_ASSURANCE._
"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
that which I have committed unto Him against that day."--2 Timothy
i. 12.
These are among the last words the apostle wrote. He is now at Rome,
in prison, and within a few days of the tragic end. He is worn down by
age; still more so by a constant, toilsome, suffering ministry of some
thirty years, a ministry which has obtained for him, at the hands of
men, stones and stripes, and now a dungeon, with the immediate
prospect of a violent death. He is bound with chains, and compelled to
be silent just where and when he has so long been anxious to speak, in
the metropolis of the world! He is, moreover, forsaken by his friends,
who, though they love him, have not courage to go and visit him now!
Outwardly, no sadder condition could well be imagined. Yet Paul is
filled with a deep and holy peace. How is this? The answer is that he
feels within himself the approval of his God. He is in prison, but
that is because of his obedience to His Saviour. He has worn himself
down in a Divine service. Behind him he sees a long train of woes and
sufferings, but he also sees many churches which he has founded, and
many unknown regions open to the gospel. Before him he sees an
unrighteous judge and a painful martyrdom, but he also sees heaven,
Christ, and the unfading crown. If he says, "All have forsaken me," he
can also say, as his Master did, that he is not left alone. All this
is enough to account for the calmness and hopefulness of this his last
epistle, and especially of the words before us to-day.
I will not trouble you with the critical difficulties of the text. On
only one preliminary question I would say a word. What does Paul mean
by the expression, "that which I have committed unto Him"? Some urge
that it was the Church which he was about to leave; others, that it
was the result of his labours; and others, that it was his final
salvation. I prefer to combine all these into one general whole, and
to say: "All his Christian interests, the hopes on which his spirit
rested for his personal salvation, and every other interest that was
dear to his heart." He had "committed" to Christ himself, the church
he had loved and served, the results of his labour, and the final
reward to which he was looking forward. If, within the vast scope of
his desires, there had been one thing which he could not commit to
Christ, his rest would have been incomplete, and his joy would have
been marred. But for _everything_ he was able to say: "Saviour, I have
committed this to Thee."
Observe how Paul puts this great matter. He was the greatest
_doctrinal_ writer of the New Testament; but he does not say that he
believes in _doctrines_, but that he believes in a _Person_. "I know
_whom_ I have believed." All doctrinal belief follows, and is
comprised in, that. Faith everywhere in Scripture is confidence in
Christ. He who believes in Christ must come sooner or later to believe
in the doctrines which cluster around Him. But our experience grows
beyond these into the realisation of Him as being so actual, so near,
and so sufficient, as to be our true rest. Who among us can tell _all_
the reasons why he believes in Christ? Many of them cannot be put into
words. They belong to our most secret thoughts, to the emotions of our
happiest hours, to a hidden, silent history, which, if the world
heard, it could not understand. Yet these proofs multiply in
proportion as the Christian advances in life. How many times have we
found the words of Christ adapted to our wants! How many unexpected
deliverances has He wrought on our behalf! How many answers to prayer
have we received at His hands! How much peace has He breathed into our
hearts! "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."
What a grand confirmation have we here of the faith Paul preached! Had
his trust been misplaced, surely he had suffered enough to disabuse
him of it, and that most completely. But his faith grows the more he
suffers. No mere party zeal could stand a test like this; no, nor any
delusion either. And so we say that such a man as Paul was, under the
circumstances in which he maintained his trust, could not be deceived.
Thus Paul's faith becomes a confirmation of our own, and, with him on
our side, we may face a world of doubt.
But I wish to use the text chiefly for the elucidation of a single
subject. Paul's words express _the assurance of his faith_. How does
this subject strike us? Does not the very mention of it give rise to
sad reflections in many hearts? "The assurance of faith." "Ah, I knew
it once," we say; "it was the experience of earlier days, and has been
the experience of some special days since then, still more so of some
specially holy moments. But it is not my normal state. Would it were!"
We are living in a period in which there seems to be a general
disinclination towards whatever is firm and precise in religious
creed, feeling, and life. This may not be an altogether unhopeful
state of things. Respect for truth may keep some minds silent
concerning their beliefs, or at least may prevent them from avowing
those beliefs too dogmatically. Anxiety and doubt may even in some
cases be a sign of spiritual earnestness. Yet the tendency we speak of
is on the whole to be deeply deplored. The truth is that the world has
invaded us. Men shrink from great precision of conviction because they
shrink from great consecration of life. How few the lives that are
pre-eminently Christian, as Paul's was! On the other hand, our day is
remarkable for its craving for mere religious excitement. In many
cases, it is not so much the desire for truth, as the desire to be
excited and pleased, that prevails. Neither of these tendencies can
build up the faith which finds its grand avowal in the words: "I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that
which I have committed unto Him against that day."
