John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
Before I can explain what this text has to do with the Church
Catechism, I must say to you a little about what it means.
Now if I asked any of you what 'salvation' was, you would probably
answer, 'Eternal life.'
And you would answer rightly. That is exactly what salvation is,
and neither more nor less. No more than that; for nothing greater
than that can belong to any created being. No less than that; for
God's love and mercy are eternal and without bound.
But what is eternal life?
Some will answer, 'Going to heaven when we die.' But what before
you die? You do not know? cannot tell?
Let us listen to what God Himself says. Let us listen to what the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, says. Let us listen to what He
who spake as man never spake, says. Surely His words must be the
clearest, the simplest, the most exact, the deepest, the widest; the
exactly fit and true words, the complete words, the perfect words,
which cannot be improved on by adding to them or taking away one jot
or tittle. What did the Lord Jesus Christ say that eternal life
was?
'This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'
To know God and Jesus Christ; that is eternal life. That is all the
eternal life which any of us will ever have, my friends. Unless our
Lord's words are not complete and perfect, and do not tell us the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about eternal
life, that is all the eternal life any one will ever have; and we
must make up our minds to be content therewith.
To which some will answer, almost angrily, 'Of course. The way to
obtain eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ; for if we do
not, we cannot obtain it.'
What words are these, my friends? what rash words are these, which
men thrust into Scripture out of their own carnal conceits, as if
they could improve upon the speech of the Son of Man Himself? He
says, not that to know God is the way to eternal life: but rather
that eternal life is the way to know God. He does not say, This is
to know God and Jesus Christ, _in order that_ they may have eternal
life. Whatever He says, He does not say that. Nay, more, if we are
to be very exact (and can we be too exact?) with the Lord's words,
He says, that 'This is eternal life, _in order that_ they may know
God and Jesus Christ.' Not that we are to know God that we may
obtain eternal life, but that we must have eternal life in order
that we may know God; that eternal life is the means, and the
knowledge of God the end and purpose for which eternal life is given
us. However this may be, at least He says what the noble collect
which we repeat every Sunday says, 'That our eternal life stands in
the knowledge of God,' depends on it, and will fall without it.
'That we may know God.' Not merely that we may know doctrines about
salvation, and the ways of winning God's favour, and turning away
His vengeance; not merely to know what God has done ages ago, or may
do ages hence, for us: but to know God Himself; to know His person,
His likeness, His character; and what He is, and what He does, now
and always; to know His righteousness, His goodness, His truth, His
love, His mercy, His strength, His willingness and mightiness to
save; in a word, what the Bible calls His glory; and therefore to
admire and delight in Him utterly. That is what our eternal life
stands in; that is why God has given to us eternal life in His Son,
that we may know that. Oh, believe your Saviour simply, like little
children, and enter into the joy of your Lord. Acquaint yourselves
with God, and be at peace.
To know God; and also to know Jesus Christ whom He has sent. For
St. John, when he tells us that God has already given to us eternal
life, says also, that this life is in His Son. To know the Son of
God, in whom the Father is well pleased, because He is His perfect
Son; His exact likeness, the likeness of that glory of His, and the
express image of that person and character of His, which I described
to you just now; One whose life was and is and ever will be
eternally all love, and mercy, and self-sacrifice, and labour, for
lost and sinful men; all trust and obedience to His Father. To know
Him and His life, and to come to Him, and receive from Him an
eternal life, which this world did not give us, and cannot take away
from us; which neither man, devil, nor angel, nor the death of our
bodies, the ruin of empires, the destruction of the whole universe,
and of time, and space, and all things whereof man can conceive or
dream, can alter in the slightest, because it is a life of goodness,
and righteousness, and love, which are eternal as the God from whom
they spring; eternal as Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever; and nothing but our own sinful wills can rob us of
them.
This is eternal life, and therefore this is salvation. A very
different account of it (though it is the Bible account) from that
narrow and paltry one which too many have in their minds now-a-days;
a narrow and paltry notion that it means only being saved from the
punishment of our sins after we die; and a very unbelieving, and
godless, and atheistical notion too; which, like all unbelief hurts
and spoils men's lives.
