distinguish true piety from its counterfeits. The want of this is
singularly apparent in the bigot or the enthusiast. Such persons generally
exhibit a disproportioned, unbalanced character. A few virtues stand out
in unnatural prominence, while others seem wanting altogether. A few
duties they will perform with the utmost punctiliousness, while others
equally essential they never think of. Religion with them becomes
identified with some favorite dogma or ism, and tends in that direction to
a monstrous development. This distortion of character, this fungus growth
in one direction and utter barrenness in others, evinces a want of grace
altogether. Such persons are not temples framed by the Holy Ghost. Rather
are they like rude, unsightly structures reared by some unskilful hands.
Remember, if you are a Christian, you must exhibit the work of religion in
your _whole_ character. You cannot cultivate one grace at the expense of
another. You cannot be all faith and no love; all humility and no
self-denial; all zeal and no charity. It is not in that way the Holy
Spirit works. The different parts of the spiritual edifice, says Paul, are
"fitly framed together," and "grow unto a holy temple in the Lord."
4. Another peculiarity of the temples was, that they were _the property of
the deity_ to whom they were dedicated. No private individual owned them.
Neither kings nor emperors nor the state were their proprietors; but they
were regarded as belonging solely to the gods in whose honor they were
built.
And how true is this of Christians, those spiritual temples which God has
in the world. The apostle, speaking of the whole church of God, says, He
has purchased it with his own blood. And to believers individually he
says, "And ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price." "None of
us liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; whether we live
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." A better title in the universe
cannot be found than that which Christ has to Christians. He has bought
them, ransomed them, redeemed them. They are his absolutely. He is the
sole proprietor of these temples. No one else owns them. They do not own
themselves. This is your position, my Christian friend. What you are and
what you have about you belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. You owned his
right to it all when you professed to be his disciple. Whatever demand is
made upon you for your time, your labor, or your property, by him or his
cause, you are in duty bound cheerfully to pay. Ye are God's building; ye
are God's temple; ye are not your own.
5. The significancy of the figure employed in the text will further appear
when we consider the _use_ to which a temple is devoted.
A temple was regarded as the dwelling-place of a divinity. The pagan
temples had their sacred shrines, attended by priests or vestals, who
claimed to repeat the oracle uttered by the gods. In the true temple at
Jerusalem, Jehovah manifested his special presence, and the holy of holies
was his dwelling-place. The Christian therefore may well be called a
temple; for says the apostle, "The Spirit of God dwelleth in you."
The hearts of many impenitent men are sometimes visited by God's Spirit,
as is indicated by the sudden awakenings of conscience; but never is the
Spirit said to dwell with them.
Christians are truly temples, as they enjoy the presence of God's Spirit.
That presence is manifested not by oracular voices or ecstatic visions.
Fanaticism may recite the vagaries of the imagination, and call them new
revelations of the Spirit; it may be ever on the look-out for signs and
omens, and boast that it can "dream dreams;" but such manifestations are
no proof of the indwelling of God's Spirit.
It is not in this way the Bible teaches us that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in us; but it points us to the fruits of the Spirit, which are far
different. He shows his indwelling by enlightening the believer into the
truth. He reveals the things of God to us. He quickens faith in us, and
prompts to duty. He fills the soul with peace and joy, by showing us the
promises of God's word, and pointing to their certain fulfilment. He
guards us against temptation, by quickening us to prayer. He guides us in
duty, by pressing upon the conscience the precepts and commands of Christ.
In this way does the Holy Spirit give evidence of his presence. In this
way he dwells in believers. There may be seasons when the Christian loses
the consciousness of His presence; but He has not departed: even in his
backslidings, the Spirit does not forsake him, for the temple where He has
dwelt he leaves not to desolation.
Again, the Christian soul is a consecrated temple, a holy place.
