Its Nature

“And Barnabas wert forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the church, and taught much people; and that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” — Acts 11. 25, 26

And Agrippa said unto Paul, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.” — Acts 26. 28

“But if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.”- — Peter 4. 16

3 HE disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make

me a Christian.” “If a man suffer as a Christian, let him

not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.”

These are the only occasions where the word “Christian”

occurs in the.New Testament. This word, occurring so rarely, and gradually passing into general use, has become almost commonplace. Yet the word in itself has a deep significance and suggestiveness. Seeing therefore that with the passing of the centuries the word has now come to be so widely used, it is interesting and valuable to go back to the beginnings, and consider what it meant in the early days.

The name by which the followers of Christ were most generally known at that period was that of disciples. They also spoke of themselves as believers, as brethren in Christ, as those who were of “the Way.” But they did not speak of themselves as Christians. The first time the word Christian is used, it is in the way of description. It has been said that these men of Antioch, proverbially witty and clever, created this as a term of opprobrium, a kind of nickname. I am not at all sure of the correctness of that view. It was certainly a name given to these followers of Christ by those who were without. The disciples did not call themselves Christians. They “were called Christians first in Antioch.” The people of Antioch observed these

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10. THE LIPE Of THE. CHRISTIAN

people, took note of them as to their conversation and their habits, and said, They are Christians. Those not themselves Christians were the first to apply the name to the followers of Christ, and it was intended to describe them.

The next occurrence of the word is where a king used it in a tone of supercilious contempt. The Revision has altered the text, and corrected a very popular misconception. Agrippa did not for a moment mean to say that Paul very nearly persuaded him to be a Christian. On the contrary, noticing the earnestness of Paul, and the aggressiveness ot his spirit, and having listened to his argument, in disdain for him the king said, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.”

Only once in the New Testament is the word “Christian” used of Christian people by a Christian. Peter made use of it in his Epistle, and yet even here, if the whole context be read, it will be found that in all probability he was quoting from others. Writing of the fact that believers suffer persecution on account of their pure ‘life, he declared that those outside would wonder that they did not run to every “excess of riot,” but he added, “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him glorify God in this name”; and thus it is seen that the expression is probably a quotation from the language of those outside. If it was intended that opprobrium should attach to it, then the apostle charged them not to be ashamed of it, but rather to glorify God in it. Let the name be used, and its true significance revealed.

These are the only occurrences in the New Testament, and yet the word has taken hold upontus, and now throughout the world the followers of Christ are spoken of as Christians. Thus the word has come to have a far wider meaning than it had when the men of Antioch used it ee

ITS NATURE se

to describe the disciples, when Agrippa used it in supercilious contempt, or when Peter used it recognising that

it was being made use of as a term of reproach.

If we examine these occasions of New Testament use, we shall find that all the values that attach to the name to-day are to be found in them in germ. First let us examine these instances carefully, in order that we may see how it was used at the beginning; and then let us go behind these early uses of the name, and find

out what it really meant. Thus I think we shall be able

to understand what the nature of the Christian life really is.

The fact that the term was first applied to the disciples by outsiders is in itself suggestive. Why did the men ot Antioch call these people Christians: There can be but one answer, a simple answer, and yet including the whole fact. They saw that these people had been with the Christ in spirit, if not in actual personality, and that they had learned of Him. They talked of Christ, lived for Christ, worked for Christ. They had caught His Spirit, they were occupied with His business, and were manifesting Him in character and conduct; and the men of Antioch said, These people are Christians, men connected with Christ in some way.

For a moment think of the story of the history of Antioch.

‘This was God’s new starting-point. The Church at Jerusalem had failed to obey the law. It had become self centred, conceited, and self-satisfied, interested only in the

movements emanating from its authority. This Church was the most dire and dismal failure, never realising its own privilege and power. Obedience to the Master’s plain injunction to begin at Jerusalem and to go to the uttermost part of the earth, was only realised as they were thé Baal of their life Eat oem to name oe Christians. Coming from outsiders, the name is of grea 2 value. The force of this fact may best be felt by asking, = ‘How many persons would name us Christians if we f. “not in so many words declare ourselves to be such? —. The supreme fact evident i in n the lives of these Bes

