Creed and Conduct
Titus iii. 8
“These things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.” — Titus iii. 8.
HE very obvious peculiarity of this letter and of the two to Timothy, which are commonly called the pastoral epistles, is the prominence which is given in them to practice. It has been alleged that therein they betray another hand than that of Paul’s. But if we consider the circumstances under which they all three were written, especially this one to Titus, the distinction between them and Paul’s other letters will appear extremely natural. The little churches in the island of Crete were, I suppose, very much like some of our mission stations, comprising a handful of simple people with¬ out much education and with a great many of the chips of the old shell sticking to them still, and of the vices of heathenism lingering amongst them. And so to Titus, who was sent to look after them, and, if necessary, to rebuke them sharply, there is given a message which lays all stress upon common morality as the most acceptable Christian worship, and the test of all professions of faith. But that morality, which the Apostle so vehemently and constantly insists upon in this letter, is based upon the very same doctrines which fill his other letters. And the close connection between his theology and good works, which is the key-note of this epistle, is all concentrated in the words of our text — “These things I will that thou affirm constantly.”
The things that Titus is to “affirm constantly,” as we shall see presently, are the doctrines of Christianity. What for? “In order that they which have believed
in God” might be orthodox? Guarded against heresies? Certainly! But something more than that. In order that they might “give their minds to being foremost,” as the word might be rendered, “in good works.” That is what you are to preach your theology for, says Paul; and the only way to make sure that your converts shall live sober and righteous lives is to see that they be thoroughly saturated in the great and recondite truths which I have taught you. So there are two or three thoughts here worth looking at, and the first of them is this.
I. — The Gospel is degraded unless it is asserted strongly.
“These things I will that thou affirm constantly”; or, as the word might be rendered, “asseverate pertinaciously,” persistently, positively, affirm and assert constantly and confidently. That is the way in which Paul thinks it ought to be spoken.
“These things.” What things? Well, here they are, “After that the kindness and love of God our
CREED AND CONDUCT.
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Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, hut according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” There are all the fundamentals of evangelical Christianity packed into three verses. They are all there — man’s sin, man’s need, the Divinity of J esus Christ, His sacrificial death, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the act of faith, the inheritance of eternal life. And these are the things which are to be asserted with all the energy and persistency and decisiveness of the speaker’s nature. Paul did not believe in fining them down because people did not like them. He did not believe in consulting the “spirit of the age,” except thus far, that the more the spirit of the age was contrary to the truth, the more need for the men that believed it to speak out. For there are two ways by which a Christian teacher may shape his teaching in deference to prevailing tendencies: the one is by combating them, and the other is by conforming to them. The shabby way, the short-sighted way, which never comes to any good, is the latter — conforming and toning down, keeping your thumb upon unfashionable aspects of the truth. And the other is the manly way, the honest way, that God blesses — speaking out the word and not pretending to be doubtful about it, because it is unfashionable nowadays to be sure of religious truth, and a reproach to be “dogmatic.”
Speak it out, and remember it is as the Apostle says here in the context, “a faithful saying”; or, as we might render it, a faithful message. Then, if it is a message, the messenger’s business is to deliver it as received, and its sender’s business, not his, is to look after it when delivered. And if it is a “faithful message,” then it ought to be asserted on lips that are eloquent because they are believing; and to come, not as a word of the speaker’s own, or the result of his thinking, or with a “perad venture,” but as with the force of the “Verily! verily! I say unto you” of the Incarnate and personal Truth Himself.
Oh! if Christian ministers and teachers, and Christian professors, in this day and generation, would drink in more of the spirit of that word of my text, and assert thoroughly, constantly, and confidently the truth, and not go about apologizing for the faith, and seeking to buttress it up with their poor arguments, perhaps there would be a larger and more blessed sense of His presence with His preached Word.
II. — Then, again, there is another thought here worth considering — viz., that this positive assertion of the truths of revelation is the best foundation to lay for practical godliness.
