Just think of the relations which, in the civil world, subsisted between
Rome and its subject provinces; the latter, with bitter hatred in their
hearts to everything belonging to the oppressing city, having had their
freedom crushed down and their aspirations ruthlessly trampled upon; the
former, with the contempt natural to metropolitans in dealing with
far-off provincials. The same kind of relationship subsisted between
Rome and the outlying provinces of its unwieldly empire as between
England, for instance, and its Indian possessions. And the same uniting
bond came in which binds the Christian converts of these Eastern lands
of ours to England by a far firmer bond than any other. There was
springing up amidst all the alienation and hatred and smothered
rebellion a still incipient, but increasing, and even then strong bond
that held together Roman Christians and Cappadocian believers. They were
both 'one in Christ Jesus.' The separating walls were high, but,
according to the old saying, you cannot build walls high enough to keep
out the birds; and spirits, winged by the common faith, soared above all
earthly-made distinctions and met in the higher regions of Christian
communion. When the tide rises it fills and unifies the scattered pools
on the beach. So the uniting power of Christian faith was manifest in
these early days, when it bound such discordant elements together, and
made 'the church that was in Babylon' forget that they were to a large
extent Romans by birth, and stretch out their hands, with their hearts
in them, to the churches to whom this letter was sent.
Now, brethren, our temptation is not so much to let barriers of race and
language and distance weaken our sense of Christian community, as it is
to let even smaller things than these do the same tragical office for
us. And we, as Christian people, are bound to try and look over the
fences of our 'denominations' and churches, and recognise the wider
fellowship and larger company in which all these are merged. God be
thanked! there are manifest tokens all round us to-day that the age of
separation and division is about coming to an end. Yearnings for unity,
which must not be forced into acts too soon, but which will fulfil
themselves in ways not yet clear to any of us, are beginning to rise in
Christian hearts. Let us see to it, dear friends, that we do our parts
to cherish and to increase these, and to yield ourselves to the uniting
power of the common faith.
II. We note, further, the clear recognition here of what is the strong
bond uniting all Christians.
Peter would probably have been very much astonished if he had been told
of the theological controversies that were to be waged round that word
'elect.' The emphasis here lies, not on 'elect,' but on 'together.' It
is not the thing so much as the common possession of the thing which
bulks largely before the Apostle. In effect he says, 'The reason why
these Roman Christians that have never looked you Bithynians in the face
do yet feel their hearts going out to you, and send you their loving
messages, is because they, in common with you, have been recipients of
precisely the same Divine act of grace.' We do not now need to discuss
the respective parts of man and God in it, nor any of the interminable
controversies that have sprung up around the word. God had, as the fact
of their possession of salvation showed, chosen Romans and Asiatics
together to be heirs of eternal life. By the side of these transcendent
blessings which they possessed in common, how pitiably small and
insignificant all the causes which kept them apart looked and were!
And so here we have a partial parallel to the present state of
Christendom, in which are seen at work, on one hand, superficial
separation; on the other, underlying unity. The splintered peaks may
stand, or seem to stand, apart from their sister summits, or may frown
at each other across impassable gorges, but they all belong to one
geological formation, and in their depths their bases blend
indistinguishably into a continuous whole. Their tops are miles apart,
but beneath the surface they are one. And so the things that bind
Christian men together are the great things and the deepest things; and
the things that part them are the small and superficial ones. Therefore
it is our wisdom--not only for the sake of the fact of our unity and for
the sake of our consciousness of unity, but because the truths which
unite are the most important ones--that they shall bulk largest in our
hearts and minds. And if they do, we shall know our brother in every man
that is like-minded with us towards them, whatever shibboleth may
separate us. I spoke a moment ago about the separate pools on the beach,
and the tide rising. When the tide goes down, and the spiritual life
ebbs, the pools are parted again. And so ages of feeble spiritual
vitality have been ages of theological controversy about secondary
matters; and ages of profound realisation by the Church of the great
fundamentals of gospel truth have been those when its members were drawn
together, they knew not how. Hence they can say of and to each other,
'Elect together with you.'
Brethren, for the sake of the strength of our own religious life, do not
let us fix our attention on the peculiarities of our sects, but upon the
catholic truths believed everywhere, always, by all. Then we shall 'walk
in a large place,' and feel how many there are that are possessors of
'like precious faith' with ourselves.
III. Then, lastly, we may find here a hint as to the pressing need for
such a realisation of unity.
'The church that is in Babylon' was in a very uncongenial place. Thank
God, no Babylon is so Babylonish but that a Church of God may be found
planted in it. No circumstances are so unfavourable to the creation and
development of the religious life but that the religious life may grow
there. An orchid will find footing upon a bit of stick, because it draws
nourishment from the atmosphere; and they who are fed by influx of the
Divine Spirit may be planted anywhere, and yet flourish in the courts of
our God. So 'the church that is in Babylon' gives encouragement as to
the possibility of Christian faith being triumphant over adverse
conditions.
But it also gives a hint as to the obligation springing from the
circumstances in which Christian people are set, to cultivate the sense
of belonging to a great brotherhood. Howsoever solitary and surrounded
by uncongenial associations any Christian man may be, he may feel that
he is not alone, not only because his Master is with him, but because
there are many others whose hearts throb with the same love, whose lives
are surrounded by the same difficulties. It is by no means a mere piece
of selfish consolation which this same Apostle gives in another part of
his letter, when he bids the troubled so be of good cheer, as
remembering that the 'same afflictions were accomplished in the
brotherhood which is in the world.' He did not mean to say, 'Take
comfort, for other people are as badly off as you are,' but he meant to
call to the remembrance of the solitary sufferer the thousands of his
brethren who were 'dreeing the same weird' in the same uncongenial
world.
If thus you and I, Christian men, are pressed upon on all sides by such
worldly associations, the more need that we should let our hearts go out
to the innumerable multitude of our fellows, companions in the
tribulation, and patience, and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Precisely
because the Roman believers were in Babylon, they were glad to think of
their brethren in Asia. Isolated amidst Rome's splendours and sins, it
was like a breath of cool air stealing into some banqueting house heavy
with the fumes of wine, or some slaughter-house reeking with the smell
of blood, to remember these far-off partakers of a purer life.
But if I might for a moment diverge, I would venture to say that in the
conditions of thought, and the tendencies of things in our own and other
lands, it is more than ever needful that Christian people should close
their ranks, and stand shoulder to shoulder. For men who believe in a
supernatural revelation, in the Divine Christ, in an atoning Sacrifice,
in an indwelling Spirit, are guilty of suicidal folly if they let the
comparative trivialities that part them, separate God's army into
isolated groups, in the face of the ordered battalions that are
assaulting these great truths.
Because persecution was beginning to threaten and rumble on the horizon,
like a rising thundercloud, it was the more needful, in Peter's time,
that Christians parted by seas, by race, language, and customs, should
draw together. And for us, fidelity to our testimony and loyalty to our
Master, to say nothing of common sense and the instinct of
self-preservation, command Christian men in this day to think more, and
to speak more, and to make more, of the great verities which they all
possess in common.
Thus, brethren, living in Babylon, we should open our windows to
Jerusalem; and though we dwell here as aliens, we may say, 'We are come
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; to an
innumerable company of angels; to the spirits of just men made perfect;
and to the Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven.'