According to the ideal of the Christian life that runs through the New
Testament, each Christian man is a dwelling-place of God's, and his work
is to build himself up into a temple worthy of the divine indwelling.
Now, I suppose that the metaphor is such a natural and simple one that
we do not need to look for any Scriptural basis of it. But if we did, I
should be disposed to find it in the solemn antithesis with which the
Sermon on the Mount is closed, where there are the two houses pictured,
the one built upon the rock and standing firm, and the other built upon
the sand. But that is perhaps unnecessary.
We are all builders; building up--what? Character, ourselves. But what
sort of a thing is it that we are building? Some of us pigsties, in
which gross, swinish lusts wallow in filth; some of us shops; some of us
laboratories, studies, museums; some of us amorphous structures that
cannot be described. But the Christian man is to be building himself up
into a temple of God. The aim which should ever burn clear before us,
and preside over even our smallest actions, is that which lies in this
misused old word, 'edify' yourselves.
The first thing about a structure is the foundation. And Paul was narrow
enough to believe that the one foundation upon which a human spirit
could be built up into a hallowed character is Jesus Christ. He is the
basis of all our certitude. He is the anchor for all our hopes. To Him
should be referred all our actions; for Him and by Him our lives should
be lived. On Him should rest, solid and inexpugnable, standing
four-square to all the winds that blow, the fabric of our characters.
Jesus Christ is the pattern, the motive which impels, and the power
which enables, me to rear myself into a habitation of God through the
Spirit. Whilst I gladly acknowledge that very lovely structures may be
reared upon another foundation than Him, I would beseech you all to lay
this on your hearts and consciences, that for the loftiest, serenest
beauty of character there is but one basis upon which it can be rested.
'Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ.'
Then there is another aspect of this same metaphor, not in Paul's
writings but in another part of the New Testament, where we read: 'Ye,
beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.' So that, in a
subordinate sense, a man's faith is the basis upon which he can build
such a structure of character; or, to put it into other words--in regard
to the man himself, the first requisite to the rearing of such a fabric
as God will dwell in is that he, by his own personal act of faith,
should have allied himself to Jesus Christ, who is the foundation; and
should be in a position to draw from Him all the power, and to feel
raying out from Him all the impulses, and lovingly to discern in Him all
the characteristics, which make Him a pattern for all men in their
building.
The first course of stone that we lay is Faith; and that course is, as
it were, mortised into the foundation, the living Rock. He that builds
on Christ cannot build but by faith. The two representations are
complementary to one another, the one, which represents Jesus Christ as
the foundation, stating the ultimate fact, and the other, which
represents faith as the foundation, stating the condition on which we
come into vital contact with Christ Himself.
Then, further, in this great thought of the Christian life being
substantially a building up of oneself on Jesus is implied the need for
continuous labour. You cannot build up a house in half an hour. You
cannot do it, as the old fable told us that Orpheus did, by music, or by
wishing. There must be dogged, hard, continuous, life-long effort if
there is to be this building up. No man becomes a saint _per saltum_. No
man makes a character at a flash. The stones are actions; the mortar is
that mystical, awful thing, habit; and deeds cemented together by custom
rise into that stately dwelling-place in which God abides. So, there is
to be a life-long work in character, gradually rearing it into His
likeness.
The metaphor also carries with it the idea of orderly progression. There
are a number of other New Testament emblems which set forth this notion
of the true Christian ideal as being continual growth. For instance,
'first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear,'
represents it as resembling vegetable growth, while elsewhere it is
likened to the growth of the human body. Both of these are beautiful
images, in that they suggest that such progressive advancement is the
natural consequence of life; and is in one aspect effortless and
instinctive.
But then you have to supplement that emblem with others, and there comes
in sharp contrast to it the metaphor which represents the Christian
progress as being warfare. There the element of resistance is
emphasised, and the thought is brought out that progress is to be made
in spite of strong antagonisms, partly to be found in external
circumstances, and partly to be found in our own treacherous selves. The
growth of the corn or of the body does not cover the whole facts of the
case, but there must be warfare in order to growth.
There is also the other metaphor by which this Christian progress, which
is indispensable to the Christian life, and is to be carried on,
whatever may oppose it, is regarded as a race. There the idea of the
great, attractive, but far-off future reward comes into view, as well as
the strained muscles and the screwed-up energy with which the runner
presses towards the mark. But we have not only to fling the result
forward into the future, and to think of the Christian life as all
tending towards an end, which end is not realised here; but we have to
think of it, in accordance with this metaphor of my text, as being
continuously progressive, so as that, though unfinished, the building is
there; and much is done, though all is not accomplished, and the courses
rise slowly, surely, partially realising the divine Architect's ideal,
long before the headstone is brought out with shoutings and tumult of
acclaim. A continuous progress and approximation towards the perfect
ideal of the temple completed, consecrated, and inhabited by God, lies
in this metaphor.
Is that _you_, Christian man and woman? Is the notion of progress a part
of _your_ working belief? Are _you_ growing, fighting, running, building
up yourselves more and more in your holy faith? Alas! I cannot but
believe that the very notion of progress has died out from a great many
professing Christians.
There is one more idea in this metaphor of self-edification, viz., that
our characters should be being modelled by us on a definite plan, and
into a harmonious whole. I wonder how many of us in this chapel this
morning have ever spent a quiet hour in trying to set clearly before
ourselves what we want to make of ourselves, and how we mean to go
about it. Most of us live by haphazard very largely, even in regard to
outward things, and still more entirely in regard to our characters.
Most of us have not consciously before us, as you put a pattern-line
before a child learning to write, any ideal of ourselves to which we are
really seeking to approximate. Have you? And could you put it into
words? And are you making any kind of intelligent and habitual effort to
get at it? I am afraid a great many of us, if we were honest, would have
to say, No! If a man goes to work as his own architect, and has a very
hazy idea of what it is that he means to build, he will not build
anything worth the trouble. If your way of building up yourselves is, as
Aaron said his way of making the calf was, putting all into the fire,
and letting chance settle what comes out, nothing will come out better
than a calf. Brother! if you are going to build, have a plan, and let
the plan be the likeness of Jesus Christ. And then, with continuous
work, and the exercise of continuous faith, which knits you to the
foundation, 'build up yourselves for an habitation of God.'