Misread Passage of Scriptures Part 5

1. Can anything which is ordained of G.o.d be abrogated?

2. Can the Messiah, the kingly Son of David, be come, while those who follow Him are the world's outcasts, spoiled, persecuted, and slain?

The first is a standing difficulty with all the students of the mysteries of G.o.d, in all ages of the world. It pressed on the Hebrew Christians with peculiar force. They and their fathers for ages had believed that a certain visible system had been established on earth by G.o.d's own hand, and sustained by His almighty power. It seemed to them as if the very foundations of the universe were shaken, when their temple, their priesthood, their glorious Jerusalem, their beautiful fertile Palestine, vanished like a dream, and left them the beggars and outcasts of mankind.

The second difficulty was equally grave. It touched men where they are ever most sensitive, in their individual experiences and hopes. Can the head of this Christian Church be the G.o.d-man, the glorious Being of whom our prophets prophesied, and of whose kingdom they had such brilliant visions, whilst its subjects are despised, hated, and down-trodden, and its princes are the sc.u.m and off-scouring of all things unto this day?

We say that the Jews were expecting a splendid temporal kingdom, a visible reign of the Messiah in righteousness over a regenerate and exulting world. We say it with a touch of scorn. We may spare our scorn; Christendom is always dreaming of it too. It would be a wonderful thing if the Jews had not nourished some such expectations. All men have not faith. How many Christians understand Christianity better than the Jews understood the Judaism of their times? What is the Papacy but an endeavour to realize this splendid and prosperous reign of Christ, of which Judaism dreamed? A rule of righteousness, peace, and goodwill, under the sceptre of Christ's immediate delegate and regent, is the vision which has haunted in all ages some of the ablest minds in Christendom; and the desire to realize this has been near the heart of some of the most desperate struggles which rent the civilized world throughout the middle age. We cannot wonder at their sad thoughts. We think the same when things much less visibly ordained of G.o.d are shattered and swept away as wrecks. The answer of the writer of this epistle to the question which was wrung out of the death agony of that nation and church was substantially this: G.o.d does not establish things, He plants seeds which grow. The principle of life in the seed is the principle of ident.i.ty through the successive stages of the development of the organism. The body of man is one, though it changes form very visibly at successive eras, and though every particle of matter composing it is in constant flux, pa.s.sing away from without, restored by the constructive force of the living principle within. Rise, he says, to a loftier and more comprehensive view of the Divine dispensations. See how the living principle of G.o.d's relation to you, to man, as Father and Redeemer, runs through all the dispensations, moulds the outward form of the Church according to the exigencies of the times, and is ever bringing forth new forms as the ages need. See how the germ which was planted before the law grew into the legal dispensation, and how when the leaf.a.ge and fruitage of that dispensation grew old and withered, as _things_ must grow old and perish, the living principle within took new and diviner form, suffered, as all divine things do, death and resurrection, and lived with a new and divine life in a new and regenerated world. "_G.o.d, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they._" (Heb. i. 1-4.)

It ought not to be hard for us to understand and enter into the sore perplexities of the Hebrew believers when they found their ancestral kingdom uprooted, while no sign of the new Messiah's kingdom appeared, except the sway which a shameful cross was wielding over individual human hearts. Can this be the beginning of the kingdom? Can Christ be reigning there, and we His subjects here, the objects of His tenderest care and love, be so harried and tormented for our truth and righteousness as never men have been harried and tormented for lies and sins? Is it credible that G.o.d's sons in the world should be the world's outlaws; that those whom the hand of Omnipotence s.h.i.+elds should be the helpless victims of the most puny foes? Are slaves and beggars the chief subjects of Messiah's kingdom? Does the fellows.h.i.+p of this new realm draw us into loving, tender communion with the saddest, the poorest, the most ignorant, the most wretched of mankind? Is the life of this new regenerate state a ceaseless struggle, a constant pain, with no issue but by the gate of death, whose apparitors may be a lion's jaws or a headsman's axe? Is the symbol of this splendid empire a cross? The answer to these questions is the text. The question is the sin which so easily besets humanity, you and me quite as intensely as the Hebrews; and the cure for the sin, the answer to the question, is the faith which draws from the writer this splendid eulogy, a faith which scans the bounds of the invisible universe, and measures the range of the Divine thought from the height of the Divine throne. It is as though the writer had said, Looked at on the lower level, by the measures of the things seen and temporal, the lot is dark enough and sad enough: "_If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable._"

(1 Cor. xv. 19.) But rise to a higher level. Get up into the mountain, and survey the horizon of a wider world. Search into the nature of man's true well-being, and see where the springs of it rise. Measure the range of man's existence, the endless ages of his being, the boundless faculty of joy or sorrow, of bliss or anguish, that claims eternity as its time.

