The Blessed Hope

Titus ii. 13

“LooKnio for that blessed hope, and the glorioos appearing of the great €hpd and our Saviour Jesna Christ.” — Titus ii. 18.

SHOULD be doing equal violence to your feelings and to my own deep affection if my first words this morning were not the expression of our share in the sorrow of all good men for the death of Mr. Spurgeon. The loss falls especially on the churches of the denomination to which he and I belong; but it touches Christendom. He was as good as he was great; he was as sweet as he was good. His genius for forceful, racy speech sets him by the side of the great masters of our EngUsh tongue. His fervour of devotion and intensity of love to the Lord Jesus Christ blazed through all his work. He was absolutely self-forgetful, thinking nothing ot himself and everything of his message. His pathos and his humour, his sagacity and his kindness, were equal. His power of cheery work was unexampled, and all that he was he gave to his Lord, with rare and beautiful simpUcity and faithfulness. He had no

* Preached on the Sunday after Mr. Spxirgeon’s death.

peer; lie can have no successor. Such lives are not given twice to a generation. We shall honour him best if we try to fill our little places as he did his, and to cleave to the Master whom he magnified and now beholds.

My text this morning does not come inappropriately in such circumstances. It brings us into touch with the realities into which our brother has entered, and it points us the path by which we may travel to the same rest.

I. — I note in it, first, the great object of the Christian hope, “the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Now I suppose I need not explain that the true rendering of the words before us is not “the glorious appearing,” but “the appearing of the glory.” There is a distinct reference to the previous words which we have considered in former sermons. There are two appearings, that of “the grace of God and that of the glory.” Grace, as I explained on a previous occasion, is condescending, gentle, forgiving, stooping, restoring love which comes to us embodied and manifested in the life and death of Jesus Christ. The “glory” was originally that supernatural brightness, the symbol of the Divine presence, which shone between the cherubim, and then, in a wider sense, is used to mean the blinding lustre of the self-manifestation of God. The distinction between the two words is beautifully given when, instead of compliance with the presumptuous prayer, “I beseech Thee show me Thy glory,” the answer was, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee.”

There is, then, a double manifestation of the Divine character in its twofold aspects of grace and glory — one in the past, on which all our trust is fixed; one in the future, to which all our hope should be directed. A great revolving light turns now the side which gives white beams, and now that which flashes forth fiery red. The grace which is manifested is not the whole of the Divine character, which men here or hereafter shall be capable of beholding and experiencing, but following and based upon that appearance of the grace shall be the appearance of the glory.

These two manifestations are paralleled in many respects, as is shown by the very fact that the same word is employed in reference to both; but they diflfer substantially in this, the aspect of the Divine character manifested by each. The one is like the silver moon flooding all things with silvery and gentle light; the other is like the flash of the lightning from one side of the heavens to the other.

Both the manifestation of the grace and that of the glory are given through the same medium. Jesus Christ is the means of making the grace visible; and Jesus Christ will be the means of making the glory visible. That parallelism seems to make the rendering of the words in our Authorized Version preferable to that which has sometimes been suggested, and to make it more probable that we should read “the glory of the great God and our Saviour,” than “the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” There is no theological objection to the latter rendering, nor is there any grammatical objection to the possibiHty of it; but the congruity of the context seems rather to require that in both cases the Manifester should be Christ, and the Manifested should be God,

I said in a former sermon that the “appearing of the grace” could mean nothing else than the making visible to men in human form, by one entering into the limits of time and place, of the invisible love of God. “The appearance of the glory” must likewise be a making visible by a corporeal local personal coming of Christ in His perfected mfiuhood back again to this old earth. “That same Jesus who has gone from you into heaven shall come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” As truly as He wore our manhood and walked the fields of Palestine for our redemption in the manifestation of the Father’s love, so truly shall He come again, in visible, corporeal manhood, to manifest to the world the glory of God.

And these two appearances are connected in such a manner that the former is evidently incomplete without the latter. As certainly as the cradle at Bethlehem required the open grave and the ascension from OHvet, so certainly does the ascension from Olivet require the return to judgment. If the Lord of the servants hath gone from them to receive the Kingdom, needs must be that He shall return. The world has not done with Jesus Christ yet, and it cannot be that that calm disappearance is the last of His relations to it. He Aas come, therefore He will come. The past has in it one great fact, to which the world must turn for light, for leading, for life. And that past fact like an Eastern sky that flings its colouring into the furthest west, irradiates the future and points onwards to His return again. So that past fact and its companion yet to be are like two great towers on opposite sides of some fathomless abyss, from which stretch the slender rods which are sufficient to bear the firm structure on which we may tread across the gulf, defiant of the darkness, and find our way into the presence of God.

II. — Secondly, notice the Christian anticipation ol the appearing.

“Looking,” says the Apostle, “for that blessed hope.” Hovr comes he to call it blessed? If it be a flashing forth of the Divine glory, and if it be, as it distinctly is, a coming to judge the earth, there must be much about it which will touch into activity not unreasonable fears, and may make the boldest and truest shrink and ask themselves the old question, “Who shall stand when He appeareth?” But Paul here stretches out the hands of his faith and the yearnings of his desire to it. He sees a great distant Star, hasting towards the earth through the abysses of space, and he longs for its impact upon the world; which might seem to mean ruin. Whence comes this confidence?

It comes from the power of love. How beautiful it is, how merciful, and how strange that the very same yearning after bodily presence, the same restlessness in separation, and the same fulness of satisfaction in companionship, which mark the lower loves of earth, can be transferred wholly to that higher love! If our hearts are wed to Him, we shall know that to be * present with the Lord “is far better than the best beside; and that His coming must be for loving hearts “as the morning spread upon the mountaias.” The hope is blessed when the heart loves Him who is to come.

