_THE POWER OF SATAN AND ITS LIMITS. HUMILITY THE FOUNDATION
OF PENITENCE AND OF HOLINESS._
"Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will
flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye
double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter
be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves
in the sight of the Lord, and He shall exalt
you."--ST. JAMES iv. 7-10.
Submission to God is the beginning, middle, and end of the prodigal's
return from disastrous familiarity with the world to the security of
the Father's home. A readiness to submit to whatever He may impose is
the first step in the conversion, just as unwillingness to surrender
one's own will is the first step towards revolt and desertion. "I am
no more worthy to be called Thy son: make me as one of Thy hired
servants." As soon as the resolve to make this act of submission is
formed, the turning-point between friendship with the world and
fidelity to God has been passed. The homeward path is not an easy one,
but it is certain, and those who unflinchingly take it are sure of a
welcome at the end of it. The prodigal was tenderly received back by
his offended father, and these adulterous souls will be admitted to
their old privileges again, if they will but return. God has given
them no bill of divorcement to put them away for ever (Isa. l. 1). "If
a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man's,
shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly
polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return
again to Me, saith the Lord" (Jer. iii. 1). An amount of mercy and
forgiveness which cannot be shown by an earthly husband to his
unfaithful wife is readily promised by God.
But the return must be a complete one. There must be every guarantee
that the penitent is in earnest and has utterly broken with the past.
And St. James with affectionate sternness points out the necessary
steps towards reconciliation. He will not be guilty of the crime of
those who "have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people lightly,
saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace" (Jer. viii. 11). The
results of intimacy with the world cannot be undone in a day, and
there is painful work to be done before the old relationship can be
restored between the soul and its God.
Among the most grievous consequences of yielding to the world and its
ways are the weakening of the will and the lowering of the moral tone.
They come gradually, but surely; and they act and react upon one
another. The habitual shirking of the sterner duties of life, and the
living in an atmosphere of self-indulgence, enervate the will; and the
conscious adoption of a standard of life which is not approved by
conscience is in itself a lowering of tone. And this is one of the
essential elements of worldliness. The pleas that "I can't help it,"
and that "everybody does it," are among the most common excuses urged
by those whose citizenship is not in heaven (Phil. iii. 20) but in
that commonwealth of which Satan is the presiding power. They like to
believe that temptations are irresistible, and that there is no
obligation to rise above the standard of morality which those about
them profess to accept. Such men deliberately surrender to what they
know to be evil, and place what they think to be expedient above what
they know to be right, forgetting that even the worldlings who set
them this low standard, and openly defend it, very often do not really
approve it, but despise while they applaud the man that conforms to it.
St. James enters an earnest and simple protest against the weak plea
that temptations are irresistible. To maintain _that_ is to assert
that the evil one has more will and power to destroy mankind than God
has to save them. The truth is exactly the other way. God not only
allows to Satan no power to coerce a man into sin, but He Himself is
ever ready to aid when He is faithfully prayed to do so. Every
Christian is endowed with sufficient power to withstand Satan, if only
the will to withstand is present, because he has the power to summon
God to his assistance. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you;"
that is one side of the blessed truth; and the other is its
correlative: "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you."
It will be observed that St. James, quite as much as St. Peter, or
St. Paul, or St. John, speaks of the chief power of evil as a
_person_. The passage is not intelligible on any other interpretation;
for there is a manifest and telling antithesis between the devil who
yields to opposition, and the God who responds to invitation. It is a
contrast between two personal agencies. Whether St. James was aware of
the teaching of the Apostles on this point is not of great moment; his
own teaching is clear enough. As a Jew he had been brought up in the
belief that there are evil spiritual beings of whom Satan is the
chief, and since he became a Christian he had never been required to
revise this belief. He was probably well aware of the teaching of
Jesus Christ as to the real source of temptations. He may have heard
Christ's own interpretation of the birds in the parable of the Sower:
"And when they have heard, straightway cometh Satan, and taketh away
the word which hath been sown in them" (Mark iv. 15). He probably had
heard of Christ's declaration to St. Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made
supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke xxii. 31), where
we have a contrast similar to this, an infernal person on one side,
and a Divine Person on the other, of the man assailed by temptation.
