_HOPE AS A MOTIVE POWER.--THE PRESENT HOPES OF CHRISTIANS._
"For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this
present world; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the
glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself
for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works.
These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no
man despise thee."--TITUS ii. 11-15.
There are not many passages in the Pastoral Epistles which treat so
plainly as this does of doctrine. As a rule St. Paul assumes that his
delegates, Timothy and Titus, are well instructed (as he knew they were)
in the details of the Christian faith, and he does not stay even to
remind them of what he had frequently taught to them and to others in
their presence. The purpose of the Epistles is to give practical rather
than doctrinal instruction; to teach Timothy and Titus how to shape
their own conduct, and what kind of conduct they are chiefly to insist
upon in the different classes of Christians committed to their charge.
Here, however, and in the next chapter, we have marked exceptions to
this method. Yet even here the exception is more apparent than real; for
the doctrinal statements are introduced, not as truths to be recognized
and believed (it is taken for granted that they _are_ recognized and
believed), but as the basis of the practical exhortations which have
just been given. It is because these great truths have been revealed,
because life is so real and so important, and because eternity is so
certain, that Titus is to exert all his influence to produce the best
kind of conduct in his flock, whether men or women, old or young, bond
or free.
The passage before us might almost serve as a summary of St. Paul's
teaching. In it he once more insists upon the inseparable connexion
between creed and character, doctrine and life, and intimates the close
relations between the past, the present, and the future, in the
Christian scheme of salvation. There are certain facts in the past,
which must be believed; and there is a kind of life in the present,
which must be lived; and there are things in store for us in the future,
which must be looked for. Thus the three great virtues of faith,
charity, and hope are inculcated. Two Epiphanies or appearances of Jesus
Christ in this world are stated as the two great limits of the Christian
dispensation. There is the Epiphany of grace, when the Christ appeared
in humility, bringing salvation and instruction to all men; and there is
the Epiphany of glory, when He will appear again in power, that He may
claim as His own possession the people whom He has redeemed. And between
these two there is the Christian life with its "blessed hope," the hope
of the Lord's return in glory to complete the kingdom which His first
Advent began.
Most of us make far too little of this "blessed hope." It is of
incalculable value; first, as a test of our own sincerity and reality;
and secondly, as a source of strength to carry us over the difficulties
and disappointments which beset our daily course.
There is perhaps no more certain test of a Christian's earnestness than
the question whether he does, or does not, look forward with hope and
longing for Christ's return. Some men have seriously persuaded
themselves that there is no such thing either to hope for or to dread.
Others prefer not to think about it; they know that doubts have been
entertained on the subject, and as the topic is not a pleasant one to
them, they dismiss it as much as possible from their minds, with the
wish that the doubts about there being any return of Christ to judgment
may be well-founded; for their own lives are such that they have every
reason to desire that there may be no judgment. Others again, who on the
whole are trying to lead Christian lives, nevertheless so far share the
feelings of the godless, in that the thought of Christ's return (of the
certainty of which they are fully persuaded) inspires them with fear
rather than with joy. This is especially the case with those who are
kept in the right way much more by the fear of hell than by the love of
God, or even the hope of heaven. They believe and tremble. They believe
in God's truth and justice much more than in His love and mercy. He is
to them a Master and Lord to be obeyed and feared, much more than a God
and Father to be adored and loved. Consequently their work is
half-hearted, and their life servile, as must always be the case with
those whose chief motive is fear of punishment. Hence they share the
terrors of the wicked, while they lose their share of the joys of the
righteous. They are too much afraid to find any real pleasure either in
sin or in good works. To have sinned fills them with terror at the
thought of inevitable punishment; and to have done what is right fills
them with no joy, because they have so little love and so little hope.
Those who find from experience that the thought of Christ's return in
glory is one on which they seldom dwell, even if it be not positively
unwelcome, may be sure that there is something defective in their life.
Either they are conscious of shortcomings which they make little or no
attempt to correct, the recollection of which becomes intolerable when
confronted with the thought of the day of judgment (and this shows that
there is a great lack of earnestness in their religious life); or they
are being content with low motives for avoiding iniquity and striving
after righteousness, and thus are losing a real source of strength to
help them in their efforts. No doubt there are persons over whom high
motives have little influence, and can have but little influence,
because they are as yet unable to appreciate them. But no one in
watching over either his own soul or the souls of others can afford to
be content with such a state of things. Childish things must be put
away, when they cease to be appropriate. As the character develops under
the influence of lower motives, higher motives begin at times to make
themselves felt; and these must gradually be substituted for the others.
And when they do make themselves felt, high motives are much more
powerful than low ones; which is a further reason for appealing to them
rather than to the others. Not only is a man, who is capable of being
moved both by the fear of hell and by the love of God, more influenced
by the love than by the fear; but love has more power over his will than
fear has over the will of one who cannot be influenced by love.
