supplied with the good things of life--all thought for these pales in
the presence of His intense desire that they should be consecrated,
_i.e._, inspired by the same consuming passion as was burning in His
heart. He knew that He was no more in the world. High business
connected with its interests summoned Him to the far country, whither
He went to receive the kingdom and return. But He desired that the
passion which filled His soul, His tears, His prayers, and, to an
extent, His sufferings, might always be represented amongst the sons of
men, embodied in human lives, finding utterance through human lips. He
could not Himself perpetuate his corporeal visible ministry among men,
and therefore desired with a great desire that those whom the Father
had given Him should evermore show forth His death till He came. Not
simply by gathering at His table, but by going forth to live His life,
and fill up that which is behind of His sufferings.
Is this your life? We have sometimes heard consecration stated as
though it were a matter of choice whether believers should bind
themselves by its obligations or not. When a student enters the
university there are certain subjects in which he must matriculate, but
there are special ones which he may graduate in or not, as he pleases.
Should he refuse them, he is not blamed. The matter was within his
option. Now, let it be clearly understood from these words of Christ
that consecration is not in the same sense optional, but obligatory.
For all those whom the Father had given Him He pleaded with His dying
breath that they should be consecrated; and if you are not consecrated,
if there are extensive reserves in your life, if you are holding back
part of the price, if you are saying of aught that you have, It is my
own, I shall do as I choose, then understand that you are in direct
conflict against Christ's purpose and prayer. He asked that you might
be consecrated; and you have chosen to regard consecration as the craze
of the fervid enthusiast.
III. CHRIST'S METHOD OF SECURING THE CONSECRATION OF HIS
SERVANTS.--"For their sakes I consecrate Myself."
(1) _There is the potency of example._--"He hath left us an example to
follow in His steps." "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself
also to walk even as He walked." Once when He was praying in a certain
place His disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray." They had come
within the powerful attraction of His Spirit. Like a swift current it
had caught them, and they were eager to emulate Him. It is impossible
for the saint to gaze long on the stigmata without becoming branded
with the marks of Jesus; impossible to see Him hasting to the cross
without being stirred to follow Him; impossible to behold the intensity
of His purpose for a world's redemption without becoming imbued with
it; impossible to see Him in love with the cross without feeling a
similar infatuation; impossible to behold Him plunging into the dark
floods of death that He might emerge in the sunlit ocean, without the
consciousness of the uprising of an insatiable desire to be like Him,
to drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism, to fall into the
ground to die, that He may not abide alone, to know the fellowship of
His sufferings, and conformity to His death, that He may appoint unto
us a kingdom, as the Father hath appointed to Him.
(2) _There is our implication in His mediatorial work._--"I have been
crucified with Christ," the apostle said. And, again, "Ye died with
Christ from the rudiments of the world." Of course, Christ died _for_
us, presenting to the claims of a broken law a perfect satisfaction and
oblation. It is also true that we died _with_ Him, were _in_ Him as
our Representative, wrought _through_ Him as our Forerunner; the first
fruit-sheaf contained the promise of all its companions.
Consider for a moment a remarkable expression that casts light on this
whole subject. In that memorable discussion with the Jews in Solomon's
porch, which practically closed our Lord's public ministry, He said
that the Father had sanctified and consecrated Him and sent Him into
the world (John x. 36). In these sublime words He undoubtedly refers
to a moment which preceded the Incarnation, when the Godhead designated
the Second Person to redeem men? Was it the same moment, think you, as
that in which Jesus said, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but
a body thou hast prepared for Me (or, Mine ears hast thou pierced). I
delight to do Thy will, O My God." If so, what an august scene that
must have been when, in the presence of the assembled hierarchies of
heaven, the Father solemnly set apart the Son for His redemption work,
consecrating Him to bring in everlasting salvation, to destroy the
works of the devil, and to bring together in one the children of God
that are scattered abroad!
In that solemn consecration of the head all the members were included.