Even the pagan temples were consecrated places. They were employed for
such rites and observances as were supposed to be acceptable to the deity
which dwelt in them. Some of their festivals were scenes of revolting
licentiousness, it is true; but they were not displeasing to the divinity
they honored, for those divinities themselves were as polluted as their
worshippers. Their temples and shrines were as pure as the gods whose name
they bore.
The temple of Jehovah, at Jerusalem, was most holy, for Jehovah is the God
of holiness. Holiness was enstamped on every stone. "Holiness unto the
Lord" was written upon its every apartment. No unclean thing was allowed
to cross its sacred threshold. No profane hand was allowed to touch its
consecrated vessels. That sacred temple, inhabited by the God of infinite
purity, in whose sight the heavens are not clean--that sacred temple whose
inner shrine none dare approach but the mitred priest in robes of sanctity
and with sacrificial blood, and he but once a year--that temple is a
symbol of a true Christian soul--a consecrated, holy soul. This attribute,
holiness, is the strong point of comparison. "For the temple of God is
holy," says the apostle, "which temple ye are." Not that the believer
attains to immaculate purity in this life, for the New Testament teaches
no such doctrine of Christian perfection; but he is holy in that he is a
consecrated one, devoted to God's service. Indwelling sin may manifest
itself, imperfections may trouble him, but his mind and will are against
them. He does not seek them. He does not go out to drag any polluted thing
within the temple. No, he hates their presence; he longs and prays to be
free from sin. Whatever imperfections are within him are the remains of
former corruptions, and grace is overcoming them.
We must bear in mind that this spiritual temple is not new in its material
parts. It is an old, ruined, dilapidated temple, rebuilt, repaired,
cleansed, and reinhabited. The devil, who before held it, has been
banished. The Holy Ghost has taken possession, and set it apart for God.
Yet some vestiges of its old state linger here and there for a time; the
divine Architect has not yet finished it. When it is done, it will be pure
as heaven, and shine in the beauty of holiness for ever and ever. The work
is going on.
The Christian is no longer a sinner, courting sin; he is set apart for a
sacred use; he is taken away from the service of sin; the world has no
right to him; he has no right to go after it. Oh it is not every use you
can put a Christian to, for he is devoted to the service of God; he is
called into holiness; he is washed and sanctified.
* * * * *
And now, in the review of our subject, let us walk about these living
temples and notice their most prominent peculiarities, that we may see
what manner of persons we ought to be in all holy conversation and
doctrine.
As temples, they are costly edifices, bought with the blood of Jesus
Christ. They are enduring, built to stand the temptations of time, to
survive the wreck and conflagration of the last day. They are beautiful in
their proportions, with no heavenly grace left out, and no foul
deformities suffered to remain. They belong to God. They are not their
own. They are God's building. They are the dwelling-places of God's
Spirit. They are holy: washed, sanctified, and consecrated to God's
service.
Such is the picture of God's people which the apostle holds up before us
when he says, "Ye are the temple of God." I confess it is a bold and
highly-drawn picture; but it was the pencil of inspiration, and not mine,
which drew it. The soul of every true saint is that temple. It has a holy
of holies where God's Spirit dwells. The world, the flesh, and the devil
have been cast out. It has an altar on which the sacrifice of thanksgiving
is laid, a censer in which burns the incense of prayer, which rolls aloft
to heaven, while the voice of praise and adoration echoes through its
arches and along its aisles.
Sublime and beautiful picture! Is it a fancy piece; or is it a reality? It
is a reality. The apostle's soul was such a temple. There were such
temples in Corinth when he wrote this epistle--temples more grand and
beautiful than all the Corinthian columns and gilded domes which adorned
that city. Every true saint is such a temple. Every professor of religion
claims to be one.
My friend, take the picture home, and look at it. Study it well, and see
if you can see yourself in it. Ah, you professing Christian, does your
soul look any thing like it? If indeed it be a temple, does it not become
you to watch its portals with untiring vigilance, lest pollution enter it?
