What God works in us for is that for which we too are to yield ourselves
to His working, 'without murmurings and disputings,' and to co-operate
with glad submission and cheerful obedience. We are to have as our
distinct aim the building up of a character 'blameless and harmless,
children of God without rebuke.' The blamelessness is probably in
reference to men's judgment rather than to God's, and the difficulty of
coming untarnished from contact with the actions and criticisms of a
crooked and perverse generation is emphasised by the very fact that such
blamelessness is the first requirement for Christian conduct. It was a
feather in Daniel's cap that the president and princes were foiled in
their attempt to pick holes in his conduct, and had to confess that they
would not 'find any occasion against him, except we find it concerning
the laws of his God.' God is working in us in order that our lives
should be such that malice is dumb in their presence. Are we
co-operating with Him? We are bound to satisfy the world's requirements
of Christian character. They are sharp critics and sometimes
unreasonable, but on the whole it would not be a bad rule for Christian
people, 'Do what irreligious men expect you to do.' The worst man knows
more than the best man practises, and his conscience is quick to decide
the course for other people. Our weaknesses and compromises, and love of
the world, might receive a salutary rebuke if we would try to meet the
expectations which 'the man in the street' forms of us.
'Harmless' is more correctly pure, all of a piece, homogeneous and
entire. It expresses what the Christian life should be in itself, whilst
the former designation describes it more as it appears. The piece of
cloth is to be so evenly and carefully woven that if held up against the
light it will show no flaws nor knots. Many a professing Christian life
has a veneer of godliness nailed thinly over a solid bulk of
selfishness. There are many goods in the market finely dressed so as to
hide that the warp is cotton and only the weft silk. No Christian man
who has memory and self-knowledge can for a moment claim to have reached
the height of his ideal; the best of us, at the best, are like
Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were iron and clay, but we ought to
strain after it and to remember that a stain shows most on the whitest
robe. What made David's sin glaring and memorable was its contradiction
of his habitual nobler self. One spot more matters little on a robe
already covered with many. The world is fully warranted in pointing
gleefully or contemptuously at Christians' inconsistencies, and we have
no right to find fault with their most pointed sarcasms, or their
severest judgments. It is those 'that bear the vessels of the Lord'
whose burden imposes on them the duty 'be ye clean,' and makes any
uncleanness more foul in them than in any other.
The Apostle sets forth the place and function of Christians in the
world, by bringing together in the sharpest contrast the 'children of
God' and a 'crooked and perverse generation.' He is thinking of the old
description in Deuteronomy, where the ancient Israel is charged with
forgetting 'Thy Father that hath bought thee,' and as showing by their
corruption that they are a 'perverse and crooked generation.' The
ancient Israel had been the Son of God, and yet had corrupted itself;
the Christian Israel are 'sons of God' set among a world all deformed,
twisted, perverted. 'Perverse' is a stronger word than 'crooked,' which
latter may be a metaphor for moral obliquity, like our own right and
wrong, or perhaps points to personal deformity. Be that as it may, the
position which the Apostle takes is plain enough. He regards the two
classes as broadly separated in antagonism in the very roots of their
being. Because the 'sons of God' are set in the midst of that 'crooked
and perverse generation' constant watchfulness is needed lest they
should conform, constant resort to their Father lest they should lose
the sense of sonship, and constant effort that they may witness of Him.