B oo Se called them Christians. Therefore the name first signified that these people manifested in outward life their elanets Ae ship to Christ. es aaales a Passing to the next occasion of the use of the Bik ee 3 find ourselves in the presence of a familiar and yet beautiful: - picture. Paul, with the chain of imprisonment upon him, is arguing his case before Agrippa. It is impossible to cops: that argument without discovering the fact that Paul was = far more anxious to bring Agrippa face to face with his Master, than he was to defend himself as in the presence 23 Of. Agrippa. I do not say that there is no defence of himself, for it is indeed a most remarkable one, showing Paul’s Se 5 mastery of the law of his people, and his understanding af 2 a the technicalities thereof, But surging through all is the — great passion of his heart so to present Christ, and tell dee story of his own life, as to compel men into a like loyalty

‘ tw to his beloved Lord, to capture men for Christ. This is

what impressed Agrippa. He saw most evidently in the

passion of the man as he talked, that his intention was to press him toward the Christ; and at last, looking upon the eloquent and earnest man, he said, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.” Agrippa was a remarkable man, learned in all matters of his people, acquainted with the prophets, as Paul indicates, and yet a man whose deeds must be nameless, a depraved dilettante, amusing himself for an odd hour with a notable case at law. But feeling the glow and fervour and enthusiasm of Paul he exclaimed, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.” He was astonished, surprised, perhaps startled, but supremely disdainful. In this use of the word we have a further revelation of what a Christian is. He is not only a disciple of Christ, himself loyal to

Christ, his own life centring about Christ; but one whose

passion and purpose is to bring men to Christ, one who so speaks of Christ as to recommend Him, and to constrain other people toward Him. It would perhaps be difficule to find a more superlative instance. This man Agrippa, with no intention or thought of Christianity as something to be impressed with, having not the slightest leaning toward Christ, simply listening to this prisoner, at last discovers what he is trying to do; and recognises, all unknowingly, one of the sure signs of a Christian, that of

‘desire to make some one else a Christian too.

We have thus in the second place the thought of propagandism. First, personal discipleship; and then the attempt to constrain some others to discipleship.

Then passing to the last instance we have still another suggestion. Peter’s use of the word suggests that a Christian

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is one who suffers the reproaches attached to Christ. This

is the whole argument of the section of the Epistle from which the quotation is made. The apostle recognises that there must be suffering and reproach for the name of Christ. Writing to believers, Peter says to them in effect, You are suffering reproach for the name of Christ. You are living in the midst of impurity the life of the pure; and the quality of your purity is not the quality of merely ethical morality, but the purity of separateness from all the things that are evil. Christians therefore are those who are separated from evil in-thought, in desire, in action; and who, because of that separation, will have to suffer reproach.

Thus we find in the use of the word fundamental truths concerning the nature of the life of the Christian. First, the Christian is a disciple of Christ, one whose whole life centres in Christ, and whose life circles about Christ, $0 that it becomes manifested to the world that that person is a follower of Jesus Christ. Secondly, the Christian is one who is not merely himself loyal to Christ, but into whose heart there has entered a great passion of desire to win others for Christ. In the third place, the Christian is one who, because of that devotion and loyalty to Christ, and the separation which it entails from the evil of the age, and the methods and the maxims of men, will suffer reproach for Christ, will be a puzzle to those about him, utterly misunderstood by them; and suffering reproach, will glory in it, will rejoice in the midst of it, counting the reproach of Christ as being of more value than all the treasures men hold most dear.

These are but the statements of the outward and evident facts. Behind them lies that which is causative. The profounder question is, What makes a Christian to be such a

ITS NATURE fe 6)

person as this? It is well sometimes to measure ourselves by the outside vision, but it is not always safe, if that is the only method. Let us consider this deeper fact. What made these people at Antioch such people that even the men of Antioch called them Christians? What made Paul so enthusiastic in the declaration of his message, that even Agrippa felt the constraint upon him toward Christ, even though he sneeringly put it away? What is it that makes people so separate from evil, and so devoted to Christ, - that they suffer reproach, and are content to suffer and glory in the same? The answer to these questions is to be found in the declaration of the fact that the secret lying behind all these external manifestations is that of Christ Himself formed in the believer. His living presence constrains to loyalty, creates compassion, and constitutes the cause and comfort of the sufferings.

No person is a Christian simply by contempuating Christ from the outside, and attempting to imitate Him. No study of the Christian fact, and acceptance of it intellectually, will ever be sufficient for the realisation of the ideals suggested by the New Testament use of the word. Not by imitation, nor by intellectual assent to all the truths of Christianity, does any one become a Christian.. If these three ideals are fulfilled it is because Christ Himself, the living, present, eternal Christ, has taken possession of the inner life, and from that centre directs, controls, suggests, and thus reveals Himself.