Have you kept the temple pure? Our text calls you to serious
self-examination. Go inside the temple, and look about. See if its walls
be not hung round with pictures of earthly idolatry. See whether pride and
vanity and fashion have not built their altars within. See whether greedy
avarice has not set up the tables of the money-changers there, and
well-nigh turned the temple of the soul, which is God's house, into a
house of merchandise. Listen whether there is heard there the tumult of
angry passions, and the clamors of selfish and forbidden lusts.
Oh search the temple well, for God will search it soon. "The Lord shall
suddenly come to his temple; but who may abide the day of his coming, and
who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and
like fuller's soap."
None but the pure in heart, the sanctified in Christ Jesus, will endure
the trial. These shall stand the fires of the judgment-day, and shine in
bliss and glory for ever in the city of God.
But not a few professed temple-builders will be confounded, and their work
consumed; for the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.
V.
God's Witnesses.
YE ARE MY WITNESSES. ISA. 43:10.
There is a sense in which all the works of God declare his glory, and
bespeak his eternal power and godhead. But in the work of redemption
through Jesus Christ his Son, he places his people in a peculiar position,
and employs them in a special mission. They are surrounded with a world of
ungodliness and impenitence, and he has commissioned them to bear an
authoritative testimony in behalf of Him.
As professed believers, they stand before the world as those who are the
subjects of his grace, who have embraced and tried that religion which is
offered to them in Christ Jesus. They claim to have actually received
Christ, and to have submitted to his authority. God calls them his people;
they call themselves so. In them grace exhibits what it can do by what it
is already doing.
They hold a peculiar relation to a godless world around them. God
acknowledges them to be standing for him: "Ye are my witnesses." They are
bearing testimony in his behalf before the jury, consisting of the
multitude of unbelievers. They are credible witnesses. The world is
willing to listen to their evidence, and judge of the religion of Christ
by what they say and do.
They represent the Saviour whose name they bear. They are speaking to the
world in all they say and do, wherever they go. They are always on the
stand giving in their testimony. The ungodly world is listening to them,
and taking down the evidence, and judging of Christ and of his religion by
the declarations which they make; and they have a right to do so.
God says of these professing Christians, "Ye are my witnesses." And other
men say, We will hear you and take your testimony, and cross-examine you,
and give our verdict from what you declare to us. Every Christian, by his
very profession of religion, puts himself in this solemn position, and
invites the scrutiny of the world. He cannot escape from it. He must
testify for God, and woe be to him if in his life and conversation he
belies his profession, and dishonors his Saviour's cause.
God has a testimony of himself in his written word. But this documentary
evidence will not satisfy an unbelieving generation. Men want parol
evidence to confirm it. They call for the living witness, and insist upon
examining him and hearing him give in his testimony. Professing Christians
are such witnesses. And what they say in their lives and professions is
often of far greater weight with the ungodly, than what is said by
inspired evangelists and apostles. This living testimony of God's people
is a kind of evidence which carries conviction with it. The Bible itself
points men to it, and tells them to decide by it upon the value of its own
utterances. "Ye are my witnesses," saith God. "Ye are our epistle," says
the inspired apostle. The world will take knowledge of them that they have
been with Jesus.
All parties concerned seem to agree upon the important position the
people of God occupy in this world. God expressly declares that they are
his witnesses. They say the same when they openly profess his name. They
take the stand before the jury of the world, and raise their hand to
heaven and swear that they will testify for Christ. The world looks on,
and says, We will hear the testimony, and judge of what religion is, and
what is the genius and spirit of the gospel system of salvation by what we
find in them.
The case then seems fairly opened, and all parties understand the issue.
Let us look further at the nature of the evidence.
1. Believers are Christ's witnesses as to _the real value and efficacy_ of
that salvation which the gospel offers. As it is presented in God's word,
it claims to be effectual in taking away the curse of sin, and in bringing
the sinner back to peace and reconciliation with God. It claims to quiet
the fears of a guilty conscience, to awaken a sense of pardon and good
hope of eternal life, and to furnish, in the atonement and death of Jesus
Christ the Saviour, all that the guilty soul needs for its justification
and peace with God.
