_FOR AND AGAINST CHRIST._
"He that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me
scattereth."—LUKE xi. 23.
"He that is not against us is on our part."—MARK ix. 40.
It has never been an easy task to settle with any degree of exactitude
who among men should be reckoned the Saviour's friends, and who His
foes. But perhaps no time has surrounded the problem with such
difficulties as those that arise from the circumstances of our own age.
On every side we see truth and error intertwined in such a perplexing
tangle that we scarce know on which side to rank men and parties. The
Church of Christ is divided into so many divergent sections, within
which good and evil are so strangely combined, that you can hardly tell
if they are for Christ or against. You find men of unexceptionable
profession and ample creed, but with a jarring life and scant morality.
On the other hand, you see men whose creed is erroneous or imperfect,
but whose life and character are instinct with the spirit of Christ. And
amid such anomalies you feel it almost impossible to determine, with
even an approach to certainty, whom you shall count followers, and whom
foes, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
True, we are not called to sit in judgment on the inner state of heart,
the hidden attitude of men's spirits, which is cognisable only by
"larger, other eyes than ours;" yet we must for practical guidance form
a conditional opinion regarding the position and action of our
fellow-men; for so alone can we determine our treatment of them; so
alone can we decide whether it is our duty to oppose or co-operate with
them, to acknowledge them as brethren or deny to them the name of Christ.
Besides, for your own comfort, you must have some standard or test to
determine who are Christ's and who are not, for otherwise how shall you
be able to adjudicate on your own case? You are confronted, it may be,
by large and influential bodies of Christians who declare you to be no
member of Christ's Church at all, because you do not follow after them.
You feel all the weight that attends such a verdict; you are sensible of
the solemn, tragic awfulness of the question; you are humble, diffident,
uncertain yourself of many things, and so, perchance, your heart knows
little rest or peace. You would give much to ascertain some sure test by
which you could settle, once and for ever, whether you are on Christ's
side or against Him.
For our guidance in such matters we can do no better thing than to try
and understand how the Saviour, when He was on earth, estimated the
attitudes of men to Himself. Let us try, then, to determine the
principles that guided Him.
He had come with a very definite aim in view, viz., to establish a
kingdom of heaven on earth; that is to say, to secure the domination of
men's hearts by God's will, so that they should always act in accordance
with the Divine decrees. Or, in other words, He had come to perform this
work of delivering men from sin, of making them pure, and holy, and
Godlike. For this end, He sought to bring them under His immediate
influence, to gather and attach them to His Person, to inspire them with
faith and love for Himself. All who aided in this, all who contributed
to draw men to Him, all who strove to make Christ and His word accepted
and esteemed, all who were at one with Him in His aim, manifestly, were
counted by Him as friends; while, on the contrary, those who exerted
themselves to thwart Him, who endeavoured to alienate men from His
Person and doctrine, all such were His enemies, were against Him.
"But," you may be inclined to say, "while it is true there were some men
who did devote themselves to active support of Christ, and others who
did commit themselves to declared hostility, was there not, between
these two opposing classes, a large number who took sides neither for
nor against Him, but preserved a sort of neutrality? What, then, does
Christ say of these?" The two sayings of our Lord which I have taken for
my text have both been applied to solve this problem. At first sight
they have the appearance of clashing with one another. "He that is not
with Me is against Me" seems to be a declaration that all who were not
positive friends were really enemies, and thus to imply that the Master
classed this whole body of neutrals as foes; and so some use it. But
again, the second saying, "He that is not against us is on our part,"
has the appearance of asserting that all who are not declared foes are
in reality the Saviour's friends, and so, according to this principle,
all neutrals should be counted as allies. The appearance of discrepancy
only lasts when you look at these sayings singly and apart from their
occasions. They speak not of neutrals at all. Taken in conjunction, they
are seen to enunciate, in fact, quite a different principle, viz., that
in regard to Christ, indifferentism, neutrality, is impossible, and that
every man must be either for or against the Saviour. "He that is not a
friend is a foe," while "he that is not a foe is a friend;" consequently
there is no such thing as a position of neither friendship nor enmity.
Let us, then, run cursorily over the incidents that gave rise to these
two sayings, in order that we may see what is the essential character of
the two attitudes of being for or against Christ, and so exhibit how
neutrality is impossible.