The King stood for His kingdom; the Shepherd for His flock. Any who
refuse to be consecrated contravene and contradict that momentous
decision.
When Christ approached His death, in these words He renewed His act of
consecration, and again implicated those who belong to Him; bearing us
with Him, He went to the cross, involving us by His actions, He yielded
Himself up to death. In His holy purpose we were quickened together
with Him, and raised up together, and made to sit together in the
heavenly places; and by the same emphasis that we declare ourselves to
be His, we confess that we are amongst those who are bound to a life of
consecration. We are pledged to it by union with our Lord. We cannot
draw back from the doorpost to which He was nailed without proving that
we are deficient in appreciating the purpose which brought Him to our
world, the surrender that withheld not His face from spitting, His soul
from the shadow of death.
IV. OUR DUTY.--"Yield yourselves unto God." When Abraham Lincoln
dedicated, for the purposes of a graveyard, the field of Gettysburg,
where so many brave soldiers had lost their lives, he said: "We cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The
brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our power
to add or detract. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to
the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion; and that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain."
These noble words, when we have made the needful alterations and
adaptations, are most applicable to our present point. Let us dedicate
ourselves to the great task before us, and to which Jesus has pledged
us. Let us devote ourselves to this great cause for which Jesus died.
Let us highly resolve that He shall not have died in vain. Let us
offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable,
holy, and living sacrifice unto God, that His will might be done
through us, as it is done in heaven.
"My Master, lead me to Thy door;
Pierce this now willing ear once more;
Thy bonds are freedom, let me stay
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey.
"Yes; ear and hand, and thought and will!
Use all in Thy dear slavery still!
Self's weary liberties I cast
Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast."
XXII
The Lord's Prayer for His People's Oneness
"That they may all be one. . . . One in us. . . . That they may be
one, even as we are one. . . . Perfect in one."--JOHN xvii. 21-23.
Thus our High Priest pleaded, and thus He pleads. In all the power of
His endless life, He ever liveth to bear this great petition on His
heart: and as the weight of the jewelled breast-plate lay heavy on the
heart of the high priests of old, so does it press on Him, as the ages
slowly pass by in their never-ceasing progress toward the consummation
of all things. Listen to that voice, sweet and full as the distant
rush of many waters, as it pleads in the midst of eternity that those
which believe in Him may be one.
Nor is it true that this prayer awaits an answer indefinitely future.
There seems good reason to believe, as we shall see, that in these
words our Lord was making a request, which began to be fulfilled on the
Day of Pentecost: and is being fulfilled continually, although the
oneness which is being realized is still, like His kingdom, in mystery,
and is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Then, as the
gauzy mists of time part before the breath of God, the accomplished
oneness of the Church shall stand revealed.
I. THE ONENESS OF BELIEVERS IS A SPIRITUAL ONENESS.--Can there be any
reasonable doubt of this when our Master asks so clearly that we may be
one, _as the Father and He are one_? The model for Christian unity is
evidently the unity between the Father and Son by the Holy Spirit; and
since that unity, the unity of the blessed God, is not corporeal, nor
physical, nor substantial to the eye of the flesh, may we not
infer--nay, are we not compelled to infer--that the oneness of
believers is to be after the same fashion, and to consist in so close
an identity of nature, so absolute an interfusion of spirit, as that
they shall be one in aim, and thought, and life, and spirit,
spiritually one with each other, because spiritually one with Him?
The Church of Rome, which has ever travestied in gross material forms
the most spiritual conceptions of God, sought to prove herself the true
Church by achieving a oneness of her own. It was an outward and
visible oneness. In the apostate church every one must utter the same
formularies, worship in the same postures, and belong to the same
ecclesiastical system. And its leaders did their best to realize their
dream. They endeavored to exterminate heresy by fire, and sword, and
torture. They spread their network through the world. And just before
the dawn of the Reformation they seemed to have succeeded. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe reposed in the monotony of
almost universal uniformity, beneath the almost universal supremacy of
the Papacy. Rome might indeed have adopted the insolent language of
the Assyrian of prophecy: "As one gathereth eggs, so have I gathered
all the earth, and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the
mouth, or peeped." And what was the result? _What but the deep sleep
of spiritual death_? And herein lay the most crushing condemnation of
the Roman Catholic conception of the unity of the Church.