For too many say to themselves, 'God must save me after I am dead,
of course, for no one else can: but as long as I am alive I must
save myself. God must save me from hell; but I must save myself
from poverty, from trouble, from what the world may say of me or do
to me, if I offend it.' And so salvation seems to have to do
altogether with the next life, and not at all with this; and people
lose entirely the belief that God is our deliverer, our protector,
our guide, our friend, now, here, in this life; and do not really
think that they can get on better in this world by knowing God and
Jesus Christ; and so they set to work to help themselves by cunning,
by covetousness, by cowardly truckling to the wicked ways of the
very world which they renounced at baptism, by following after a
multitude to do evil, and standing by, saying, 'I saw it not,' when
they see wrong and cruelty done upon the earth; afraid to fight
God's battles like men of God, because they say it is 'dangerous.'
And so, in these evil days, thousands who call themselves Christians
live on, worldly and selfish, _without God in the world_; while they
talk busily enough of 'preparing to meet God,' in the world to come;
dreaming, poor souls, of arriving at what they call 'salvation'
after they die, while they are too often, I fear, deep enough in
what the Scripture calls 'damnation,' before they die.
'But,' say some, 'is not salvation going to a place called heaven?'
My friends, let the Bible speak. It tells us that salvation is not
in a place at all, but in a person, a living, moving, acting person,
who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the Psalmists
speak, and shame us, who ought to know (being Christians) even
better than they, that The Lord Himself is Salvation. The whole
Book of Psalms, what is it but the blessed discovery that salvation
is not merely in a place, or a state, not even in some 'beatific
vision' after men die; but in the Lord Himself all day long in this
world; that salvation is a life in God and with God? 'The Lord is
my light, and my salvation, of whom then shall I be afraid? The
Lord is the strength of my life, and my portion for ever.' This is
their key-note. Shame on us Christians, that we should have
forgotten it for one so much lower. 'The name of the Lord,' says
Solomon, 'is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is
safe.' Into it: not merely into some pleasant place after he dies,
but all day long; and is safe: not merely after he dies, but in
every chance and change of this mortal life. My friends, I am
ashamed to have to put Christian men in mind of these things.
Truly, 'Evil communications have corrupted good manners; awake to
righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God.'
I am ashamed, I say; for there are old hymns in the mouths of every
one to this day, which testify against their want of faith; which
say, 'Christ is my life,' 'Christ is my salvation;' and which were
written, I doubt not, by men who meant literally what they said,
whatever those who sing them now-a-days may mean by them. Now what
do those hymns mean by such words, if they mean anything at all?
Surely what I have been preaching to you, and what seems to some of
you, I fear, strange and new doctrine. And what else does the
Church Catechism mean, when it bids every child thank God for having
brought him into a state of salvation? For mind, throughout the
whole Church Catechism there is not one word about what people
commonly call heaven and hell; not one word though 'heaven and hell'
are now-a-days generally the first things about which children are
taught. Not one word is the child taught about what will happen to
him after death, except that his body will rise again, and that
Christ will be his Judge after he is dead as well as while he is
alive: but not one word about that salvation after he is dead,
which is almost the only thing of which one hears in many pulpits.
And why, but because the Catechism teaches the child to believe that
Jesus Christ is his salvation now, in this life, and believes that
to be enough for him to know? For if Christ be eternal, His
salvation must be eternal also. If Christ's life be in the child,
eternal life must be in the child; for Christ's life must be
eternal, even as Christ Himself; and that is enough for the child,
and for us also.
And with this agrees that great text of Scripture, 'When the wicked
man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful
and right, he shall save his soul alive.' People now-a-days are apt
to make two mistakes about that one text. First they forget the
'when,' and read it as if it stood, 'If the wicked man turn away
from his wickedness in this life, he shall save his soul in the next
life:' but the Bible says much more than that. It says, that when
he turns, then and there, that moment he shall save his soul alive.
