That is a startling thing to say, and all the more startling if you
notice that John does not say 'As He _was_,' in this earthly life of
humiliation and filial obedience, but 'as He _is_,' in His heavenly life
and reign and glory. That might well repel us from all thought of
possible resemblance, but the light, however brilliant it may be, is not
blinding, and it is the Christ as He _is_, and not only--true as that
is--the Christ as He _was_, who is the original of which Christian men
are copies.
Now _there_ is the difference between the teaching of such classes of
religionists as represent Christ's humanity as all in all, and preach to
us that He, in His earthly life is the pattern to whom we are to seek to
conform our lives, and the true evangelical teaching. That dead Man is
living, and His present life has in it elements which we can grasp, and
to which every Christian life is to be conformed.
Is there anything, then, within the glory to which I, in my poor,
struggling, hampered, imperfect life here on earth, can feel that my
character is being shaped? Yes, surely there is. I have no doubt that,
in the words of my text, the Apostle is remembering the solemn ones of
our Lord's high-priestly prayer as recorded in the seventeenth chapter
of his gospel, where the same antithesis of our being in the world, and
His not being there, recurs; and where the analogy and resemblance are
distinctly stated--'I in Thee, and Thou in Me, that they also may be in
us.'
So, then, when we stand with our letter-writer in his Patmos island, and
see the countenance 'as the sun shining in his strength, and the eyes as
a flame of fire,' and the many crowns upon the head, and the many stars
in the hand, though we may feel as if all resemblance was at an end, and
aspiration after likeness could only fall at His feet and cover its
face, yet there is within the glory something which may be repeated and
reproduced in our lives, and that is, the indissoluble union of a Son
with a Father, in all loving obedience, in all perfect harmony, in all
mutual affection and outgoing of heart and thoughts. This is the centre
of the life, alike of the Christ when He is glorified, and of the Christ
when He was upon earth. So the very secret heart of the mysterious
being of the Son is to be, and necessarily is, repeated in all those who
in Him have received the adoption of sons.
Or to put the whole thing into plainer words, it is the religious and
the moral aspects of Christ's being, and not any one particular detail
thereof; and these, as they live and reign on the Throne, just as truly
as these, as they suffered and wept upon earth--it is these to which it
is our destiny to be conformed. We are like Him, if we are His, in
this,--that we are joined to God, that we hold fellowship with Him, that
our lives are all permeated with the divine, that we are saturated with
the presence of God, that we have submitted ourselves to Him and to His
will, that 'not my will, but Thine, be done' is the very inmost meaning
of our hearts and our lives. And thus 'we,' even here, 'bear the image
of the heavenly, as we have borne the images of the earthly.' Now I am
not going to dwell upon details; all these can be filled in by each of
us for himself. The centre-point which I insist upon is this--the filial
union with God, the filial submission to Him, and the consequent purity
as Christ is pure, righteousness as Christ is righteous, and walking
even as Christ walked, for ever in the light.
But then there is another point that I desire to refer to. I have put an
emphasis upon the 'is' instead of the 'was,' as it applies to Jesus
Christ. I would further put an emphasis upon the 'are,' as it applies to
us--'So _are_ we.'
John is not exhorting, he is affirming. He is not saying what Christian
men ought to strive to be, but he is saying what all Christian men, by
virtue of their Christian character, _are_. Or, to put it into other
words, likeness to the Master is certain. It is inevitably involved in
the relation which a Christian man bears to the Lord. There may be
degrees in the likeness, there may be differences of skill and
earnestness in the artist. We have to labour like a portrait painter,
slowly and tentatively approaching to the complete resemblance. It is 'a
life-long task ere the lump be leavened.' This likeness does not reach
its completeness by a leap. It is not struck, as the image of a king is,
upon the blank metal disc, by one stroke, but it is wrought out by long,
laborious, and, as I said, approximating and tentative touches. My text
suggests that to us by its addition, 'So are we, _in this world_.' The
'world'--or, to use modern phraseology, 'the environment'--conditions
the resemblance. As far as it is possible for a thing encompassed with
dust and ashes to resemble the radiant sun in the heavens, so far is the
resemblance carried here. Some measure of it, and a growing measure, is
inseparable from the reality of a Christian life.
Now, you Christian people, does that plain statement touch you anywhere?
'So _are_ we.' Well! you would be quite easy if John had said: 'So _may_
we be; so _should_ we be; so _shall_ we be.' But what about the 'so
_are_ we'? What a ghastly contradiction the lives of multitudes of
professing Christians are to that plain statement! 'Like Jesus
Christ'--would anybody say that about anything in me? 'So are we'--no
words of mine, dear brethren, can make the statement more searching,
more impressive; but, I pray you, lay this to heart: 'If any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.' You may take sacraments
and profess Christianity, or, as we Nonconformists have it, 'join
churches,' and do all manner of outward work for ever and a day; but if
you have not the likeness of Christ, at least in germ, and growing to
something more than a germ, in your characters, you had better revise
your position, and ask whether, after all, you have not been walking in
a vain show, and fancied yourselves the servants of Christ, while you
bear the image of Christ's enemy.
A very tiny gully on a hillside, made by showers of rain, may fall into
the same slopes, and has been created by the very same forces, working
according to the same laws, as have scooped out valleys miles broad,
bordered by mountains thousands of feet high. And in my little life,
poor as it is, limited as it is, environed as it is by the world, and
therefore often hampered and stained, as well as helped and brightened,
by its environment, there may be, and there will be, in some degree, if
I am a Christian man, the very same power at work by which Jesus Christ,
the Son of the Father shines as the sun on the throne of the universe.