How easy to have interpreted the birds in the parable as the
impersonal solicitations of a depraved nature, the hearers' own evil
tendencies; and perhaps if we had not possessed Christ's own
explanation we should so have explained the birds by the wayside. But
Christ seems to have made use of this, the queen of all the parables
(Mark iv. 13), in order to teach that a personal enemy there is, who
is ever on the watch to deprive us of what will save our souls. And
the warning to St. Peter might easily have been given in a form that
would not have implied a personal tempter. Nor do these two striking
passages stand alone in our Lord's teaching. How unnecessary to speak
of the woman who "was bowed together, and could in nowise lift up
herself," as one "whom Satan had bound," unless He desired to sanction
and enforce this belief (Luke xiv. 11, 16). And why speak of having
"beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven" (Luke x. 18), unless He
had this desire? When the Jews said that He cast out devils by the aid
of the prince of the devils, it would have been a much more complete
contradiction to have replied that no such person existed, than to
argue that Satan was not likely to fight against his own interests. If
the belief in personal powers of evil is a superstition, Jesus Christ
had ample opportunities of correcting it; and He not only steadfastly
abstained from doing so, but in very marked ways, both by His acts and
by His teaching, He did a great deal to encourage and inculcate the
belief. He showed no sympathy with the scepticism of the Sadducees
about such things. He argued convincingly against them as regards the
doctrine of the resurrection and a future life, and He gave full
sanction to the belief in angels and spirits, both good and bad. There
is no need to lay much stress upon the disputed meaning of the last
petition in the Lord's Prayer; the evidence is quite ample without
that. Yet those who are convinced that "Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil," must mean, "Lead us not into
temptation, _but_ deliver us from _the tempter_," have a very
important piece of evidence to add to all the rest. Is a gross
superstition embodied in the very wording of the model prayer?
In the volume in this series which treats of the Pastoral Epistles is
a passage on this subject respecting which a very friendly critic has
said that he cannot quite see the force of it.[78] As the argument is
of value, it may be worth while to state it here more clearly. The
statement criticized is the concluding sentence of the following
passage: "It has been said that if there were no God we should have to
invent one; and with almost equal truth we might say that if there
were no devil we should have to invent one. Without a belief in God
bad men would have little to induce them to conquer their evil
passions; _without a belief in a devil good men would have little hope
of ever being able to do so_."[79] The meaning of the last statement
is this, that if good men were compelled to believe that all the
devilish suggestions which rise up in their minds come _from
themselves alone_, they might well be in despair of ever getting the
better of themselves or of curing a nature capable of producing such
offspring. But when they know that "a power, _not_ themselves, which
makes for" wickedness is the source of these diabolical temptations,
then they can have confidence that their own nature is not so
hopelessly corrupt but that, with the help of "the Power, not
themselves, that makes for _righteousness_" they will be able to gain
the victory.
The plea that the devil is irresistible, and that therefore to yield
to temptation is inevitable, is only another form of the fallacy,
against which St. James has already protested, of trying to shift the
responsibility of temptation from oneself to God (i. 13-15). It is the
old fallacy carried a stage farther. The former plea has reference to
the temptation; the present one has reference to the fall. As regards
both the facts are conclusive. We often provoke our own temptations;
we always can resist them if we in faith draw nigh to God for
protection. "To this end the Son of man was manifested, that He might
destroy the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8). And the Son of God
preserveth every child of God, "and the evil one toucheth him not"
(1 John v. 18). But the man himself must consent and co-operate, for
God saves no man against his will. "Return unto Me, and I will return
unto you," is the principle of the Old Covenant (Zech. i. 3); and
"Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you," is the principle of
the New.
