_THE SPIRIT CHRIST'S WITNESS._
"If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated Me before it
hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own:
but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted
Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will
keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My
name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not
come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have
no excuse for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If
I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had
not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My
Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word may be fulfilled that
is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause. But when the
Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even
the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear
witness of Me: and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with
Me from the beginning. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye
should not be made to stumble. They shall put you out of the
synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall
think that he offereth service unto God. And these things will they
do, because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But these things
have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may
remember them, how that I told you. And these things I said not unto
you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go unto
Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou? But
because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your
heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you
that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come
unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you. And He, when He is
come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on
Me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me
no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been
judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall
guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself;
but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He
shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify
Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you. All
things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that
He taketh of Mine, and shall declare it unto you."--JOHN xv. 18-xvi.
15.
Having shown His disciples that by them only can His purposes on earth
be fulfilled, and that He will fit them for all work that may be
required of them, the Lord now adds that their task will be full of
hazard and hardship: "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the
time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he offereth
service unto God." This was but a dreary prospect, and one to make each
Apostle hesitate, and in the privacy of his own thoughts consider
whether he should face a life so devoid of all that men naturally crave.
To live for great ends is no doubt animating, but to be compelled in
doing so to abandon all expectation of recognition, and to lay one's
account for abuse, poverty, persecution, calls for some heroism in him
that undertakes such a life. He forewarns them of this persecution, that
when it comes they may not be taken aback and fancy that things are not
falling out with them as their Lord anticipated. And He offers them two
strong consolations which might uphold and animate them under all they
should be called upon to suffer.
I. "If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated Me before it
hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but
because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you." Persecution is thus turned into a joy,
because it is the testimony paid by the world to the disciples' identity
with Christ. The love of the world would be a sure evidence of their
unfaithfulness to Christ and of their entire lack of resemblance to Him;
but its hate was the tribute it would pay to their likeness to Him and
successful promotion of His cause. They might well question their
loyalty to Christ, if the world which had slain Him fawned upon them.
The Christian may conclude he is reckoned a helpless and harmless foe if
he suffers no persecution, if in no company he is frowned upon or felt
to be uncongenial, if he is treated by the world as if its aims were his
aims and its spirit his spirit. No faithful follower of Christ who mixes
with society can escape every form of persecution. It is the seal which
the world puts on the choice of Christ. It is proof that a man's
attachment to Christ and endeavour to forward His purposes have been
recognised by the world. Persecution, then, should be welcome as the
world's testimony to the disciple's identity with Christ.
No idea had fixed itself more deeply in the mind of John than this of
the identity of Christ and His people. As he brooded upon the life of
Christ and sought to penetrate to the hidden meanings of all that
appeared on the surface, he came to see that the unbelief and hatred
with which He was met was the necessary result of goodness presented to
worldliness and selfishness. And as time went on he saw that the
experience of Christ was exceptional only in degree, that His experience
was and would be repeated in every one who sought to live in His Spirit
and to do His will. The future of the Church accordingly presented
itself to him as a history of conflict, of extreme cruelty on the part
of the world and quiet conquering endurance on the part of Christ's
people. And it was this which he embodied in the Book of Revelation.
This book he wrote as a kind of detailed commentary on the passage
before us, and in it he intended to depict the sufferings and final
conquest of the Church. The one book is a reflex and supplement to the
other; and as in the Gospel he had shown the unbelief and cruelty of the
world against Christ, so in the Revelation he shows in a series of
strongly coloured pictures how the Church of Christ would pass through
the same experience, would be persecuted as Christ was persecuted, but
would ultimately conquer. Both books are wrought out with extreme care
and finished to the minutest detail, and both deal with the cardinal
matters of human history--sin, righteousness, and the final result of
their conflict. Underneath all that appears on the surface in the life
of the individual and in the history of the race there are just these
abiding elements--sin and righteousness. It is the moral value of things
which in the long run proves of consequence, the moral element which
ultimately determines all else.
