Its Value

“And He said unto them, [t is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within His own authority. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judzea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” — Acts 1. 7, 8 “So, then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and questionings; that ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.” — Phil. 2. 12-16

OF all the’ facts concerning the Divine method in creation, none is more perpetually evident, or needs more constant enforcement, than that of purpose, lying within potentiality. In other words, no creation of God fulfils its highest exercise of being, save in relation to existences other than its own. No creation of God is self centred and self-sufficient. Of God alone can these conditions of being be affirmed. Everything which He has created, from a flower to an archangel, is created for a purpose. Each flower fulfils a ministry in the very fact of its blossoming, and every angel is a flame of fire for the purpose of ministry. When man perfectly understands creation he will clearly see that the most insignificant and apparently useless forms of life have some part to play in the great economy of God. The Divine ideal of humanity is that of its solidarity, and although through sin, factions and strifes have destroyed the ideal, yet the proportion in the passing of the centuries in which man has secured his own well-being is the proportion in which he has learned the relationship of each to all, and the contribution of all to each. Power for the fulfilment of the purpose of the thing created always lies within it. It is invariably possible for every work of God to fulfil the purpose of its being. These principles obtain in the spiritual realm as certainly as in every other. Christ did not come to destroy or set aside any principle of Divine creation, or of government,

but to recognise and realise. Every Christian, therefore, has a value in his day and generation, and the proportion = in which the life of Christ is reproduced in the individual is the proportion in which that value is realised. As we have seen, the Christian is one sharing the life of Christ. That life being diligently sustained and clearly expressed, it will fulfil definite functions.

In the commencement of the Colossian Epistle which deals principally with the glory of Christ, the apostle referring to creation declares that “He is the first born of all creation,”? and dealing with His relation to the Church, he speaks of Him as the “Firstborn from the dead.”* Of the wonderful realm which we call nature, Christ is the firstborn. He is the origin of all the varied forms of beauty with which we are familiar in Nature. It is in Him that they consist, or hold together. It is, moreover, for Him they were and have been created. Thus the great principle of purpose within potentiality manifest in Nature is directly related to the originating and sustaining Christ.

In the realm of the new creation He is firstborn from the dead. So that here also the truth of purpose and ot power is immediately related to Him. The new life or the Christian is life which He won out of death. As in every flower related to Him there is a purpose fulfilled in its blossoming, so in every new-born life related to Him as life out of death, there is a purpose to be fulfilled and power equal to its fulfilment. We are not simply saved that we may be saved. We are saved rather that we may serve. Thus in every soul indwelt and governed by Christ, there is that which is of value to God Himself.

In the Ephesian Epistle, which is the complement to that

1Col. 1. 15 2Col. 1. 18 to the Colossians, we find the remarkable declaration that God has an inheritance in His people, that is, that God gains something in His people. A study of the whole context will show that He gains nothing of glory, nothing of enrichment, but a medium through which He is able to manifest His glory and show forth the riches of His grace. While the great fulfilment of its purpose will never be realised until the Church is-perfected in its union with Christ in the ages to come, it is nevertheless true that in measure the principle is fulfilled even here and now in every Christian soul. The very fact of living the Christ life does in itself fulfil a purpose, and in all such living there is value in the economy of God. In the truest and deepest sense of the word Christian service is not something externally added to Christian life. It is a service rendered in the very act of life. Each Christian by being a Christian in all the full sense of the word, is exerting the power of God for the accomplishment of His purpose. It is the value of such living that we are now to consider. Given the life whose nature is Christ, whose sustenance is Christ, whose expression is Christ, whose consciousness is Christ, and whose testing is the testing of the Christ life, such life has a definite present value in the world. The value is threefold, and may broadly be described as that of testimony, of activity, and of vindication.

The life of the Christian is a perpetual testimony in the world to certain great truths. It is, moreover, an unceasing co-operation with God; and finally it is, through such testimony and such co-operation, a vindication of God in the midst of godlessness.