The remedy for the state of things upon which I have touched cannot
now be pointed out, because it would lead me away from my purpose. But
I want to show the effect of it upon ourselves, and upon those who are
without. There are certain aims common to the Christian life of all of
us, and these cannot be reached so long as our faith lacks steadiness
and stability.
1. Our great mission is to convert souls. We are avowedly the
instruments of the Spirit of God in this momentous work. But what is
the conversion of a soul? It is a radical change in its affections and
its life. But this change never takes place apart from the influence
of deep convictions. Men will not exchange the known for the unknown:
actual life with its passions and its pleasures for the weak and cold
abstractions of a faith with no precision in its principles, or for
the worship of a God who is vague and problematical. How are we to
succeed in winning souls to the truth we profess unless we can produce
something which ought to convince them that we have the right of it?
An unstable faith will be of little use to us here. There must be no
hesitation in our avowal that our transition from the world to God is
a blessed one. In other matters, a man of strong beliefs has half won
us to his side. In religion, it is notoriously so. Paul's grand words
have been a source of strength to us. Let us make them our own--the
expression of our own faith--and they will become, through us, a
source of strength to others. Let us have this same Christianity in
its fulness and its power; and having it, let us avow it without
timidity and without reserve.
2. Our personal obligation, as Christians, is to be holy; and we want
the assurance of faith for that. We may be deceived about our
conversion. At the outset of our Christian life we may be the subjects
of many illusions. But men are not mistaken when, day by day, they are
fighting their passions, bringing the will into subjection, conquering
the flesh, and submitting the whole life to the long, slow, toilsome
discipline of obedience. This kind of work is never accomplished by a
vague and undecided religion. Men do not deny themselves without an
equivalent. You cannot persuade them to give up their illusions, their
pleasures, their passions, nor even their vices, unless you show them
something else which may, must, and ought to take their place. If you
empty the heart of one set of elements, you must fill it with another.
So it is that we want a living God, a living Christ, close to us;
loving us, forgiving us, helping us, comforting us, and opening before
us the prospect of glory and of happiness for eternity. Let us know
and feel ourselves able to say, "I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day," and the struggle with inward evil will be
simplified, and will become comparatively easy.
3. We stand in daily need of strength and consolation, and for that
nothing but a firm and settled faith will suffice. There are great
sorrows and great anxieties to which we are all exposed, in the face
of which nothing will do for us but sovereign words of life and of
hope in which we can implicitly trust. There are great wrongs under
which we cannot be comforted except by the constant conviction of a
righteousness which will one day vindicate the right, and redress the
wrong. There are great losses in which we want the promise and the
certainty of an immense and restoring love. Souls will seek this
strength, this consolation, here, there, everywhere; but they will
never find it until they can say, "I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day."
4. The assurance of faith is necessary to all earnestness of effort in
the spread of the gospel. A church or a Christian, subsiding into
uncertainty of religious belief, has no motive for zeal in the
propagation of religion. We preach because we believe. Let the idea,
that the Christianity of Christ or of Paul or of the New Testament
needs modification, become prevalent in the professing church, and the
secret of every true impulse in missionary work, whether abroad or at
home, will be gone. It is the men who share Paul's stable, grand faith
who can take their stand as the preachers of Christ. It is only they
who can rise to the sacrifices necessary for the promotion of His
truth in the world.
Have we such a faith as this? If not how can we obtain it? This latter
question will be best answered by a close adherence to the text. We
must say a few words respecting the faith itself, and also respecting
Christ, who is the object of it.
What is faith? A common answer is that faith is an act of
intellectual submission to the teachings of another--that it is in
matters of the mind what blind and unquestioning obedience is in
matters of practice. This account of faith was early imposed by the
Papal Church, and it is not repudiated even now by some evangelical
churches. The root of all doctrines of sacramental efficacy is the
renunciation of private judgment in matters of faith. No wonder that
with such a definition of faith Christianity should be held in
derision, and regarded as the special privilege of the young, the
immature, the aged, and all whose weaknesses and disappointments leave
them no other consolation and no other resource! This is not the
teaching of Scripture. Of course in faith there is submission, for
there are many things to be believed which we cannot understand.
Nevertheless, faith is much more than submission, and there is not a
case of faith in the whole Word of God which presents to us the
believing life as a thing of mere blind credulity. Was it so with
Abraham, with Job, with David, with Paul, or with any of the others?
Even in relation to the dark things, faith rests upon convictions
which make submission the only rational, the only possible attitude of
the mind. According to Scripture, faith is the soul laying hold of
the invisible God--laying hold of Christ as His Son and our Saviour.
There is no abdication of any one of the powers of the soul. In
believing, the soul is entire with its reason, its thought, its love,
and all its spiritual energies. Nor is there any weakness. When a man
is hesitating between surrender to the voice of conscience, and
surrender to the voice of passion, he performs an act of faith if he
yields to the voice of conscience, for he is ruled by the invisible;
yet the last thing we dare say of such a man would be that he is weak.
