The Spirit of Life

IT T is strange that, in this nineteenth century, men should be discussing questions on some of the most essential points of Christianity, which were received without dispute in the earliest ages of the Church. In particular, the question — What is it to be a Christian? what is the essence of Christian life? or, wherein does the true Christian differ vitally from other men? would seem in our day to be the occasion of a variety of opinion never dreamt of in the early Church. It is a question which many in our day think it wrong to submit to any theoretical inquiry, and which they would rather that men should leave in the hazy region of the undetermined. And no doubt theories may be drawn out, and have sometimes been drawn out, to a point which is alike unwarranted and disastrous; and incalculable injustice has been done to some men by excluding them from all part and lot in the Christian society, because they have not fulfilled the conditions of some minute human specification of the Christian life and experience. But we must not be deterred by this gross abuse from inquiring whether we are not taught something in the Holy Scriptures regarding the essential elements of the Christian life, whether there be not presented to us in the Word of God views incompatible with much that floats about at the present day as to what really constitutes one a child of God, a member of the kingdom of heaven, a living branch in the true vine, a lively stone in the living temple. To this inquiry we now desire to draw the attention of our readers, as one of the most important in the whole range of saving knowledge: but before entering on it, we will first notice two forms of opinion to be often met with on the subject, but professing to be derived less from the Word of God than from the conceptions and impressions of mens own hearts.

I. Some persons object altogether to any and every attempt to draw a line between the Christian and the no-Christian, or to define explicitly the essential points either in the state or in the character of the former. According to them, the Christian spirit is a sort of atmosphere universally diffused, which all men breathe more or less; or a subtle force, like heat or electricity, seldom wholly absent, but more predominant in some communities and in some individuals than in others. There is something of good, they say, in the worst characters, and something of bad in the best. Theshading off between one character and another is so gradual and imperceptible that it is absurd to attempt to draw a line between them, and to represent all as Christians on the one side of it, and no-Christians on the other. Charity ought to rejoice in the fact that hardly any one is utterly lost to what is good, and to anticipate a time when the good shall everywhere assert its rightful pre-eminence, and the bad shall die out, or be stamped out, as a foreign element that has somehow found its way into the character. It is a mere waste of time, they say, to inquire theoretically what makes any one a Christian. The doctrine of the last judgment, with its sharply-defined separation of the sheep from the goats, is a mere bugbear forfrightening people. Let all fair and honest attempts be made to improve the moral atmosphere — to induce men by reasonable considerations to lead better lives; but as for the notion of a hard and fast line — a rigid twofold division — it is the relic of a barbarous age, a thing to be classed with the fires of purgatory.

2. There are others who cannot assent to such views as these, and who yet come far short of the Scriptural doctrine. Reasoning with those whose opinions have just been expressed, they ask them. Do you make no essential difference between two classes of men, of whom the one are struggling to obey the higher impulses of their nature, while the other abandon themselves to the lower? May not society be at least roughly divided into these two classes? Are not the members of the one class at great pains to strengthen and promote all impulses and habits of the better kind, while the members of the other class habitually disregard them? Do not the one class watch and check their hearts, try in every way to live conscientiously, cultivate improving society, read books fitted to benefit them, and order their whole lives in accordance with these high aims? Do not the members of the other class habitually violate their consciences, and choose companions, books, or amusements with no view to their improvement, but merely to the gratification of the hour? If this be so, must there not be somewhere a line of separation, and some great differentiating principle, constituting the moral character and standing of some men essentially different from those of others?

The answer which is sometimes given to these questions is of this sort. All men are subject to the action of two kinds of principles, the better and the worse. Good men strive to give effect to their better impulses; bad men yield, often without a struggle, to the lower. Good men strive to be just, truthful, sober, kind, forgiving, generous. It is the blessed property of Christianity to give a great stimulus to these endeavours. Under its genial influences men are enabled to succeed much better in this conflict. The atmosphere of Christianity is infinitely better fitted than anv other atmosphere to nourish and strengthen this spirit. Thus it is that those who breathe most fully the atmosphere of Christianity become the best men. The reason assigned for this is, not that Christianity communicates anything to them which may be called a new nature, but that Christian influences powerfully stimulate the better impulses of their proper nature, and raise these to a predominance over the worse. It is not because Gods Spirit is given to them in a sense different from that in which He is given to all, but because, having better aims than others, they welcome the

Spirit of Christ more, and make more use of the aid which He offers.