Many modern notions of Christian unity seem to proceed on the same
line. The assent to a certain credal basis, the meeting in great
Catholic conventions, the exchange of pulpits--these seem to exhaust
the conceptions of large numbers, and to satisfy their ideal. But
surely there is a bond of union deeper, holier, more vital and more
blessed than any of these, which shyly reveals itself, now and again,
in one or more of them, but is independent of all, and when all of them
are wanting, still constitutes us _one_. And what is that bond of
union but the possession of a common spiritual life, like that which
unites the Father and the Son, and which pervades us also, making us
one with each other, because we are already one with God?
You may not care to admit it; you may even be ignorant of the full
meaning of this marvellous fact; you may live an exclusive life, never
going beyond the walls of some small conventicle, or the barriers of
some strict ecclesiastical system; you may bear yourself impatiently
and brusquely toward those who differ from you; you may even brand them
with your anathema: but if they are one with God, by His gracious
indwelling Spirit of Life, and if you are also one with Him, you
positively cannot help being one with them. Your creed may differ, or
your mode of worship, or your views about the Church; but you cannot be
otherwise than one with those who are one with God, in a union which is
not material but spiritual.
II. THIS ONENESS ALSO ADMITS OF GREAT VARIETY.--"One, as Thou, Father,
art in Me, and I in Thee." Now, of course, we all admit the unity of
the Godhead. The first article of the Jew is also the first article of
the Christian, that the Lord our God is one God, one in essence, one in
purpose, one in action. The Son does nothing of Himself; the Father
does nothing apart from the Son; the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the
Father and the Son. We cannot, as yet, understand this mystery; but
with reverence we accept it as the primary basis of our faith.
But though God is One, there is evidently a variety of function in the
ever-blessed Trinity. The Father decrees, the Son executes. The
Father sends, the Son is sent. The Father works in Creation, the Son
in Redemption and Judgment. And the functions of both Father and Son
differ from those of the Holy Spirit.
If, then, the unity of the Church is to resemble the unity of the
Godhead, according to our Lord's request, we may expect that it will
not be physical, nor mechanical, nor a uniformity; but it will be a
variety in unity--a unity of Spirit and purpose, and yet a unity which
admits of very diverse functions and operations. Diversities of gifts,
but the same Spirit. Differences of administrations, but the same
Lord. Diversities of operations, but the same God which worketh all in
all.
(1) _The very conception of unity involves variety._--You take me out
into a piece of waste land, and pointing to a heap of bricks say,
"There is a unity." I at once rebut your assertion; there is
uniformity undoubtedly, but not unity. Unity requires that a variety
of _different_ things should be combined to form one structure and
carry out one idea. A collection of bricks is not a unity, but a house
is. A pole is not a unity, but a hop-plant is. A snow atom is not a
unity, but a snow crystal is. And when our Lord spoke of His disciples
as one, He not only expected that there would be varieties amongst
them, in character, mind, and ecclesiastical preference; but by the
very choice of His words He meant us to infer that it would be so. The
unity on which He set His heart was not a uniformity.