All this tends to show how much is lost by those who make no effort to
cultivate in their minds a feeling of joy at the thought of "the
appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." They
lose a great source of strength by neglecting to cultivate what would be
a powerful motive to help them on the right way. Nor does the loss end
here. With it they lose much of the interest which they would otherwise
take in all that helps to "accomplish the number of God's elect and to
hasten His kingdom." Christians pray daily, and perhaps many times
daily, "Thy kingdom come." But how few realize what they are praying
for! How few really long that their prayer may be speedily granted! How
few take a keen and untiring interest in all that promotes the coming of
the kingdom! And thus again motive power is lost; for if we had but the
eyes to see, and the heart to appreciate, all that is going on round
about us, we should feel that we live, as compared with our forefathers,
in very encouraging times.
We are often enough told that Christianity in general, and the Church of
England in particular, is at the present time passing through a great
crisis; that this is an age of peculiar dangers and difficulties; that
we live in times of unblushing vice and uncompromising scepticism; and
that the immensity of our social, commercial, and political corruption
is only the natural outcome of the immensity of our irreligion and
unbelief. These things may be true; and there is no earnest Christian
who has not at times been perplexed and saddened by them. But, thank
God, there are other things which are equally true, and which ought to
be equally recognized and remembered. If the present is an age of
peculiar dangers and boundless irreligion, it is also an age of
peculiar encouragements and boundless hope.
There are Christians who love to look back to some period in the history
of the Church, which they have come to regard as a sort of golden age;
an age in which communities of saintly men and women were ministered to
by a still more saintly clergy, and in which the Church went beautifully
on its way, not altogether free from persecutions, which were perhaps
necessary for its perfection, but untroubled by doubts, or dissensions,
or heresies, and unstained by worldliness, apostasy, or sloth. So far as
the experience of the present writer has carried him, no such golden age
can be found in the actual history of the Church.
It is not to be found in the New Testament, either before or after
Pentecost.
We do not find it, where we might have expected to find it, in the
period when Christ was still present in the flesh as the Ruler and
Instructor of His Church. That period is marked by the ignorance and
unbelief of the Apostles, by their quarrels, their ambition for the
first places in an earthly kingdom, their intolerant spirit, by the
flight of all of them in the hour of Christ's danger, by the denials of
St. Peter, by the treachery and suicide of Judas. Nor do we find it,
where again we might have expected to find it, in the age immediately
succeeding the completion of Christ's work, when the Apostles, newly
anointed with the Spirit, were still alive to direct and foster the
Church which He had founded. That period also is marred by many
disfiguring marks. Apostles can still be timeserving, can still quarrel
among themselves; and they also experience what it is to be forsaken and
opposed by their own disciples. Their converts, as soon as the Apostle
who established them in the faith is withdrawn, and sometimes even
while he is still with them, become guilty of the gravest errors in
conduct and belief. Witness the monstrous disorders in the Church of
Corinth, the fickleness of the Galatian converts, the unchristian
asceticism of the Colossian heretics, the studied immorality of those of
Ephesus. The Church which was presided over by St. Timothy was the
Church of Alexander, Hymenaeus, and Philetus, who removed the very
corner-stone of the faith by denying the Resurrection; and the Churches
which were presided over by St. John contained the Nicolaitans,
condemned as hateful by Jesus Christ, and Diotrephes, who repudiated the
Apostle and excommunicated those who received the Apostle's messengers.
And there is much more of the same sort, as the Pastoral Epistles show
us, proving that what comes to us at first as a sad surprise is of still
sadder frequency, and that the Apostolic age had defects and stains at
at least as serious as those which deface our own.
The failure to find any golden age in either of these two divisions of
the period covered by the New Testament ought to put us on our guard
against expecting to find it in any subsequent period. And it would not
be difficult to take each of the epochs in the history of the Church
which have been selected as specially bright and perfect, and show that
in every case, directly we pass through the hazy glow, which the
imagination of later writers has thrown around such periods, and get
down to solid facts, then, either the brightness and perfection are
found to be illusory, or they are counter-balanced by many dark spots
and disorders. The age of the martyrs is the age of the lapsed; the ages
of faith are the ages of fraud; and the ages of great success are the
ages of great corruption. In the first centuries increase of numbers
was marked by increase of heresies and schisms; in the middle ages,
increase of power by increase of pride. A fair comparison of the period
in which our own lot has been cast with any previous period in the
history of the Church will never lead to any just feeling of
discouragement. Indeed it may reasonably be contended that at no era
since Christianity was first founded have its prospects been so bright
as at the present time.