And next, they read the text as if it stood, 'he shall save his
soul.' Here again, my friends, the Bible says a great deal more; it
says, that he shall save his soul alive. Perhaps that does not seem
to you any great difference? Alas, alas, my friends, I fear that
there are too many now, as there have been in all times, who do not
care for the difference. Provided 'their souls are saved,' by which
they mean, provided they escape torment after they die, it matters
nothing to them whether their souls are saved alive, or saved dead;
they do not even know the difference between a dead soul and a live
soul; because they know nothing about eternal death and eternal
life, which are the death and the life of eternal persons such as
souls are; they say to themselves, if they be Protestants, 'I hope I
shall have faith enough to be saved;' or if they be Papists, 'I hope
I shall have good works enough to be saved;' valuing faith and works
not for themselves; yea, valuing--for I must say it--Almighty God
Himself, not for Himself and His own glory, but valuing faith and
works, and the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, only
because, as they dream, they are so many helps to a life of pleasure
beyond the grave; not knowing this, that living faith and good works
do not merely lead to heaven, but are heaven itself, that true, real
eternal heaven wherein alone men really live; that true, real
eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested in Jesus
Christ, whom St. John saw living upon earth that same Eternal Life,
and bore witness of Him that His life was the light of men; that
eternal life whereof it is written, that God hath brought us to life
together with Christ, and raised us up, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus:--not knowing this, that the only
life which any soul ought to live, is the life of God and of Christ,
and of the Spirit of God and Christ; a life of righteousness, and
justice, and truth, and obedience, and mercy, and love; a life which
God has given to us, that we may know and copy Him, and do His
works, and live His life, for ever:--not knowing this also that
eternal death is not merely some torture of fire and worms beyond
the grave: but that this is eternal death, not to live the eternal
life which is the only possible life for souls, the life of
righteousness and love; a death which may come on respectable
people, and high religious professors, while they are fancying
themselves sure to be saved, as easily and surely as it may on
thieves and harlots, wallowing in the mire of sins.
For what is this same eternal death? The opposite surely to eternal
life. Eternal life is to know God, and therefore to obey Him.
Eternal life is to know God, whose name is love; and therefore, to
rejoice to fulfil His law, of which it is written, 'Love is the
fulfilling of the law;' and therefore to be full of love ourselves,
as it is written, 'We know that we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren;' and again, 'Every one that loveth,
knoweth God, for God is love.' And on the other hand, eternal death
is not to know God, and therefore not to care for His law of love,
and therefore to be without love; as it is written on the other
hand, 'He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.' 'Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer;' and ye know that no murderer hath
eternal life abiding in him; and again, 'He that loveth not, knoweth
not God, for God is love.' Eternal death, then, is to love no one;
to be shut up in the dark prison-house of our own wilful and wayward
thoughts and passions, full of spite, suspicion, envy, fear; in
fact, in one word, to be a devil. Oh, my friends, is not that
damnation indeed, to be a devil here on earth, and for aught we
know, for ever and ever?
Do you not know what frame of mind I mean? Thank God, none of us, I
suppose, is ever utterly without some grain of love left for some
one; none of us, I suppose, is ever utterly shut up in himself; and
as long as there is love there is life and as long as there is life
there is hope: but yet there have been moments when one has felt
with horror how near, and how terrible, and how easy was this same
eternal death which some fancy only possible after they die.
For, my friends, were you ever, any one of you, for one half hour,
completely angry, completely _sulky_? displeased and disgusted with
everybody and everything round you, and yet displeased and disgusted
with yourself all the while; liking to think everyone wrong, liking
to make out that they were unjust to you; feeling quite proud at the
notion that you were an injured person: and yet feeling in your
heart the very opposite of all these fancies: feeling that you were
wrong, that you were unjust to them, and feeling utterly ashamed at
the thought that they were the injured persons, and that you had
injured them. And perhaps, to make all worse, the person about whom
all this storm had arisen in your heart, was some dear friend or
relation whom you loved (strange contradiction, yet most true) at
the very moment that you were trying to hate. Oh, my friends, if
one such dark hour has ever come home to you; if you have ever let
the sun go down upon your wrath, and so given place to the devil,
then you know something at least of what eternal death is. You know
how, in such moments, there is a worm in the heart, and a fire in
the heart, compared with which all bodily torment would be light and
bearable; a worm in the heart which does not die: and a fire in the
heart which you cannot quench: but which if they remained there
would surely destroy you. So intolerable are they, that you feel
that you will actually and really die, in some strange unspeakable
way, if you continue in that temper long. Do not there open at such
times within our hearts black depths of evil, a power of becoming
wicked, a chance of being swept off into sin if one gives way, which
one never suspected till then; and yet with all these, the most
dreadful sense of helplessness, of slavery, of despair?--God grant
that may not remain, for then comes the mad hope to escape death by
death, to try by one desperate stroke to rid oneself of that self
which is for the time one's torment, worm, fire, death, and hell.