II. The second consolation and encouragement the Lord gave them was that
they would receive the aid of a powerful champion--_the_ Paraclete, the
one effectual, sufficient Helper. "When the Paraclete is come, whom I
will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which
proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of Me: and ye also
bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning."
Inevitably the disciples would argue that, if the words and works of
Jesus Himself had not broken down the unbelief of the world, it was not
likely that anything which they could say or do would have that effect.
If the impressive presence of Christ Himself had not attracted and
convinced all men, how was it possible that mere telling about what He
had said and done and been would convince them? And He has just been
reminding them how little effect His own words and works had had. "If I
had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: ... if I had
not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had
sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father." What
power, then, could break down this obstinate unbelief?
Our Lord assures them that together with their witness-bearing there
will be an all-powerful witness--"the Spirit of truth"; one who could
find access to the hearts and minds to which they addressed themselves
and carry truth home to conviction. It was on this account that it was
"expedient" that their Lord should depart, and that His visible presence
should be superseded by the presence of the Spirit. It was necessary
that His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the
Father should take place, in order that His supremacy might be secured.
And in order that He might be everywhere and inwardly present with men,
it was necessary that He should be visible nowhere on earth. The inward
spiritual presence depended on the bodily absence.
Before passing to the specific contents of the Spirit's testimony, as
stated in vv. 8-11, it is necessary to gather up what our Lord indicates
regarding the Spirit Himself and His function in the Christian
dispensation. First, the Spirit here spoken of is a personal existence.
Throughout all that our Lord says in this last conversation regarding
the Spirit personal epithets are applied to Him, and the actions
ascribed to Him are personal actions. He is to be the substitute of the
most marked and influential Personality with whom the disciples had ever
been brought in contact. He is to supply His vacated place. He is to be
to the disciples as friendly and staunch an ally and a more constantly
present and efficient teacher than Christ Himself. What as yet was not
in their minds He was to impart to them; and He was to mediate and
maintain communication between the absent Lord and themselves. Was it
possible that the disciples should think of the Spirit otherwise than as
a conscious and energetic Person when they heard Him spoken of in such
words as these: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall
guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but
what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall
declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me: for
He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you"? From these words
it would seem as if the disciples were justified in expecting the
presence and aid of One who was very closely related to their Lord, but
yet distinct from Him, who could understand their state of mind and
adapt Himself to them, who is not identical with the Master they are
losing, and yet comes into still closer contact with them. What
underlies this, and what is the very nature of the Spirit and His
relation to the Father and the Son, we do not know; but our Lord chose
these expressions which to our thought involve personality because this
is the truest and safest form under which we can now conceive of the
Spirit.
The function for the discharge of which this Spirit is necessary is the
"glorification" of Christ. Without Him the manifestation of Christ will
be lost. He is needed to secure that the world be brought into contact
with Christ, and that men recognise and use Him. This is the most
general and comprehensive aspect of the Spirit's work: "He shall glorify
Me" (ver. 14). In making this announcement our Lord assumes that
position of commanding importance with which this Gospel has made us
familiar. The Divine Spirit is to be sent forth, and the direct object
of His mission is the glorifying of Christ. The meaning of Christ's
manifestation is the essential thing for men to understand. In
manifesting Himself He has revealed the Father. He has in His own person
shown what a Divine nature is; and therefore in order to His
glorification all that is required is that light be shed upon what He
has done and been, and that the eyes of men be opened to see Him and His
work. The recognition of Christ and of God in Him is the blessedness of
the human race; and to bring this about is the function of the Spirit.
As Jesus Himself had constantly presented Himself as the revealer of the
Father and as speaking His words, so, in "a rivalry of Divine humility,"
the Spirit glorifies the Son and speaks "what He shall hear."
To discharge this function a twofold ministry is undertaken by the
Spirit: He must enlighten the Apostles, and He must convince the world.
