Note the preceding words, in which the writer describes all God's
mercies to His people, making them 'a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation'; a people 'His own possession.' All that is
done for one specific purpose--'that ye should show forth the praises of
Him who hath called you out of darkness.' That is to say, the very aim
of all God's gracious manifestations of Himself is that the men who
apprehend them should go forth into the world and show Him for what He
is.
Now that aim may be, and often has been, put so as to present an utterly
hard and horrible notion. That God's glory is His only motive may be so
stated as to mean nearly an Almighty Selfishness, which is far liker the
devil than God. People in old days did not always recognise the danger
that lay in such a representation of what we call God's motive for
action. But if you think for a moment about this statement, all that
appears hard and repellent drops clean away from it, and it turns out to
be another way of saying, 'God is Love.' Because, what is there more
characteristic of love than an earnest desire to communicate itself and
to be manifested and beheld? And what is it that God reveals to the
world for His own glory but the loftiest and most wondrous compassion,
that cannot be wearied out, that cannot be provoked, and the most
forgiving Omnipotence, that, in answer to all men's wanderings and
rebellions, only seeks to draw them to itself? That is what God wants to
be known for. Is _that_ hard and repellent? Does that make Him a great
tyrant, who only wants to be abjectly worshipped? No; it makes Him the
very embodiment and perfection of the purest love. Why does He desire
that He should be known? for any good that it does to Him? No; except
the good that even His creatures can do to Him when they gladden His
paternal heart by recognising Him for what He is, the Infinite Lover of
all souls.
But the reason why He desires, most of all, that the light of His
character may pour into every heart is because He would have every heart
gladdened and blessed for ever by that received and believed light. So
the hard saying that God's own glory is His supreme end melts into 'God
is Love.' The Infinite desires to communicate Himself, that by the
communication men may be blessed.
II. There is another thing here, and that is, a wonderful glimpse of
what Christian people are in the world for.
'This people have I formed for Myself,' says the fundamental passage in
Isaiah already referred to, 'they shall show forth My praise.' It was
not worth while forming them except for that. It was still less worth
while redeeming them except for that.
But you may say, 'I am saved in order that I may enjoy all the blessings
of salvation, immunities from fear and punishment, and the like.' Yes!
Certainly! But is that all? Or is it the main thing? I think not. There
is not a creature in God's universe so tiny, even although you cannot
see it with a microscope, but that it has a claim on Him that made it
for its well-being. That is very certain. And so my salvation--with all
the blessedness for me that lies wrapped up and hived in that great
word--my salvation is an adequate end with God, in all His dealing, and
especially in His sending of Jesus Christ.
But there is not a creature in the whole universe, though he were
mightier than the archangels that stand nearest God's throne, who is so
great and independent that his happiness and well-being is the sole aim
of God's gifts to him. For every one of us the Apostle means the word,
'No man liveth to himself'--he could not if he were to try--'and no man
dieth to himself.' Every man that receives anything from God is thereby
made a steward to impart it to others. So we may say--and I speak now
to you who profess to be Christians--'you were not saved for your own
sakes.' One might almost say that that was a by-end. You were
saved--shall I say?--for God's sake; and you were saved for man's sake?
Just as when you put a bit of leaven into a lump of dough, each grain of
the lump, as it is leavened and transformed, becomes the medium for
passing on the mysterious transforming influence to the particle beyond,
so every one of us, if we have been brought out of darkness into
marvellous light, have been so brought, not only that we may recreate
and bathe our own eyes in the flooding sunshine, but that we may turn to
our brothers and ask them to come too out of the doleful night into the
cheerful, gladsome day. Every man that Jesus Christ conquers on the
field He sends behind Him, and says, 'Take rank in My army. Be My
soldier.' Every yard of line in a new railway when laid down is used to
carry materials to make the next yard; and so the terminus is reached.
Even so, Christian people were formed for Christ that they might show
forth His praise.
Look what a notion that gives us of the dignity of the Christian life,
and of the special manifestation of God which is afforded to the world
in it. You, if you love as you ought to do, are a witness of something
far nobler in God than all the stars in the sky. You, if you set forth
as becomes you His glorious character, have crowned the whole
manifestation that He makes of Himself in Nature and in Providence. What
people learn about God from a true Christian is a better revelation than
has ever been made or can be made elsewhere. So the Bible talks about
principalities and powers in heavenly places who have had nobody knows
how many millenniums of intercourse with God, nobody knows how deep and
intimate, learning from Christian people the manifold wisdom which had
folds and folds in it that they had never unfolded and never could have
done. 'Ye are My witnesses,' saith the Lord. Sun and stars tell of
power, wisdom, and a whole host of majestic attributes. We are witnesses
that 'He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He
increaseth strength.' Who was it that said
''Twas great to speak a world from naught,
'Tis greater to redeem?'
'Ye are saved that ye may show forth the praise of Him who hath called
you out of darkness into His marvellous light.'