Roots and Fruits of the Christian Life

Now, by the grace of the Lord and the ministry of the Spirit, these three have an abode on the earth; but they came from heaven. They flourish in the wilderness, but they are the planting of the Lord. These three! The finger of God is pointing to them as the objects on earth that he loves best to look upon — as the fragments remaining yet of a lost paradise, and the earnests of a coming heaven.

These three coalesce, and constitute one whole. To break off one is to destroy the integrity of the body, and leave the other members to decay. With a view to the exposition and application of the text, consider —

I. The specific nature of each; “Faith, hope, love.” II. The mutual relations of all; “These three.” III. The superior magnitude of the last; “The greatest of these is love.”

I. The specific natui*e of each; “Faith, hope, love.”

1. Faith. As to its origin, it is the gift of God; as to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit; as to its object, it fastens on Christ; as to its exercise, it is the disciple s own act — ‘’ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved; ““He that belie veth not is condemned already, because he believeth not on the only-begotten Son of God.”

Faith designates the act of a sinful man when he accepts Christ from God on God’s own terms. It is the man’s own deed, and yet it is utterly destitute of merit. If lost, helpless sinners of mankind reject the salvation which is offered in the gospel, that rejection is a substantial addition to their guilt; but if they accept it, the act of accepting constitutes no righteousness. The Scriptures make much of faith — “Precious faith;” “Thy faith hath saved thee;” “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Faith is the first stone of the building, but it is not the foundation. It is the act of cleaving to Christ, but all its value depends on the worth of the Christ to whom you cleave. A man may have faith — real, ardent, energetic faith — in saints and images, and priests and relics; yet his faith does not save him. A drowning man puts forth his hand and seizes with more than natural energy a bit of fro til that dances on the crest of a wave; his hand cleaves it like air, and he sinks helpless in the deep. He is lost, not for want of precision in his aim, or of energy in his grasp, but for want of truth and power in the phantom to which he fled. Our help is laid on One that is mighty. Christ saves to the uttermost. On the person, and righteousness, and sacrifice, and intercession of Immanuel, we must lean, when the burden of sin threatens to weigh us down to the second death. “Christ is God’s,’’ and when “ye are Christ’s ‘” all is well. “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

Beware how you come to Christ. Come worthless, empty, guilty. Come to him before you have anything, and to him for all. If you cover yourself beforehand with preparations in order that you may be somewhat more worthy of his acceptance, and consequently somewhat less indebted to his forgiving love, you lose all. If any rag of self-righteousness come between a sinner and the Saviour, it will keep them separate. Naked and bleeding must the branch be laid upon the naked and bleeding tree, in the process of engrafting. If any covering were first wrapped round it, the branch would never draw life — the tree would never give it. So, in the regeneration, a soul stricken through with the consciousness of guilt, and naked of goodness, must cleave to Christ crucified for pardon and righteousness. Any work of yours, by way of recommending you, will be a non-conductor through which the light of life from the Saviour cannot run into the dead. To this effect is the pointed and startling protest of the apostle against the inborn and inveterate legalism of even converted Jews:” Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing’’ (Gal. V. 2). In the matter of a sinner’s salvation, Christ is all, or nothing. The cleaving of the destitute for all to the fulness of the Godhead bodily in the incarnate Son — this, this is faith.

2. Hope. Blessed hope! If you did not know, by tasting, how sweet it is, I would labour in vain to tell you. It is a light shed down from heaven to cheer a dark and troubled scene. It is like moonlight borrowed from the sun to mitigate the darkness, which it cannot dispel Hope is adapted to a transitory, imperfect state. Its office is to diminish, in some measure, the sorrows of the present, by drawing beforehand on the stores of future joy.

Applied to the richest gifts of God and the highest interests of man, hope reaches from earth to heaven, and fastens the anchor of the soul within the veil, where it is sure and steadfast, so that the expectation of eternal rest may enable the weary to bear with patience the tossings of time’s troubled sea.

But, remember, “he never had a hope who never had a fear.” Hope is the tenant, not of a heart that was never broken, but of a heart that has been broken and healed again. A pure, bright star fixed high in heaven, it reaches with its rays the uplifted eye of the weary pilgrim; but stars shine not in the day; the darkness brings them out. So grief summons hope to the aid of the sufierer. When the ransomed rise from the sleep of the grave, and open their eyes on the dawning of an everlasting day, this gentle star, which had often soothed them in the night of their pilgrimage, will nowhere be found in all the upper firmament; for, in presence of the Sun of righteousness, hope, no longer needed, no more appears.

3. Love.^’ Some fragments of this heavenly thing survive the fall, and flourish in our nature. It is beautiful even in ruins. As an instinct in families, where it is not entirely covered and choked by rank vices growing near, it seems one feature left of man’s first likeness to his Maker. But feeble, changeable, and impure is all the love that is born with us. At the best it expatiates only on a low level, and expatiates irregularly, intermittently, even there. The love which is strung on with kindred graces in our text, is the work of the Spirit in renewed men.

The emotion only is named, not its objects. Love is like a fire burning, or a light shining. If such a flame is kindled in your heart, its rays will stream forth indiscriminately in every direction. They will fall impartially on great and small, on good and evil. Upward, downward, and all around, flows love — love to God in heaven, and to men on earth — love to the good, who deserve your esteem, and the evil, who need your compassion.

Keep reading