He must enlighten the Apostles. From the nature of the case much had to
be left unsaid by Christ. But this would not prevent the Apostles from
understanding what Christ had done, and what applications His work had
to themselves and their fellow-men. "I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all the truth." A great untravelled
country lay before them. Their Master had led them across its border,
and set their faces in the right direction; but who was to find a way
for them through all its intricacies and perplexities? The Spirit of
truth, He who is Himself perfect knowledge and absolute light, "will
guide you"; He will go before you and show you your way.[18] There may
be no sudden impartation of truth, no lifting of the mist that hangs on
the horizon, no consciousness that now you have mastered all
difficulties and can see your way to the end; there may be no violation
of the natural and difficult processes by which men arrive at truth; the
road may be slow, and sometimes there may even be an appearance of
ignominious defeat by those who use swifter but more precarious means of
advance; much will depend on your own patience and wakefulness and
docility; but if you admit the Spirit, He will guide you into all the
truth.
This promise does not involve that the Apostles, and through them all
disciples, should know everything. "All the truth" is relative to the
subject taught. All that they need to know regarding Christ and His work
for them they will learn. All that is needed to glorify Christ, to
enable men to recognise Him as the manifestation of God, will be
imparted. To the truth which the Apostles learn, therefore, nothing need
be added. Nothing essential has been added. Time has now been given to
test this promise, and what time has shown is this--that while libraries
have been written on what the Apostles thought and taught, their
teaching remains as the sufficient guide into all the truth regarding
Christ. Even in non-essentials it is marvellous how little has been
added. Many corrections of misapprehensions of their meaning have been
required, much laborious inquiry to ascertain precisely what they meant,
much elaborate inference and many buildings upon their foundations; but
in their teaching there remain a freshness and a living force which
survive all else that has been written upon Christ and His religion.
This instruction of the Apostles by the Spirit was to recall to their
minds what Christ Himself had said, and was also to show them things to
come. The changed point of view introduced by the dispensation of the
Spirit and the abolition of earthly hopes would cause many of the
sayings of Jesus which they had disregarded and considered
unintelligible to spring into high relief and ray out significance,
while the future also would shape itself quite differently in their
conception. And the Teacher who should superintend and inspire this
altered attitude of mind is the Spirit.[19]
Not only must the Spirit enlighten the Apostles; He must also convince
the world. "He shall bear witness of Me," and by His witness-bearing the
testimony of the Apostles would become efficacious. They had a natural
fitness to witness about Christ, "because they had been with Him from
the beginning." No more trustworthy witnesses regarding what Christ had
said or done or been could be called than those men with whom He had
lived on terms of intimacy. No men could more certainly testify to the
identity of the risen Lord. But the significance of the facts they spoke
of could best be taught by the Spirit. The very fact of the Spirit's
presence was the greatest evidence that the Lord had risen and was using
"all power in heaven" in behalf of men. And possibly it was to this
Peter referred when he said: "We are His witnesses of these things; and
so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
Certainly the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the power to speak with tongues
or to work miracles of healing, were accepted by the primitive Church as
a seal of the Apostolic word and as the appropriate evidence of the
power of the risen Christ.
But it is apparent from our Lord's description of the subject-matter of
the Spirit's witness that here He has especially in view the function of
the Spirit as an inward teacher and strengthener of the moral powers. He
is the fellow-witness of the Apostles, mainly and permanently, by
enlightening men in the significance of the facts reported by them, and
by opening the heart and conscience to their influence.
The subject-matter of the Spirit's testimony is threefold: "He will
convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment."
I. He should convict the world of sin. No conviction cuts so deeply and
produces results of such magnitude as the conviction of sin. It is like
subsoil ploughing: it turns up soil that nothing else has got down to.
It alters entirely a man's attitude towards life. He cannot know himself
a sinner and be satisfied with that condition. This awakening is like
the waking of one who has been buried in a trance, who wakes to find
himself bound round with grave-clothes, hemmed in with all the insignia
of corruption, terror and revulsion distracting and overwhelming his
soul. In spirit he has been far away, weaving perhaps a paradise out of
his fancies, peopling it with choice and happy society, and living
through scenes of gorgeous beauty and comfort in fulness of interest and
life and felicity; but suddenly comes the waking, a few brief moments of
painful struggle and the dream gives place to the reality, and then
comes the certain accumulation of misery till the spirit breaks beneath
its fear. So does the strongest heart groan and break when it wakes to
the full reality of sin, when the Spirit of Christ takes the veil from a
man's eyes and gives him to see what this world is and what he has been
in it, when the shadows that have occupied him flee away and the naked
inevitable reality confronts him.
