing Church.
And here is the reason why Christianity has taken so long to do so
little in this world of ours; and why nineteen centuries after the
Cross and Pentecost there remaineth yet so much land to be possessed.
'Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in your own selves.'
We hinder Christ from doing His work through us by reason of our own
unbelief. The men that have done most for the Lord Jesus, and for
their fellows in this world, have been of all sorts, of all
conditions, of all grades of intellectual ability and acquirement;
some of them scholars, some of them tinkers, some of them
philosophers, some of them next door to fools. They have belonged to
different communions and have held different ecclesiastical and
theological dogmas, and sometimes, alas! they have not been able to
discern each other's Christlike lineaments. But there is one thing in
which they have all been alike, and that is that they have been men of
faith, intense, operative, perpetual. And that is why they have
succeeded. If we were what we might be, 'full of faith.' we should, as
the Acts of the Apostles teaches us, by its collocation in the
description of one of its characters, be 'full of the Holy Spirit and
of power.'
Brethren, you hear a great deal to-day about new ways of Christian
working, about the necessity of adapting the forms of setting forth
Christ's truth to the spirit of the age, and new ideas. Adopt new
methods if you like; methods are not sacred. Fashion new forms of
presenting Christian truths if you please; our forms are only forms.
But you may alter your methods and you may modify your dogmas as you
like, and you will do nothing to move the world unless the Church is
again baptized with the Divine Spirit, which will only be the case if
the Church again puts forth a far mightier faith than it exercises
to-day. If only we will trust Jesus Christ absolutely, and live near
Him by our faith, His power will flow into us, and of us, too, it will
be said, 'through faith they wrought righteousness ... subdued
kingdoms ... waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of
the aliens.' But if the low level of average Christian faith in all
the churches is not elevated, then the attempts to conquer the world
by half-believing Christians will meet with the old fate, and the man
in whom the evil spirit was will leap upon them and overcome them, and
say, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?' 'Why could we
not cast him out?' And He answered and said unto them, 'Because of
your unbelief.'
Brethren, we may starve in the midst of plenty, if we lock our lips.
We can be like some obstinate black rock, washed over for ever by the
Atlantic surges, and yet so close-grained that only the surface is
moistened, and, an inch within, it is dry. 'Neither life, nor death,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, is able
to separate you from the love and power of God which are in Christ
Jesus our Lord,' But you can separate yourselves, and you do separate
yourselves, by your unbelief. The all-sufficiency of Christ's
redemption, and the yearning of His love to bless each of us
individually, will be nothing to us if we lift up between Him and us
the black barrier of unbelief, and so dam back the stream that was
meant to give life to all the world and life to us. Christ infinitely
desires to bless us, but He cannot unless we trust Him. I beseech you,
do not let this be the epitaph on your tombstone:--'Christ could there
do no mighty work because of _his_ unbelief.'