_What shall I do to inherit eternal life_?
WE have here the question of a Jewish lawyer, who is said, in propounding
it, to have tempted our LORD. This does not necessarily, or even
probably, mean, that his object was simply to ensnare and entangle JESUS
in his speech: but rather that he was putting Him to the test, that he
might judge of the qualifications and orthodoxy of the New Teacher. But,
besides this, he seems, from the commendation presently passed on him, to
have had a better motive; to have been like the scribe who was not far
from the kingdom of heaven, to have felt personal anxiety about
salvation, and to have sought from our LORD, in an honest, though
somewhat professional and self-sufficient manner, the resolution of a
real doubt. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He had listened
to the words in which JESUS reminded His hearers, that they had greater
privileges than those who lived before them (“Blessed are the eyes which
see the things that ye see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings
have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them,
and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them”), and
rightly concluding that they were an announcement of the arrival of
Gospel times, and the setting forth of their speaker as the Great Gospel
Teacher, he asked, what was there _new_ for him to hear and learn, and
what consequently remained for him to do, that he might inherit eternal
life. The reply of our LORD is remarkable. “What is written in the law?
how readest thou?” There is nothing new, nothing taken away, nothing
added or altered. I come, to fulfil the ceremonial law, to enforce the
moral law, what does that bind upon thee? And he answering said, with
much wisdom—much spiritual discernment, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and
with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself. And JESUS said unto
him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live:” _i.e._,
shalt have eternal life. Observe, throughout this lawyer’s speech, how
correct is his theology. “What shall I do to _inherit_ eternal life?”
not to gain, to purchase, to earn it, but to inherit it. “I do not claim
it as a profitable servant, I am not so foolish as to suppose that I can
procure it by any surrender, or exchange, or labour. It comes (to those
to whom it comes at all) as an inheritance, to the children of the
covenant, the heirs of faithful Abraham. And this heirship is not a
natural, but a spiritual one. I am a Jew outwardly, but I do not
therefore claim to be certainly a Jew inwardly. They are not all Israel
who are of Israel. Abraham’s child according to the flesh, I would also
be, what I am not necessarily, what indeed I am not at all of mere
natural birthright, Abraham’s child according to the promise.” And next
observe, how he seeks to secure the inheritance. “What shall I _do_?”
Eternal life is not the reward of service, it is not the fruit of labour,
it is the privilege of a spiritual relationship; but still it cannot be
enjoyed by those who are indifferent about it, or by those who only
desire it. It must be laid hold on by real active efforts; it must be
maintained by a particular course of conduct; salvation must be worked
out. “What must I do” to secure it? Truly he is an enlightened scribe!
He knows that eternal life is the free gift of a GOD, Who is no respecter
of persons; Who recognises no birthright, no personal merits; Who will
have mercy on Whom He will have mercy: but that yet grace does not fall,
as the rain from heaven, alike upon the barren and the fertile, the
thankless and the thankful, the careless and the anxious, the indolent
and the active; but is ever guided by a discerning and distinguishing
hand, is ever bestowed upon righteousness. And so he asks, What is the
righteousness that inherits grace: knowing well what was the prescribed
righteousness of the law, how men were to be saved in times past; but
expecting that under the Gospel, an additional, perhaps a different
course was to be followed.
We have already seen that CHRIST referred him back to the law, as
revealing and enacting all that was necessary. “What is written in the
law? How readest thou?” It is in his answer to this question that we
see chiefly the perfection of his religious theory and his great
intellectual superiority to the scribes generally. For, observe, he does
not reply “We must be circumcised; we must be sprinkled with the blood of
goats and heifers; we must keep the Passover; we must wait on the
temple-services; we must give tithes of all that we possess.” Nor,
again, does he say, “We must observe all moral precepts; we must refrain
from all idolatry; we must do justice and love mercy; obeying implicitly
the commandments of the two tables.” No! in theory he is wiser than
that: he has no reliance on external rights and ceremonies: he is sure
that GOD demands something better than a servile conformity with certain
precepts and restrictions. GOD, he knows, looks to the heart, requires
the spirit rather than, _i.e._, beyond the letter. The law has taught
him this: Moses gave him from heaven ceremonies to perform, and moral
commandments to keep; but Moses told him, that mere outward conformity
with these things was not righteousness; that the law was spiritual; that
the acts done and refrained from under it were only exhibitions of a
principle which must reign within: “Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD with
all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.” Even so, “Thou hast
answered right,” said CHRIST. “Thou hast learnt under the law, all that
the Gospel would teach. To exhibit this is the bent of My life on earth,
to enforce it will be the mission of My Church. Love is the fulfilling
of the law. This do, and thou shalt live.”