Nothing is more overwhelming than this conviction, but nothing is more
hopeful. Given a man who is alive to the evil of sin and who begins to
understand his errors, and you know some good will come of that. Given a
man who sees the importance of being in accord with perfect goodness and
who feels the degradation of sin, and you have the germ of all good in
that man. But how were the Apostles to produce this? how were they to
dispel those mists which blurred the clear outline of good and evil, to
bring to the self-righteous Pharisee and the indifferent and worldly
Sadducee a sense of their own sin? What instrument is there which can
introduce to every human heart, howsoever armoured and fenced round,
this healthy revolution? Looking at men as they actually are, and
considering how many forces are banded together to exclude the knowledge
of sin, how worldly interest demands that no brand shall be affixed to
this and that action, how the customs we are brought up in require us to
take a lenient view of this and that immorality, how we deceive
ourselves by sacrificing sins we do not care for in order to retain sins
that are in our blood, how the resistance of certain sins makes us a
prey to self-righteousness and delusion--considering what we have learnt
of the placidity with which men content themselves with a life they know
is not the highest, does there seem to be any instrument by which a true
and humbling sense of sin can be introduced to the mind?
Christ, knowing that men were about to put Him to death because He had
tried to convict them of sin, confidently predicts that His servants
would by His Spirit's aid convince the world of sin and of this in
particular--that they had not believed in Him. That very death which
chiefly exhibits human sin has, in fact, become the chief instrument in
making men understand and hate sin. There is no consideration from which
the deceitfulness of sin will not escape, nor any fear which the
recklessness of sin will not brave, nor any authority which self-will
cannot override but only this: Christ has died for me, to save me from
my sin, and I am sinning still, not regarding His blood, not meeting His
purpose. It was when the greatness and the goodness of Christ were
together let in to Peter's mind that he fell on his face before Him,
saying, "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." And the
experience of thousands is recorded in that more recent confession:
"In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight and stopped my wild career:
I saw One hanging on a tree in agonies and blood.
Who fixed His languid eyes on me as near His cross I stood.
Sure never till my latest breath can I forget that look;
It seemed to charge me with His death, though not a word He spoke."
Of other convictions we may get rid; the consequences of sin we may
brave, or we may disbelieve that in our case sin will produce any very
disastrous fruits; but in the death of Christ we see, not what sin may
possibly do in the future, but what it actually has done in the past. In
presence of the death of Christ we cannot any longer make a mock of sin
or think lightly of it, as if it were on our own responsibility and at
our own risk we sinned.
But not only does the death of Christ exhibit the intricate connections
of our sin with other persons and the grievous consequence of sin in
general, but also it exhibits the enormity of this particular sin of
rejecting Christ. "He will convince the world of sin, _because they
believe not on Me_." It was this sin in point of fact which cut to the
heart the crowd at Jerusalem first addressed by Peter. Peter had nothing
to say of their looseness of life, of their worldliness, of their
covetousness: he did not go into particulars of conduct calculated to
bring a blush to their cheeks; he took up but one point, and by a few
convincing remarks showed them the enormity of crucifying the Lord of
glory. The lips which a few days before had cried out "Crucify Him,
crucify Him!" now cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, how escape
from the crushing condemnation of mistaking God's image for a criminal?
In that hour Christ's words were fulfilled; they were convinced of sin
because they believed not on Him.
This is ever the damning sin--to be in presence of goodness and not to
love it, to see Christ and to see Him with unmoved and unloving hearts,
to hear His call without response, to recognise the beauty of holiness
and yet turn away to lust and self and the world. This is the
condemnation--that light is come into the world and we have loved
darkness rather than the light. "If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He
that hateth Me, hateth My Father also." To turn away from Christ is to
turn away from absolute goodness. It is to show that however much we may
relish certain virtues and approve particular forms of goodness,
goodness absolute and complete does not attract us.