One day a man possessed of a dumb devil was brought to Jesus. By His
word of power Jesus cast out the evil spirit, and immediately the man
regained the power of speech. The crowd looking on were filled with
wonder and admiration. They were pleased at the good deed which had been
done. They partook in the dumb man's joy and gratitude, and they
regarded the Saviour with increased reverence and esteem. The influence
of the miracle was to attach men to Himself, and draw them towards the
kingdom of God. But among the spectators there were some who had no
pleasure in the act of healing at all. They were not glad to see their
fellow-man in new possession of speech and soundness of mind. On the
contrary, they wished it had not been done, for they grudged the credit
it brought to the Saviour. His popularity was gall to them. It pained
them to see men revere or trust Him. They did not wish that men should
be drawn to Him. Accordingly, they attempted to turn the people's
admiration into distrust by flinging out a dark suggestion that it was
by the aid, not of God, but of the evil one, that the Lord had been able
to work the cure. The effect designed is manifest. Such a suspicion
would have the effect of turning men away from Christ, of preventing
them from submitting to His guidance. Their purpose was not to draw men
to Him, but rather to alienate from Him any who were attracted. Thus
they were in direct antagonism to Christ's purpose and striving. They
did not like Himself, nor His teaching, nor His aims, so they set
themselves to oppose Him in every way. It was of such men our Lord said,
"He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me
scattereth."
Turning to the second story, we find that Christ's disciples had come
upon a man casting out devils in the name of their Master. It is evident
this man had not been much in direct communication with Christ, if at
all, for apparently he was not known previously to the disciples, and
their grievance is that one who did not with them follow Christ should
thus employ the Master's name. It cannot but have been, therefore, that
this man knew very little of Christ's Person or teaching. His knowledge
of Him must have been very much more imperfect than that of the
disciples, and he did not deem it his duty to become an immediate
follower of the Lord. Nevertheless, he had made the discovery that
Christ's name had power to cast out devils, and for this beneficent
purpose he was in the habit of using it. The disciples, perhaps jealous
that another, not of their number, should possess the same power, and
believing that he could not be one of the Lord's privileged servants,
forbade him to make any further use of the Saviour's name. On reporting
this to the Master He countermanded their decision and gave His grounds
for so doing. They were these: Though he did not attach himself to the
personal company of Christ, though he might be very ignorant, etc. etc.,
nevertheless, by performing miracles of healing through Christ's name,
he was bringing new honour and reverence to that name; and again, while
he was thus in deed spreading Christ's fame and arousing belief in Him,
he was not likely to imitate the Pharisees in slandering the Saviour—for
in our Lord's words, "There is no man which shall do a miracle in My
name that shall be able easily to speak evil of Me." That is to say, "By
using My name to perform a miraculous cure, he puts himself out of a
position to say anything that would detract from My credit." Such an one
was certainly not a scatterer, but a gatherer. And "he that is thus not
against us is on our part."
Reverting now to the first narrative see how the active antagonism of
the Pharisees was the inevitable outcome of the fact that inwardly they
were not with Him in heart and aim.
Because they did not like Him, and did not desire Him to gain influence
with the people they would not unite in the general approbation of the
crowd. Such conduct was marked and demanded an explanation. Apparently a
good and wonderful miracle had been wrought. It will not do for them to
merely refrain from approving. They must justify their reticence.
Neutrality is impossible. If they will not adore they must malign. So
they are forced to impugn the character of Christ's act. To justify
their want of sympathy they must disavow its claim to their approbation.
There is no alternative between frank acceptance of the miracle or open
repudiation and disparagement of its character.
Still you must take sides for or against Christ, and you cannot be
neutral. For His claims reach you not as external facts to be passively
gazed at, but as imperative, active demands that lay hold of you, and
insist that you shall take action upon them. You must yield or you must
resist. You must comply or you must oppose. Christ lays His hand on you
and if you will not obey you must shake that hand rudely off. In
countless forms that strange, drawing power lays hold of you, and you
must follow or reject. It may be a call to you to yield your reverence,
your support, your participation to some benevolent or religious
movement. If you will not, while others do accede to this claim, you
must seek to justify your refusal. So you are forced into disparaging
it, depreciating it, slandering it. You cannot own it to be of God and
yet remain a rebel against its demands. So you must, with evil,
malignant tongue, sneer at it as folly, or revile it as delusion—thus
imitating the Pharisees who set down Christ's work to be the doing of
the devil.
Remember, too, what a black-hearted, hateful sin that was they were
guilty of. Try and picture that gentle, beneficent, holy Jesus. Realise
the cruel blow such a thought was to the man just healed. Surely
caution, reserve, would have made men hesitate to speak so. But they
cruelly, malignantly, eagerly cry, "By Beelzebub He casteth out devils."