Above all, measure the stature of a man. Study the image after which he is fas.h.i.+oned, the G.o.dlike form he wears, the G.o.dlike experience he is made to fathom, and the kind of satisfaction which his G.o.dlike powers demand, robbed of which they hunger and pine and fill him at last with madness and despair; so shall you comprehend more fully the grandeur and the glory of his Christian vocation--sharing the conflict, the toil, the sorrow, the joy, and the triumph of hisever G.o.d. Then lay aside "every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you." That sin is poverty of faith--a poor-spirited estimate of life, its experiences and its issues; a love for the serfdom of Egypt rather than the freedom of the wilderness, the fleshpots of Goshen rather than the bread of Canaan, the pleasure of the moment rather than the joy which springs from fountains that outlast eternity.

The sin which doth so easily beset us. Want of faith.

I. In ourselves. II. In G.o.d. III. In the future.

I. Want of faith in ourselves--poor, base views of our nature, power, and destiny.

The essential dignity of man's nature, as G.o.d const.i.tuted it, and the utter debas.e.m.e.nt it has suffered through sin, are facts which in nowise clash or contradict each other. In truth, no man who has not faith enough to comprehend what "_power to become the sons of G.o.d_" may mean, as spoken of man, can enter into the depth of anguish and shame wrung out in the confession, "_I was as a beast before thee._" "_I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes._" At the root of the humiliation, the debas.e.m.e.nt, lies this want of faith in our higher being and destiny. We prefer the slave's portion, with the slave's security, to the cares and burdens of freedom, with its hopes and joys. The main difficulty in the emanc.i.p.ation of serfs arises always from themselves. They do not care, nay they fear, to be free. The responsibility of self-government and self-control is a burden from which they shrink;--let us creep safely on the lower levels, rather than strain perilously up the mountain paths, with the free air around us, the bright heaven above us, the mists, the clouds, the storms, seething and flas.h.i.+ng beneath our feet. This is the cry of our souls--yours and mine. G.o.d is ever stirring us to take the higher view of our nature and destiny; we are ever burying ourselves in the lower:--"_'Let us alone, Jesus, thou Son of G.o.d._' Thy words are perilous; they search and judge us; they trouble us in our politics, our pleasures, our trade. We are fairly content as it is; why should we weary ourselves by straining after the higher good, which seems thin, impalpable, and may easily elude our hand? Let us alone; depart out of our coasts." This was the mood of these Hebrew Christians; it is ours. And nothing does the devil's work more surely within us than this feeling that on the whole we were made for poor work, poor interests, and poor joys. Paul seeks to stir us to a n.o.bler mood, to fire something within us which will burn with a heavenly l.u.s.tre and seek to mingle itself with the brightness of its native skies. Man is made to deal with the substance of things, the eternal substance; you are content to converse with their fleeting shadows. "_For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the wors.h.i.+ppers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins._" (Heb. x. 1-4.) The heavenly things themselves your minds were made to contemplate, your hearts to love, your spirits to commune with; and you are grovelling amid the ashes of the peris.h.i.+ng, while the imperishable, the eternal, pa.s.ses for ever beyond the range of your sight. Believe in humanity as the first step to a n.o.bler life. Not the poor, weak, trembling humanity which your self-communings reveal to you; but the glorious, Divine humanity which G.o.d has set before you to help your infirmity, to recall the memory of the height from which you have fallen, and to kindle the hope of the royal dignity to which you may be restored. Look within; and man seems poor enough, and pitiful enough. But look above: "_We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of G.o.d should taste death for every man._" Then "_lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset you, and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of G.o.d_."

Behold in Him the perfect image of a man, in His life the beauty of a perfect human life. Believe in that image; gaze on it, meditate on it, till contemplation kindles sympathy, and sympathy grows into love.

