'He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave
unto the Lord.' The first thing that strikes one about this
all-sufficient directory for Christian life is the emphasis with which
it sets forth 'the Lord' as the one object to be grasped and held. The
sum of all objective Religion is Christ--the sum of all subjective
Religion is cleaving to Him. A living Person to be laid hold of, and a
personal relation to that Person, such is the conception of Religion,
whether considered as revelation or as inward life, which underlies
this exhortation. Whether we listen to His own words about Himself, and
mark the altogether unprecedented way in which He was His own theme,
and the unique decisiveness and plainness with which He puts His own
personality before us as the Incarnate Truth, the pattern for all human
conduct, the refuge and the rest for the world of weary ones; or
whether we give ear to the teaching of His Apostles; from whatever
point of view we approach Christianity, it all resolves itself into the
person of Jesus Christ. He is the _Revelation_ of God; theology,
properly so called, is but the formulating of the facts which He gives
us; and for the modern world the alternative is, Christ the manifested
God, or no God at all, other than the shadow of a name. He is the
perfect _Exemplar_ of humanity! The law of life and the power to fulfil
the law are both in Him; and the superiority of Christian morality
consists not in this or that isolated precept, but in the embodiment of
all goodness in His life, and in the new motive which He supplies for
keeping the commandment. Wrenched away from Him, Christian morality has
no being. He is the sacrifice for the world, the salvation of which
flows from what He does, and not merely from what He taught or was. His
personality is the foundation of His work, and the gospel of
forgiveness and reconciliation is all contained in the name of Jesus.
There is a constant tendency to separate the results of Christ's life
and death, whether considered as revelation, atonement, or ethics, from
Him, and unconsciously to make these the sum of our Religion, and the
object of our faith. Especially is this the case in times of restless
thought and eager canvassing of the very foundations of religious
belief, like the present. Therefore it is wholesome for us all to be
brought back to the pregnant simplicity of the thought which underlies
this text, and to mark how vividly these early Christians apprehended a
living Lord as the sum and substance of all which they had to grasp.
There is a whole world between the man to whom God's revelation
consists in certain doctrines given to us by Jesus Christ, and the man
to whom it consists in that Christ Himself. Grasping a living person is
not the same as accepting a proposition. True, the propositions are
about Him, and we do not know Him without them. But equally true, we
need to be reminded that _He_ is our Saviour and not _they_, and that
God has revealed Himself to us not in words and sentences but in a life.
For, alas! the doctrinal element has overborne the personal among all
Churches and all schools of thought, and in the necessary process of
formulating and systematising the riches which are in Jesus, we are all
apt to confound the creeds with the Christ, and so to manipulate
Christianity until, instead of being the revelation of a Person and a
gospel, it has become a system of divinity. Simple, devout souls have
to complain that they cannot find even a dead Christ, to say nothing of
a living one, for the theologians have 'taken away their Lord, and they
know not where they have laid Him.'
It is, therefore, to be reckoned as a distinct gain that one result of
the course of more recent thought, both among friends and foes, has
been to make all men feel more than before, that all revelation is
contained in the living person of Jesus Christ. So did the Church
believe before creeds were. So it is coming to feel again, with a
consciousness enriched and defined by the whole body of doctrine, which
has flowed from Him during all the ages. That solemn, gracious Figure
rises day by day more clearly before men, whether they love Him or no,
as the vital centre of this great whole of doctrines, laws,
institutions, which we call Christianity. Round the story of His life
the final struggle is to be waged. The foe feels that, so long as that
remains, all other victories count for nothing. We feel that if that
goes, there is nothing to keep. The principles and the precepts will
perish alike, as the fair palace of the old legend, that crumbled to
dust when its builder died. But so long as He stands before mankind as
He is painted in the Gospel, it will endure. If all else were
annihilated, Churches, creeds and all, leave us these four Gospels, and
all else would be evolved again. The world knows now, and the Church
has always known, though it has not always been true to the
significance of the fact, that Jesus Christ is Christianity, and that
because He lives, it will live also.