If the friends of Christianity should accept of this position, and claim for religion nothing more than the power of bringing out whatever is good in human nature, and raising it to a predominance over the bad, they would be allowed to live in comparative peace. Few people would have any quarrel with Christianity if this alone were its claim and its aim; and some might anticipate for it a career of most friendly and blessed progress, if it simply offered itself to all men as a ministering angel, whose gentle breath should at once wither all the base and hurtful propensities of their being, and stimulate into bright activity everything pure, honest, lovely, and of good report.

How largely this conception of Christianity and of the nature of Christian influence tinges the literature of the day, and especially the imaginative literature, it is hardly necessary at present to remark. Christianity, in a certain sense, is not reviled as an imposture or a superstition, but recognized as a friend and helper to man. But too often it is just such a Christianity as we have now referred to; not a Christianity that presents an atonement for mans guilt, and substitutes a new heart for the heart of stone; but a Christianity with a warm and highly-fragrant breath — a Christianity that raises the moral atmosphere ten or twenty degrees, and thus enables virtues to bud and blossom and bear fruit, that would have remained torpid in a colder atmosphere.

This brief exposition of views as to the nature of Christian life, that are only too widely prevalent, may enable us to understand and appreciate more clearly the teaching of the Scriptures. Whatever impressions or conceptions men may form on the subject, these can have no real avail in opposition to the lessons of the Word. But this is just what it is so hard at the present day to establish. Men have such extraordinary and overweening confidence in their own impressions, that they cannot hear of anything that runs contrary to them. It is always hard — at the present day it is pecuHarly hard — to enter into the kingdom of heaven as a little child. It is rare to find men ready to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening with circumcised ears, and receiving His words as words of infallible truth. The tendency is to bring everything to the standard of our own sense of fitness, and to receive or reject it as it may or may not bear that ordeal; while to listen to tRe Word, to bow to the Bible as a divine authority never to be questioned, and never to be rejected, is among the rarest attributes of inquirers at the present time.

In order to prevent misconception as to the real issue, let us note two things, which to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent, coincide with some of the views that have now been adverted to.

The first of these is, that in the character even of men who are not truly ’ spiritual,^ but only ’ natural, there may be more or less of what, in a sense, is good. They who are evil, according to our Lord, may know how to give good gifts unto their children, There may be many pleasing virtues and amiable dispositions to which the human heart instinctively and most justly gives its approval and admiration. The patriotism that sacrifices everything for its country, the instincts of love, the attachment of children to their parents, and parents to their children, the gentle play of humour, the spirit that disdains injustice or dishonour, the heart that aspires to higher purity and a nobler life, are all, to a certain extent, good and commendable. There is no want of readiness in the Scriptures to acknowledge this natural goodness. Even Ephraim, whom Hosea compares to a guilty harlot, was not without such goodness, but like the morning cloud and the early dew,^ it passed away. That such goodness even in considerable measure may exist apart from salvation, is made obvious by the striking parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Even in the place of woe the Rich Man retained his affectionate concern for his five brethren. The very flames that tormented him had not succeeded in burning out of his heart that instinct of compassion which revolted from the thought of their also coming into the place of torment. Brotherly love was active even when despair had settled down on himself. Marvellous disclosure of the future! Wonderful glimpse of the possibility of some things being saved even from the most appalling of shipwrecks!