"_Consider the apostle and high-priest of your profession, Christ Jesus_"; and if you tread in His footsteps of present sorrow and humiliation, glory in it, and pray that you may go on to know it more perfectly, "_the power of his resurrection, the fellows.h.i.+p of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death_." Believe that all that a man was meant to be, to do, to become, can only grow out of this vital fellows.h.i.+p with Jesus. Believe in Him rather than in the world's ideas, maxims, and hopes. Leave them to the Pagans. You, sons of G.o.d, heirs of G.o.d, joint-heirs with Christ, learn n.o.bler lessons out of the book of His life, aim at loftier marks, thirst for purer and perennial joys.

II. Poor belief about G.o.d--unbelief in the Incarnation, and all its blessed meanings to mankind.

The low and slavish idea of man's character and destiny inevitably infects our views of G.o.d and of G.o.d's action and purpose in the world.

Having poor hope ourselves, we cannot understand G.o.d's hope, the hope which lit the path to Calvary, and shed a flood of glorious light around the saddest and most shameful pa.s.sage of man's sad and painful history.

To those who believe that man is the serf of the creation, the Incarnation is incredible. G.o.d would be ashamed to be called the G.o.d, in any high Christian sense, of such beings as some men believe themselves to be and act as if they were. The Hebrew Christians could not believe in the Incarnation; that is, they were beset with unbelief about it.

Their fathers could not believe in their angel guide. A glorious triumphant King, coming to the world in splendour, scattering the hosts of His foes by His thunders, and leading His armies to rapid and easy victory, they could comprehend well enough. But the cross was their stumbling-block. Can the living G.o.d suffer shame, anguish, and death, for such beings as we are, for such a kingdom as this Crucified One maybe able to win? "_That be far from thee, Lord_;" it is blasphemy to dream of it. They were like a man in poverty and straits, who is always expecting that a splendid fortune will fall to him suddenly, will enable him to make a magnificent figure, and to be a model of dignity, generosity, and manly grace. But the MAN is he who wins his fortune by bearing the strain of toil through long years of patience, and who trains himself by discipline to rule it as a realm when gained. And we are, most of us, of this foolish temper. What wonderful people we should be, we think, if our platform were higher, and a stronger light were thrown upon our lives! If G.o.d would but mend our surroundings, our virtue and dignity would appear! Believe that it seemed good to G.o.d, that it became G.o.d, to reveal to us the truth of this relation between surroundings and life, by sending His Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to live the life of G.o.d in poverty, sorrow, and shame, and manifest in that depth of humiliation the mystery of the life eternal.

"_For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which G.o.d hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to G.o.d, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted._"

(Heb. ii. 10-18.)

It was a hard, an incredible saying to many among the Hebrew Christians.

In all its deep meaning it is a hard, an incredible saying to us. Do we believe in our heart of hearts that the life of daily denial, cross-bearing, and Divine ministry, missing all earthly honour, golden treasure, and worldly joy, is the life which the Lord G.o.d of heaven lived on earth, and glorified earth by living it? Have we an eye for that inner glory? Is that tear-stained path He trod, beautiful, transcendently beautiful, in our sight, as it is to the angels and the white-robed choir on high? Shame on our lives then, if this is the belief of our hearts about it. If we believe that He who was in the form of G.o.d, and "_thought it not robbery to be equal with G.o.d; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men_" (Phil. ii. 6-8), left us an ensample that we should follow in His steps, what are our lives like before Him and before the angels, filled as they are with selfish aims and pa.s.sions, strivings after things that perish, that crumble to dust as we grasp them; contemptuous as they are of celestial things and powers, of all that made His life luminous to the eye of spirits, of all that He came through shame and anguish to set palpably before the vision of our souls. "_Lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset you_"--this sin of light thoughts of Christ, of the intense reality of His human life, and all the high meanings and inspirations with which it is charged for you, for me, for all mankind. Open wide the gates of your spirit, and let this King of Glory in. "_Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in._" Who is this King of Glory? The Man of Sorrows, He is the King of Glory.

Believe, faint heart, and live.

III. Unbelief in the future.

We cannot believe that this is purely a seed-time. Like children, we are for reaping where we have not sown, and gathering where we have not strawed. Or, if by chance we drop a seed into the earth and leave it for a moment, next morning we are digging about it to see if it is growing, and are sick at heart if it promises no immediate fruit. The Hebrew Church demanded the instant fruitage of the death of Christ. "_And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal._" (John xii. 23-25.) Lord, we have seen the seed corn cast into the ground, we have seen it lie there, we have seen it rise, and where is the harvest?