But does it do this? Can it really accomplish in the soul of a sinner this
which it claims to do? Does it ever actually produce such a change of
feeling, awaken such hopes, restore such peace, as it tells about? On this
subject, believers are important witnesses. They profess to have tried the
efficacy of these representations in their own experience. They tell the
ungodly they have found this sense of pardon, have felt this peace, have
rejoiced in those hopes which the gospel speaks of. They have come to
Christ as the atoning sacrifice, and he has proved himself to be to them
all he claimed to be.
The work of grace in the hearts of Christians is such, that they can tell
sinners what it is. They declare it in their songs of praise, their
thanksgivings and prayers, and earnest love to their Redeemer.
2. Professing Christians are witnesses to the world as to what that
_standard of morality_ is, which the precepts of the gospel require of its
followers. They profess to live according to that standard. They have
taken the commands of Christ to be their rule of duty, and they virtually
tell others to judge of what the religion of Jesus Christ requires, by the
way they live and act. They have undertaken to give a practical exhibition
of what is the meaning of those Bible directions which comprise the sum of
religious duty. The question with them is not what the world thinks to be
right or wrong, not what public opinion approves or disapproves; but what
does Christ command. This is their rule of duty; this is what they profess
to live by. And the world understand it so. They therefore take what they
find in Christians' lives and conduct to be what religion consists in.
They care not to search for the letter of the precept in the Scriptures,
so long as they have the living witness before them, who says he is
showing it to them every day.
Christians are such witnesses. They may well tremble at their position.
But they have placed themselves in it. They have undertaken to be
witnesses for Christ. Oh, it becomes them to be careful what they are
saying. It becomes them to inquire what idea the world gets of Christ and
his religion, from the way they carry themselves among their neighbors.
Every one knows that example is more powerful than precept. Every
professing Christian's example directly involves in it the honor of
Christ, and the welfare of his cause. It is competent evidence, and the
world takes it. That professor who lives in violation of Christ's
commands, and by his example approves what the religion of the gospel
forbids, is a perjured witness on the stand, and gives a false testimony.
That Christians are thus expounders of the gospel, witnesses as to what
are the duties it enjoins, and what constitutes practical religion, none
can deny. The impenitent take them to be such. Whatever Christians do,
they say must be right. Whatever the church practices and countenances, is
a sufficient justification for them in doing the same. Whatever is done in
the green tree, can certainly be done in the dry.
If God's people can travel and visit on the Sabbath, or engage in
promiscuous dancing and card-playing in the nightly assemblies of
amusement and frivolity, or resort to the gamester's arts to make money
for Christ, surely such practices cannot be wrong for others; for
Christians would not do wrong, nor deny their principles. The world reason
in this way, and they reason well. The logic is good, and cannot be
refuted. They have a right to take notice of Christians as God's
witnesses, and to infer that whatever they do is consistent with the
morality of the New Testament.
3. Christians are witnesses to the world as to what are the _sacrifices
and self-denials_ which the religion of Christ requires of its disciples.
That the gospel does make these a condition of discipleship is plain to
every mind. Whosoever doth not "deny himself, and take up his cross,"
cannot be my disciple. Again and again are Christians said to sacrifice
all for Christ, and to be crucified to the world. Now what these Scripture
representations mean may be learned by the practical lives of God's
people, for they profess to be living such lives of self-denial, to deny
ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world. In them the impenitent find what religion
prohibits; how it separates its follower from the world; how it lays its
cross upon him, and calls upon him to bear reproach and shame and wrong
and persecution for Christ's sake. Such a testimony Christians are bound
to give; and blessed be God, they have been able to give it in all ages of
the world. For,
They are God's witnesses in their _endurance of suffering_ for Christ.
