The Christian Life and How to Live It

Several years ago I published in England a little book with the title, “Royal and Loyal,” consisting of addresses and Bible readings given in various places. As this book is now out of print, the addresses are here reproduced, together with two additional ones (forming chapters I and II).

The one theme running through the book is the Christian life, with its twofold attitude toward God and toward man, involving both the Lordship of Christ and the loyalty of Christians. “To this end Christ both died and lived again that He might be Lord” (Rom. 14:9); “Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am” (John 13:13); “Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say.’*” (Luke 6:46).

That these chapters in their new form may help every reader to experience and enjoy all that God has provided and intends for us in Christ, is the writer’s prayer.

*’Thou art permitted to speak for thyself I

beseech thee to hear me patiently.” — -Acts xxvi. 1, 3.

THE question “What is Christianity?’’ has been very prominent of late years in the minds of men. Scholars in several lands have been writing on “The Essence of Christianity/* The question is a natural and necessary one, and certainly most important. What is Christianity? Not what is its irreducible minimum, not how little a man may accept, and yet be a Christian, but what are the characteristic and distinctive elements of Christianity, what must he accept if he would really profess and call himself a Christian? One of the best ways to answer this question is to take the life, or some point in the life, of one of the finest men and truest Christians that ever lived, the Apostle Paul, and try to discover what Christianity meant to him. We may do this in a variety of ways but for the present we confine ourselves almost entirely to one episode in the Apostle’s life his appearance before Agrippa and Festus as recorded in Acts xxvi. In this remarkable story we have a striking picture of St. Paul. As a man he is seen at his best. There is no constraint in his utterances; he is in his element; the subject suits him and he yields himself to it, and the result is this magnificent apologia. As we listen to him, we can see something of the reality of his splendid manhood, and are reminded of the well-known words:

“The elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, ‘This was a man.’”

This is all the more noteworthy when we remember that the man before whom he stood was one of earth’s meanest creatures. And it would almost seem as if St. Paul realised this, for, as we listen to him, we forget the first picture of Paul the man, and become wholly absorbed in the second and larger view of Paul the Apostle. He goes far beyond a mere defence of himself, and pleads for the Master Whom he loved and served. As though realising the characters and lives of Agrippa and Bernice, he proclaims the everlasting Gospel, and thus we have not simply a picture of Paul the prisoner, defending and justify-What Is Chrkticmity? 9

ing himself; but chiefiy a picture of Paul the advocate, proclaiming and defending his Master. Paul at the bar of Agrippa becomes merged into the far nobler scene of Christianity at the bar of the world. Christianity speaks here in the person of Paul, and in the opening words of the chapter we have the salient features of its message.

CHRISTIANITY HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

“Thou art permitted to speak,” said Agrippa: and if only the world allows this to Christianity, it mil speak, for it has something to say. It has a threefold Gospel.

The Gospel of the Resurrection. This was the basis and burden of the Apostolic message, “Jesus and the Resurrection.’’ “Why,” said Paul to Agrippa, “should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead.’*” On the fact of the Resurrection the Apostles took their stand, and preached it everywhere. This message of the Resurrection was the cause of all the opposition they encountered, especially from the Jewish rulers, who were angered by the proclamation of the Risen One of Nazareth. Now we naturally enquire why the Resurrection should have caused such enmity and persecution. Because of that which it implied, the Godhead of Jesus Christ. The opposers knew very well that to accept the Resurrection was to accept Christ as God for by the Resurrection all His claims were irrefragably established. And this too, was the reason of the prominence of the Resurrection in the Apostolic preaching, the witness it bore to the Godhead of Christ. It proclaimed Him to be God, and as God Whom the world needs; not some distant Being, Who, having created the world, is no longer intimately concerned with it; but God Who is near, approachable, available for our every-day life. Three times in one epistle St. Paul calls the Gospel “the Gospel of God,” and this not only because it comes from God, but because it declares Him. God, as the Source of life and power, was proclaimed in the Resurrection of Christ, and this is the first part of that “something” which Christianity has to say.

The Gospel of the Kingdom, The words of St. Paul (in verse 15,) clearly show that acceptance of Christ as God carried with it the acceptance of Him as Lord and Master, and implied the acknowledgment of our position as subjects and servants. Since Christ is God, He is supreme, He is King and Ruler, and we are His subjects, and consequently, through the Acts of the Apostles, we find clear and significant reference to the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is at once present and future. Our Lord’s conversations before His Ascension were concerned with it. Philip preached

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it in Samaria St. Paul at Ephesus did likewise, and the last words of the book show St. Paul at Rome ‘preaching the kingdom of God.” These men were not afraid of the logic of their belief, the outcome of their fundamental doctrines. “Is Christ God.f* Then I am His subject.” They realised and preached Christ, Who because He is God claims men as His own, claims to rule over their lives, not only bestowing upon them the privileges, but calling for the performance of the duties of their heavenly citizenship. The Gospel of the Kingdom is the second part of that “something” which Christianity has to say.

The Gospel of Pardon. This, as verse 18 shows, was also an integral part of the Apostolic preaching. Men are rebels against God by reason of sin; and rebels cannot possibly become subjects of His Kingdom until they are pardoned — until they have submitted and surrendered their lives to Him. Unless the rebellion of sin is quelled in man, there can be no entrance into God’s Kingdom, no acceptance of Christ as God. And so the Apostle Paul preached everywhere the forgiveness of sins. The burden of his message was, “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He preached a full, free, present, assured, everlasting pardon: and this is the third part of that “something” which Christianity has to say.

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