Where is the kingdom? Where are the throngs? Where is the throne? The offence of the cross still lies in the way of triumph. Tribulations are the only gifts of the kingdom still! The writer of this epistle does not care to argue about the moment. Be it so. Be it as bad as you say: tribulations, persecutions, contempt, spoiling of your goods, and bonds.

Be it so. "_Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin._"

You have not faced the last extremity, and the last extremity may be in store. But what matters? Sons of G.o.d, brethren of Christ, citizens of the heavenly state, heirs of everlasting joys and glory, what matters it? "_Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be contemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy._" (Jas. v. 7-11.) Is patience no longer beautiful, divine, when it is heaven which has to be waited for, a royal sceptre, an everlasting crown? For shame! moaning over the moment's pains, which are the seeds of everlasting joys; over the dust of the husks and sh.e.l.ls of the temporal things, when, as they waste and perish, the glorious forms of the things not seen and eternal, which they veiled, appear. I say not, Compare the one with the other, weigh them well, and make your selection. There is no comparison possible. "_I reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed._" "_For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal._" (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.) It is blank unbelief to talk about comparison. The one is infinitely small and pitiful; the other is infinitely great, beautiful, and glorious. "_What things were gain to me_," when the visible things of earth and time filled my sight, "those I have counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." (Phil. iii. 7, 8.) This is the Christian estimate. This is the true entrenchment of the human spirit against all the floods of calamity which may beat around the rock on which it builds its hopes. Be my lot what it may, my G.o.d, my Father ordains it; and He has the power, the will to make every pain, every wound, every heartache, every cross, every shock, the seed of a harvest whose glorious wealth I cannot measure even in my dreams. The power and the will, said I? His strongest promises, His profoundest purposes, are engaged in the fulfilment of the hope which He kindles in my breast, and which makes me master of the world. Nay, He has staked His life, the very existence of His throne, upon it. He has subjected you and me and the vast creation to vanity, "_in hope, the hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of G.o.d_." We have no true measure of these sad scenes and experiences of earth--and they are sad enough, nothing is to be gained by painting them as lighter than they are; but we can measure them fairly when we get up into the higher region, strong in faith, and share the thought and hope of G.o.d. _We are saved by hope._ Let us bless G.o.d for it, for the blessed and boundless future in which the far-off interest of tears will be our eternal portion, and the harvest of brave endurance and patient pain. "_Behold we count them patient which endure._" And who are they? The world's weaklings and fools. Listen to the bead-roll, and hush your moans for very shame.

Abel, Enoch, Noah head the line; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. "_These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore G.o.d is not ashamed to be called their G.o.d: for he hath prepared for them a city._" (Heb. xi. 13-16.) "_And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being dest.i.tute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth._" (Heb. xi.

32-38.) "_And these all_"--the world's chief heroes, whose names are dear and honoured through the ages on earth, as they s.h.i.+ne resplendent as the stars in heaven's firmament on high--"_These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise; G.o.d having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect._" (Heb. xi. 39, 40.) "Wherefore seeing ye are compa.s.sed about with so great a crowd of witnesses"--these grand and glorious forms, who watch your battles from their thrones, and prepare to hail your triumphant entrance to the kingdom which the victory of faith shall win--"_lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset you, and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of G.o.d_." (Heb. xii. 1, 2.)

IX.

THE LAW OF ABSTINENCE.

"Wherefore, if meat (food) make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."--1 COR. viii. 13.

