+I. The fundamental truth of the Fatherhood of God.+--Man's life has
its law, for it has its source in the nature of the Eternal. Behind
our race instincts and the laws imposed on us in the long struggle
for existence, behind those imperatives of practical reason involved
in the structure of our intelligence, is the presence and active will
of Almighty God our heavenly Father. Institutional morals bear
witness to the God of creation, experimental morals to the God of
providence and history. The Divine Fatherhood is the keystone of the
arch in which they meet. The command to be imitators of God makes
_personality_ the sovereign element in life. If consciousness is a
finite and passing phenomenon, if God be but a name for the sum of
the impersonal laws that regulate the universe, for the "stream of
tendency" in the worlds, _Father_ and _love_ are meaningless terms
applied to the Supreme, and religion dissolves into an impalpable
mist. Love, thought, will in us raise our being above the realm of
the impersonal; and these faculties point us upward to Him from whom
they came, the Father of the spirits of all flesh. It is not the loss
of strength for human service nor the dying out of joy which unbelief
entails that is its chief calamity. The sun in the soul's heaven is
put out. The personal relationship to the Supreme which gave dignity
and worth to our individual being, which imparted sacredness and
enduring power to all other ties, is destroyed. The heart is
orphaned, the temple of the Spirit desolate. The mainspring of life
is broken.
+II. The solidarity of mankind in Christ+ furnishes the apostle with
a powerful lever for raising the ethical standard of his readers. The
thought that we are "members one of another" forbids deceit. Self is
so merged in the community that in dealing censure or forgiveness to
an offending brother the Christian man feels as though he were
dealing with himself--as though it were the hand that forgave the
foot for tripping, or the ear that pardoned some blunder of the eye.
The Christ loved and gave; for love that does not give, that prompts
to no effort and puts itself to no sacrifice, is but a luxury of the
heart--useless and even selfish. The Church is the centre of
humanity. The love born and nourished in the household of faith goes
out into the world with a universal mission. The solidarity of moral
interests that is realised there embraces all the kindreds of the
earth. The incarnation of Christ knits all flesh into one redeemed
family. The continents and races of mankind are members one of
another, with Jesus Christ for Head.
+III. Another ruling idea lying at the basis of Christian ethics is
St. Paul's conception of man's future destiny.+--There is disclosed a
world beyond the world, a life growing out of life, an eternal and
invisible kingdom of whose possession the Spirit that lives in
Christian men is the earnest and firstfruits. Human reason had
guessed and hope had dreamed of the soul's immortality. Christianity
gives this hope certainty, and adds to it the assurance of the
resurrection of the body. Man's entire nature is thus redeemed. Our
bodily dress is one with the spirit that it unfolds. We shall lay it
aside only to resume it--transfigured, but with a form and impress
continuous with its present being.
+IV. The atonement of the cross stamps its own character and spirit
on the entire ethics of Christianity.+--The Fatherhood of God, the
unity and solidarity of mankind, the issues of eternal life or death
awaiting us in the unseen world--all the great factors and
fundamentals of revealed religion gather about the cross of Christ;
they lend to it their august significance, and gain from it new
import and impressiveness. The fact that Christ "gave Himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God" throws an awful light upon the
nature of human transgression. All that inspired men had taught, that
good men had believed and felt, and penitent men confessed in regard
to the evil of human sin, is more than verified by the sacrifice
which the Holy One of God has undergone in order to put it away. What
tears of contrition, what cleansing fires of hate against our own
sins, what scorn of their baseness, what stern resolves against them,
are awakened by the sight of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! The
sacrifice of Christ demands from us devotion to Christ Himself. Our
first duty as Christians is to love Christ, to serve and follow
Christ. There is no conflict between the claims of Christ and those
of philanthropy, between the needs of His worship and the needs of
the destitute and suffering in our streets. Every new subject won to
the kingdom of Christ is another helper won for His poor. Every act
of love rendered to Him deepens the channel of sympathy by which
relief and blessing come to sorrowful humanity.--_Findlay._
_Christ's Sacrifice of Himself explained, and Man's Duty to offer
Spiritual Sacrifice inferred and recommended._
+I. Our Lord's unexampled sacrifice.+--1. _The Priest._ As a prophet
or an apostle properly is an ambassador from God to treat with men,
so a priest is an agent or solicitor in behalf of men to treat with
God.
2. _The sacrifice._--Our Lord was both offering and sacrifice. Every
sacrifice is an offering to God, but every offering to God is not a
sacrifice. Perfect innocence and consummate virtue, both in doing and
suffering, were not only the flower and perfection but the very form
and essence of our Lord's sacrifice. These were the sacrifice of
sweet odour, acceptable to Him who alone could judge perfectly of the
infinite worth and merit of it.
3. _The altar._--From the third century to this time the cross
whereon our Lord suffered has been called the altar. There is another
altar, a spiritual altar--the eternal Spirit, the Divine nature of
our Lord. The sacrifice of our Lord is an undoubted Scripture truth;
but as to a proper altar for that sacrifice, it is a more disputable
point, about which wise and good men may be allowed to judge as they
see cause.
4. _The Divine Lawgiver._--To whom the sacrifice was made, and by
whom it was graciously accepted. God the Father is Lawgiver-in-chief,
and to Him our Lord paid the price of our redemption. Thus the glory
of God and the felicity of men are both served in this dispensation.
+II. Our own sacrifice of ourselves.+--As Christ give Himself for us,
so we ought to give up ourselves to God in all holy obedience, and
particularly in the offices of love towards our brethren, as these
are the most acceptable sacrifices we can offer to God. We cannot do
greater honour to our Lord's sacrifice than by thus copying it in the
best manner we are able--a sacrifice of love to God and love to our
neighbours.--_Waterland._
_The Imitation of God._--No argument is so frequently urged as the
example of Christ to persuade us to mutual love, because none is so
well adapted to influence the mind of a Christian. God's approbation
of Christian charity is expressed in the same terms as His acceptance
of the sacrifice of Christ; for charity to our fellow-Christians,
flowing from a sense of Christ's dying love, is a virtue of
distinguished excellence. As the death of Christ is called "a
sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savour," so Christian charity is
called "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable,
well-pleasing to God." Let it be our care to follow Christ in His
goodness and love, and to learn of Him humility, condescension,
mercy, and forgiveness. Religion is an imitation of the moral
character of God, brought down to human view and familiarised to
human apprehension in the life of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ is
of great use, not only as an atonement for guilt, but also as an
example of love.--_Lathrop._