A Christian, then, is a revelation of Christ, because the Christ within shines through the whole external life.

There may be many who-think of themselves as Christians who are yet far from the fulfilment of this ideal. There is a broad sense in which they are correct. For instance, we speak of Christian nations, and’ of course there is a sense in which this is a correct description, inasmuch as the dominant religious idea of certain nations is’ Christian. Yet as to deepest meaning it is a degradation of the word to call any existing nation Christian. If the individual units composing the nation are considered, the larger proportion of people are not even avowedly Christian. And even taking the professing Church, it is very questionable whether a large number can truly be described as Christian. There is no Christian nation save that holy nation which is at the same time “an elect race, a royal priesthood ...a people for God’s own possession.”! It is an awful and terrible truth that the line of demarcation between the Church and the world has been almost obliterated. Many are Christians to-day because they are not Mohammedans or Hebrews.

A true Christian is one indwelt by and dominated by Christ, so that Christ is able to reveal Himself through that one. Remembering the great internal force of the indwelling Christ, directing, controlling, suggesting, and thus expressing Himself through His disciples, it becomes evident that when the men of Antioch looked they saw Christ. ‘That man is a Christian, a man of one idea, said they. He thinks of Christ, he speaks of Christ, he sings of Christ, he lives for Christ, he is like Christ, he is manifesting Christ, he is a, Christian. Wherever the life is under the control of Christ it is being transformed into the likeness of Christ. We cannot be Christians without Christ manifesting Himself in us. If He shall command us to love our enemies, and if in the power of His indwelling might we begin to do it, then we immediately manifest Him through such action.

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ay The Master said, “I am the Light of the world,”? but He also said to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world.” The only way in which a Christian is the light of the world is by the Christ life being his life, and so shining through him. It is not a case of reflection merely. It is the actual outshining of the Christ life within. The men of Antioch named these men Christians, not merely because they were Christ’s men and Christ’s women in the sense of property, but because, being under the immediate government of the indwelling Christ, He was revealed through their life and service.

So also with the second phase of suggestion. Look again at the man standing before the king, wearing his chain, and pleading his cause. What is it makes this man so much in earnest, so persuasive as he tells the story of his own experience? It is inxpossible to contemplate him without seeing that the indwelling Saviour looks through his eyes, and loves Agrippa through his heart, and longs after him through his desire. Paul’s passion to persuade Agrippa is - Christ’s passion to save him. It was Christ in Paul who argued, and spoke, and constrained, and manifested tenderness. It was under the spell of Christ in Paul that Agrippa passed, when resisting that spell he said, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.”

We lack here even more than in the first respect. We have come to speak of winning souls as the business of evangelists. While I still believe God gives some men special gifts by the Holy Spirit, equipping them for the work of evangelists, every Christian ought to be an evangelist, if the evangel has taken possession of the life. The first business of every Christian is that of drawing others to Jesus Christ,

1John 8. 12; 9. § 2Matt. 5. 14 by a great burning passion bringing men into the liberty, the love, the light, the joy, until even Agrippa, the dilettante and debased, feels the drawing toward Christ.

And yet once more. Why is it that men suffer reproach for Christ: It is the reproach of Christ that they suffer. Do not minimise that statement. It is not merely reproach for Christ, it is the reproach of Christ. That very separation from evil which stirred enmity in the heart of man against Christ is the condition of life which creates reproach for the believer. The purity which contradicts impurity, the light which reveals darkness, the separateness to God which is a perpetual rebuke to rebellion against God; this, which in the life of Jesus issued in the Cross, being reproduced in the life of the believer, is the occasion of reproach and suffering. There is a morality to-day that makes its boast, and claims to stand side by side with Christianity, yet which is no more akin to the purity of Jesus Christ than the feeble rushlight is to the sunlight. There is a morality which is merely morality conditioned by the existence of the policeman, but it cannot be compared with the purity of Jesus Christ. His was the purity of eternal life, of spiritual consciousness. His was not the purity which drew Him away from men. It was a purity so positive, and high, and spiritual, a purity that consisted of such intimate intercourse with God and heaven and eternity, that He could talk to publicans and sinners and harlots, and maintain His uprightness and integrity and reputation; even when a few cynical and critical Pharisees, whose whole idea of righteousness was that which consisted in externality, said of Him, “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them,”* by which they meant to say, “If He touches