And consequently the sum of all personal religion is this simple act
described here as _cleaving to Him_.
Need I do more than refer to the rich variety of symbols and forms of
expression under which that thought is put alike by the Master and by
His servants? Deepest of all are His own great words, of which our text
is but a feeble echo, 'Abide in Me, and I in you.' Fairest of all is
that lovely emblem of the vine, setting forth the sweet mystery of our
union with Him. Far as it is from the outmost pliant tendril to the
root, one life passes to the very extremities, and every cluster swells
and reddens and mellows because of its mysterious flow. 'So also is
Christ.' We remember how often the invitation flowed from His lips,
_Come_ unto Me; how He was wont to beckon men away from self and the
world with the great command, _Follow_ Me; how He explained the secret
of all true life to consist in _eating_ Him. We may recall, too, the
emphasis and perpetual reiteration with which Paul speaks of being 'in
Jesus' as the condition of all blessedness, power, and righteousness;
and the emblems which he so often employs of the building bound into a
whole on the foundation from which it derives its stability, of the
body compacted and organised into a whole by the head from which it
derives its life.
We begin to be Christians, as this context tells us, when we 'turn to
the Lord.' We continue to be Christians, as Barnabas reminded these
ignorant beginners, by 'cleaving to the Lord.' Seeing, then, that our
great task is to preserve that which we have as the very foundation of
our Christian life, clearly the truest method of so keeping it will be
the constant repetition of the act by which we got it at first. In
other words, faith joined us to Christ, and continuously reiterated
acts of faith keep us united to Him. So, if I may venture, fathers and
brethren, to cast my words into the form of exhortation, even to such
an audience as the present, I would earnestly say, Let us cleave to
Christ by continual renewal of our first faith in Him.
The longest line may be conceived of as produced simply by the motion
of its initial point. So should our lives be, our progress not
consisting in leaving our early acts of faith behind us, but in
repeating them over and over again till the points coalesce in one
unbroken line which goes straight to the Throne and Heart of Jesus.
True, the repetition should be accompanied with fuller knowledge, with
calmer certitude, and should come from a heart ennobled and encircled
by a Christ-possessing past. As in some great symphony the theme which
was given out in low notes on one poor instrument recurs over and over
again, embroidered with varying harmonies, and unfolding a richer
music, till it swells into all the grandeur of the triumphant close, so
our lives should be bound into a unity, and in their unity bound to
Christ by the constant renewal of our early faith, and the fathers
should come round again to the place which they occupied when as
children they first knew Him that is 'from the beginning' to the end
one and the same.
Such constant reiteration is needed, too, because yesterday's trust has
no more power to secure to-day's union than the shreds of cloth and
nails which hold last year's growth to the wall will fasten this year's
shoots. Each moment must be united to Christ by its own act of faith,
or it will be separated from Him. So living in the Lord we shall be
strong and wise, happy and holy. So dying in the Lord we shall be of
the dead who are blessed. So sleeping in Jesus we shall at the last be
found in Him at that day, and shall be raised up together, and made to
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
But more specially let us cleave to Christ by habitual contemplation.
There can be no real continuous closeness of intercourse with Him,
except by thought ever recurring to Him amidst all the tumult of our
busy days. I do not mean professional thinking or controversial
thinking, of which we ministers have more than enough. There is another
mood of mind in which to approach our Lord than these, a mood sadly
unfamiliar, I am afraid, in these days: when poor Mary has hardly a
chance of a reputation for 'usefulness' by the side of busy, bustling
Martha--that still contemplation of the truth which we possess, not
with the view of discovering its foundations, or investigating its
applications, or even of increasing our knowledge of its contents, but
of bringing our own souls more completely under its influence, and
saturating our being with its fragrance. The Church has forgotten how
to meditate. We are all so occupied arguing and deducing and
elaborating, that we have no time for retired, still contemplation, and
therefore lose the finest aroma of the truth we profess to believe.