Even when laid aside from the active, stirring duties of life, and passing
through seasons of sore trial, they are still in the service of Christ,
and giving to the world a most valuable testimony of the sustaining and
comforting power of his religion. Witness-bearers they are still, when
they endure with a cheerful patience the wearisome nights which are
appointed to them, and in the midst of disease and the sinkings of nature
can tell to all around them of a peace which passeth all understanding, of
a joy and hope which are undimmed by all the distress of the present
hour. Who can measure the influence which the religion of Christ has
gained in the world through this kind of testimony?--a testimony which the
witnesses have given in when their eyes were suffused with tears, and
earthly misfortunes pressed sore upon them--a testimony plaintively
whispered in the dark midnight of affliction, from the couches of
languishing, the chambers of bereavement, and the graves of the lost and
the loved. It many a time seems that the Christian's usefulness is gone,
when he is no longer able to sing in the sanctuary and engage in active
labors for Christ; but it is often far otherwise. Though life's scenes be
changed, he is bearing witness still; and through months of infirmity and
suffering is telling the world what Christ can do to cheer and comfort
when all other comfort is gone. "Ye are still my witnesses," says the
Redeemer to his people, "even when I chasten you sorely; and through your
testimony the world shall know of my power to save and comfort."
But though all the sufferings of God's people are made to testify of the
power of His grace, special significance attaches to those which are
endured directly for Christ, which arise from the hatred and persecution
of the world. Of those who, in past ages, have sealed their testimony with
their blood, who in the dungeon, at the stake, and on the scaffold have
owned Christ and defied the rage of their tormentors--of such emphatically
Christ says, "Ye are my witnesses." The very word martyr signifies a
witness, in the Greek language.
And the testimony of such as have suffered and died for Jesus has carried
with it a power which none can measure. It has forced conviction on the
minds of the bitterest enemies of the cross, and taught the world how a
believer can triumph over suffering, and conquer death. Though nowadays
but little of this kind of testimony is heard, except what is echoed down
from past centuries of the church's conflicts, still believers are bound
to testify many times against the scoffs and opposition of the ungodly.
Their lives and example must, even now, frequently speak out boldly
against the prevailing iniquity, and testify in the face of scorn and
loss and bitter opposition. But it is a good confession when you stand up
for Christ, and meet the buffetings of the world for it. For every stripe
you receive there seems to come an echo from the upper throne, most
cheering, "Ye are my witnesses."
We have thus endeavored to show the position which Christians occupy in
the world as witnesses for God. They testify to men what the religion of
the gospel actually means, what it is, and what it can do for sinners.
They tell to a doubting world that it is a reality. They have tested it in
their experience; have tried its hopes and promises, and tasted its saving
power. The ignorant and unbelieving world can go to them and ask
questions, examine them, and demand to know all about the cross, and the
whole system of salvation which centres there.
These witnesses are speaking all the time. Their lives are voiceful
everywhere. In the family, and in the church; in the marts of business,
and the intercourse of social life; in the days of sunshine and
prosperity, and the nights of gloom and sorrow, the world is listening to
what they say, and canvassing their evidence. Their testimony is long and
full. It is either for or against their Master.
Christ Jesus is willing that his religion shall be tried by the lives of
his disciples. What other system will bear to be put to such a test? Did
scepticism ever proclaim its triumphs thus? Did the philosophic infidelity
of the last century dare to boast of France redeemed from superstition
under the reign of terror, and point to Danton, Mirabeau, Robespierre, and
the heroes of the guillotine, and say, These are my witnesses? Would Paine
and Bolingbroke ever think of summoning from the foul attics and purlieus
of vice and degradation their begrimed followers, educated in their
tenets, and proclaim to the world, Behold, these are our witnesses? Does
Universalism ever muster its motley crew from the dram-shops, the gambling
hells, and the brothels, and parade them before the public gaze to testify
what it can do for man's moral welfare and restoration? No. Every system
of falsehood and error shrinks from the ordeal, and would hide its
disciples from observation, rather than stand them up before the world,
saying, These are my witnesses.