“I will that these things thou affirm constantly, in order that they which have believed might be careful to maintain good works.” Now, we are often told that our evangelical teaching is far away from daily life, and some people go the length of saying that the central doctrine of the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ is an immoral doctrine. I am not going to discuss the latter statement now. If the former one is ever true, it is the fault of the preacher, not of the message. Rightly understood and presented, the great body of truth which we call the Gospel, and
CREED AND CONDUCT.
which is summarized in the preceding context, grips, daily life very tightly, while, on the other hand, of all the impotent things in this world, none are more impotent than exhortations to be good, which are cut away from the great truths of Christ’s mission and work. The world has been listening to these ever since it was a world, and it is not a bit better for them all. There is only one thing that supplies the requisite motive power for practical godliness, and that is the gospel of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His indwelling in our hearts. The motives that the Gospel gives for goodness, for holiness, for purity, for self-sacrifice, for consecration, for enthusiasm, forwidespread sympathy and benevolence, for contempt of the material and the perishable — the motives that it gives for all things that are lovely and of good report — are the strongest that can ever be brought to bear upon men,, as regards their fulness, their depth, their sweetness, and their transforming energy. I am sure you may go on preaching to men till Doomsday “Be good! be good! be good!” and they will be never a hair the better for all your preaching. If you want to make good men, preach Christ’s grace. If you want to have the daily life pure, let it be rooted in the great love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Go to Him for the rules, and to Him for the motives. For there, and there only, men will find that which they need to make the things which they know well enough they ought to do, sweet and possible for them. We shall be good when we have given ourselves up to Christ. And I do not believe that we shall ever be unless we have.
Then, if it be true that the best foundation for all practical goodness is in the proclamation and the possession of the great message of Christ’s love, two things follow. One is that Christian people ought to familiarize themselves with the practical side of their faith, just as Christian ministers ought to he in the habit of insisting, not merely upon the great revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ, but upon that revelation considered as the motive and the pattern for holy living.
And another consequence is that here is a rough but a pretty effective test of so-called religious truth. Does it help to make a man better? It is worth something if it does; if it does not, then it may be ruled out as of small consequence. Short work that makes of a great many of the things which are called religious controversies — squabbles about ecclesiastical matters, and the mere externals and fringes of our faith. The one question, the answer to which may guide a plain man through many perplexities is this — Does that so-called truth help me to be like Jesus Christ? Be sure you get all the practical force that is in it out of what you do believe, and sit very loose in regard to the things about which it will not alter your conduct one iota, which side of the question you may stand upon. The Apostle goes on to say, after my text, “these things:’ — by which he means that august procession and constellation of Divine truth the heads of which I have read to you — “these things are good and profitable to men.” And the other things that he talks about immediately afterwards are condemned and declared to be “vain,” because they have no practical force in them; and it does not matter a rush to human conduct whether they are true or whether they are not. What a quantity of so*
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called religious speculation and talk is condemned by the application of that text!
HI. — Then, further, the true test and outcome of professing faith is conduct. In the text the fact that these Cretan Christians “believed in,” or rather, perhaps, we should translate simply, “believed God,” is given as a reason why they ought to maintain good works. That is to say, those who profess to have Him for their Lord and Father, those who avow that they ■nre Christians are by that profession bound to a conduct corresponding to the truth which they say they have received; and to conformity to the will of the God in whom they say that they have believed. Religious knowledge is all very necessary, but what is it for? It is to make us like God. Religious emotion is very necessary too, and very delightful. It is right that Christian men should feel the glow of love and gratitude, the joy of forgiveness, the lofty and often unspeakable delights of calm communion with Him. All these are essential parts of a deep and true Christian character, but all these are for a purpose. If we are Christians we know God and we feel the emotions of the religious life, in order that we may be and that we may do. “Conduct,” as one of the apostles of this generation used to be fond of saying, “Conduct is three-fourths of life.” And what we have to do, as Christian men, is to bring the great principles of the Gospel to bear upon our small duties, and day by day to feel that, because we say we have faith in Jesus Christ, therefore we are bound to cultivate all manner of holiness and purity.
