'Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth
righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.'--1 John
iii. 7.
The popular idea of the Apostle John is strangely unlike the real man.
He is supposed to be the gentle Apostle of Love, the mystic amongst the
Twelve. He _is_ that, but he was the 'son of thunder' before he was the
Apostle of Love, and he did not drop the first character when he
attained the second. No doubt his central thought was, 'God is Love'; no
doubt that thought had refined and assimilated his character, but the
love which he believed and the love which he exercised were neither of
them facile feebleness, but strong and radiant with an awful purity.
None of the New Testament writers proclaims a more austere morality than
does John. And just because he loved the Love and the Light, he hated
and loathed the darkness. He can thunder and lighten when needful, and
he shows us that the true divine love in a man recoils from its
opposite as passionately as it cleaves to God and good.
Again, John is, _par excellence_, the mystic of the New Testament,
always insisting on the direct communion which every soul may have with
God, which is the essence of wholesome mysticism. Now that type of
thinking has often in its raptures forgotten plain, pedestrian morality;
but John never commits that error. He never soars so high as to lose
sight of the flat earth below; and whilst he is always inviting us and
enjoining us to dwell in God and abide in Christ, with equal persistence
and force he is preaching to us the plainest duties of elementary
morality.
He illustrates this moral earnestness in my text. The 'little children'
for whom he was so affectionately solicitous were in danger, either from
teachers or from the tendencies native in us all, to substitute
something else for plain, righteous conduct; and the Apostle lovingly
appeals to them with his urgent declaration, that the only thing which
shows a man to be righteous--that is to say, a disciple of Christ--is
his daily life, in conformity with Christ's commands. The errors of
these ancient Asiatics live to-day in new forms, but still substantially
the same. And they are as hard to kill amongst English Nonconformists
like us as they were amongst Asiatic Christians nineteen centuries ago.
I. So let me try just to insist, first of all, on that thought that
doing righteousness is the one test of being a Christian.
Now that word 'righteousness' is a theological word, and by much usage
the lettering has got to be all but obliterated upon it; and it is worn
smooth like sixpences that go from pocket to pocket. Therefore I want,
before I go further, to make this one distinct point, that the New
Testament righteousness is no theological, cloistered, peculiar kind of
excellence, but embraces within its scope, 'whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are fair, whatsoever things are of good
report'; all that the world calls virtue, all which the world has
combined to praise. There are countries on the earth which are known by
different names to their inhabitants and to foreigners. The
'righteousness' of the New Testament, though it embraces a great deal
more, includes within its map all the territories which belong to
morality or to virtue. The three words cover the same ground, though one
of them covers more than the other two. The New Testament
'righteousness' differs from the moralist's morality, or the world's
virtue, in its scope, inasmuch as it includes our relations to God as
well as to men; it differs in its perspective, inasmuch as it exalts
some types of excellence that the world pooh-poohs, and pulls down some
that the world hallelujahs and adulates; it strips the fine feathers of
approving words off some vices which masquerade as virtues. It casts
round the notion of duty, of morality, of virtue, a halo, and it touches
it with emotion. Christianity does with the dictates of the natural
conscience what we might figure as being the leading out of some captive
virgin in white, from the darkness into the sunshine, and the turning of
her face up to heaven, which illuminates it with a new splendour, and
invests her with a new attractiveness. But all that any man rightly
includes in his notion of the things that are 'of good report' is
included in this theological word, righteousness, which to some of you
seems so wrapped in mists, and so far away from daily life.
I freely confess that in very many instances the morality of the
moralist has outshone the righteousness of the Christian. Yes! and I
have seen canoe-paddles carved by South Sea Islanders with no better
tools than an oyster-shell and a sharp fish-bone, which in the
minuteness and delicacy of their work, as well as in the truth and taste
of their pattern, might put to shame the work of carvers with better
tools. But that is not the fault of the tools; it is the fault of the
carvers. And so, whilst we acknowledge that Christian people have but
poorly represented to the world what Christ and Christ's apostles meant
by righteousness, I reiterate that the righteousness of the gospel is
the morality of the world _plus_ a great deal more.