It appears to me, brethren, that in this conversation, carefully
considered, we may find a clue to the satisfactory interpretation of
those perplexing sayings about the differences between the law and the
Gospel: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” “Ye are not
under the law,” “the ministration of condemnation;” “The covenant that
was confirmed before of GOD in CHRIST, the law which was 430 years after
cannot disannul.” “The Law and the Prophets were until John.” “I am not
come to destroy the law.” “This do and thou shalt live.”
It is a common notion that there is an essential difference, amounting
even to a contradiction between the law and the Gospel. GOD is
supposed—as if He were an imperfect Being changing His ways
capriciously—to have suspended the Covenant of Grace which He had made
with Abraham, from the time of Moses to that of CHRIST, and to have given
the Jews in its stead a Covenant of Works, which He well knew they could
not keep, and under which, therefore, they were sure to be destroyed: or,
if He accepted any of them under the law, then, it is said, that inasmuch
as their obedience was of course imperfect, He must have been content
with less than He had required, and have disregarded His own decree, “The
soul that sinneth it shall die.” Nay, more than this: that He dispensed
for a time with the merits of CHRIST’S atonement and the finding of
salvation through Him, and dealt with man on his own merits, and rewarded
him for an imperfect obedience. But now, it is urged, all this is once
more changed. The law, having served its purpose of showing men that
they could not obey GOD in the letter, having concluded them all under
sin by disallowing the things they were prone to, and requiring what they
could not do, having disappointed and balked them in their efforts to
obtain salvation by it, and so caused them to abandon its observance in
despair, and to inquire for another way of salvation—thus being a
schoolmaster to lead them to CHRIST—has now been wholly repealed; so that
we have nothing more to do with it, being brought out of bondage into
liberty, and what we find forbidden or required by it, is not forbidden
or required by us _because it is in the law_, but may be done or left
undone, notwithstanding what the law says, unless some eternally moral
principle, independent of Jewish sanctions and restrictions, would be
thereby violated! I have put this in plainer and stronger words than any
of yourselves probably would use, or are accustomed to hear: but I have
not exaggerated the matter. In proof, let me ask, Are there not many who
think the rehearsal of the Decalogue out of place in the Communion
service? who object to moral preaching as savouring of the obsolete law?
who talk about the “filthy rags” of their own righteousness, as if they
were something wrong in keeping in the law? who believe that CHRIST is
glorified most when they do least? who boast of a liberty to use or use
not ordinances and means of grace? who reproach others with being, for
instance, Sabbatarians? who speak of the GOD of the New Testament almost
as if the GOD of the Old Testament were another Being, of different
attributes, enacting different laws? And even among those who have not
distinctly set the law and the Gospel in opposition, is there not a vague
notion that somehow the Old Testament does not concern us Christians, and
that our way of salvation is different from that of the Jews, and much
easier to follow? O how do such persons reconcile with their notions
CHRIST’S teaching of the lawyer, whom He not only told to look for the
way of salvation in the law, but commended for finding it there, and
enjoined to keep it as the condition of salvation: “This do, and thou
shalt live.”
The fact is, the way of salvation has always been the same, since man
became a sinner. Eternal life has always been a free gift in CHRIST.
Not for their merits or deservings does GOD love men; not by their own
inventions or labours do they procure acceptance. The precious blood of
CHRIST shed (in effect) before the foundation of the world, has ever been
the fountain for sin; the intercession of CHRIST has ever been the means
of reconciliation; the grace of CHRIST’S sanctified human nature applied
by the Holy Spirit has ever been the leaven of regeneration, of
conversion, of perfection in holiness and fitness for the inheritance of
the saints in light. But GOD has never been indifferent to the way in
which men receive His free gifts. He at first created man for His own
glory, and He has redeemed, and would sanctify him for His glory. He
made man to love Him, to depend on Him, to render Him the grateful homage
of a free-will service, to reflect His own glorious attributes of
holiness and love. The sin of Adam and Eve was not that they ate of a
particular fruit reserved from them, but that they frustrated the end for
which they were created; that they found not their delight in the way of
GOD’S will; that they chose for themselves out of Him; that they doubted
His truth, gave themselves over to the influence and dominion of another
lord. They would have sinned as greatly, as hatefully, had they
scrupulously refrained from the deed of sin, but in their hearts longed
after it, and in their hearts murmured against the restriction, and
disputed the importance or the justice of it. And so the holiness of
pardoned man does not consist in the mere mechanical, servile, or selfish
rendering of outward obedience, in the number of enjoined things which he
does, and the number of forbidden things which he avoids; but in the
inward love and gratitude which he feels towards GOD, in his filial
reverence of his Heavenly Father, in his delight to carry out GOD’S known
will, and his anxiety to learn more, that he may do more of it, in his
heart’s beating, so to speak, in unison with GOD’S heart, and his life’s
reflecting GOD’S light and love.