Only let us remember that we have to take that phrase “good works,” not in the vulgar, modern sense by which it is limited to acts of benevolence and Christian charity, but in a very much wider sense. If you will take this little epistle and read it over for this one purpose, to find out what Paul meant by “good works,” you will have to widen your notions considerably beyond that superficial definition of them, They do not consist of giving away garments, tracts, money, sympathy, or any of those other forms of charity which have usurped the title; but they are deeds like this. “That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise ... as becometh holiness... that the young women be sober, to
love their husbands and their children... that
the young men be sober-minded... and that
.servants be obedient.” All these homely things, common secular virtues as people think them, are included in, and are the chief part of, the New Testament notion of good works. Every work is “good” which is done for love of Christ, whether its visible object be the poor, whom “ye have always with you,” or our superiors, or our dear ones, or our¬ selves. “She hath wrought a good work in Me,” said Jesus, flinging the shield of His approval over Mary, and therein implying that to be wrought on or with regard to Him makes all work good, and that nothing else does. Such good works require faith in these great and wonderful truths which Paul has been enumerating. Nothing else will make our barren natures bear such fruit, and every man who says that he has faith in these truths is bound to bring forth such, in order to show his faith.
Ah! Christian people, if only we realized as we ought to do what the obligations of our faith are; if we only made our own, as we might do, the power to fulfil its obligations thus stored in the truths that we profess to believe, there would be fewer of us professing Christians who would be put to shame by the non-professor that comes to us and says, “Thou hast faith, and I have works; show me thy faith without thy works” — which is the only way that you seem to be able to show it — “and then I will show thee my faith by my works.”
Brother! “they which believe in God” are largely self-deceived or insincere if they do not set the broad seal of their works to their confession of faith.
IV. — And now, lastly, there is another truth here, and that is, that no one will keep up these good works who does not give his mind to it.
“That they... might be careful to maintain.”
The word that the Apostle employs is a very remarkable one, only used in this one place in the New Testament; and the force of it might be given by that colloquialism which I have ventured to employ — “Giving their minds to maintaining good works.” You have to make a business of it if you would succeed in it. You have to make a definite effort to bring before you the virtues and the excellencies which you ought to possess, and then to try your best to have them. I wonder how many of us have ever honestly sat down and said to ourselves, “Now, there is this, that, and the other type of excellence of character which I know is very unlike my natural disposition, and I must try to acquire it.” Have you given — not a lazy thought now and then — but your attention, and the directing of honest efforts to this one point of making a whole circle of goodness in your character complete, round and round? As it is, the best of us have little segments, as it were, and then great gaps. Try to make the perfect round, and remember you will not do it unless you try, and try prayerfully and intelligently and constantly, and as a matter of business — of more importance, a great deal, than it is to make money.
And my text suggests one chief means of securing that result, and that is, the habit — which I am afraid is not a habit with a great many professing Christians — the habit of meditation upon the facts of the Gospel revelation looked at in their practical bearing on our daily life and character.
We should bring ourselves into that atmosphere, and saturate our minds and hearts with the thoughts of God’s great love to us in Jesus Christ’s death for us, of the pattern of His life, of the gift of His Spirit, of the hope of the inheritance of eternal life. We should, by frequent meditation, submit ourselves to the power of these sacred thoughts, and we shall find that in them, one by one, are motives which, twisted together, will make a cord of love that shall draw us up out of the pit of selfishness and the mire of sense, and shall attract us joyfully along the path of obedience, else too hard for our reluctant and unaccustomed feet. “Draw us, and we will run after Thee.” Jesus draws us with the cords of love, and the truths which make His Gospel constrain with blessed constraint to the free service of sons, and secure the growth on the barren stock of human nature of else impossible fruit.