Of all the great writers of the world, the apostle Paul perhaps most needs to be read with the eye of the heart, as well as with the eye of the understanding. Moral sympathy is an essential condition of the full understanding of the apostle's words. Most especially is it needed in such pa.s.sages as the present, in which he gives vehement and even pa.s.sionate utterance to his vivid sympathies with the weaker brethren who were still struggling with the difficulties and perplexities from which his powerful genius had already emanc.i.p.ated him, or who were tormented by doubts which he had laid happily at rest for ever. There is no great writer who is less careful to guard himself from even grave misconstructions, or whose eager, impetuous sentences, when matters which touch his sympathies and affections are in question, are more likely, if formulated into maxims and rules of action, to lead weak minds astray. Indeed, there is a sense in which the Bible is the most unguarded of all books. Meant more than any other book to be a guide of action, it is less careful about misunderstandings of its meaning, and lays itself open to more complete misapprehensions, than any other book in the world. And this precisely because it will be read with the spirit as well as with the understanding. It needs no worldly scholars.h.i.+p; but it will not make its meanings plain to those who do not care to bring to bear on it, not the attention of their heads only, but that of their hearts. How many startling sentences are there which, in the first flash of their meaning, seem to strike at the root of inst.i.tutions or principles which we learn from other pa.s.sages the Bible is most earnestly solicitous to maintain and secure. Take some utterances of the mind of the apostle Paul about women for instance, as isolated dicta; treat them as complete authoritative utterances, giving the law to us; the result would be the utter confusion of all man's most sacred relations, and the overthrow of human society. There are words too, uttered by yet more sacred lips, which it needs no little spiritual experience and insight to avoid misunderstanding, and applying to uses which the whole tenour of the Saviour's life and teaching would sternly condemn. Paul, a man vividly sympathetic and tender, easily touched by suffering, easily drawn by love, intense, pa.s.sionate, and impetuous, suffers himself ever and anon to express in one short, startling sentence some vivid impression which for the moment occupied his whole soul. But we must pause--as he would have paused, nay, did manifestly pause--before we treat it as a mould in which we are to cast our rules of action or habits of life. The sentence expresses the desire and purpose of the apostle's heart, that which would animate and give aim to all its action; but the action itself would be wisely modulated by a hundred secondary considerations, and by other co-ordinate principles, so as to secure, as far as might be possible, the end at which he aimed, without imperilling other and it might be yet higher things. It would be a grand mistake then to formulate such a sentence as this into a rigid rule of action. Treated thus, the first thing which would fall under condemnation would probably be the apostle's life.

These words are very constantly employed as though they laid down a rule of action concerning things indifferent which might lead easily to sin, and set before us a way of helping men against vicious habits at the cost of some personal self-sacrifice. That may be a very important subject, and it has plenty of pa.s.sages bearing on it in the word of G.o.d. But it is not the difficulty here. This pa.s.sage has quite a different bearing. It is a case, not of a weak will, but of a weak judgment, a weak conscience, in which there is danger of false beliefs or of a lowering of the tone of the conscientious principle of action.

It is this, and not any question of vicious habits, which draws from the apostle, who had fought his way through the whole jungle of doubts and difficulties and perplexities in which the weaker brethren were struggling painfully still, these ardent and decisive words.

I. At the root of this declaration lies the conviction that there is no consideration which may compete in a man's motives with the desire to promote the spiritual welfare and progress of mankind. It is the object dearest to G.o.d. It was the object dearest to the apostle's heart. It seemed so great to G.o.d, so essentially glorious, that G.o.d came forth in the form of a man to die for it. This is the true form of the Calvinistic tenet that to G.o.d His own glory is His highest end. And Paul was prepared to die for it too. "_And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound, only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus._" (Acts xxi. 10-13.) When a man has settled that, and has taken his life in his hand to fulfil a ministry to mankind, he has but one supreme consideration; his own interests vanish; man's interests, the estate of the poorest and most wretched of mankind, fill the sphere of his aims and hopes. (1 Cor. iv. 9-13.) No wonder that nothing could move him from this ministry, and that life was valueless save as it might be a "_finis.h.i.+ng his course with joy, and the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of G.o.d_." Of course, if life was freely laid on that altar, "_as the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment_," meats would be freely offered as a sacrifice too. The man who was ready to die for man was not likely to suffer a morsel of meat, any worldly possession, any physical or mental pleasure, to stand for an instant in the way of any help or guidance which he might offer to the weakest of mankind. "_For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to G.o.d, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you._" (1 Cor. ix. 19-23.) We must take this sentence then, as explaining the full readiness of the apostle, as far as his own tastes, habits, and appet.i.tes were concerned, to eat no meat to his dying day, if he saw that such a course of action would remove effectually an offence, a stone of stumbling, from the path of the weakest of his fellow-men.