To bring men to this state, that He may delight in them, that they may
glorify Him in all things, is the purpose and aim of GOD’S great scheme
of salvation; and, to forward that scheme, is, and has been, the object
of all His dealings with men of all times (when they have not been
judgments of wrath, because mercy was refused), whether they have been
encouragements or remonstrances, pleadings or rebukes, blessings or
chastisements, the promulgations of moral laws, the laying on or taking
off of positive or ceremonial commandments. None of these things could
in themselves have made men what GOD willed them to be, loving children
of a loving Father; yet they had, or were designed to have, their effect
in bringing them back little by little to a right mind, and a right life.
But being used by a wise and discerning GOD, though their object was
always uniform, the use of them has varied, one being employed in this
case, another in that, according to the state of those on whom they were
to operate. Thus Adam, fresh from the hand of GOD, full of knowledge and
intelligence, and holiness and love, was left, it would appear—but with
one commandment, the test of his integrity—to worship and glorify GOD as
his own heart and mind dictated; while the Jews, coming out of Egypt,
sunk in ignorance, given to idolatry, perverse in will and affections,
were dealt with as babes, albut without mind and without heart. To them
it was necessary to declare, that there was but one GOD, to command them
to worship Him, to prescribe every particular of the worship, to bid them
not blaspheme Him, to hedge them in by numerous restrictions, to write
down every item of their duty, to encourage their obedience by immediate
rewards, to check their transgressions by instant punishments! They were
treated, in fact, just as wise and fond parents treat little children:
their minds taught by pictures—brazen serpents, pillars of light and
fire, gorgeous tabernacles, sacrifices of bulls, and goats, and lambs,
burnings of incense, and the like—and their hearts and lives trained by a
course of discipline suited to their comprehension, and a system of
rewards and punishments which they could appreciate. These things were
means to an end. They impressed upon the Jews, that reverence and
obedience were due to GOD. They taught them to look to Him for reward
and punishment, to love and fear Him. But like the arbitrary discipline
we use with children, and the toys which we give or take away from them
according to their conduct, they were to be set aside (as far as they
were childish) so soon as more intelligent and better influences could be
employed, and the children be taught to use their minds and hearts, in
exercising reverence, and love, and fear, not in little observances and
restrictions, not in mere literal compliance with some particular
expressed laws, but according to the principle of love which would devote
itself entirely, and which uses all its powers to find out what is
devotion, and to practice it.
Thus, I say, the Jews were dealt with from Moses to CHRIST, and then men
were bidden to put away childish things—the Spirit being given to raise
them above childishness—and henceforth to render enlarged, enlightened,
loving service to GOD. They were not released from reverence and
submission: very few commandments hitherto observed were repealed, save
those that were typical and ceremonial, and which, of course, gave way to
the antitype and to the new ritual of Christianity; but henceforth, they
were told, GOD would not be pleased with mere literal obedience: Do what
you did before, but do it in the spirit, and carry it farther, and search
about to see whether your own hearts and minds cannot regulate your lives
in things not prescribed.
Indeed, all this had been told them before, as the quotation of the
lawyer from Deuteronomy alone would suffice to show; but it was not so
strictly required of them as it is of us, because allowance was made for
their childish want of spiritual comprehension, and because the
perfection of obedience was postponed till the full strength was given to
render it, as well as the enlightened mind to understand it.
In Gospel times the law is spiritualised, the observance of the
commandments is extended beyond the outward life, to the very thoughts
and desires. To covet is to steal, to lust is to commit adultery, to
hate is to murder! Hence, while in one sense, our obedience is easier,
because we render it under the influence of enlightened minds and kindled
feelings, of love and gratitude—whereas, the Jew was perpetually crossing
and driving himself to keep a law which had no other recommendation to
him than that its observance preserved him from immediate chastisement—in
other respects, our obedience is not only more imperatively necessary,
because our privileges and responsibilities are greater, but it must be
more precise, because any wilful deviation from it—in us who are of a
mature and enlightened age—will surely indicate an unloving heart; and he
that has no love has no spiritual life!
