'Exercise thyself unto Godliness.'--1 TIM. iv. 7.
Timothy seems to have been not a very strong character: sensitive,
easily discouraged, and perhaps with a constitutional tendency to
indolence. At all events, it is very touching to notice how the old
Apostle--a prisoner, soon to be a martyr--forgot all about his own
anxieties and burdens, and, through both of his letters to his young
helper, gives himself to the task of bracing him up. Thus he says to
him, in my text, amongst other trumpet-tongued exhortations, 'Exercise
thyself unto godliness.'
If I were preaching to ministers, I should have a good deal to say about
the necessity of this precept for them, and to remind them that it was
first spoken, not to a private member of the Church, as an injunction
for the Christian life in general, but as having a special bearing on
the temptations and necessities of those who stand in official positions
in the Church. For there is nothing that is more likely to sap a man's
devotion, and to eat out the earnestness and sincerity of a Christian
life, than that he should be--as I, for instance, and every man in my
position has to be--constantly occupied with presenting God's Word to
other people. We are apt to look upon it as, in some sense, our
stock-in-trade, and to forget to apply it to ourselves. So it was with a
very special bearing on the particular occupation and temptation of his
correspondent that Paul said 'Exercise thyself unto godliness' before
you begin to talk to other people.
But that would not be appropriate to my present audience. And I take
this injunction as one of universal application.
I. Notice, then, here expressed the ever-present and universal aim of
the Christian life.
Paul does not say 'be godly'; but 'exercise thyself unto'--with a view
towards--'godliness.' In other words, to him godliness is the great aim
which every Christian man should set before him as the one supreme
purpose of his life.
Now I am not going to spend any time on mere verbal criticism, but I
must point to the somewhat unusual word which the Apostle here employs
for 'godliness.' It is all but exclusively confined to these last
letters of the Apostle. It was evidently a word that had unfolded the
depth and fulness and comprehensiveness of its meaning to him in the
last stage of his religious experience. For it is only once employed in
the Acts of the Apostles, and some two or three times in the doubtful
second Epistle of St. Peter. And all the other instances of its use lie
in these three letters--the one to Titus and two to Timothy; and eight
of them are in this first one. The old Apostle keeps perpetually
recurring to this one idea of 'godliness.' What does he mean by it? The
etymological meaning of the word is 'well-directed reverence,' but it is
to be noticed that the context specifically points to one form of
well-directed reverence, viz. as shown in conduct. 'Active godliness' is
the meaning of the word; religion embodied in deeds, emotions, and
sentiments, and creeds, put into fact.
This noble and pregnant word teaches us, first of all, that all true
religion finds its ultimate sphere and best manifestation in the conduct
of daily life. That sounds like a platitude. I wish it were. If we
believed that, and worked it out, we should be very different people
from what the most of us are; and our chapels would be very different
places, and the professing Church would have a new breath of life over
it. Religion must have its foundation laid deep in the truths revealed
by God for our acceptance. And does God tell us anything simply that we
may believe it, and there an end? What is the purpose of all the
principles and facts which make up the body of the Christian revelation?
To enlighten us? Yes! To enlighten us only? A hundred times no! The
destination of a principle, of a truth, is to pass out from the
understanding into the whole nature of man.
And if, as I said, the foundation of religion is laid in truths,
principles, facts, the second story of the building is certain emotions,
sentiments, feelings, desires, and affections, and 'experiences'--as
people call them--which follow from the acceptance of these truths and
principles. And is that all? A thousand times no! What do we get the
emotions for? What does God give you a Revelation of Himself for, that
kindles your love if you believe it? That you may love? Yes! Only that
you may love? Certainly not. And so the top story is conduct, based upon
the beliefs, and inspired by the emotions.
In former centuries, the period between the Reformation and our fathers'
time, the tendency of the Protestant Church was very largely to let the
conception of religion as a body of truths overshadow everything else.
And nowadays, amongst a great many people, the temptation is to take the
second story for the main one, and to think that if a man loves, and has
the glow at his heart of the conscious reception of God's love, and has
longings and yearnings, and Christian hopes and desires, and passes into
the sweetnesses of communion with God, in his solitary moments, and
plunges deep into the truths of God's Word, that is godliness. But the
true exhortation to us is--Do not stop with putting in the foundations
of a correct creed, nor at the second stage of an emotional religion.
Both are needful. Number one and number two are infinitely precious, but
both exist for number three. And true religion has its sphere in
conduct. 'Exercise thyself unto godliness.' That does not mean
_only_--for it does include that--cultivate devout emotions, or realise
the facts and the principles of the Gospel, but it means, take these
along with you into your daily life, and work them out there. Bring all
the facts and truths of your creed, and all the sweet and select, the
secret and sacred, emotions which you have felt, to bear upon your daily
life. The soil in which the tree grows, and the roots of the tree, its
stem and its blossoms, are all means to the end--fruit. What is the use
of the clearest conceptions, and of the most tender, delicate, holy
emotions, if they do not drive the wheels of action? God does not give
us the Gospel to make us wise, nor even to make us blessed, but He gives
it to us to make us good men and women, working His work in our daily
tasks. All true religion has its sphere in conduct.
But then there is another side to that. All true conduct must have its
root in religion, and I, for my part--though of course it is extremely
'narrow' and 'antiquated' to profess it--I, for my part, do not believe
that in the long-run, and in general, you will get noble living apart
from the emotions and sentiments which the truths of Christianity,
accepted and fed upon, are sure to produce. And so this day, with its
very general depreciation of the importance of accurate conceptions of
revealed truth, and its exaltation of conduct, is on the verge of a very
serious error. Godliness, well-directed reverence, is the parent of all
noble living, and the one infallible way to produce a noble life is
faith in Christ, and love which flows from the faith.
If all that is so, if godliness is, not singing psalms, not praying, not
saying 'How sweet it is to feel the love of God,' still less saying 'I
accept the principles of Christianity as they are laid down in the
Bible'; but carrying out beliefs and emotions in deeds, then the true
aim which we should have continually before us as Christians is plain
enough. We may not reach it completely, but we can approximate
indefinitely towards it. Aim is more important than achievement.
Direction is more vital in determining the character of a life than
progress actually made. Note the form of the exhortation, 'exercise
thyself _towards_ godliness,' which involves the same thought as is
expressed in Paul's other utterance of irrepressible aspiration and
effort, 'Not as if I had already attained, either were already perfect,
but I follow after,' or as he had just said, 'press towards the mark,'
in continual approximation to the ideal. A complete penetration of all
our actions by the principles and emotions of the Gospel is what is set
before us here.
And that is the only aim that corresponds to what and where I am and to
what I need. I fall back upon the grandly simple old words, very dear to
some of us, perhaps, by boyish associations, 'Man's chief end is to
glorify God, and (so) to enjoy Him for ever.' 'Unto Godliness' is to be
the aim of every true life, and it is the only aim which corresponds to
our circumstances and our relations, our powers and possibilities.