The words of our text contain a metaphor naturally drawn from the
sacrificial system. It comes so easily to us that we scarcely
recognise the metaphorical element, but the clear recognition of it
gives great additional energy to the words. Amasiah was both
sacrificer and sacrifice. His offering was self-immolation. As in all
love, so in that noblest kind of it which clasps God, its perfect
expression is, 'I give Thee my living, loving self.' Nor is it only
sacrifice and sacrificer that are seen in deepest truth in the
experience of the Christian life, but the reality of the Temple is
also there, for 'Ye also ... are built up a spiritual house, to be a
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.' Only when God
dwells in us, shall we have the nerve and the firmness of hand to take
the knife and 'slay before the Lord,' the awful Guest in the sanctuary
within, the most precious of the children of our spirits.
The essence of the sacrifice of self is the sacrifice of will. In the
Christian experience 'willingly offered' is almost tautology, for
unwilling offerings are a contradiction and in fact there are no such
things. The quality of unwillingness destroys the character of the
offering and robs it of all sacredness. Reluctant Christianity is not
Christianity. That noun and that adjective can never be buckled
together.
The submission of will and the consequent surrender of myself and my
powers, opportunities, and possessions, so that I do all, enjoy all,
use all, and when need is, endure all with glad thankful reference to
God is only possible to me in the measure in which my will is made
flexible by love, and such will-subduing love comes only when we 'know
and believe the love that God hath to us.' There is the point at which
not a few moral and religious teachers go wrong and bewilder
themselves and their disciples. There, too, is the point at which
Christ and the Gospel of salvation through faith in Him stand forth as
emancipating humanity from the dreary round of efforts and vain
attempts to work up the condition needful for achieving the height of
self-surrender, which is seen to be indispensable to all true
nobleness of living, but is felt to be beyond the reach of the
ordinary man. There, too, is the point at which many good people mar
their lives as Christians. They waste their strength in trying to
bring the jibbing horse up to the leap. They try to blow up a fire of
devotion and to make themselves priests to offer themselves, but all
the while the mutinous self recoils from the leap, and the fire burns
smokily, and their sacrifice is laid on the altar with little joy,
because they have not been careful and wise enough to begin at the
beginning and to follow God's way of melting their wills, by love, the
reflection of the Infinite love of God to them. God's priests offer
themselves because they offer their wills; they offer their wills
because they love God; they love God because they know that God loves
them. That is the divine order. It is vain to try to accomplish the
end by any other.