But all are not apostles. How far is the conduct of this great Christian teacher to be regarded as giving the rule to us? This is but another form of a yet graver question--How far do we feel ourselves bound to be followers of the Son of man in the regeneration, in the reconstruction of man's nature and of human society, in the working out of His benign plans and purposes for mankind? "_Be ye followers of me_," said Paul, "_as I am of Christ_." The apostle's life was simply the most Christlike life, and those who care to follow Christ must drink of the same springs, and aim at the same ends, while they pursue the various callings by which society is sustained and developed. To be Christian is to have in us the same mind which was likewise in Christ Jesus. The measure of our Christian vitality is the measure in which that mind is in us, and in which we are able thereby to enter into this language of the apostle Paul. Those that can enter into it perfectly, and can live it, following Paul as Paul followed Christ, are the heaven-sent leaders and ministers of mankind. It is a sacred line which G.o.d keeps unbroken through all the ages, the men of apostolic spirit and self-devotion to the good of their fellows. But those who follow can only follow through sympathy. They must be able to believe in this spirit, to make it the aim of their lives to work it out in their limited spheres, with feebler it may be, but with honest and manly effort; or Christianity becomes simply the efflorescence of civilization, and the sad world has to seek its helper, teacher, and saviour still. Clearly then Paul was ready for this, and far more than this, if thereby he might effectually help a weak brother on his way.

II. Actually, as far as we have the means--and we have some means--of knowing, Paul continued to eat meat to his dying day, while the difficulty still remained a pressing one, and the stone of stumbling still continued to block many a weak Christian's path.

What was the difficulty? How did the offence arise? The meat spoken of here is meat which had been offered in an idolatrous temple, and which might be supposed by those who had not the lofty intelligence of the apostle to have contracted some moral contamination thereby. Under all systems the meat offered in sacrifice was in some measure the perquisite of the priest. (Lev. vii. 7-19.) The abuse of the custom is thus described:--"_Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord. And the priest's custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot: all that the flesh-hook brought up, the priest took for himself. So they did in s.h.i.+loh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now; and if not I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord._" (1 Sam. ii.

12-17.) There is a very interesting question behind this, into which I must not enter here; how far all animal sacrifice is to be regarded as the consecration of food; the recognition of G.o.d as the giver, as the lord of the animal slain, and of man's right to slay as a right which had been delegated by the Lord. That there is some deeper idea in animal sacrifice no thoughtful reader of the Bible, I imagine, can well question; but that this is a very important part of the meaning I feel well a.s.sured. It casts a flood of light on the immense slaughter of victims at the consecration of the temple and other high occasions; while it is itself ill.u.s.trated by the customs of orientals with reference to the slaughter of animals to this day. But the priest's portion was a recognised thing. Portions of this, not needed by the priest's household, would be sold in the shambles. Portions belonging to those who offered the sacrifice might be similarly exposed. Sometimes a feast would be made in the temple, the animal which furnished the flesh being sacrificed there (ver. 10); sometimes in a private house (x. 27), where Christians, following the liberal law, the law of liberty laid down by the apostle (1 Cor. v. 9, 10), would be constantly brought into contact with it, and through it, it might seem to them, with the idol by whose name it had been consecrated. A serious difficulty would thus arise. I beg you to mark carefully where the real heart of the difficulty lay. It was not at all a question of meat in itself, noxious in quality or becoming noxious by quant.i.ty. If it had been a question of a man eating unwholesome food, or eating good food to excess, damaging health of body and mind thereby, I cannot imagine that Paul would have treated it as a difficult question at all. You have a sinful habit he would say, you are injuring and destroying your system; you must break it, absolutely, decisively, or perish: what help I can give you as man to man, by the influence of my words or works, is at your service; but it is no question of what I do or do not: it is a simple point, it is between you and G.o.d; fly to Him for grace and strength, and master your l.u.s.t.

But here the case is quite different. It is a case not of a vicious habit, but of a puzzled conscience; a feeble apprehension of truth, a doubt as to what is right or wrong, in which the conduct of the wise and enlightened would be a most wholesome and valuable guide. This weak soul trying to see its way needed guidance. What a glutton or a sot needs is power. For the one use, example is most precious; the other need can only be supplied from a yet deeper spring. How far am I in contact with idolatry in this eating of meat offered to idols? might easily be a very fair question; and not only with the weakest of the young Gentile Church. Some would eat it with conscience of the idol. They would be pained and distressed, and a constant tolerance of such pain and distress is demoralizing. Doing great acts of life with a half heart, with a troubled faith, paralyses conscience, and in the end opens the way to tremendous sins. The constant converse with idolatry which attending these feasts with a "conscience of the idol" would generate, might easily end in apostasy, s.h.i.+pwreck of faith and hope for ever.