II. The conviction of righteousness is the complement, the other half,
of the conviction of sin. In the shame of guilt there is the germ of the
conviction of righteousness. The sense of guilt is but the
acknowledgment that we ought to be righteous. No guilt attaches to the
incapable. The sting of guilt is poisoned with the knowledge that we
were capable of better things. Conscience exclaims against all excuses
that would lull us into the idea that sin is insuperable, and that there
is nothing better for us than a moderately sinful life. When conscience
ceases to condemn, hope dies. A mist rises from sin that obscures the
clear outline between its own domain and that of righteousness, like the
mist that rises from the sea and mingles shore and water in one
undefined cloud. But let it rise off the one and the other is at once
distinctly marked out; and so in the conviction of sin there is already
involved the conviction of righteousness. The blush of shame that
suffuses the face of the sinner as the mist-dispelling Sun of
righteousness arises upon him is the morning flush and promise of an
everlasting day of righteous living.
For each of us it is of the utmost importance to have a fixed and
intelligent persuasion that righteousness is what we are made for. The
righteous Lord loveth righteousness and made us in His image to widen
the joy of rational creatures. He waits for righteousness and cannot
accept sin as an equally grateful fruit of men's lives. And though in
the main perhaps our faces are turned towards righteousness, and we are
on the whole dissatisfied and ashamed of sin, yet the conviction of
righteousness has much to struggle against in us all. Sin, we
unconsciously plead, is so finely interwoven with all the ways of the
world that it is impossible to live wholly free from it. As well cast a
sponge into the water and command that it absorb none nor sink as put me
in the world and command that I do not admit its influences or sink to
its level. It presses in on me through all my instincts and appetites
and hopes and fears; it washes ceaselessly at the gateways of my senses,
so that one unguarded moment and the torrent bursts in on me and pours
over my wasted bulwarks, resolves, high aims, and whatever else. It is
surely not now and here that I am expected to do more than learn the
rudiments of righteous living and make small experiments in it;
endeavours will surely stand for accomplishment, and pious purposes in
place of heroic action and positive righteousness. Men take sin for
granted and lay their account for it. Will not God also, who remembers
our frailty, consider the circumstances and count sin a matter of
course? Such thoughts haunt and weaken us; but every man whose heart is
touched by the Spirit of God clings to this as his hopeful prayer:
"Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God: Thy Spirit is good; lead
me into the land of uprightness."
But, after all, it is by fact men are convinced; and were there no facts
to appeal to in this matter conviction could not be attained. It does
seem that we are made for righteousness, but sin is in this world so
universal that there must surely be some way of accounting for it which
shall also excuse it. Had righteousness been to be our life, surely some
few would have attained it. There must be some necessity of sin, some
impossibility of attaining perfect righteousness, and therefore we need
not seek it. Here comes in the proof our Lord speaks of: "The Spirit
will convince of righteousness, because I go to the Father."
Righteousness has been attained. There has lived One, bone of our bone,
and flesh of our flesh, tempted in all points like as we are, open to
the same ambitious views of life, growing up with the same appetites and
as sensitive to bodily pleasure and bodily pain, feeling as keenly the
neglect and hatred of men, and from the very size of His nature and
width of His sympathy tempted in a thousand ways we are safe from, and
yet in no instance confounding right and wrong, in no instance falling
from perfect harmony with the Divine will to self-will and self-seeking;
never deferring the commandments of God to some other sphere or waiting
for holier times; never forgetting and never renouncing the purpose of
God in His life; but at all times, in weariness and lassitude, in
personal danger and in domestic comfort, putting Himself as a perfect
instrument into God's hand, ready at all cost to Himself to do the
Father's will. Here was One who not only recognised that men are made to
work together with God, but who actually did so work; who not only
approved, as we all approve, of a life of holiness and sacrifice, but
actually lived it; who did not think the trial too great, the privation
and risk too dreadful, the self-effacement too humbling; but who met
life with all it brings to all of us--its conflict, its interests, its
opportunities, its allurements, its snares, its hazards. But while out
of this material we fail to make a perfect life, He by His integrity of
purpose and devotedness and love of good fashioned a perfect life. Thus
He simply by living accomplished what the law with its commands and
threats had not accomplished: He condemned sin in the flesh.
