I. Want of faith in ourselves—poor, base views of our nature, power,
and destiny.
The essential dignity of man’s nature, as God constituted it, and the
utter debasement it has suffered through sin, are facts which in nowise
clash or contradict each other. In truth, no man who has not faith
enough to comprehend what “_power to become the sons of God_” may mean,
as spoken of man, can enter into the depth of anguish and shame wrung
out in the confession, “_I was as a beast before thee._” “_I have heard
of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee;
wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes._” At the root
of the humiliation, the debasement, lies this want of faith in our
higher being and destiny. We prefer the slave’s portion, with the
slave’s security, to the cares and burdens of freedom, with its hopes
and joys. The main difficulty in the emancipation of serfs arises always
from themselves. They do not care, nay they fear, to be free. The
responsibility of self-government and self-control is a burden from
which they shrink;—let us creep safely on the lower levels, rather than
strain perilously up the mountain paths, with the free air around us,
the bright heaven above us, the mists, the clouds, the storms, seething
and flashing beneath our feet. This is the cry of our souls—yours and
mine. God is ever stirring us to take the higher view of our nature and
destiny; we are ever burying ourselves in the lower:—“‘_Let us alone,
Jesus, thou Son of God._’ Thy words are perilous; they search and judge
us; they trouble us in our politics, our pleasures, our trade. We are
fairly content as it is; why should we weary ourselves by straining
after the higher good, which seems thin, impalpable, and may easily
elude our hand? Let us alone; depart out of our coasts.” This was the
mood of these Hebrew Christians; it is ours. And nothing does the
devil’s work more surely within us than this feeling that on the whole
we were made for poor work, poor interests, and poor joys. Paul seeks to
stir us to a nobler mood, to fire something within us which will burn
with a heavenly lustre and seek to mingle itself with the brightness of
its native skies. Man is made to deal with the substance of things, the
eternal substance; you are content to converse with their fleeting
shadows. “_For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not
the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they
offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For
then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the
worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But
in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every
year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sins._” (Heb. x. 1–4.) The heavenly things themselves
your minds were made to contemplate, your hearts to love, your spirits
to commune with; and you are grovelling amid the ashes of the perishing,
while the imperishable, the eternal, passes for ever beyond the range of
your sight. Believe in humanity as the first step to a nobler life. Not
the poor, weak, trembling humanity which your self-communings reveal to
you; but the glorious, Divine humanity which God has set before you to
help your infirmity, to recall the memory of the height from which you
have fallen, and to kindle the hope of the royal dignity to which you
may be restored. Look within; and man seems poor enough, and pitiful
enough. But look above: “_We see Jesus who was made a little lower than
the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour;
that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man._” Then
“_lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset you,
and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set
before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God_.”
Behold in Him the perfect image of a man, in His life the beauty of a
perfect human life. Believe in that image; gaze on it, meditate on it,
till contemplation kindles sympathy, and sympathy grows into love.
“_Consider the apostle and high-priest of your profession, Christ
Jesus_”; and if you tread in His footsteps of present sorrow and
humiliation, glory in it, and pray that you may go on to know it more
perfectly, “_the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his
sufferings, being made conformable unto his death_.” Believe that all
that a man was meant to be, to do, to become, can only grow out of this
vital fellowship with Jesus. Believe in Him rather than in the world’s
ideas, maxims, and hopes. Leave them to the Pagans. You, sons of God,
heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, learn nobler lessons out of the
book of His life, aim at loftier marks, thirst for purer and perennial
joys.
II. Poor belief about God—unbelief in the Incarnation, and all its
blessed meanings to mankind.
The low and slavish idea of man’s character and destiny inevitably
infects our views of God and of God’s action and purpose in the world.
Having poor hope ourselves, we cannot understand God’s hope, the hope
which lit the path to Calvary, and shed a flood of glorious light around
the saddest and most shameful passage of man’s sad and painful history.
To those who believe that man is the serf of the creation, the
Incarnation is incredible. God would be ashamed to be called the God, in
any high Christian sense, of such beings as some men believe themselves
to be and act as if they were. The Hebrew Christians could not believe
in the Incarnation; that is, they were beset with unbelief about it.
Their fathers could not believe in their angel guide. A glorious
triumphant King, coming to the world in splendour, scattering the hosts
of His foes by His thunders, and leading His armies to rapid and easy
victory, they could comprehend well enough. But the cross was their
stumbling-block. Can the living God suffer shame, anguish, and death,
for such beings as we are, for such a kingdom as this Crucified One
maybe able to win? “_That be far from thee, Lord_;” it is blasphemy to
dream of it. They were like a man in poverty and straits, who is always
expecting that a splendid fortune will fall to him suddenly, will enable
him to make a magnificent figure, and to be a model of dignity,
generosity, and manly grace. But the MAN is he who wins his fortune by
bearing the strain of toil through long years of patience, and who
trains himself by discipline to rule it as a realm when gained. And we
are, most of us, of this foolish temper. What wonderful people we should
be, we think, if our platform were higher, and a stronger light were
thrown upon our lives! If God would but mend our surroundings, our
virtue and dignity would appear! Believe that it seemed good to God,
that it became God, to reveal to us the truth of this relation between
surroundings and life, by sending His Son, in the likeness of sinful
flesh, to live the life of God in poverty, sorrow, and shame, and
manifest in that depth of humiliation the mystery of the life eternal.
“_For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not
ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my
brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And
again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children
which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is,
the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of
angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things
it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make
reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath
suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted._”
(Heb. ii. 10–18.)
It was a hard, an incredible saying to many among the Hebrew Christians.
In all its deep meaning it is a hard, an incredible saying to us. Do we
believe in our heart of hearts that the life of daily denial,
cross-bearing, and Divine ministry, missing all earthly honour, golden
treasure, and worldly joy, is the life which the Lord God of heaven
lived on earth, and glorified earth by living it? Have we an eye for
that inner glory? Is that tear-stained path He trod, beautiful,
transcendently beautiful, in our sight, as it is to the angels and the
white-robed choir on high? Shame on our lives then, if this is the
belief of our hearts about it. If we believe that He who was in the
form of God, and “_thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men_” (Phil. ii. 6–8), left us an ensample
that we should follow in His steps, what are our lives like before Him
and before the angels, filled as they are with selfish aims and
passions, strivings after things that perish, that crumble to dust as we
grasp them; contemptuous as they are of celestial things and powers, of
all that made His life luminous to the eye of spirits, of all that He
came through shame and anguish to set palpably before the vision of our
souls. “_Lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset you_”—this sin of
light thoughts of Christ, of the intense reality of His human life, and
all the high meanings and inspirations with which it is charged for you,
for me, for all mankind. Open wide the gates of your spirit, and let
this King of Glory in. “_Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in._” Who is
this King of Glory? The Man of Sorrows, He is the King of Glory.
Believe, faint heart, and live.