Many of us are so busy thinking about Christianity that we have lost
our hold of Christ. Sure I am that there are few things more needed by
our modern religion than the old exhortation, 'Come, My people, enter
into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee.' Cleave to the Lord by
habitual play of meditative thought on the treasures hidden in His
name, and waiting like gold in the quartz, to be the prize of our
patient sifting and close gaze.
And when the great truths embodied in Him stand clear before us, then
let us remember that we have not done with them when we have _seen_
them. Next must come into exercise the moral side of faith, the
voluntary act of trust, the casting ourselves on Him whom we behold,
the making our own of the blessings which He holds out to us. Flee to
Christ as to our strong habitation to which we may continually resort.
Hold tightly by Christ with a grasp which nothing can slacken (that
whitens your very knuckles as you clutch Him), lean on Christ all your
weight and all your burdens. Cleave to the Lord with full purpose of
heart.
Let us cleave to the Lord by constant outgoings of our love to Him.
That is the bond which unites human spirits together in the only real
union, and Scripture teaches us to see in the sweetest, sacredest,
closest tie that men and women can know, a real, though faint, shadow
of the far deeper and truer union between Christ and us. The same love
which is the bond of perfectness between man and man, is the bond
between us and Christ. In no dreamy, semi-pantheistic fusion of the
believer with his Lord do we find the true conception of the unity of
Christ and His Church, but in a union which preserves the
individualities lest it should slay the love. Faith knits us to Christ,
and faith is the mother of love, which maintains the blessed union. So
let us not be ashamed of the _emotional_ side of our religion, nor deem
that we can cleave to Christ unless our hearts twine their tendrils
round Him, and our love pours its odorous treasures on His sacred feet,
not without weeping and embraces. Cold natures may carp, but Love is
justified of her children, and Christ accepts the homage that has a
heart in it. Cleaving to the Lord is not merely love, but it is
impossible without it. The order is Faith, Love, Obedience--that
threefold cord knits men to Christ, and Christ to men. For the
understanding, a continuous grasp of Him as the object of thought. For
the heart, a continuous outgoing to Him as the object of our love. For
the will, a continuous submission to Him as the Lord of our obedience.
For the whole nature, a continuous cleaving to Him as the object of our
faith and worship.
Such is the true discipline of the Christian life. Such is the
all-sufficient command; as for the newest convert from heathenism, with
little knowledge and the taint of his old vices in his soul, so for the
saint fullest of wisdom and nearest the Light.
It _is_ all-sufficient. If Barnabas had been like some of us, he would
have had a very different style of exhortation. He would have said,
'This irregular work has been well done, but there are no authorised
teachers here, and no provision has been made for the due
administration of the sacraments of the Church. The very first thing of
all is to give these people the blessing of bishops and priests.' Some
of us would have said, 'Valuable work has been done, but these good
people are terribly ignorant. The best thing would be to get ready as
soon as possible some manual of Christian doctrine, and in the meantime
provide for their systematic instruction in at least the elements of
the faith.' Some of us would have said, 'No doubt they have been
converted, but we fear there has been too much of the emotional in the
preaching. The moral side of Christianity has not been pressed home,
and what they chiefly need is to be taught that it is not feeling, but
righteousness. Plain, practical instruction in Christian duty is the
one thing they want.'
Barnabas knew better. He did not despise organisation, nor orthodoxy,
nor practical righteousness, but he knew that all three, and everything
else that any man needed for his perfecting would come, if only the
converts kept near to Christ, and that nothing else was of any use if
they did not. That same conviction should for us settle the relative
importance which we attach to these subordinate and derivative things,
and to the primary and primitive duty. Obedience to it will secure
them. They, without it, are not worth securing.
We spend much pains and effort nowadays in perfecting our organisations
and consolidating our resources, and I have not a word to say against
that. But heavier machinery needs more power in the engine, and that
means greater capacity in your boilers and more fire in your furnace.
The more complete our organisation, the more do we need a firm hold of
Christ, or we shall be overweighted by it, shall be in danger of
burning incense to our own net, shall be tempted to trust in drill
rather than in courage, in mechanism rather than in the life drawn from
Christ. On the other hand, if we put as our first care the preservation
of the closeness of our union with Christ, that life will shape a body
for itself, and 'to every seed its own body.'