It was in the face of such light, such considerate helpful words of
Christ, that they did it. Think of the gracious words He spoke, and of
the beauty of all that life, which in our days bring from the hearts of
unbelievers encomiums that sound like adoration. In spite of all that,
they were not made reverent, careful, slow to condemn. Nay, they were
exasperated by it all.
But you may say, "They were zealous, mistaken men, wrongly trained; they
thought Christ a heretic; they were the victims of an erroneous creed.
So many had deceived them, so many false Christs had appeared! Besides,
did not Moses say that they were not to believe a miracle simply, but to
judge it by the teaching of the worker?" It is true, there were many
such. But you do not find them among the number who ascribed Christ's
works of healing to the devil. There were, indeed, honest but timid
souls who were staggered by the pretensions and claims of Christ, but
how did they act? Remember how one such came to Christ and went away
with mingled feelings of attraction and perplexity; but when the body of
Christ lay lone and forsaken Nicodemus came and did honour to the sacred
dead. But these men were not such as he; their error was not of the
intellect, but of the heart. They did not yield to the beauty of
Christ's character, life, and teaching. They were not one with Him in
His longing to establish God's kingdom on the earth. There was an inner
antagonism of spirit, of nature. They were proud, haughty,
self-righteous, and they were hypocrites, evildoers, cruel. They hated
Christ because His pure life shamed and pained them, and they dreaded
the loss of their own prestige and power. The secret and the essence and
seat of their antagonism was not intellectual error, but deep, dark,
moral perversion and evil of heart and conscience. Thus, because they
were not with Christ, even in so far as to have sympathy with the
undeniable good in Him, therefore they were in act and word against Him.
Finally, from the second narrative see what it is to be with Christ and
how those who inwardly are not against are by His own verdict on His
side. And, first of all, note the error into which the disciples fell.
Very like the conduct of the Pharisees is theirs. They find a man doing
good in Christ's name. He is not all he should be, not one of them, and
not a constant pupil of Christ's. But instead of seeking to draw him to
more perfect light, they intolerantly forbid him to do the good he was
doing. So mistaken an action must have come from a wrongness of heart.
They, too, fell before that evil, monopolising tendency that grudges to
another God's gifts which we possess. It was a cruel thing to the man, a
harmful thing, and might have turned him from Christ. Let us take the
lesson to ourselves. Let us beware of refusing to allow good in those
who differ from us; let us beware of rashly judging those who are not
just the same as we. Harm—grave harm—is often done by treating
imperfect, immature followers of our Master as if they had neither part
nor lot with Him. But mark how this man was with Christ; only, remember,
he is not an example of what we should be, rather he is a specimen of
one just over the borderland: but over. It was not intellectual
orthodoxy; not a perfect knowledge of God's mysteries that he possessed.
He was very ignorant about God, about Christ. He did but know a little
of the power of Christ and His majestic character and stupendous work.
Yet so far as his knowledge went of Christ he had received it gladly. He
rejoiced in the power of the Saviour's name to cast out devils, to cure
the troubled ones. He did the good he knew. He acted up to his light. In
his measure he gave glory and reverence and obedience to the Saviour. He
was working for good and mercy and truth and God in the world. Thus he
was not against Christ in these his aims, and so was for the Lord. It is
only of those who are not against Christ in _this_ sense that He says
they are on His side.
Friends, there is warning and comfort in that. Warning there is, for,
mark, that vain dream is dispelled which would read Christ's words as
meaning that if only you do not oppose Him actively you are to be
counted on His side. No! if that is your position, you are not for Him;
you must be against Him: for passivity, neutrality is impossible.
Comfort there is, on the other hand, to you who feel yourselves very
feeble, very imperfect; to you who find it hard to understand; to you
who fear you are mistaken about many things. Ah! men may condemn you;
the disciples may dissuade you from taking His name and counting
yourself His, but do not fear. If you do, as far as you see how, strive
to do the good He has taught you; if you do, it may be afar off, follow
in His footsteps; if you have learned to find in Him in any degree a
power that helps you to cast out the evil spirits in your soul and in
the hearts of men: be sure that though you may not follow with other
disciples, though you may be very deficient, very immature, a very
unworthy servant—be sure that, nevertheless, you are not against, but
for Him, and that in the end of the days He will not forbid you to claim
His name, but will acknowledge you for His own.