The Christian life is first a testimony to the reality of spiritual things. It will at once be seen how close a congO THS LIfe. OF) TRE CHRIST PAN

nection there is between this thought and that of the consciousness of the Christian dealt with previously. That consciousness is of God, and of eternity, the overwhelming certainty in the life of the reality of the things unseen, eternal, and spiritual. A Christian soul, sharing Christ’s consciousness, believes far more in God Who is unseen, than in anything which can be seen; is far more certain of the infinite unseen, than of the finite seen. A Christian is more sure of God than of men, of eternity than of time,

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of the spiritual than of the material. All this is, of course, —

diametrically opposed to the consciousness of a man of the world. He is not sure of God; is, indeed, an agnostic, yet imagines himself to be perfectly sure of man. He is not sure of eternity, but feels quite sure of time. He is by no means convinced of the reality of spiritual things, but is sure of things material. This contrast at once reveals the fact of testimony. The life of the Christian is a witness amid material things to the reality of the spiritual. I do not here merely mean that the Christian in speech will refer to God, to heaven, to spiritual things. All that he will assuredly do, but testimony in speech is of no avail save as the life of the one who speaks is being lived in actual relation to the things of which he speaks. It is this life of conscious relationship which is the most powerful testimony to the reality of these things. The essential greatness of the Puritans was that of their recognition of the spiritual realm, and of the eternities. They had their roughnesses, which, after all, were but the excrescences of greatness, but they were men whose lives were centred in God, and circumferenced by the spiritual: Yet they were no dreamers, having lost their consciousness of, and sympathy with, the actualities of the passing day. As we look back

f on them through the centuries they are seen as giants, whose feet were firmly planted upon the earth, but whose heads ever seemed lifted into the heavenly spaces. They acted, they suffered, they even fought, but behind everything, as impulse of all, was a consciousness of God, and the value of spiritual things. Notwithstanding all the limitations of their age, they were such men as broke down tyrannies, emancipated peoples, and laid broad and strong the foundations of new nations. They did not retire from the midst of the corruption of the world, and give themselves to ascetic practices. They rather laid violent hands upon the world, wrestled with its problems, combated its corruptions, and breathed into it the very spirit of life. Believing in God, they talked of Him, and toiled for Him. Having seen the vision of “the city that hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God,”* through strain and stress and storm they wrought toward the establishment upon this earth of conditions corresponding thereto. How well they wrought, the centuries have told. Let their children ever be careful that on such foundations they build not hay, and wood, and stubble, but gold, silver, and “precious stones.

Every devout Christian is in these deeper senses of the word a Puritan, not perhaps resembling them in some of the accidental peculiarities of their age, but in essential testimony borne to the reality of the eternal, the unseen, the spiritual. A Christian, then, is one who lives among men, prosecuting his ordinary business, or professional avocation within the spaciousness of spiritual sight. A Christian will take hold of every duty, and fulfil it, recognising its relation to an infinite order. In the simplest

4 Heb. 11. 19

-. matters this will be true. In the selection of a dwelling-place the infinite will never be lost sight of. Alas that this should so often be forgotten, and that by those professing

to be Christians. In the choice of a house the principle of

selection is so constantly material. The locality, the climate, the class of people dwelling in the neighbourhood, and so seldom the spiritual, the nearness of the sanctuary, the character of the ministry, the opportunity for the cultivation of the highest life of the children. This is not Christianity, it is rather civilised paganism. The true Christian will never forget the matter of supreme importance. The Christian youth will face life, asking the same question that all will ask, and yet with a different relation, and sense of values. What am I going to do with my life: is the question of all young people sooner or later. But the Christian will say, What am I going to do with my life in the light of eternity? How can I make the most of it for Godz That is the true principle of selection. It is not unnatural, nor is it strained. To those who judge only by material standards it may seem a strange and unnecessary question. It is the natural principle of selection to the truly Christ-filled soul. The home, the calling in life, the recreation, everything, in short, is to be decided upon, and held in relation to infinite values and realities. Nothing is judged in the light of to-day, but all in the light of the ages to come. The Christian stands for ever, not in the circumscribed circle of the passing hour, but in the infinite circle of the eternal life. All such as live in this conscious and manifest relation to the spiritual and unseen will bear testimony to the reality of the spiritual; and, indeed, will do more to convince the world of that reality than all philosophic arguments,

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The value of the life of the Christian to God, then, is first of all its testimony to the actuality and supremacy of spiritual things.