Rightly considered, every such act is a triumph of the soul. The
conscientious man is the representative of the greatest moral strength
we know. Imagine a soul with all its life under the constant thought
of God and of Christ. Surely such an order of life as his affords
scope enough for intellectual strength and for moral heroism.
Much must be taken for granted, we said. Reason has its sphere, and to
it a truly noble task is assigned. The visible world belongs to it,
and it is subjecting that world to itself more and more every day. But
how powerless it is when man asks of it a response to the aspirations
of his conscience and his heart. What can it say to a soul weighed
down by a sense of guilt? What to the heart that is torn by calamity?
What to any man when death draws nigh? Oh, no! Unless we are to
abandon ourselves to despair, there must be faith--some truth in
which, or some Being in whom, the whole soul can repose. And mark,
this was just the light in which the apostle looked at the matter. He
was near the end. Eternity was close before him. He knew that endless
issues were at stake. He was nerved to confront it all by faith. _What
faith?_ What was he trusting in?
_Paul believed in Christ._ On what grounds? Can _we_ believe in
Christ? If so, again I ask on what grounds?
1. Christ stands before us in our darkness in a position which is
exclusively His own. Of all men, He alone knew whence He came and
whither He went. Without hesitation, and with tones of sovereign
authority, He points out to us the way to God. He speaks of heaven as
one who has come from thence. Everywhere He calls Himself the Sent of
the Father, His only-begotten Son, the Lord of souls. His word was
with power; sweet with intensest human tenderness, influential with
Divine authority. What was it that gave Him this power? Not human
reasoning, not eloquence. It was the light of Truth reaching the
conscience, and penetrating the heart. We see in Him God as He is, and
we also see in Him man as he ought to be. We do not reason about this
influence. Apprehending Him, we instinctively accept it. It is thus
that millions have said: "To whom can we go but unto Thee? Thou hast
the words of eternal life."
2. This influence of Christ has been exerted on every variety of human
soul. His followers, in ever-increasing numbers, come from all
conditions on earth--rich and poor, learned and ignorant, young and
old, hardened sinners and men blushing with their first sins: all find
from Him peace and light and hope. Especially is this so with those
who suffer and weep; those who have felt the poverty of mere words,
and who are now beyond the reach of any illusion. For the first time
they have been comforted, and the comfort has satisfied them.
3. Still we want further to know by what authority He wields this
influence. We ask, "Does He come from God?" The reply is that He does
before our eyes the works of God. Not miracles merely, for though
these constitute a powerful testimony, there is yet something more.
He has revealed God in His own person, and the proof of His Divine
mission has been given in His life. In Him, holiness has been at once
realised and exhibited. Eighteen hundred years ago His enemies could
find no fault in Him. Since then humanity has progressed, but Christ
still leaves the noblest sons of men amazingly far behind Him. A
hostile criticism has been indefatigable in its attempt to discover
flaws in His character, and yet that character still stands before us
as the ideal of the good and the true. His is a holiness before which
the conscience of the world is accused and judged. Irresistibly the
answer of the heart comes: "He who is so holy must be worthy of all
our faith."
4. Moreover, there is the sense of sin and of the need of pardon and
salvation. Here after all, and more than anywhere else, is the secret
of confidence in Christ. We seek salvation in works--anywhere out of
Him--but we cannot find it. He who is holy and true tells us that He
came into the world to save us, that He is our sacrifice and our
peace, and that the love and the righteousness of God are manifest in
Him and in the redeeming work He has undertaken on our behalf. This
exactly meets our case. We say: "This is what we want, but what we
have elsewhere sought in vain. At His hands we accept it with implicit
trust and with fervent thankfulness."
Are not these reasons enough? Is not the response of every heart,
"Yes, they are." Can it be less than the utmost folly and guilt for
men to resist the voice of a conscience which tells them that it is
only in Christ that the soul can find its rest? Is all this concurrent
testimony to be set aside?
This assurance of faith, however, can only be the result of intense
earnestness. We do not forget the necessity of the agency of the
Spirit of God; let us never forget it; but let us also remember how
constantly and how fatally that agency can be contravened. Paul held
the great truths he preached with so tenacious and so unquestioning a
faith, because he had begun by consecrating his heart to them under
the intuitive perception that they were the truths which his nature as
a man and his condition as a sinner so imperatively needed, and
because all his experience of them did but confirm their sufficiency.
"If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine
whether it be of God," or whether it be of men. "I know whom I have
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day."
For the unbeliever there are grounds enough for faith, both within and
without. And if, even with the desire, faith be still found to be
beset with difficulties, there is one unfailing prayer which will make
it easy--the prayer, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."