It is blessed because of the power of the assurance which we all may have that that coming can bring no harm to us. “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him at the day of Judgment.” It is blessed because the Manhood which is thus lifted to participate in and to be the medium of manifesting to a world the Divine glory is our Manhood; and we shall share in the glory that we behold, if here we have trusted in the grace that He revealed. “He shall change the body of our humiliation that it may be fashioned after the likeness of the body of His glory,” And when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we be manifested with Him in glory. So, because of the power of love, because of the power of confidence that no harm can come from the beloved presence, and because of the well-founded assurance that His glory is shared with all His brethren, according to His own prayer, that the glory which He had with the Father may be in these His disciples, we can look forward, if we are cleaving to Him with however humble and tremulous faith, and say, “Yes! we, too, feel that His coming is a hope, and is blessed.” We can then understand and join in the rapturous triumph of the psalmists of old when they call upon earth and sea and trees and hills to rejoice before the “Lord, for He cometh to judge the world.” And the hope is blessed because, in contradistinction to all earthly objects of hope, it is certain — certain as history, certain as memory. It is as secure as treasures that we keep in the cedar-presses of our remembrances. It is also blessed because, being thus certain, it is far enough in advance never to be outgrown, never to be fulfilled and done with here. So it outlasts all others, and may be laid in a dying hand, like a rosebud clasped in cold palms, crossed on each other, in the coflSn; for not untU we have passed the veil shall we receive the hope. He wiQ come to the world; you and I will go to Him; either way, we shall be ever with the Lord. And that is a hope that will outlast life and death.

Then, consider how large a space in the Christian life this hope ought to filL It is, as my text shows us, as much a part of Christian duty to cultivate it as it is to “live soberly, righteously, and godly.” Nay, more, if we regard the structure of the sentence, of which my text is a member, and observe that the latter is in form identical with the previous clause, “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,” it may seem as if, just as the former, “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,” was the means by which the “sober, righteous, and godly life” should be maintained; so that life is not to be reached except through the cherishing of this bright hope. That is true, for where shall we find stronger bridles for our passions and lusts than in that thought, “The Lord cometh “? “Let your moderation be known unto all men: the Lord is at hand.” And where shall we find stronger inducements to live soberly, righteously, and godly than in the thought that He comes to judge the world, and us with it?

But alas! there is a wonderful difference between the extent, imperfect as even it is, in which average Christian people try to fulfil that threefold ideal of life, “sober, righteous, and godly,” and the extent to which they recognize it as a clear duty, to cultivate the brightness of this Christian hope. A thousand pities is it that there are so few of us who live under the light of it, except the good men who have given themselves to the study of the tiTne when it shall come to be fulfilled; and have largely, by fancies that were shattered generation after generation, discredited the very doctrine which they love. But, dear brethren, sure am I that there can be no failure in the vigour and continuity of our hope of the coming of the Lord Jesus, without a corresponding feebleness setting in throughout the whole Christian life. It is for us to see to it that day by day we live in the anticipation which will lift us above cares and sorrows, and will interpret for us many things which otherwise would be insoluble problems — the blessed anticipation that He will come and manifest Himself in the glory of His Father, and that we, even we, may share therein,

III. — Lastly, note the teaching or correction which strengthens the hope.

You will remember that in former sermons we have seen that the appeaxing of the grace of God has a function of disciplining or correction, in order that we should live “soberly, righteously, and godly.” The forward looking in the text is part of the purpose of the appearance of the grace. The great means by which this Christian hope may be cherished in its brightness and its fulness is the yielding to the schooling, the correction and discipline, which the past and present manifestation of the grace of God brings with it.

The fact that Ihe first manifestation is of an educational and corrective kind is in itself an evidence that there is another one to follow. For the very idea of training implies that there is something for which we are being trained; and the very word “correction” or “discipline” involves the thought of an end towards which the process is directed. That end can be no less than the future perfecting of its subjects in that better world. Life is unintelligible, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is more unintelligible still, unless all be meant to prepare men for the life beyond the grave. It is impossible that all these costly gifts and powers which make up God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ shall have been set. agoing for purposes which terminate with this life. It is as impossible that all the sedulous care which is exercised over each of us by the tutors and governors that we find in the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall have no object in view except such as is reached in the imperfect attainments of the Christian life here. God does not take the rough bar of iron and turn it into steel and poHsh it and shape it and sharpen it to so fine an edge in order that He may then break it and cast it “as rubbish to the void.” You will find in prehistoric tombs broken swords and blunted spears which were laid there with the corpses; but God does not so break His weapons, nor is death the end of our activity. If there be discipline, there is something for which the discipline is meant. If there be an apprenticeship, there is somewhere work for the journeyman to do when he has served his articles and is out of his time. There will be a field in which we shall use the powers that we have acquired here; and nothing can bereave us of the force we made our own, being here. Grace disciplines; therefore there is glory.

Again, our yielding to the grace is the best way of

Strengthening our hope of the glory. The more we keep ourselves under the influences of that mighty salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and let them chasten and correct us, and submit our inflamed eyes to their healing pains, the more clearly will they be able to see the land that is afar off. “I counsel thee to buy of Me eye-salve that thou mayest see.” Telescope glasses are polished in order that they may enable the astronomer to pierce the depths of the heavens. Diamonds depend for their brightness on the way in which they are cut, and it is poor economy to leave some of the precious stone on the mass, if thereby its reflecting power and its radiance be diminished. God cuts deep and rubs hard, in order that He may brighten the surface and the depth of our souls, that they may receive in all its purity the celestial ray, and flash it back in varied colours. So, if we would live in the buoyant hope of the manifestation of the jlory, let us docilely, prayerfully, penitently, patiently, submit ourselves to the discipline of the grace.