But then, notice further, how that limitation to which I have referred
in this world carries with it another message. _There_ is Christ in the
heavens, veiled and unseen. Here are you on earth, his representative.
There is a rage at present for putting pictures into all books, and folk
will scarcely read unless they get illustrated literature. The world has
for its illustrations of the gospel the lives of us Christian people. In
the book there are principles and facts, and readers should be able to
turn the page and see all pictured in us.
That is what you are set to do in this world. 'As the Father sent Me,
even so send I you.' 'As He is, so are we in this world.' It may be our
antagonist, but it is our sphere, and its presence is necessary to evoke
our characters. Christ has entrusted His reputation, His honour, to us,
and many a man that never cares to look at _Him_ as He is revealed in
Scripture, would be wooed and won to look at Him and love Him, if we
Christian people were more true to our vocation, and bore more
conspicuously on our faces and in our characters the image of the
heavenly.
II. Look for a moment at the second thought that is here: such a
likeness to Jesus Christ is the only thing that will enable a man to
lift up his head in the Day of Judgment.
'We have boldness,' says John, _because_ 'as He is, so are we.' Now that
is a very strong statement of a truth that popular, evangelical theology
has far too much obscured. People talk about being, at the last,
'accepted in the beloved.' God be thanked, it is true. A sweet old hymn
that a great many of us learned when we were children, though it is not
so well known in these days, says:--
'Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay,
While through Thy blood absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame?'
I believe that, and I try to preach it. But do not let us forget the
other side. My text is in full accordance with the principles of our
Lord's own teaching; and who knows the principles of His own words so
well as the judge, who tells us, in His pictures of that great day, that
the question put to every man will be, not what you _believe_, but what
did you _do_, and what _are_ you?
But this truth of my text has been not only wounded in the house of the
friends of Christianity, but it has been overlooked by one of the very
frequent objections that we hear made to evangelical teaching, that,
according to it, a man is judged according to his belief and not
according to his deeds. A man is judged according to his--not
_belief_--but according to his _faith_. But he is judged according also
to--not his _work_--but according to his _character_.
And I wish, dear friends, to lay this upon your hearts, because many of
us are too apt to forget it, that whilst unquestionably the beginning of
salvation, and the condition of forgiveness here, and of acceptance
hereafter, are laid in trust in Jesus Christ, that trust is sure to work
out a character which is in conformity with His requirements and moulded
after the likeness of Himself. 'The judgment of God is according to
truth,' and what a man is determines where a man shall be, and what he
shall receive through all eternity. Remember Christ's own teaching.
Remember the teaching of that other apostle than John, according to
which the 'wood, hay, stubble,' built by a man upon the foundation shall
be burned up, and the builder himself be saved, yet so as by fire. And
lay this to heart, that it is only when faith works in us, through love
and communion, characters like Jesus Christ's, that we shall be able to
stand--though even then we shall have to trust to divine and infinite
mercy, and to the sprinkling of His blood--before the Throne of God. Lay
up in store for yourselves a good foundation unto eternal life. And take
this as the preaching of my text; character, and character alone, will
stand the judgment of that great day.
There is no real antagonism between such truths and the widest preaching
of salvation by faith. It is the same man who, in his gospel, says, as
from the lips of the Lord Himself, 'He that believeth is not judged,'
and in his letter says, 'We may have boldness in that day, because, as
He is, so are we in this world.'
III. One word about the last point; the process by which this likeness
is secured.
That is contained, as I tried to show in my introductory remarks, in the
earlier part of the verse. Our love is made perfect by dwelling in God,
and God in us; in order that we may be thus conformed to Christ's
likeness, and so have boldness in that great day. To be like Jesus
Christ, what is needed is that we love Him, and that we keep in touch
with Him. What is it to 'abide' in Him?--to direct the continual flow of
mind and love and will and practical obedience to Him, to bear Him ever
in the secret place of my heart whilst my hands are occupied with daily
business, and my feet are running the sometimes rough race that is set
before me. Think of Him ever, love Him ever. Let His name be like a
perfume breathed through the whole atmosphere of your lives. Keep your
wills in the attitude of submission, of acceptance, of indecision when
necessary, and of absolute dependence upon Him. Let your outward acts be
such as shall not bring a film of separation between Him and you. When
thus our whole being is steeped and drenched with Christ, then it cannot
but be that we shall be like Him. Even 'clouds themselves as suns
appear, when the sun pierces them with light.' 'Abide in Me, and I in
you.' You cannot make yourselves like Christ, but you can fasten
yourselves to Christ, and He will give you power which shall make you
like Him.
But, remember, such abiding is no idle waiting, no passive confidence.
It is full of energy, full of suppression, when necessary, of what is
contrary to your truest self, and full of strenuous cultivation of that
which is in accord with the will of the Father, and with the likeness of
the 'first-born among many brethren.'
Dear friends, lie in the light and you will become light. Abide in
Christ, and you will get like Christ; and, being like Him, you will be
able to lift up your heads, and rejoice when you front Him on the
Throne, and you are at the bar. Then, when you are no more in the world,
the likeness will be perfected, because the communion is complete. 'We
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.'