The converse of this is true also, and it is a fact of equal solemnity
and of great awfulness. Resist _God_, and He will depart from you.
Draw nigh to the _devil_, and he will draw nigh to you. If we persist
in withstanding God's grace, He will at last leave us to ourselves.
His Spirit will not always strive with us; but at last He Himself
hardens the heart which we have closed against him, for He allows
things to take their course, and the heart which refuses to be
softened by the dew of His grace must become harder and harder. And
the more we place ourselves in the devil's way, by exposing ourselves
to needless temptations, the more diligently he will seek us and abide
with us. Those who voluntarily take up their abode in the tents of
ungodliness have surrendered all claim to be kept unspotted from the
world. They have lost their right to join in the cry, "Why standest
Thou afar off, O Lord? why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble?"
But the hands which one raises in prayer to God must be cleansed by
withholding them from all evil practices, and from all grasping after
the contaminating gifts of the world; and the heart must be purified
by the quenching of unholy desires and the cultivation of a godly
spirit. In this St. James is but repeating the principles laid down by
the Psalmist: "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? and who
shall stand in His holy place? He that hath _clean hands_ and a _pure
heart_" (Ps. xxiv. 3, 4). And in similar language we find Clement of
Rome exhorting the Corinthians, "Let us therefore approach Him in
_holiness of soul_, lifting up _pure and undefiled hands_ unto Him"
(xxix.). In all these instances the external instruments of human
conduct are mentioned along with the internal source of it.
St. James is not addressing two classes of people when he says,
"Cleanse your hands, ye _sinners_; and purify your hearts, ye
_double-minded_." Every one whose hands have wrought unrighteousness
is a sinner who needs this cleansing; and every one who attempts to
draw nigh to God, without at the same time surrendering all unholy
desires, is a double-minded man who needs this purification. The
"halting between two opinions," between God and Mammon, and between
Christ and the world, is fatal to true conversion and efficacious
prayer. What is necessary, therefore, for these sinners of double
mind, is outward amendment of life and inward purification of the
desires. "The sinner that goeth two ways" must with "a single eye"
direct his path along the narrow way. "Whoso walketh uprightly shall
be delivered; but he that walketh perversely in two ways shall fall at
once" (Prov. xxviii. 18). The whole exhortation is in spirit very
similar to the second half of the second chapter of Ecclesiasticus.
Note especially the concluding verses: "They that fear the Lord will
prepare their hearts and humble their souls in His sight, saying, We
will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men;
for as His majesty is, so is His mercy."
There must be no "light healing," or treatment of the grievous sins of
the past as of no moment. There must be genuine sorrow for the
unfaithfulness which has separated them so long from their God, and
for the pride which has betrayed them into rebellion against Him. "Be
afflicted, and mourn, and weep." The first verb refers to the inward
feeling of wretchedness, the other two to the outward expression of
it. These two are found in combination in several passages, both in
the Old Testament and in the New (2 Sam. xix. 2; Neh. viii. 9; Mark
xvi. 10; Luke vi. 25; Rev. xviii. 15, 19). The feelings of
satisfaction and self-sufficiency in which these friends of the world
have hitherto indulged, and the glowing complacency which has been
manifest in their demeanour, have been quite out of place, and must be
exchanged for feelings and manifestations of grief. Their worldly
merriment also must be abandoned; those who have cut themselves off
from God have no true spring of joy. "Let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness." The last word (κατήφεια), which
occurs nowhere else in Scripture, refers primarily to the dejected
look which accompanies heaviness of heart. The writer of the Book of
Wisdom uses the adjective (κατηφής) to express the "_gloomy_ phantoms
with unsmiling faces" which he supposes to have appeared to the
Egyptians during the plague of darkness (xvii. 4). The term admirably
expresses the opposite of boisterous lightheartedness.