But it was open to those whom the Apostles addressed to deny that Jesus
had thus lived; and therefore the conviction of righteousness is
completed by the evidence of the resurrection and ascension of Christ.
"Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more."
Without holiness no man shall see God. It was this that the Apostles
appealed to when first moved to address their fellow-men and proclaim
Christ as the Saviour. It was to His resurrection they confidently
appealed as evidence of the truth of His claim to have been sent of God.
The Jews had put Him to death as a deceiver; but God proclaimed His
righteousness by raising Him from the dead. "Ye denied the Holy One and
the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the
Prince of life whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are
witnesses."
Probably, however, another idea underlies the words "because I go to My
Father, and ye see Me no more." So long as Christ was on earth the Jews
believed that Jesus and His followers were plotting a revolution: when
He was removed beyond sight such a suspicion became ludicrous. But when
His disciples could no longer see Him, they continued to serve Him and
to strive with greater zeal than ever to promote His cause. Slowly then
it dawned on men's minds that righteousness was what Christ and His
Apostles alone desired and sought to establish on earth. This new
spectacle of men devoting their lives to the advancement of
righteousness, and confident they could establish a kingdom of
righteousness and actually establishing it--this spectacle penetrated
men's minds, and gave them a new sense of the value of righteousness,
and quite a new conviction of the possibility of attaining it.
III. The third conviction by which the Apostles were to prevail in their
preaching of Christ was the conviction "of judgment, because the prince
of this world is judged." Men were to be persuaded that a distinction is
made between sin and righteousness, that in no case can sin pass for
righteousness and righteousness for sin. The world that has worldly ends
in view and works towards them by appropriate means, disregarding moral
distinctions, will be convicted of enormous error. The Spirit of truth
will work in men's minds the conviction that all and every sin is
mistake and productive of nothing good, and can in no instance
accomplish what righteousness would have accomplished. Men will find,
when truth shines in their spirit, that they have not to await a great
day of judgment in the end, when the good results of sin shall be
reversed and reward allotted to those who have done righteously, but
that judgment is a constant and universal element in God's government
and to be found everywhere throughout it, distinguishing between sin and
righteousness in every present instance, and never for one moment
allowing to sin the value or the results which only righteousness has.
In the minds of men who have been using the world's unrighteous methods
and living for the world's selfish ends, the conviction is to be wrought
that no good can come of all that--that sin is sin and not valid for any
good purpose. Men are to recognise that a distinction is made between
human actions, and that condemnation is pronounced on all that are
sinful.
And this conviction is to be wrought in the light of the fact that in
Christ's victory the prince of this world is judged. The powers by which
the world is actually led are seen to be productive of evil, and not the
powers by which men can permanently be led or should at any time have
been led. The prince of this world was judged by Christ's refusal
throughout His life to be in anything guided by him. The motives by
which the world is led were not Christ's motives.
But it is in the death of Christ the prince of this world was especially
judged. That death was brought about by the world's opposition to
unworldliness. Had the world been seeking spiritual beauty and
prosperity, Christ would not have been crucified. He was crucified
because the world was seeking material gain and worldly glory, and was
thereby blinded to the highest form of goodness. And unquestionably the
very fact that worldliness led to this treatment of Christ is its most
decided condemnation. We cannot think highly of principles and
dispositions which so blind men to the highest form of human goodness
and lead them to actions so unreasonable and wicked. As an individual
will often commit one action which illustrates his whole character, and
flashes sudden light into the hidden parts of it, and discloses its
capabilities and possible results, so the world has in this one act
shown what worldliness essentially is and at all times is capable of. No
stronger condemnation of the influences which move worldly men can be
found than the crucifixion of Christ.