How beautiful is the mingled wisdom and charity with which the apostle handles the difficulty! It was absolutely none to him. The idol to him was not anything at all. It was a vain imagination of man's vain heart.

There could be no conscience of an idol in his mind in dealing with anything created by G.o.d, however the idol might have been connected with it by others. Who would recognise an usurper because he occupies the palace and a.s.sumes the signet of the rightful king? "_The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof._" The creature is the Lord's, every limb, every particle. If I can but use it for the end for which the Lord created it and put it under my hand, I will rejoice and give thanks that so far the usurper is despoiled. Thus the instructed Jew would look at the matter: "_the idol is not anything at all_." But the Corinthians were converted Gentiles. The idol was a reality, and a very terrible reality to them; in memory and a.s.sociation at any rate, if not in conviction. Relapse into idolatry, which was all round them, many dear to them being devoted to it, was a very pressing peril; and a.s.sociation with idolaters, with conscience of the idol in the act of a.s.sociation, might easily bring the danger near.

There was but one thing which could deliver them; a thoroughly Christian conviction that the idol is not anything at all: that "_every creature of G.o.d is good and is to be received with thanksgiving, being sanctified by the word of G.o.d and by prayer_." But these n.o.ble and lofty beliefs are not born in a moment. G.o.d had been for ages educating the Jews to the belief of which the Christian Paul, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, in this as in other things was reaping the fruit. And education is a slow and delicate process, and needs to be managed by a nursing hand. While these Gentile converts are being trained to this loftier view, beware lest, puffed up by your superior knowledge, your conduct tempts them to a course which will deaden that fine tact of conscience, by which alone, when it has fastened on the higher truth, the emanc.i.p.ation can be gained. Act on your higher knowledge as your rule of living. The fools and the weaklings are not to be the lords of life and the masters of the world. But if you see any attempt made to draw you into visible contact with the idol, that those weaker than you, led by your example, may be drawn into a contact which to them would be detrimental and degrading, bend the higher law for the moment, or rather lift it higher still--lose it in the lovelier law of charity, and practise a forbearance the motive of which is a brother's good. "_All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.

Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake; for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.

If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience? For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?

Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of G.o.d._" (1 Cor. x. 23-31.)

Free use of all G.o.d's good gifts with bold conscience is to be the law of Christian living, the daily practice and habit of the life. Voluntary abstinence, forbearance in the use of the freedom, is demanded of us by a yet higher law, the law of Christian charity, the charity which has Christ for its model and inspiration; but only when we find that it will be helpful to a weak brother in our personal intercourse with and influence over his soul. That Paul did not adopt this as his rule of living seems quite indisputable. He could not have omitted to refer to it and explain it in such a pa.s.sage as 1 Tim. iv. 1-5, if his own rule had been abstinence. "_Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which G.o.d hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of G.o.d is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of G.o.d and prayer._"

At the same time we cannot question that he frequently acted on it when brought into personal contact with brethren of weak faith and tender conscience, whom he sought, by sympathy with their doubts and difficulties, to educate to a more vigorous and healthy life. In order to understand what we have every reason to believe was the habit of the apostle's life, the free and temperate use of all the good gifts of G.o.d, we must consider--

III. That the adoption of a rule of abstinence, in permanent deference to weak consciences, would simply transfer to the weak the regulation of the order of human life and the progress of the world. The pace of progress would thus be permanently adjusted to the strength of the weakest, instead of being so regulated as to stimulate and help the weaker to press on into the front line. The result would be a grievous impoverishment of moral and mental power; and Christianity, instead of being the power of G.o.d unto salvation, would be the instrument of decline and a ministry of death. Surely it is a fundamental principle that the framework of a man's life, his daily habits, should be set in the measure of his own personal stature and power. What suits his character and life, and ministers to his development, he is to embody in his habits, as the best service which he can render to G.o.d and to his fellow-men. To be strong, wise, self-controlled, is the best beginning, the only true beginning of real service to mankind. The best work which a man can work at, for the service of his fellows, is his life. To regulate permanent habits on the wants and the weaknesses of others is to deny this principle, and to exalt the influence of spasmodic effort above the broad, grand ministry of life. Paul was far from such illusions. Freedom was with him the fundamental condition of vital progress; and if his sympathy with the weak and perplexed led him again and again to veil his freedom for the moment, it was that he might help the weak to strength, the perplexed to clearness of vision, the bondsmen to liberty--strength, clearness, and freedom of which he offered conspicuous examples in his own constant habits of life. "Be ye as I am," was his appeal: free and strong; able to see the Lord's mark on all things and creatures, and not the idol's. To live habitually as if he saw the idol's mark would have seemed to him a base act of treason, a shameful forsaking of that liberty which he had in Christ, and which he was resolved to hold for himself and his brethren even unto death.