St. James ends as he began, with submission to the Almighty. He began
his exhortation as to the right method of conversion with "Be subject
unto God." He ends with "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and He will exalt you." The root of their worldliness and their
grasping at wealth and honour is pride and self-will, and the cure for
that is self-abasement and self-surrender. If it is God's will that
they should occupy a lowly place in society, let them humbly accept
their lot, and not try to change it by violence or fraud. If they will
but remember their own transgressions against the Lord, they will
admit that the humblest place is not too humble for their merits; and
it is the humble whom God delights to honour. Here, again, St. James
is reproducing the teaching of his Divine Brother: "Every one that
exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall
be exalted" (Luke xiv. 11; Matt. xxiii. 12). And the Old Testament
teaches the same lesson. "The humble person He shall save," says
Eliphaz the Temanite (Job xxii. 29); and the Psalmist gives us both
sides of the Divine law of compensation: "Thou wilt save the afflicted
people; but the haughty eyes Thou wilt bring down" (xviii. 27).
"Humble _yourselves_;" "He that humbleth _himself_." Everything
depends on that. It must be _self_-abasement. There is nothing
meritorious in chancing to be in a humble position, still less in
being _forced_ to descend to one. It is the voluntary acceptance, or
the choice, of a lowly place that is pleasing to God. We must choose
it as knowing that we deserve nothing better, and as wishing that
others should be promoted rather than ourselves. And this must be done
"_in the sight of the Lord_;" not in self-consciousness, to "to be
seen of men," which is "the pride that apes humility," but in the
consciousness of the ineffable presence of God. That is the source of
all true self-abasement and humility. To realize that we are in the
presence of the All-holy and All-pure, in whose sight the stars are
not clean, and who charges even the angels with folly, is to feel that
all differences of merit between man and man have faded away in the
immeasurable abyss which separates our own insignificance and
pollution from the majesty of His holiness. "Now mine eye seeth Thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes," is the
language of Job (xlii. 5, 6). And it was the same feeling which wrung
from St. Peter, as he fell down at Jesus' knees, the agonizing cry,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke v. 8). Hence it
is that the most saintly persons are always the most humble; for they
realize most perfectly the holiness of God and the ceaselessness of
His presence, and are therefore best able to appreciate the contrast
between their own miserable imperfections and His unapproachable
purity. The language which they at times use about themselves is
sometimes suspected of unreality and exaggeration, if not of downright
hypocrisy; but it is the natural expression of the feelings of one who
knows a great deal about the difference between a creature who is
habitually falling into sin and One who, in holiness, as in wisdom and
power, is absolute and infinite perfection. Humility is thus the
beginning and end of all true religion. The sinner who turns to God
must be humble; and this is the humility which St. James is urging.
And the saint, as he approaches nearer to God, will be humble; for he
knows what the approach has cost him, and how very far off he still
remains.
"And He will exalt you." This is the result, not the motive. To strive
to be humble _in order_ to be exalted would be to poison the virtue at
its source. Just as the conscious pursuit of happiness is fatal to its
attainment, so also the conscious aim at Divine promotion. The way to
be happy is not to think about one's own happiness, but to sacrifice
it to that of others; and the way to be exalted by God is not to think
of one's own advancement, but to devote oneself to the advancement of
others. The exaltation is sure to come, if only humility is attained;
an exaltation of which there is a foretaste even in this life, but the
full fruition of which lies in those unknown glories which await the
humble Christian in the world to come.
NOTE.--It may be that in the phrase "Resist the devil" we have an echo
of another unrecorded utterance of Christ, of which we have possible
traces also in St. Paul's "Stand against the wiles of the devil" (Eph.
vi. 11), and St. Peter's "Whom withstand, steadfast in your faith"
(1 Peter v. 9). Comp. Shepherd of Hermas, _Mand._ XII. v. 2; iv. 7;
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, _Neph._ viii., where James iv. 7
(or its source) would seem to be quoted.
[78] _Sunday School Chronicle_, March 15th, 1889; also the _Durham
Chronicle_, Jan. 31st, 1890.
[79] _Expositor's Bible: Pastoral Epistles_ (Hodder and Stoughton,
1888), p. 80.