That is the name that predominates over all others in the latter
portions of the New Testament, and it is very natural that it should do
so. It reposes upon and implies the three preceding. Its rapid adoption
and universal use express touchingly the wonder of the early Church at
its own unity. The then world was rent asunder by deep clefts of
misunderstanding, alienation, animosity, racial divisions of Jew and
Greek, Parthian, Scythian; by sexual divisions which flung men and
women, who ought to have been linked hand in hand, and united heart to
heart, to opposite sides of a great gulf; by divisions of culture which
made wise men look down on the unlearned, and the unlearned hate the
wise men; by clefts of social position, and mainly that diabolical one
of slave and free. All these divisive and disintegrating forces were in
active operation. The only thing except Christianity, which produced
even a semblance of union, was the iron ring of the Roman power which
compressed them all into one indeed, but crushed the life out of them in
the process. Into that disintegrating world, full of mutual repulsion,
came One who drew men to Himself and said, 'One is your Master, even
Christ, and all ye are brethren.' And to their own astonishment, male
and female, Greek and Jew, bond and free, philosopher and fool, found
themselves sitting at the same table as members of one family; and they
looked in each other's eyes and said, 'Brother!' There had never been
anything like it in the world. The name is a memorial of the unifying
power of the Christian faith.
And it is a reminder to us of our own shortcomings. Of course, in the
early days, the little band were driven together, as sheep that stray
over a pasture in the sunshine will huddle into a corner in a storm, or
when the wolves are threatening. There are many reasons to-day which
make less criminal the alienation from one another of Christian
communities and Christian individuals. I am not going to dwell on the
evident signs in this day, for which God be thanked, that Christian men
are beginning, more than they once did, to realise their unity in Jesus
Christ, and to be content to think less of the things that separate than
of the far greater things that unite. But I would lay upon your hearts,
as individual parts of that great whole, this, that whatever may be the
differences in culture, outlook, social position, or the like, between
two Christian men, they each, the rich man and the poor, the educated
man and the unlettered one, the master and the servant, ought to feel
that deep down in their true selves they are nearer one another than
they are to the men who, differing from them in regard to their faith in
Jesus Christ, are like them in all these superficial respects. Regulate
your conduct by that thought.
That name, too, speaks to us of the source from which Christian
brotherhood has come. We are brethren of each other because we have one
Father, even God, and the Fatherhood which makes us brethren is not that
which communicates the common life of humanity, but that which imparts
the new life of sonship through Jesus Christ. So the name points to the
only way by which the world's dream of a universal brotherhood can ever
be fulfilled. If there is to be fraternity there must be fatherhood, and
the life which, possessed by each, makes a family of all, is the life
which He gives, who is 'the first-born among many brethren,' and who, to
them who believe on Him, gives power to become the sons of God, and the
brethren of all the other sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.
So, dear friends, take these names, ponder their significance and the
duties they impose. Let us make sure that they are true of us. Do not be
content with the vague, often unmeaning name of Christian, but fill it
with meaning by being a believer on Christ, a saint devoted to God, and
a brother of all who, 'by like precious faith,' have become Sons of God.