Let us look at the contest between the Gospel and heathenism,--that
great contest which has been going on since "the grace of God appeared
bringing salvation to all men," and which is to continue until "the
appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour." Was there ever a
time when missions were more numerous or better organized, and when
missionaries were as a rule better instructed, better equipped, or more
devoted? And although it is impossible to form a correct estimate on
such a subject, because some of the most important data are beyond our
reach, yet it may be doubted whether there ever was a time when missions
achieved more solid success. The enormous growth of the colonial and
missionary episcopate during the last hundred years is at any rate one
great fact which represents and guarantees a great deal. Until 1787
there was not a single episcopal see of the Anglican communion in any of
the colonies or settlements of the British Empire; still less was there
a single missionary bishop. And now, as the Lambeth Conferences remind
us, these colonial and missionary bishops are not far short of a
hundred, and are always increasing.[80]
Or let us look at the relations between the great Churches into which
Christendom is unhappily divided. Was there ever a period at which there
was less bitterness, or more earnest and wide-spread desire for the
restoration of unity? And the increased desire for reunion comes hand in
hand with an increase of the conditions which would render reunion
possible. Two things are absolutely indispensable for a successful
attempt in this direction. First, a large measure of culture and
learning, especially among the clergy of the divided Churches; and
secondly, intelligent religious zeal. Ignorant controversialists cannot
distinguish between important and unimportant differences, and thus
aggravate rather than smooth difficulties. And without religious
earnestness the attempt to heal differences ends in indifferentism. Both
these indispensable elements are increasing, at any rate in the Anglican
and in the Eastern Churches: and thus reunion, which "must be possible,
because it is a duty," is becoming not only a desire but a hope.
Let us look again at our own Church; at its abundant machinery for every
kind of beneficent object; at the beautiful work which is being done in
a quiet and simple way by numbers of Christian men and women in
thousands of parishes; at the increase in services, in confirmations, in
communions; at the princely offerings of many of the wealthy laity; at
the humble offerings--equally princely in God's sight--of many of the
poor. Can we point to a time when party feeling (bad as it still is) was
less rancorous, when parishes were better worked, when the clergy were
better educated or more self-sacrificing, when the people were more
responsive to what is being done for them?
The very possibility of seriously raising such questions as these is in
itself a reason for taking courage, even if we cannot answer all of them
in the way that would please us most. There are at any rate good grounds
for hoping that much is being done for the advancement of Christ's
dominion, and that the prayer "Thy kingdom come" is being answered day
by day. If we could but convince ourselves more thoroughly of the truth
of all this, we should work more hopefully and more earnestly. More
hopefully, because we should be working with a consciousness of being
successful and making progress, with a conviction that we are on the
winning side. And more earnestly, not merely because hope makes work
more earnest and thorough, but also because we should have an increased
sense of responsibility: we should fear lest through any sloth or
negligence on our part such bright prospects should be marred. The
expectation of defeat makes some men strive all the more heroically; but
most men it paralyses. In our Christian warfare we certainly need hope
to carry us onward to victory.
"The appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ."
Among the foolish charges which have been brought against the Revisers
is that of favouring Arian tendencies by blurring those texts which
teach the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The present passage would be a
sufficient answer to such a charge. In the A.V. we have "the glorious
appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ," where both
the wording and the comma make it clear that "the great God" means the
Father and not our Saviour. The Revisers, by omitting the comma, for
which there is no authority in the original, and by placing the "our"
before both substantives, have given their authority to the view that
St. Paul means both "great God" and "Saviour" to apply to Jesus Christ.
It is not any Epiphany of the Father which is in his mind, but the
"Epiphany of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ."
The wording of the Greek is such that absolute certainty is not
attainable; but the context, the collocation of the words, the use of
the word "Epiphany," and the omission of the article before "Saviour"
(=epiphaneian tês doxês tou megalou Theou kai sôtêros hêmôn I. Ch.=),
all seem to favour the Revisers' rendering. And, if it be adopted, we
have here one of the plainest and most direct statements of the Divinity
of Christ to be found in Scripture. As such it was employed in the Arian
controversy, although Ambrose seems to have understood the passage as
referring to the Father and Christ, and not to Christ alone. The force
of what follows is enhanced, if the Revisers' rendering, which is the
_strictly grammatical_ rendering, is maintained. It is as being "our
great God" that He gave Himself for us, that He might "redeem us from
all iniquity;" and it was because He was God as well as man, that what
was uttered as a bitter taunt was really a glorious truth;--"He saved
others; Himself He _cannot_ save." It was morally impossible that the
Divine Son should turn back from making us "a people for His own
possession." Let us strengthen ourselves in the hope that our efforts to
fulfil this gracious purpose are never thrown away.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] Including the English and American bishops, invitations to two
hundred and nine prelates were issued for the Lambeth Conference in
1888.