This, after all, is the distinction between the good works of the Jew and
those of the Christian; not that the former sought salvation on account
of them, while the latter makes them but the tribute of praise and love
for salvation—for the Jew believed that he was saved by ordinances, not
by works—but that the Jew’s was the enforced obedience of slavish fear,
while the Christian’s is the spontaneous expression of filial love. If
the Christian were perfect in moral perception, he would be a law to
himself, and would need but little of a written law; but not being thus
perfect, he finds his greatest help to glorify GOD, in the studying and
following of the Mosaic laws, which are samples and specimens furnished
by GOD, of acceptable works, and which, moreover, are a standard whereby
he may measure, not so much how near, as how far he is, from doing the
whole will of GOD.
This purpose, then, the law serves to Christians: it points out the ways
in which love should exercise itself; and so, by confronting the
negligent or transgressing, proves to them the absence or the
imperfection of their love. The Christian is not free from the
observance of one jot or one tittle of it, though he is no longer under
the law, but under grace; but even if he has kept it all, he is not
necessarily accepted: he has not rendered service pleasing to GOD, if his
will is not better than his power, his heart larger than his deeds! This
the lawyer knew theoretically; and yet, against his knowledge, he sinned.
When asked what the law required him to do, he answered rightly, that the
law required, above and beyond particular deeds, an impelling principle
of love for GOD, and, for His sake, for man also. But then, when his
answer was commended, we are told that he, willing to justify himself
(which means, either to excuse himself for past imperfection, or to
attain presently unto the condition of the just, without becoming all
that was required of him) demanded, “And who is my neighbour?” showing
thereby, how much his heart was behind his mind; betraying the fact, that
while he professed entire devotion to GOD, he was really trying to find
out with how stinted and formal an obedience, he could win and keep his
favour.
In review of this history, let me suggest to you, in very few words, some
important truths.
“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” is a momentous question for
each of you to ask of GOD, through His revealed word. For the
inheritance never shall be yours, unless you observe the conditions upon
which it was promised; and one of those conditions (a most important
one), is, that you should pursue constantly a course of righteousness,
both to glorify GOD by prescribed service, and to acquire by spiritual
exercise the necessary character for heaven, without which none can enter
it.
To do righteousness—not simply to feel, or think, or speak righteously—is
what is plainly enjoined upon you. Still, you must remember that you are
not to propose to yourselves, as the approved course, the observance only
of particular laws, the confining of religion to special times, and
places, and objects, and deeds; the mere walking in a clearly marked out
path, as though hands, and feet, and ears, and lips, without heart or
mind, could work out salvation; as though, too, it were not practicable
or desirable, that you should offer unto GOD any free-will service,
something besides what He has asked you to do! Above all, having come to
understand, that while the fruit of religion is in the life, the germ of
it is in the heart; that without faith, and hope, and love, it is
impossible to please GOD; that the law to you is spiritualised; that you
are brought out of the bondage of servants into the glorious liberty of
sons; that not the mere letter of the law, but the spirit of it is to be
your guide; that outward deeds are not of themselves acceptable to GOD,
but only as signs of enlightened hearty feeling—things done in faith and
love; that worship in the temple is nothing, unless you worship out of
the temple likewise; that bowing the knee, and praising with the lips,
are an abomination, unless the spirit, too, is bowed and the soul
upraised; that bodily sacrifice alone is no sacrifice, that it needs the
broken and contrite heart, and the devoted spirit—while understanding, I
say, all this, and rejoicing in the reasonable, heart-sprung, spiritual
service of the Christian, beware lest you separate what GOD has joined,
or substitute free-will for commanded service, using your liberty
otherwise than as servants of GOD; carrying out, as you suppose, the
spirit of the law wholly in your own way, instead of keeping, while you
spiritualise the letter of the law. “The time is come when, neither in
Jerusalem nor in this mountain, shall ye worship the Father,” does not
mean that appointed places of worship shall not be resorted to, but that,
besides, GOD shall be worshipped everywhere. A yearly celebration of the
Passover is no longer necessary; but a continual feast is substituted for
it. GOD seeks now to be worshipped in spirit and truth—that is, not
without the body, but in addition to the body, with the spirit. The
letter by itself killeth, because it is formal, and leaves the noblest
powers and feelings of man unengaged for GOD; but the letter, as the
carrying out of the Spirit, is still so imperative, so vital, that he who
does not observe it foregoes the promise, “This do, and thou shalt live!”
SERMON XIV.
PRESENT SALVATION.