(2) _But with variety there may be the truest unity._--There is variety
in the human body--from eyelash to foot, from heart to blood-disc, from
brain to quivering nerve-fibre; yet, in all this variety, each one is
conscious of an indivisible unity. There is variety in the tree: the
giant arms that wrestle with the storm, the far-spreading roots that
moor it to the soil, the myriad leaves in which the wind makes music,
the cones or nuts which it flings upon the forest floor; yet for all
this it is one. There is a variety in the Bible: variety of
authorship--king, prophet, priest, herdsman, and fisherman, scholar,
sage, and saint; variety of style--prose, poetry, psalmody, argument,
appeal; variety of age--from the days of Moses to those of John, the
beloved apostle, writing amid the persecutions of the empire; yet for
all this there is a oneness in the Bible which no mere binding could
give. So with the Church of Christ: there may be, there must be
infinite varieties and shades of thought and work. Some will prefer
the methods of Wesley, others the freedom of Congregationalism. Some
will pray most naturally through the venerable words of a Liturgy,
others in the deep silence of a Friends' Meeting. Some will thrive
best beneath the crozier of the Bishop, others in the plain barracks of
the Salvation Army; but, notwithstanding all this variety, there may be
a deep spiritual unity. Many folds, but one flock; many regiments, but
one army; many stones, but one breast-plate. "There is one body, and
one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all."
III. THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY IS THE UNION OF EACH BELIEVER TO
CHRIST.--"I in them, that they may be made perfect in one." However
much true believers in Christ differ, there are two points in which
they agree.
(1) _Each believer is in Christ_: in Christ's heart, loved with an
everlasting love, the beloved name engraven on its secret tables; in
Christ's book, enrolled on those pages which are sealed so fast that He
alone can break the seven-fold seal; in Christ's hand, which holds the
ocean as a drop upon its palm, and which was pierced on Calvary, from
which no power shall ever pluck the trembling soul; in Christ's grace,
rooted as a tree in luxuriant soil, or a house in a foundation of rock;
but above all in Christ's Person, for He is the Head, "from whom the
whole body is fitly framed and knit together by that which every joint
supplieth." There are innumerable texts which speak of the Church as
the Body of Christ (Eph. i. 23; Col. i. 24); and directly a man
believes in Christ, he becomes a member of that mystical body. "We are
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." You may be a
very obscure member, or even a paralyzed member; but be sure of this,
if you are a Christian you are in Christ, as the eye is in the
eye-socket, the arm in the shoulder-joint, and the finger in the hand.
(2) _Christ is in each believer._--The texts that teach Christ's real
presence in the believer are as numerous as spring flowers. "Christ
liveth in me." "Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be
reprobates?" "Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and
I in you." The Lord Jesus is in the heart which makes Him welcome, as
the steam is in the piston, as the sap is in the branch, as the blood
is in the heart, as the life is in the body. It would be impossible
for words to describe a more intense spiritual Oneness than that which
is here presented to us. The Saviour is in each of us, as the Father
is in Him, and we are in Him, and He in God. "Our life is hid with
Christ in God." Therefore we are not only one with Jesus Christ, but
through Him we are one with God. "I in them, Thou in Me." The very
life of God is pouring its glorious tides through us, and would do so
more largely if only we were more receptive and obedient. He pours
water out of the mouth of the Congo at the rate of 1,000,000 tons per
second; and is willing to do marvels as mighty through each believer.
And as this life permeates us all alike, it makes us not only one with
the blessed God, but one with all who believe, as the blood makes all
the members of the body one, and the sap the branches of the tree.
IV. _THE MEANS OF THIS SPIRITUAL UNITY ARE THE INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT._--Influence means _inflow_. It was by the Holy Spirit that our
Lord's human nature was made one with His Father's. And this same Holy
Spirit He has bequeathed to us, that He may be the same bond of
spiritual life between us and our Lord as He was between our Lord and
His Father. May not this be the meaning of His words: "The glory
which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one as we are
one"? May not that glory have consisted in the oneness of His human
nature with God the Father, by the Holy Spirit? And if so, it may be
shared by us. The more that believers receive the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, the more clearly will they appreciate this great mystery,
and the more closely will they be drawn to all other believers, hushing
jealous thoughts and uncharitable words, and "endeavoring to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
_It is abundantly clear, then, that this unity cannot be broken unless
we break away from Christ_. Men have used that word schism with
terrible effect. If a man has broken away from some visible church,
they have pointed to him as a schismatic. But what is schism? It is a
breaking away from the Body of Christ. But what is the Body of Christ?