To generalize and formalize into laws of action the impulses and purposes which inspire the spirit in its personal contact with the will, the consciences, and the affections of its fellows, is in most cases to rob charity of its life and grace of its power. It is to subst.i.tute law for grace in our personal relations and dealings with mankind. Had Paul laid down the rule,--There are weak consciences, which cannot get rid of the savour of the idol; they shall rule our conduct; I will never eat meat offered to idols, and I ordain the same to the Church,--the development of mankind by Christianity would have been killed at the very root. Scruples would have become the consecrated thing instead of liberty, and Christianity would have made manifest the weakness of man, instead of the power of G.o.d, to the world. No! his supreme concern was that they might master their weakness, break their bonds, and grow from babes to men. If this abstaining from flesh while the world stood would have helped them to that progress, he loved them well enough to do it without a pang of regret. But he evidently was eager to see them rise out of the lower region which is haunted and tormented by such scruples.

He ignored them as far as possible, though he dealt with them in tender charity, when, as in chap. x. 28, they were forced on his sight.

Something very parallel to this difficulty of the meat offered to idols was the question about the theatre which was a sore perplexity to pious but intelligent spirits a few years ago. There was something, which had in it essentially no element of evil. But it was closely connected with a world and a worldly life which those nurtured in the Church or brought under its influence were sedulously taught to shun. Many who felt themselves strong abstained. They saw no harm, and would get no harm, but rather a positive good. But they denied themselves, that others of weaker faith might not be in the way of harm, and that no sin or ruin of a brother might by any chance be laid at their door. Whether the rule of abstinence was wise I am not called here to consider. It was complicated by moral considerations--which too were not absent in the case which the apostle treats of here--which make it less easy to p.r.o.nounce judgment in a word. But it must always be remembered that a rule or law of abstinence in such cases on the part of the strong consecrates the scruple, a.s.sociates evil permanently with that which has no essential evil in it, and multiplies thereby the stumbling-blocks of mankind.

The case of actual vice, like drinking to excess, seems to me to fall under quite another category; though it is constantly regarded as settled by the text, as though it had been written, "Wherefore, if drink make my brother to offend I will drink no wine while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." We have no call here to discuss and pa.s.s judgment on a movement by which men of most unquestioned goodness, and self-devotion to the best interests of others, think that they see a means of largely helping the morally weak by removing a fatal temptation from their path. We only say that it is a question well worthy of the most careful consideration, how far in the long run and on a large scale a permanent confession of weakness can be helpful to human development; how far a habit of life confessedly built on the weakness of others can offer a n.o.ble and inspiring example to those who it is hoped would profit by it; and how far an unnatural condition can have in it the elements of a true and vital reformation. But these considerations are really beside the true scope of the text, though they are naturally suggested by it. And in closing this discussion of a perplexed and difficult subject I would say in brief:--(1) That isolated acts of abstinence, which may have their special reason and justification, when moulded into habits fall in the way of the withering denunciation which the pa.s.sage I have quoted from 1 Tim. iv. 1-4 expresses; (2) That the moulding of our personal habits on the follies, weaknesses, or vices of others, is a betrayal of trust, for that which we have chiefly in trust is life--to live a life free, strong, and fearless, s.h.i.+ning as a light, not of rebuke or of caution, but of guidance to mankind; and (3) That every concession to doubt and weakness to which Divine charity moves us is futile and vicious, unless in the very act we are putting forth a hand to lift a weak brother to a standing ground where he will be above these fogs of fear and infirmity for ever.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.