That being understood, let me remind you of two or three ways in which
this great truth of the text is obscured to us, and in some respects
contradicted, in the practice of many professing Christians. First, let
me say my text insists upon this, that the conduct, not the creed, makes
the Christian. There is a continual tendency on our part, as there was
with these believers in Asia Minor long ago, to substitute the mere
acceptance, especially the orthodox acceptance, of certain great
fundamental Christian truths for Christianity. A man may believe
thirty-nine or thirty-nine thousand Articles without the smallest
intellectual drawback, and not be one whit nearer being a Christian than
if he did not believe one of them. For faith, which is the thing that
makes a man a Christian to begin with, is not assent, but trust. And
there is a whole gulf, wide enough to drown a world in, between the two
attitudes of mind. On the one side of the gulf is salvation, on the
other side of the gulf there may be loss. Of course, I know that it is
hard, though I do not believe it is impossible, to erect the structure
of a saving faith on a very, very imperfect intellectual apprehension
of Scripture truth. That has nothing to do with my present point. What I
am saying is that, unless you erect that structure of a faith which is
an act of your will and of your whole nature, and not the mere assent of
your understanding, upon your belief, your belief is impotent, and is of
no use at all, and you might as well not have it.
What is the office of our creed in regard to our conduct? To give us
principles, to give us motives, to give us guidance, to give us weapons.
If it does these things then it does its work. If it lies in our heads a
mere acceptance of certain propositions, it is just as useless and as
dead as the withered seeds that rattle inside a dried poppy-head in the
autumn winds. You are meant to begin with accepting truth, and then you
are meant to take that truth as being a power in your lives that shall
shape your conduct. To know, and there an end, is enough in matters of
mere science, but in matters of religion and in matters of morality or
righteousness knowing is only the first step in the process, and we are
made to know in order that, knowing, we may do.
But some professing Christians seem to have their natures built, like
ocean-going steamers, with water-tight compartments, on the one side of
which they keep their creed, and there is no kind of communication
between that and the other side where their conduct is originated.
'Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is
righteous.'
Again, my text suggests conduct and not emotion.
Now there is a type of Christian life which is more attractive in
appearance than that of the hard, fossilised, orthodox believer--viz.,
the warmly emotional and fervent Christian. But that type, all
experience shows, has a pit dug close beside it into which it is apt to
fall. For there is a strange connection between emotional Christianity
and a want of straightforwardness in daily business life, and of
self-control and government of the appetites and the senses. That has
been sadly shown, over and again, and if we had time one could easily
point to the reasons in human nature, and its strange contexture, why it
should be so. Now I am not disparaging emotion--God forbid--for I
believe that to a very large extent the peculiarity of Christian
teaching is just this, that it does bring emotion to bear upon the hard
grind of daily duty. But for all that, I am bound to say that this is a
danger which, in this day, by reason of certain tendencies in our
popular Christianity, is a very real one, and that you will find people
gushing in religious enthusiasm, and then going away to live very
questionable, and sometimes very mean, and sometimes even very gross and
sensual lives. The emotion is meant to spring from the creed, and it is
meant to be the middle term between the creed and the conduct. Why, we
have learnt to harness electricity to our tramcars, and to make it run
our messages, and light our homes, and that is like what we have to do
with the emotion without which a man's Christianity will be a poor,
scraggy thing. It is a good servant; it is a bad master. You do not show
yourselves to be Christians because you gush. You do not show yourselves
to be Christians because you can talk fervidly and feel deeply. Raptures
are all very well, but what we want is the grind of daily righteousness,
and doing little things because of the fear and the love of the Lord.
May I say again, my text suggests conduct, and not verbal worship. You
and I, in our adherence to a simpler, less ornate and æsthetic form of
devotion than prevails in the great Episcopal churches, are by no means
free from the danger which, in a more acute form, besets them, of
substituting participation in external acts of worship for daily
righteousness of life _Laborare est orare_--to work is to pray. That is
true with explanations, commentaries, and limitations. But I wonder how
many people there are who sing hymns which breathe aspirations and
wishes that their whole daily life contradicts. And I wonder how many of
us there are who seem to be joining in prayers that we never expect to
have answered, and would be very much astonished if the answers came,
and should not know what to do with if they did come. We live in one
line, and worship in exactly the opposite. Brethren, creed is necessary;
emotion is necessary; worship is necessary! But that on which these
three all converge, and for which they are, is daily life, plain,
practical righteousness.