ILuke 15. 2 pitch, He will be contaminated.” Yet the general concensus of opinion is that He stood alone in His purity, a purity separate from evil, that enabled Him to touch all the common-places of life. |: These men to whom Peter wrote were living in that realm of purity, measuring everything by the standards of - eternity, bringing all the details of life into the light of the. infinite, until there breathed through their everyday living the very genius of spiritual and eternal verities. And no - one can begin to live like that without suffering reproach. When there comes into the life the aloofness that sets men away from the world, enabling them to touch it only to deliver it, then they will be marked off as Puritanical, a little peculiar. The age of persecution has not passed, though the external manifestations of persecution may be different.

So through all these illustrations this is seen, that the Christian is one in whom Christ dwells, and through whom Christ lives and works and speaks. The indwelling Christ compels the loyalty of life and will, and a Christian is such because his whole life circles around the indwelling Christ, and his whole heart is filled with Christ’s compassion, and his whole life is poured forth in sacrificial service.

A Christian is a Christ one. That may not be correct from the standard of etymology, and yet it is the true meaning of the word. A Christ one is one in whom Christ, the spiritual and the eternal, repeats the human life which he lived and manifested in the world. “With Christ as the indwelling Lord, the Christian is a disciple. With Christ as the indwelling compassion, the Christian is a worker. With Christ as the indwelling purity, the Christian must bear His reproach, and yet glory in it as the highest honour.

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20 THE “OUPE. COFFS THE VORRISTEAN

To sum up. The nature of the Christian life is Christ’s life taking hold upon all the inner life of man, changing, dominating, impulsing. Or again, a Christian is one in whom Christ is formed, through whom Christ is manifested, with whom Christ co-operates, and to whom Christ grants a fellowship in His sufferings.

All these truths lie in germ in the incidental — I do not think accidental — use of the word “Christian” in the New Testament. Granted the primal fact of the indwelling Christ, the three facts suggested always result. The indwelling Christ masters the life, and reveals Himself through the mastered life. The indwelling Christ creates the new desire, the new aspiration, the new passion, that drives the one indwelt along the path of service. The indwelling Christ gives new satisfaction in purity, and makes it impossible for the one indwelt to share in the things of evil, and so brings upon that one the very reproach that rested upon the Lord Himself.

It is seen, therefore, and-I do not think we can be too careful in emphasising this, that Christian life is neither human imitation of Christ, nor correct intellectual positions concerning Christ. Neither is it a cult, or a system of thought. I may attempt to imitate Christ very sincerely through long years, and yet never be a Christian. I may hold absolutely correct intellectual views concerning Christ as a Person, and His power, and yet never be a Christian. It is possible for me to admire Him, and to attempt with all the power of my life to imitate Him, and yet never realise Him. Yet let it be speedily added, no one has ever attempted this without learning the impossibility of the task. Any person continuing long in an attempt to imitate merely proves by such action that the Christ has never really been

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Saas seen. To see Him in all the perfection of His character and the radiant splendour of His personality is at once to recognise the absolute futility of all attempts to imitate Him.

Neither is the nature of the Christian life that of holding the truth about Christ. It is quite possible for a person to believe most sincerely in His Deity, and in the fact of His atoning work, and, moreover, in the necessity for regeneration and yet never be submitted to His Lordship, never to have personal share in the work of His atonement,

- never to be born again.

Nothing short of the coming into the life of the individual of Christ Himself constitutes a Christian.

If Jesus Christ is external to your life there will be moments when the world will not see Him and hear Him, and will not know you belong to Him. But if Christ be in you, living, reigning there absolutely, and you are obeying Him, there never will be a moment when the truth will not be evident. You cannot hide Christ if once He comes within. If the light be there, it simply must shine. There is no such thing as long-continued secret discipleship. Nicodemus will be a secret disciple, and so will Joseph of Arimathza, but when the crisis comes, and all the rest have run away, they will beg the Master’s body, and bear it tenderly to the burial.