And yet the Christian life bears other testimony. It is a constant witness to the possibility of victory over all the evil in the midst of which life has to be lived. There are two phrases which are commonly heard on the lips of men of the world, but which can never be heard by those who are living fully consecrated Christian lives, save, perchance, in order that their inference may be denied. Men may constantly be heard speaking of “necessary evils,” and declaring that “of two evils we must choose the less.” The life of the Christian denies the claims of both these phrases. There is no such thing as a “necessary evil.” The conjunction of the words creates a contradiction of terms. If evil, then not necessary. If necessary, then not evil. Nothing that is really necessary can be evil. Nothing that is surely evil can be necessary. A Christian will say, Of two evils I decline to choose either. It is a favourite device of the enemy to suggest that sometimes only two paths stretch out before the Christian, treading either of which he must be guilty of some declination from the line of rectitude. The true Christian indwelt by the Christ will bear the testimony of the Christ, and that is, that evil never need be chosen. Theve is always a third alternative. Let a superlative illustration help us at this point. It is often urged that men come to occasions where there is no escape from wrongdoing in greater or less degree. Many years ago, before the Christian Mission had become the Salvation Army, and before its evangelists became officers, wearing uniforms, William Booth was one day travelling in a railway carriage, when three men stepped in at a wayside

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station, and as the train proceeded engaged in Gonvertationt 4

concerning the fact that they had procured for certain

premises a license for the sale of strong drink. They spoke

of the advantages of the situation, and of the great success that was assured to them in the conduct of the business. William Booth sat and listened until his soul burned within him, and then turning to them, he told them that he had listened to their conversation with interest, that he had heard all they had said about the advantages of the property and the certainty of great financial success. But, he continued, that there were things of which he had not heard them say one word, that would invariably be connected with the conduct of their business. He told them they had said nothing about ruined homes and broken hearts and degraded womanhood and blighted children and damned souls. “All these things, gentlemen,” said he, “will result from your successful business.” Of course an argument ensued, until at last one man, feeling the force of the

passionate words of the earnest man, said in self-defence, “But, sir, I must live, and I have no other means of live —

lihood.” The reply of the Christian came clear and sharp, “My dear sir, there is no necessity that you should live ‘at all. The one thing necessary is that you should be pure, and if to keep your purity you must die, then you had better die.” That is undoubtedly a superlative illustration, and

yet it is a true illustration of the Christian’s attitude toward

evil. Evil is never necessary, and under no circumstances need it be chosen. Sin is utterly useless to men: for the fulfilment of the highest possibilities of their lives, and consequently is always unnecessary. There can come no occasion when it is needful to choose even what may be spoken of as a “less evil!” Death is for ever preferable to

ae ee ere es wrongdoing. That is surely the meaning of the whole story of the martyrs and confessors of the past, and surely also it is the testimony that Christians should constantly bear in the present age, and, indeed, the testimony which they must bear, if in them and through them Christ lives and works.

The value of the life of the Christian is that it, and it alone, bears unequivocal and uncompromising’ testimony

against sin. ‘he philosophy of the age which is not Chris-

. tian is inclined to condone and account for sin, speaking

of it as temperamental, a process of evolution, a continuous abnormality, affirming that the degree or nature of sin depends upon the colour of a man’s hair, or the shape of his head. A Christian life makes no such compromise. It declares that sin is devilish and damnable. It stands erect and protests that death is for ever preferable to sin in any shape.

