Jesus Christ gave the Apostle whom He called to Himself in the early
days, a new name, in order to prophesy the change which, by the
discipline of sorrow and the communication of the grace of God, should
pass over Simon Barjona, making him into a Peter, a 'Man of Rock.' With
characteristic independence, Saul chooses for himself a new name, which
shall express the change that he feels has passed over his inmost
being. True, he does not assume it at his conversion, but that is no
reason why we should not believe that he assumes it because he is
beginning to understand what it is that has happened to him at his
conversion.
The fact that he changes his name as soon as he throws himself into
public and active life, is but gathering into one picturesque symbol
his great principle; 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new
creature. Old things are passed away and all things are become new.'
So, dear brethren, we may, from this incident before us, gather this
one great lesson, that the central heart of Christianity is the
possession of a new life, communicated to us through faith in that Son
of God, Who is the Lord of the Spirit. Wheresoever there is a true
faith, there is a new nature. Opinions may play upon the surface of a
man's soul, like moonbeams on the silver sea, without raising its
temperature one degree or sending a single beam into its dark caverns.
And that is the sort of Christianity that satisfies a great many of
you--a Christianity of opinion, a Christianity of surface creed, a
Christianity which at the best slightly modifies some of our outward
actions, but leaves the whole inner man unchanged.
Paul's Christianity meant a radical change in his whole nature. He went
out of Jerusalem a persecutor, he came into Damascus a Christian. He
rode out of Jerusalem hating, loathing, despising Jesus Christ; he
groped his way into Damascus, broken, bruised, clinging contrite to His
feet, and clasping His Cross as his only hope. He went out proud,
self-reliant, pluming himself upon his many prerogatives, his blue
blood, his pure descent, his Rabbinical knowledge, his Pharisaical
training, his external religious earnestness, his rigid morality; he
rode into Damascus blind in the eyes, but seeing in the soul, and
discerning that all these things were, as he says in his strong,
vehement way, 'but dung' in comparison with his winning Christ.
And his theory of conversion, which he preaches in all his Epistles, is
but the generalisation of his own personal experience, which suddenly,
and in a moment, smote his old self to shivers, and raised up a new
life, with new tastes, views, tendencies, aspirations, with new
allegiance to a new King. Such changes, so sudden, so revolutionary,
cannot be expected often to take place amongst people who, like us,
have been listening to Christian teaching all our lives. But unless
there be this infusion of a new life into men's spirits which shall
make them love and long and aspire after new things that once they did
not care for, I know not why we should speak of them as being
Christians at all. The transition is described by Paul as 'passing from
death unto life.' That cannot be a surface thing. A change which needs
a new name must be a profound change. Has our Christianity
revolutionised our nature in any such fashion? It is easy to be a
Christian after the superficial fashion which passes muster with so
many of us. A verbal acknowledgment of belief in truths which we never
think about, a purely external performance of acts of worship, a
subscription or two winged by no sympathy, and a fairly respectable
life beneath the cloak of which all evil may burrow undetected--make
the Christianity of thousands. Paul's Christianity transformed him;
does yours transform you? If it does not, are you quite sure that it
_is_ Christianity at all?
II. Then, again, we may take this change of name as being expressive of
a life's work.
_Paul_ is a Roman name. He strips himself of his Jewish connections and
relationships. His fellow-countrymen who lived amongst the Gentiles
were, as I said at the beginning of these remarks, in the habit of
doing the same thing; but they carried _both_ their names; their Jewish
for use amongst their own people, their Gentile one for use amongst
Gentiles. Paul seems to have altogether disused his old name of Saul.
It was almost equivalent to seceding from Judaism. It is like the acts
of the renegades whom one sometimes hears of, who are found by
travellers, dressed in turban and flowing robes, and bearing some
Turkish name, or like some English sailor, lost to home and kindred,
who deserts his ship in an island of the Pacific, and drops his English
name for a barbarous title, in token that he has given up his faith and
his nationality.
So Paul, contemplating for his life's work preaching amongst the
Gentiles, determines at the beginning, 'I lay down all of which I used
to be proud. If my Jewish descent and privileges stand in my way I cast
them aside. "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a
Pharisee,"--all these I wrap together in one bundle, and toss them
behind me that I may be the better able to help some to whom they would
have hindered my access.' A man with a heart will throw off his silken
robes that his arm may be bared to rescue, and his feet free to run to
succour.
So we may, from the change of the Apostle's name, gather this lesson,
never out of date, that the only way to help people is to go down to
their level. If you want to bless men, you must identify yourself with
them. It is no use standing on an eminence above them, and
patronisingly talking down to them. You cannot scold, or hector, or
lecture men into the possession and acceptance of religious truth if
you take a position of superiority. As our Master has taught us, if we
want to make blind beggars see we must take the blind beggars by the
hand.
The spirit which led the Apostle to change the name of Saul, with its
memories of the royal dignity which, in the person of its great wearer,
had honoured his tribe, for a Roman name is the same which he formally
announces as a deliberately adopted law of his life. 'To them that are
without law I became as without law ... that I might gain them that are
without law ... I am made all things to all men, that I might by all
means save some.'
It is the very inmost principle of the Gospel. The principle that
influenced the servant in this comparatively little matter, is the
principle that influenced the Master in the mightiest of all events.
'He who was in the form of God, and thought not equality with God a
thing to be eagerly snatched at, made Himself of no reputation, and was
found in fashion as a man and in form as a servant, and became obedient
unto death.' 'For as much as the children were partakers of flesh and
blood, He Himself likewise took part of the same'; and the mystery of
incarnation came to pass, because when the Divine would help men, the
only way by which the Infinite love could reach its end was that the
Divine should become man; identifying Himself with those whom He would
help, and stooping to the level of the humanity that He would lift.
And as it is the very essence and heart of Christ's work, so, my
brother, it is the condition of all work that benefits our fellows. It
applies all round. We must stoop if we would raise. We must put away
gifts, culture, everything that distinguishes us, and come to the level
of the men that we seek to help. Sympathy is the parent of all wise
counsel, because it is the parent of all true understanding of our
brethren's wants. Sympathy is the only thing to which people will
listen, sympathy is the only disposition correspondent to the message
that we Christians are entrusted with. For a Christian man to carry the
Gospel of Infinite condescension to his fellows in a spirit other than
that of the Master and the Gospel which he speaks, is an anomaly and a
contradiction.
And, therefore, let us all remember that a vast deal of so-called
Christian work falls utterly dead and profitless, for no other reason
than this, that the doers have forgotten that they must come to the
level of the men whom they would help, before they can expect to bless
them.
You remember the old story of the heroic missionary whose heart burned
to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst captives, and as there was
no other way of reaching them, let himself be sold for a slave, and put
out his hands to have the manacles fastened upon them. It is the law
for all Christian service; become like men if you will help them,--'To
the weak as weak, all things to all men, that we might by all means
save some.'
And, my brother, there was no obligation on Paul's part to do Christian
work which does not lie on you.