True conceptions of Him, and a definite theology, are good and needful.
Let us cleave to Him with mind and heart, and we shall receive all the
knowledge we need, and be guided into the deep things of God. In Him
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and the basis of all
theology is the personal possession of Him who is 'the wisdom of God'
and 'the Light of the world.' Every one that loveth is born of God and
knoweth God. _Pectus facit Theologum_.
Plain, straightforward morality and everyday righteousness are better
than all emotion and all dogmatism and all churchism, says the world,
and Christianity says much the same; but plain, straightforward
righteousness and everyday morality come most surely when a man is
keeping close to Christ. In a word, everything that can adorn the
character with beauty, and clothe the Church with glorious apparel,
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, all that the world or
God calls virtue and crowns with praise, they are all in their fulness
in Him, and all are most surely derived from Him by keeping fast hold
of His hand, and preserving the channels clear through which His
manifold grace may flow into our souls. The same life is strength in
the arm, pliancy in the fingers, swiftness in the foot, light in the
eye, music on the lips; so the same grace is Protean in its forms, and
to His servants who trust Him Christ ever says, 'What would ye that I
should do unto you? Be it even as thou wilt.' The same mysterious power
lives in the swaying branch, and in the veined leaf, and in the
blushing clusters. With like wondrous transformations of the one grace,
the Lord pours Himself into our spirits, filling all needs and fitting
for all circumstances. Therefore for us all, individuals and Churches,
this remains the prime command, 'With purpose of heart cleave unto the
Lord.' Dear brethren in the ministry, how sorely we need this
exhortation! Our very professional occupation with Christ and His truth
is full of danger for us; we are so accustomed to handle these sacred
themes as a means of instructing or impressing others that we get to
regard them as our weapons, even if we do not degrade them still
further by thinking of them as our stock-in-trade and means of
oratorical effect. We must keep very firm hold of Christ for ourselves
by much solitary communion, and so retranslating into the nutriment of
our own souls the message we bring to men, else when we have preached
to others we ourselves may be cast away. All the ordinary tendencies
which draw men from Him work on us, and a host of others peculiar to
ourselves, and all around us run strong currents of thought which
threaten to sweep many away. Let us tighten our grasp of Him in the
face of modern doubt; and take heed to ourselves that neither vanity,
nor worldliness, nor sloth; neither the gravitation earthward common to
all, nor the temptations proper to our office; neither unbelieving
voices without nor voices within, seduce us from His side. There only
is our peace, there our wisdom, there our power.
Subtly and silently the separating forces are ever at work upon us, and
all unconsciously to ourselves our hold may relax, and the flow of this
grace into our spirits may cease, while yet we mechanically keep up the
round of outward service, nor even suspect that our strength is
departed from us. Many a stately elm that seems full of vigorous life,
for all its spreading boughs and clouds of dancing leaves, is hollow at
the heart, and when the storm comes goes down with a crash, and men
wonder, as they look at the ruin, how such a mere shell of life with a
core of corruption could stand so long. It rotted within, and fell at
last, because its roots did not go deep down to the rich soil, where
they would have found nourishment, but ran along near the surface among
gravel and stones. If we would stand firm, be sound within, and bring
forth much fruit, we must strike our roots deep in Him who is the
anchorage of our souls, and the nourisher of all our being.
Hearken, beloved brethren, in this great work of the ministry, not to
the exhortation of the servant, but to the solemn command of the
Master, 'Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in
Me.' And let us, knowing our own weakness, take heed of the
self-confidence that answers, 'Though all should forsake Thee, yet will
not I,' and turn the vows which spring to our lips into the lowly
prayer, 'My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken Thou me according to
Thy word.' Then, thinking rather of His cleaving to us than of our
cleaving to Him, let us resolutely take as the motto of our lives the
grand words: 'I follow after, if that I may lay hold of that for which
I am also laid hold of by Christ Jesus!'