The Roman Catholic will tell you that it is the Church of Rome; the
Anglican will tell you that it is the Church of England; the High
Churchman will tell you that it is the collection of churches which
hold the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. What vestige of Scriptural
proof is there for these assertions? What an absurdity it is to be
told that we must submit to an outward rite, or we cannot belong to the
Body of Christ! What then would become of all the saints and martyrs
who died without membership with one of these visible organizations?
No, the Body of Christ, as Scripture plainly teaches, is that great
multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
peoples, and tongues, and sects, and eras, who are united by faith with
the Saviour. The Church of Christ is not conterminous with any earthly
or visible organization; it is long as the ages, wide as the poles,
broad as the charity of God; it includes all in heaven and on earth who
hold the Head. The only condition of membership in that Church is
simple faith in Christ. And the only method of severance from that
Church is through the severance of the soul's trust in Christ. He only
is a schismatic who ceases to be Christ's.
The Papal Legate told Savonarola that he cut him off from the Church
Militant and from the Church Triumphant. "From the Church Militant you
may," was the martyr's reply; "but from the Church Triumphant, never."
It was well spoken; but Savonarola might have gone further, and defied
the scarlet-coated functionary even to cut him off from the Church
Militant--nothing could do that but apostasy. A man may be
excommunicated from our church systems, or he may never have belonged
to one of them; but so long as he believes in Christ, he is a member of
the Holy Catholic Church. And schism is more likely to be charged
against those who violate the spirit of Christian charity in making
harsh and false statements against their fellow-members in the Body of
Christ. Let us not retaliate, lest we also commit that sin. We can
afford to wait. _Five minutes in heaven, or less, will settle it all_.
_The object for which Christ prayed_ is already being partially
accomplished. The world may not be as yet surrendering to the claims
of Jesus Christ, but it is becoming increasingly impressed with His
Divine mission: "that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."
And in proportion as the Holy Spirit pervades and fills the hearts of
the children of God, the manifestation of the Life of God in them, and
through them, will have an ever-increasing effect, and will do what
church systems and even the preachings of her thousand pulpits cannot
effect in convincing and saving men.
Let us remember that Christ's own conception of the unity of His Church
is that which is the result of the indwelling of the one Spirit. Such
unity is already a fact in the eye of God, though undiscerned as yet in
all its fullness by men. Let us thank God that this marvellous request
has been already so largely realized, and let us dare to hold
fellowship as Christians with all those who are indwelt by the Spirit
of the Life, which is also in Christ Jesus.
XXIII
The Love that Bound Christ to the Cross
"Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went
forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?"--JOHN xviii. 4.
The Cedron was never more than a mountain brook, and it is now dry.
Its stony bed alone shows where it used to flow through the valley that
separated Mount Zion from the Mount of Olives. The main road which led
from the city gate, over the Mount of Olives to Bethany and Jericho,
crossed it by an ancient bridge, from which, on this especial night, a
fair scene must have presented itself.
Above, the Passover moon was shining in full-orbed splendor turning
night into day. Beneath, the little stream was brawling down the
valley, catching the moonlight on its wavelets. On the one slope dark,
thick woods, above which rose the ancient walls and gates of the city,
on the other, the swelling slopes of Olivet. Presently the Lord
emerged out of the shadow, engaged in earnest converse with the
apostles; crossed the bridge, but, instead of pursuing the path as it
wound upward toward Bethany and Bethphage, they all turned into a large
enclosure, well-known as the garden of the oil-press, and which we know
best as Gethsemane. Somewhere, no doubt, within its enclosure stood
the rock-hewn trough in which the rich juicy olives were trodden by
naked feet. "When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His
disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into which He
entered, and His disciples."
The sequel was so fully narrated by the other evangelists that there
was no need for the writer of this narrative to tell of the awful
anguish, the broken cries, the bloody sweat, the running to and fro of
the disciples, the sleep of the chosen three, the strengthening angel.
He confines himself almost entirely to the circumstances of the Lord's
arrest.