The other thing to be noted is that even such goodness as this is to be traced to God as its fountain. No one doubts this in regard to what may be called the instincts. The instincts of the lower animals with reference to their young sometimes exhibit wonderfully the play of self-sacrifice, and other things akin to high human virtues. No one hesitates to ascribe the origin of these instincts to God. So everything in the human heart that is worthy to be called good in any sense is doubtless to be ascribed to God. It is in virtue of a divine power that even such broken goodness is in man. The fact of its being now both broken and defiled does not affect the fact of its divine origin. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of hghts. The power of God moving them in the direction of good is in a sense at work in all men. It is seen in the feeling that disdains a lie, in the self-denial that shares its last crust with a needy neighbour, in the sense of honour that prefers death to disgrace. A celebrated popular writer of the last generation, in a piece of autobiography more plain than polished, tells how on one occasion, when he was in the depths of poverty and distress, his life was saved by the kind and cordial ministrations of a poor female outcast in the streets of London. Why should it be denied, that so far as this poor creature was moved to do the part of the good Samaritan, she was under the impulse of a power from God? Or why should it be denied that all that is kindly or genial in human feeling and noble or graceful in human action, and lofty and pure in human aspiration comes ultimately from the one source of good, however much, in the course of its passage, it may have lost of the purity and brightness of the fountain, and however vile and unworthy of God’s acceptance it may have become in consequence of its contact with human corruption?

Notwithstanding all this, we yet maintain it to be the doctrine of Scripture that no amount of natural goodness constitutes any one a Christian, or a member of the kingdom of God; and that to produce that result, there must be a special action of the power or Spirit of God, different from any that takes place in the natural man.

What but this explains the distinction between the ’ natural man and the spiritual ‘? between those that are ’ in the flesh and cannot please God, and those who are ’ in the Spirit ^? between those who are not far from the kingdom of heaven, like the young man with great possessions on whom Jesus looked so lovingly, and the publicans and harlots who pressed into the kingdom and were safe? between NIcodemus before he came to Jesus and Nicodemus after he learned of Him? What else explains the fact that when the Apostles preached to the multitude on Pentecost they looked on all of them as in one category, as men needing redemption and a new life, to be found in Christ alone? The differences in respect of natural goodness in that great crowd were obliterated by the levelling doctrines of universal guilt and alienation of heart from God, needing in every case to be met by Christs redemption, and by the renewing power of the Holy Ghost. And are we not all familiar with such language in Scripture as conversion, quickening regeneration? ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.” Not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, arc called.’ St Paul congratulated the Thessalonians because his Gospel came to them not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.’ The same Apostle tells the Corinthians that he was with them in weakness and in fear and in much tremblings and his spirit and his preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, Does this not clearly imply that the blessed impression which he sought to get producedj while preaching to them, could result only from a special action of God’s Spirit? and that while he abated no means within his power tending towards such impression, he went to work with the deep conviction, that should that special action of the Spirit not be bestowed, all his endeavours would be in vain?

But we have in Scripture a crucial case, as it may be called, the case of Nicodemus. Most remarkable it was that our Lord should have opened His conversation with him by the words, Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Why of all men should our Lord have made this

solemn statement to Nicodemus? There was in him, even amid his timidity much to be commended. A sericuSj earnest, religious man, with a great desire for light and truth, a profound anxiety about salvation, with many a good impulse, and day by day, doubtless, performing many an act of homage to conscience and to the law of God. Surely this was the very case, if ever one could be, in which there was need only that his good points should be more fully developed, his errors corrected, and an impulse given to his earnest aspirations for good. Yet it is just to this man that our Lord most emphatically lays down the doctrine that he must be born again. How can this be accounted for but on the principle that there may be much genuine desire for good, and in a sense practice of what is good, without the vital change that marks the, member of the kingdom of God; that in every case of entrance into that kingdom, it is not a tinkering up of the old nature, but the inspiration of a new spirit that takes place; that to be a Christian is not merely to be more in the habit than most people are of giving effect to the better impulses of one’s nature, but to be born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, of the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever? ’

It is strange that any should deny that this is the doctrine of the New Testament. It is not strange that those who judge of truth by their own impressions of the fitness of things should declare all this to be artificial and unnecessary, and should maintain that the natural influences which are at work in every heart in the direction of good, and which in a sense are divine influences, are alone needed for purifying and elevating the nature of man. But surely the teaching of Scripture to the contrary is as plain as can be conceived: ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold, all things are made new.^