To bring this to a more particular and personal application for a moment, the Christian life bears testimony to the possibility of victory over evil within the nature. When the man of the world declares that righteousness and purity are impossible to him, because of the fires of lust and passion which lie within the very fibre of his being, the Christian will answer, Such fires burned within me also, but, “where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.”* The fires are quenched, the chain is broken, and I have been made free from the law of sin and death in the victorious energy of the- Spirit of life. The thing I could not, now I can. The thing I was compelled to do, which yet I hated, now Iam enabled to do no longer. I, who once was the slave of passion “am now

1 Rom. 5. 20 master of passion in the principle and power of the Christ life.” How great and gracious is the value of such testimony in the midst of sense and sin-bound men and women!

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And yet once again the Christian life bears testimony: to the true balance of human nature, the inter-relationship — of all the sides of complex personality. Christian life is a revelation of the fact that all that God gives a man in the first creation is realised in the new birth. Everything that the Christian is by the creation of God in his natural life, he will continue to be by the new creation of Christ through 3

the Spirit. All men are born into the world with fires — and forces slumbering within them, for the presence of

which God is not responsible These will be quenched and broken by the incoming of the Christ life, in order

that the true man, according to the Divine intention,

may find himself, and be manifested to the world. Thus — it may be repeated that everything that God created in —

individual life is realised and crowned in the life of the” Christian. All intellectual capacities will expand and grow in Christian life. Ali arustic possibilities will find fullest and most glorious means of manifestation where the life is truly Christian. Has God bestowed that mystic acuteness of hearing which becomes conscious of symphonies that ordinary mortals never heard: Christ will not spoil the music, but make possible its expression. In the first creation has God bestowed that quality of vision which takes in the landscape’s sweep, and holds in view all its delicacy of colour? Christ will not spoil the picture. He will rather free the life from such fires of passion as being allowed to burn will befog and spoil the glorious vision. The Christian is one in whom all the life God created is delivered from the forces that spoil, and all its parts are brought into such co-operative unity that it shall bear testimony to the perfection of the Divine ideal. The life of the Christian, therefore, testifies not merely to the reality of spiritual things, but to the influence of such things upon the material forces, and their one to ennoble and crown every side of life.

It may now be stated that the value of Christian life through such testimony is that of positive activity. To live thus is to co-operate with God. All Christian living is a contribution to the well-being of the State, to the forces making for righteousness and love as the regnant qualities in human life, and so toward the sum total of God’s final victory. Men do not always recognise the value of Christian life to the well-being of the State, though it is indeed great. Imagine for one single moment what would be the issue if ail Christian people were taken. out of London, New York, or any of our cities, or from the nations of the world. Surely the Master understood perfectly the true value of His own teaching when obeyed in the lives of men as He said to the little band of disciples who, submissive to His authority, were realising His purposes, “Ye are the salt of the earth... ye are the light of the world.”* Every Christian life is of the nature of salt, antiseptic, purifying, preventing the spread of corruption. Every Christian life is light, shining in a dark place, and the whole company of the Church in the world at any given moment creates a light that men most need in the darkness of sorrow and of sin. Salt never forms an association to purify anything, but it purifies everything, and this simply by being salt. The light beams never form a society

1 Matt. 5. 13, 14
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= of any kind, but they illuminate, and this simply by shining. The Christian life is salt, and therefore it purifies. It is light and therefore it illuminates. All Christians are not called to preach, nor even to teach, nor yet to hold official positions

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within the Church, but all are called to live. The life of

the Christian must prevent impurity. If you are indeed a

Christian, then when you enter the room some kinds of —

conversation must cease, not because it is expected you will rebuke it in words even if you heard it, but because of what you are. That is a simple illustration of the great principle. The Christian life is light, moreover, falling

everywhere upon the darkness, revealing it, and yet revealing it only as it passes, dissipated by the shining. It is

in the shining of the light that the great work is accom- q

plished. Occasions will arise where sin must be rebuked by actual speech, but the forcefulness of the rebuke will be created by the shining of the life. Occasions will arise

where tender words of sympathy will be spoken to the —

soul distressed, and yet the words will come as balm in proportion to the shining of the quiet life, or of the life tself comforted with the comfort of God.