II. Now let me say, secondly, that being righteous is the way to do
righteousness.
One of the great characteristics of New Testament teaching of morality,
or rather let me say of Christ's teaching of morality, is that it
shifts, if I may so put it, the centre of gravity from acts to being,
that instead of repeating the parrot-cry, 'Do, do, do' or 'Do not, do
not, do not,' it says, 'Be, and the doing will take care of itself. Be;
do not trouble so much about outward acts, look after the inward
nature.' Character makes conduct, though, of course, conduct reacts upon
character. 'As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,' and the way to set
actions right is to set the heart right.
Some of us are trying to purify the stream by putting in disinfectants
half-way down, instead of going up to the source and dealing with the
fountain. And the weakness of all the ordinary, commonplace morality of
the world is that it puts its stress upon the deeds, and leaves
comparatively uncared for the condition of the person, the inward self,
from whom the deeds come. And so it is all superficial, and of small
account.
If that be so, then we are met by this experience: that when we honestly
try to make the tree good that its fruit may be good we come full front
up to this, that there is a streak in us, a stain, a twist--call it
anything you like--like a black vein through a piece of Parian marble,
or a scratch upon a mirror, which streak or twist baffles our effort to
make ourselves righteous. I am not going, if I can help it, to
exaggerate the facts of the case. The Christian teaching of what is
unfortunately called total depravity is not that there is no good in
anybody, but that there is a diffused evil in everybody which affects in
different degrees and in different ways all a man's nature. And that is
no mere doctrine of the New Testament, but it is a transcript from the
experience of every one of us.
What then? If I must be righteous in order that I may do righteousness,
and if, as I have found out by experience (for the only way to know
myself is to reflect upon what I have done)--if I have found out that I
am not righteous, what then? You may say to me, 'Have you led me into a
blind alley, out of which I cannot get? Here you are, insisting on an
imperative necessity, and in the same breath saying that it is
impossible. What is left for me?' I go on to tell you what is left.
III. Union with Jesus Christ by faith makes us 'righteous even as He is
righteous.'
There is the pledge, there is the prophecy, there is the pattern; and
there is the power to redeem the pledge, to fulfil the prophecy, to make
the pattern copyable and copied by every one of us. Brethren, this is
the very heart of John's teaching, that if we will, not by the mere
assent of our intellect, but by the casting of ourselves on Jesus
Christ, trust in Him, there comes about a union between us and Him so
real, so deep, so vital, so energetic, that by the touch of His life we
live, and by His righteousness breathed into us, we, too, may become
righteous. The great vessel and the tiny pot by its side may have a
connecting pipe, and from the great one there shall flow over into the
little one as much as will fill it brim full. In Him we too may be
righteous.
My friend, there are men and women who are ready to set to their seals
that that is true, and who can say, 'I have found it so. By union with
Jesus Christ in faith, I have received new tastes, new inclinations, a
new set to my whole life, and I have been able to overcome
unrighteousnesses which were too many and too mighty for myself.' It is
so; and some of us to our own consciences and consciousness are
witnesses to it, however imperfectly. God forgive us! We may have
manifested the renewing power of union with Christ in our daily lives.
'Even as He is righteous'--the water in the great vessel and the little
one are the same, but the vase is not the cistern. The beam comes from
the sun, but the beam is not the sun. 'Even as' does not mean equality,
but it does mean similarity. Christ is righteous, eternally,
essentially, completely; we may be 'even as He is' derivatively,
partially, and if we put our trust in Him we shall be so, and that
growingly through our daily lives. And then, after earth is done with,
'we know that, when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him, for
we shall see Him as He is.'
May we each, dear brethren, 'be found in Him, not having our own
righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'