And what is this dark fight within us? What does the Bible call it?
It is death and life, eternal death and eternal life, salvation and
damnation, hell and heaven, fighting together within our hapless
hearts, to see which shall be our masters. It is the battle of the
evil spirit, who is the Devil, fighting with the good spirit, who is
God. Nothing less than that, my friends. Yes, in those hateful and
shameful moments of pride, or spite, or contempt, or self-will, or
suspicion, or sneering, on which when they are past we look back
with shame and horror, and wonder how we could have been such
wretches even for a moment,--at such times, I say, our heart is a
battle-field, on which no less than the Devil himself, and God
Himself are fighting for our souls. On one side, Satan trying to
bring us into that state of eternal death in which he lives himself;
Satan, the loveless one, the self-willed one, the accuser, the
slanderer, slandering God to us, slandering man to us, slandering to
us the friends we love best and trust most utterly; yea, slandering
our own selves to us, trying to make us believe that we are as bad,
ought to be as bad, and must always be as bad as we seem for the
time to be; that we cannot shake off our evil passions, that we
cannot rise again out of the eternal death of sin into the eternal
life of righteousness. And on the other side, the Spirit of God and
of His Christ, the Spirit of eternal life, the Spirit of justice,
and righteousness, love, joy, peace, duty, self-sacrifice, trying to
make us know Him and see His beauty, and obey Him, and be at peace;
trying to raise us again into that eternal life and state of
salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ has bought for us with His
most precious blood.
Oh, awful thought! Life and death, the Devil himself, and the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, fighting in your heart and in mine, and in the
heart of every human being round us! And yet most blessed thought,
hopeful, glorious,--full of the promise of eternal victory! For
greater is He that is with us, than he that is against us; and He
who conquered Satan for Himself, can and will conquer him for us
also. No thing can separate us from the love of Christ; no thing,
yea no angel, or devil, principality, or power; no thing, but only
ourselves, only our own proud and wayward will and determination to
the Devil's voice in our hearts, and not the voice of Christ, the
Word of Life, who is nigh us, in our hearts, even in our darkest
moments, loving us still, pitying us, ready, able and willing to
help all who cast themselves on Him, and raise us, there and then,
the very moment we cry to Him and renounce the Devil and our own
foolish will, out of self-will into God's will, out of darkness into
light, out of hatred into love, out of despair into hope, out of
doubt into faith, out of tempest into peace, out of the death of sin
into the life of righteousness, the life of love and charity, which
abideth for ever. Oh, listen not to the lying, slanderous Devil,
who tells you that by your own sin you have lost your share in
Christ, lost baptismal grace, lost Christ's love--Lost His love?
His, who, were you in the very lowest depths of hell, would pity you
still? His love, who Himself went down into hell, and preached to
the spirits in prison, to show that he did care even for them? Not
so: into Him you have been baptized. His cross is on your
foreheads, His Father is your Father:--and can a father desert his
child, even though he sinned seventy and seven times, if seventy and
seven times he turn and repent? Can man weary God? Can the
creature conquer and destroy the love of his Creator? Can Christ
deny Himself? Not so; whosoever thou art, however sorely tempted,
however deeply fallen, however disgusted and terrified at thyself,
turn only to that blessed face which wept over Jerusalem, to that
great heart which bled for thee upon the cross, and thou shalt find
him unchanged, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Lord of
life and love, able and willing to save to the uttermost all who
come to God through Him, and the accusing Devil shall turn and flee,
and thou shalt know that thy Redeemer liveth still, and in thy flesh
thou shalt see the salvation of God, and cry, 'Rejoice not against
me, Satan, mine enemy; for when I fall I shall arise.'