But, besides, the death of Christ exhibits in so touching a form the
largeness and power of spiritual beauty, and brings so vividly home to
the heart the charm of holiness and love, that here more than anywhere
else do men learn to esteem beauty of character and holiness and love
more than all the world can yield them. We feel that to be wholly out of
sympathy with the qualities and ideas manifested in the Cross would be a
pitiable condition. We adopt as our ideal the kind of glory there
revealed, and in our hearts condemn the opposed style of conduct that
the world leads to. As we open our understanding and conscience to the
meaning of Christ's love and sacrifice and devotedness to God's will,
the prince of this world is judged and condemned within us. We feel that
to yield to the powers that move and guide the world is impossible for
us, and that we must give ourselves to this Prince of holiness and
spiritual glory.
In point of fact the world is judged. To adhere to worldly motives and
ways and ambitions is to cling to a sinking ship, to throw ourselves
away on a justly doomed cause. The world may trick itself out in what
delusive splendours it may; it is judged all the same, and men who are
deluded by it and still in one way or other acknowledge the prince of
this world destroy themselves and lose the future.
Such was the promise of Christ to His disciples. Is it fulfilled in us?
We may have witnessed in others the entrance and operation of
convictions which to all appearance correspond with those here
described. We may even have been instrumental in producing these
convictions. But a lens of ice will act as a burning-glass, and itself
unmelted will fire the tinder to which it transmits the rays. And
perhaps we may be able to say with much greater confidence that we have
done good than that we are good. Convinced of sin we may be, and
convinced of righteousness we may be--so far at least as to feel most
keenly that the distinction between sin and righteousness is real, wide,
and of eternal consequence--but is the prince of this world judged? has
the power that claims us as the servants of sin and mocks our strivings
after righteousness been, so far as we can judge from our own
experience, defeated? For this is the final test of religion, of our
faith in Christ, of the truth of His words and the efficacy of His work.
Does He accomplish in me what He promised?
Now, when we begin to doubt the efficacy of the Christian method on
account of its apparent failure in our own case, when we see quite
clearly how it ought to work and as clearly that it has not worked, when
this and that turns up in our life and proves beyond controversy that we
are ruled by much the same motives and desires as the world at large,
two subjects of reflection present themselves. First, have we remembered
the word of Christ, "The servant is not greater than his Lord"? Are we
so anxious to be His servants that we would willingly sacrifice whatever
stood in the way of our serving Him? Are we content to be as He was in
the world? There are always many in the Christian Church who are, first,
men of the world, and, secondly, varnished with Christianity; who do not
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; who do not yet
understand that the _whole_ of life must be consecrated to Christ and
spring from His will, and who therefore without compunction do make
themselves greater in every worldly respect than their professed Lord.
There are also many in the Christian Church at all times who decline to
make more of this world than Christ Himself did, and whose constant
study it is to put all they have at His disposal. Now, we cannot too
seriously inquire to which of these classes we belong. Are we making a
_bona-fide_ thing of our attachment to Christ? Do we feel it in every
part of our life? Do we strive, not to minimise our service and His
claims, but to be wholly His? Have His words, "The servant is not
greater than his Lord," any meaning to us at all? Is His service truly
the main thing we seek in life? I say we should seriously inquire if
this is so; for not hereafter, but now, are we finally determining our
relation to all things by our relation to Christ.
But, secondly, we must beware of disheartening ourselves by hastily
concluding that in our case Christ's grace has failed. If we may accept
the Book of Revelation as a true picture, not merely of the conflict of
the Church, but also of the conflict of the individual, then only in the
end can we look for quiet and achieved victory--only in the closing
chapters does conflict cease and victory seem no more doubtful. If it is
to be so with us, the fact of our losing some of the battles must not
discourage us from continuing the campaign. Nothing is more painful and
humbling than to find ourselves falling into unmistakable sin after much
concernment with Christ and His grace; but the very resentment we feel
and the deep and bitter humiliation must be used as incentive to further
effort, and must not be allowed to sound permanent defeat and surrender
to sin.