George Campbell, one of the sweetest of Christian men, who devoted his life very largely to the work of temperance

reform, once administered a rebuke on a public platform of the severest kind. An avowed atheist who had spoken before him in the interests of temperance, appealed to the

strength of human will for the overcoming of the appetite —

for drink, and referred to the uselessness of any aid outside 4 man’s will. In a contemptuous aside he said, “The man who invented gas has done more for the human race than

all the preachers of Christianity.” When George Campbell

rose to address the meeting he began by saying, “I have been interested to hear my friend’s opinion of what benefits humanity. If to-morrow I should be plunged in sorrow, or should find myself approaching the end of this brief life, I should desire some preacher of the Cross to tell me again its story for my comfort and my strength. I presume that my friend, under similar circumstances, would send for the gasfitter!” The rebuke was sharp and severe, but the power of it to the audience who heard it was created by what they knew of the character of George Campbell. His life was salt, and his speech, therefore, seasoned with it, was antiseptic. His life was light, and his words also were spirit and life.

Thus it is true that the Christian life is one of co-operative activity with God. Every Christian life is a contribution to the force that makes for righteousness and makes for love; and wherever man, woman or child lives in true relation to Christ, there is being exerted by such life a part of that mighty energy of God in Christ, whereby at last He will heal all wounds, and dry all tears, and build the city for which men have looked through long centuries, the city in which there shall be no evil thing.

And yet once more. The Christian life is a vindication of God in the midst of a sceptical and unbelieving age. Men standing outside the realm of personal loyalty to Him can never understand His method because they do not understand His purpose. The result is ever that of criticism and opposition. “The mind of the flesh is enmity against - God.”* It questions the wisdom of His action because it does not know the reason thereof. The Christian knows God’s purpose, and therefore trusts His method. I do not say that the method is always understood, but by the Chris-

1Rom. 8. 7 tian soul it is resolutely set in the light of the sure purpose — of God, which is our perfecting. Then through the method of the fire, and of the testing, and of the discipline the Christian passes with songs of triumph and of testimony, and so God is vindicated in the face of the criticism and — the unbelief of the age. Christian men and women in conduct issuing from character, both of which are admirable in the eyes of the world, vindicate the method of God as they contribute to the understanding of His purpose. In them His thought is seen to be a hedge of love; and the fires of testing and of trial are revealed as gracious messengers which never burn the pure gold, but destroy only the dross. Thus a Christian who, in the midst of suffering is patient and full of a quiet peace and joy, is vindicating God against all the criticism of half-blind philosophy. 3

In this fact there is at least a partial solution of the mystery — of the suffering of the saints. When the morning dawns, and the mists have rolled from the valleys, and life is seen in the light of the eternal purpose and counsel, then it will be known that suffering was often highest service; and that passing along the pathway of pain, while yet maintaining a quiet trust, the life was preaching Christ to an unbelieving age in a way more powerful than any possible save to such suffering.

It is impossible to live the life of quiet, calm trust in God in the midst of the turmoil and unrest of this feverish age without creating an atmosphere of quietness and peace of which all will become conscious. The atmosphere is a vindication of God, for it results from trust implicitly reposed in Him. We have never looked upon the courageous confidence of some sorrowing saint who through — all the painful process has evinced a quiet strength and a ee great heart satisfaction, without having realised that God’s

methods were vindicated in His children.

For these purposes Christians exist. The value of every Christian life is that of positive and powerful testimony to the reality of the spiritual, the possibility of victory over evil, and the beauty of the Divine ideal in human life. This testimony is in itself of the nature of powerful fellowship in activity with God.

And finally, wherever the Christian life is clearly seen, it becomes an argument vindicating God against all the criticisms of unbelief. Christianity is infinitely more than the salvation of the individual. It is that, but with the larger purpose of creating an influence, exerting an opinion, and encompassing an end. The goal towards which Christ moved was the setting up of the Kingship of God, and the restoration of a lost order. All such as share His life have that same goal in view. The whole creation groans in its limitation, and waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Every such present manifestation is a contribution to the breaking of humanity’s bonds, the ending of the race’s limitation, and the changing of groaning into acclamation and worship.