The truth is, that those better impulses which remain partly in the heart of man, and constitute his natural virtue, are the results of a broken- connection between him and the One Fountain of

goodness. It is as if an artery carrying life-blood to a part of the human body had been cut nearly through and only such a fragment left as conveyed now and then a drop or two, contaminated moreover by contact with the festering wound, instead of an ever-flowing stream of pure and vital fluid. If a true vital connection between that part of the body and the heart is contemplated, a new artery, so to speak, is needed. So, in like manner, it is in a spiritual sense. No attempts to make the shattered arteries of human nature effectual for carrying life-blood from God to the soul can succeed. It is by a new channel the communication is now to be made. A man must be born of water and of the Spirit.^ The Gospel of Jesus Christ presents this new mode of bringing human souls into living fellowship with God. This is the Scriptural doctrine of regeneration. It is a new fellowship in the divine life, a new communication between the emptiness of humanity and all the fulness of God.

And this is but a very small part of the case. We have said that in mans nature as it now is, the communication with God has been broken, and anything of or from God that may remain in him is but as it were a few ruinous chips of a lost inheritance. But how much worse is the real state of the case! Man is not only separated from God, but alienated too. His will is not submissive to the Divine will. His inclinations are not in harmony with Gods commands. Disorder and corruption pervade his whole heart. Instead of his heart turning to God with that completeness of desire and longing which would enable him to draw everything from Him, it is turned the other way. The things of the world are sweet, and his heart goes without an effort after them; the things of God are unattractive, and only to be thought of under the constraint of conscience. God is not in all his thoughts. Religion is a penance; devotional duties a painful necessity.

To convince men of their need of regeneration, of their need of a fellowship with God which is not of the flesh but of the Spirit, is one of the most difficult but indispensable processes in the Christian religion. It is especially difficult in the case of those who are very careful of any natural impulses towards good which they may feel, and diligent in cultivating and strengthening them. Such persons are apt to become so self-righteous and self-satisfied as to present tremendous barriers to the special grace of the Holy Ghost. They are so satisfied with that which is born of the flesh as to see no need for that which is born of the Spirit. Ignorant of Gods righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. Indeed, there is no obstruction to the work of grace so serious as a state of self-satisfaction. No heart is less likely to open for receiving the stores of the kingdom of God than that which is well pleased with its own attainments. It is a fearful curse when a man who has in the main lived conscientiously and regularly is thereby lulled into the delusion that he has attained, and is already ’ well-nigh ’ perfect, It is an infinite blessing when his utmost efforts to do right have only shown him the utter insufficiency of his own powers; when all his attempts to restrain the wickedness of his heart have but convinced him what sorry work he can make of it at the best; and when the visions that float before him of a holier and more heavenly life serve only to increase the vehemence of his cries for a Divine righteousness to justify, a Divine Spirit to renew, and a Divine love to bless and satisfy him for ever.

And hence, in bringing about the great change, the first operation of the Spirit is commonly to show men their helplessness. And toward this many things may be made to conspire. A view of their sin may be given them, that makes them shudder at the thought that all their life long they have been so regardless of the, great God. A view of their danger may be given them, that pulls them up, as it were — arrests their attention, makes them tremble at the prospect of the wrath to come. A view of their spiritual feelleness may be given them, that makes them feel like children before a giant foe, and forces from the depths of their souls the cry for help. And they may have such a sense of forlornness and friendlessness, such an impression of being aliens and outcasts from all that is bright and glorious in the heavenly kingdom, as to feel as if plunged in a very sea of misery. The soul is now fairly prostrate before God, the spirit of self-satisfaction is humbled, the vessel is emptied of all that is born of the flesh, on purpose as it were to be replenished with that which is born of the Spirit.

Then comes, under the guiding hand of the Holy Ghost, a view of Christ. It may be, in a sense, only the old view — the view that in the letter, so to speak, has long been familiar, but not in the spirit; now, however, shining out with a new lustre, and a penetrating, persuasive light that reaches the very depths of the soul. Christ, the Propitiation, is revealed to them atoning for their sins by His obedience unto death; Christ, the Redeemer, rescuing them from all unholy influences, breaking the chains of their sin, and making them free indeed; Christ, the Purifier, washing them in His own blood from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit; Christ, the Teacher, making known to them words of truth and life that shall never pass away; Christ the Guide, the Way, the Truth, and the Life; Christ the Spouse, loving His church and giving Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. How thoroughly the remedy seems adapted to the disease! How admirably is such a Saviour, if He will but undertake the case, able to remove the manifold curse of sin!