There is an applicatior. of a saying of Jesus, which while not the immediate one intended, is nevertheless true to the principle mvolved. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”* There is of course no doubt that Christ here referred to Himself, and to the fact of His approaching death. Take the figure, however, and think

1 John 12. 24 of it for a moment quite apart from its setting, and as revealing principles at once simple and sublime. In a corn of wheat there is the very principle of life, and therefore the possibility of a great harvest. It lies within the grain in potentiality, but there can be no harvest until that grain is sown, and passing through death, it emerges into the manifold life. Two things are required, first there must be the grain, but secondly the grain must be planted. If there is to be a harvest of Christian character in individual life, there must first be the grain, containing the life principle. It is not enough to have the germ principle in mind and intellect. It must be planted in the life. Christ must be formed within by the communication of Himself, first in the realm of identification with His death on the Cross, and then in the spacious glory of union with Him in the triumph of His resurrection.

Here we have reached the realm of mystery, and it is quite conceivable that some inquiring heart will say, How can these things be? By such question two things may be intended. If the question is as to what are the conditions upon which these things may be, it can be answered. If on the other hand, the question asks the explanation of the process of the Spirit in the communication of the Christ life, there is no answer. None can perfectly understand that act of the Spirit of God in which He communicates to the individual soul the very Christ life itself. That it is done upon certain conditions is, however, absolutely certain, and, moreover, the conditions are clearly stated. In that moment when the soul submits to the claim of Christ, Christ is formed within by the Holy Spirit. Directly there is submission to Him as the absolute Lord of life, and trust teposed in Him for the putting away of sin, and for the communication of life, then, by a process utterly beyond the explanation of men, the Spirit communicates Christ’s life, and Christ begins to live and reign and work in the soul of the submitted and trusting one. There can be no simulation of this life of Christ. It must be Christ in us.. Holiness is not it. It is Him! Purity is not an abstract quality communicated as apart from Christ. It is Christ in the life, “breathing through the pulses of desire, His coolness and His balm,” quenching passion’s fires, and light- ing the new fires of God, and of holy aspiration.

Now are you inclined to say, That does not satisfy me, I cannot be a Christian because I cannot understand the process? Then I would remind you that you are asking for something in the matter of the Christian life that you never ask for in any other realm. Do you refuse to submit to Christ because you do not understand how Christ’s life and Christ’s purity can be communicated to you: Then on the same basis you must refuse to love flowers, for you cannot understand the mystery of the life of a flower. It is not merely in this fact of the Christ life that there is — mystery. No man has ever yet explained the mystery of the simplest form of life. What is life after allz It is said that a German chemist sat in his laboratory for forty years’ engaged in one experiment alone, Was he successful z Never! For forty years he attempted to take the constituent parts of matter, and so to mix them as to produce life. Analysing the germ he declared he found carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, and he imagined that if he could only find the proper proportion of these, life would be the result, but he never succeeded. Life is a mystery. It cannot be explained.

So also in the Christian faith, The communication of s ee ae eS oe eee a fo pE tS ee; a ite Se i mi - ee er 2. Hs? the Christ life is full of mystery, and I pray you ever distrust the man who imagines he perfectly understands it. A mystery truly, and yet a fact demonstrated by the experience of centuries. Take but one illustration. Here is a life mastered by evil passion, that life is brought to Christ submitted to Christ. With what result: It is wholly changed, and that by an internal power, surprising the man himself as he finds himself mastered by a new life which in turn makes him master of the very things that have held him in bondage. That is the real nature of Christianity. ‘Wherever a soul submits to Christ, Christ passes into actual possession of the life, and an existence begins which is entirely new, and which is in perfect harmony with the Christ Himself.

Under the control of the indwelling Christ a man becomes a disciple, and the men of Antioch, or any other city, will say, That is a Christian. Under the control of the indwelling Christ he begins to live in order to lead people to Christ, and Agrippa, or other men will say, Wouldest thou persuade me to be a Christian? And he will answer, Yes, that is the passion of my being. Under the constraint of the indwelling Christ he will be delivered from the evil things around, and there will come to him the reproach of Christ, and he will not be ashamed but glory rather in that reproach.

The nature of Christianity is Christ in the life, and therefore I make this appeal. Do not attempt to be a Christian by correcting the circumference of your life. Let Christ come into its centre, and He will correct the circumference. You cannot make a circle by commencing with the circumference. You must first set one leg of your compasses at the centre. It is said that only one artist ever produced

oe on as eases f a perfect circle, and perhaps the round O of Giotto was after all but a freak. In the spiritual realm to work at the circumference of things for their correction is the most

utter folly. Let Christ be the living Centre, and the life

under His control will be corrected in all the sweep of its circumference. The nature of the Christian life is Christ. To that nothing can be added.