But sometimes, even where there is produced the sense of guilt and helplessness on the one hand, and the view of Christ’s grace on the other, there is wanting the mysterious link by which the want of the sinner is actually brought into contact with, or supplied from, the grace of the Saviour. It is not enough that the Holy Spirit act on the conscience convincing of sin; or that He act on the under standing, enlightening it in the knowledge of Christ; there is further needed an action on the will disposing and enabling it to embrace Jesus Christ, the Saviour offered in the Gospel. Cases may occur, and they are most distressing while they last, in which the keenest sense of unworthiness and the clearest apprehension of the fitness of Christ are connected with a paralysis of the will, in consequence of which the unhappy sinner stands quivering on the edge of a gulf which he cannot get out of view, and under the very shadow of a Saviour to whose arms he cannot fly. The blessed change comes when the Spirit acts on the iv’ill, so influencing it in favour of Christ that all hesitation is abandoned, and the soul commits itself to its Saviour. Henceforth He is enshrined in the inmost sanctuary of the heart; the divine life begins in earnest; old things are passed away; all things are become new.

One thing must be very apparent, even from this bare outline — how different real conversion is from what is often supposed. Receiving certain dogmas into the creed — submitting ones self to certain religious forms — altering some of the grosser habits of one’s life — becoming more earnest in the battle of conscience against inclination — such is conversion in the view of many: but not such alone is conversion as set forth in the Word of God. The first step towards real conversion is to feel our need of it. Men even when respectable and moral, get accustomed to so low a standard of living, that nothing but a divine revelation can give them a due conception of the pure and lofty ideal to which they ought to aspire. What is it for a man to awake to the possibility of a divine life in the human soul? What is it for him to discover that the spirit within him is capable of an existence far above mere buying and selling, learning and teaching, loving and being loved in the ordinary sense? Is it a mere fevered dream that mocks him with the thought that it is possible for his soul to be cured of all its disorder, emptied of its meanness and bitterness, turned from its poor, earthly delights to objects of infinite worth, replenished with the pure affections of God Himself, and fitted, as far as a creature can be fitted, for pursuits and enjoyments corresponding to those of the Infinite Creator? Is the vision of such a life a mere mirage — a wild device of some bitter foe, trying how far he can raise him up towards heaven, as birds of prey are said to uplift crustacean animals, to shatter them by letting them fall? Is the whole doctrine of Christ and His redemption, so wonderfully adapted to realize all these soaring visions, the mere shadow of old Hebrew traditions, or the mere product of the speculations of theologians? Impossible! There is a glorious reality in these views of a life that may be, and in these views of the power of Jesus of Nazareth to raise one to such a life.

Only let one come to Him who is the Way to the Father, and all is sure. But how to come? How to get above that moral gravitation that drags the soul to earth, and paralyzes all its efforts to rise heavenwards? One thing is plain — there is no power on earth that can overcome gravitation. In the literal sense there is none and in the moral sense there is none. The power that overcomes gravitation must have its seat in heaven. From above must come the arm that uplifts man to the higher life. ‘Draw me, and we will run after thee.^ ‘Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens that thou wouldst come down! Innumerable are the difficulties and discouragements which are obviated by a distinct perception and a firm grasp of this truth. Struggling upwards in their own strength towards the kingdom of God, men find little or nothing to reward their efforts, but are painfully reminded how contrary the movement is to that which is natural to them. But opening our hearts to admit the kingdom of God within, standing at the foot of the ladder to receive what is borne to us by the descending angels, welcoming the grace which is Gods gift and which brings most glory to God when it is received as His gift, we may mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not be faint. Only then can we work out our own salvation, when God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Let our motto then be, Waiting and Working.’ Waiting for the divine supplies, and working by means of them. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the mind of man, what God hath prepared for him thatwaiteth on Him.^ ‘Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.’