08. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 The account in the Epistle of the Christian’s life--The law of holiness--Holiness the ’final cause’ of faith--The Christian is before all things humble--Why this must be so--Yet not without will and tone--Truthful--Pure--Watchful--Serviceable--’A Puritan life’--The Christian home--Slavery--Lessons from the policy of the Gospel towards slavery--The conflict of the Christian with evil powers--Conclusion--Renan’s estimate of St Paul--The believer’s estimate of him. But now we turn the page, and pass to the second limb of the precious document before us. Here is the sequel, the inference, the issue of these revelations of spiritual fact, and of these wonderful possibilities of experience. Here upon privilege follows conduct. What is the account of the conduct of the New Testament Christian to be?

We note well one point as we proceed; the order of the subjects, with its lesson. We are about to study Christian fruit. We are reminded, by its place in the writer’s thought, of the impossibility of this without Christian root. Scripture is guiltless of what someone has called ’that cheerless Gospel, you ought to be good.’ Presenting to us God in Christ, received into the very man by faith to be his life and power, his pledged and covenanted secret and equipment, it says to him, then and therefore, ’You ought to be holy, because of Him; you are made, you are re-made, to be holy, by Him; you exist as a redeemed and regenerated man on purpose to be holy, in Him and for Him.’ ’Brethren, we are debtors’ to the Spirit (Romans 8:12). And there is means to pay. For we have the Spirit of Christ; if we ’are Christ’s,’ if we are not ’none of His’ (Romans 8:9).

We note one fact further; the magnificent prominence and urgency given in these pages to our call to personal and practical holiness, as the true goal and issue of all true salvation. In the luminous statement on Good Works in our Twelfth Article, true sequel to the powerful affirmation of our Justification in the Eleventh, I have always felt nevertheless a certain sense of defect. ’Good works, which are the fruits of faith, are acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring necessarily out of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.’ Most true, in every word; yet one could wish the Article to lay its closing emphasis on the fact that practical holiness is not only the note of a true faith but its final cause, the very thing in order to which God has given it. It is to lively faith just what the fruit is to the tree. And the fruit is much more than the botanical label of the tree. It is the reason why the tree is in the fruit-garden at all. The tree is for the fruit. But now, in a review quite brief but, as to its points, as complete as we can make it, let us watch the resultant character and conduct of this specimen of New Testament Christianity, this man so rich in spiritual blessings in Christ, so perfectly mundane and commonplace as to circumstance in the world. His first and most vital characteristic is gentleness, meekness, self-abnegating kindness. See Ephesians 4:1, and Ephesians 4:32. We must have noted this well and often; the sequence of Ephesians 4:1 on the spiritual glories and wonders which close Ephesians 3:1-21. The disciple, if the Apostle’s prayer is answered, is ’filled, up to all the fulness of God.’ What will flow out of him? Spiritual pharisaism and self-importance? Not so. If he ’walks,’ if he steps through common life, ’worthy of his calling,’ in a character corresponding to the divine gifts of his conversion, it will be ’with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing others in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’; and again, as one who is ’kind to others, tender-hearted, forgiving them, as God in Christ did forgive him.’ To sum up the matter in one supreme word, he ’walks in love’ (Ephesians 5:2), as one whom Christ has so loved that He ’gave Himself for him,’ in the atoning sacrifice. This deep requisite to all holiness is not accidentally put first--this meek and humble kindliness which is in fact love in practice. It is of the inmost essence of the Gospel. For the Gospel above all things dethrones self-will and self-assertion, where it indeed enthrones Christ. So it lays a holy passivity deep at the root of all the activities of faith.

Meantime the man is no characterless and inoperative being because his Lord has laid him low in his own eyes. His walk of love is also a walk in ’the light,’ of which he is ’a child’ (Ephesians 5:8), and the fruit of which he bears (Ephesians 5:9). The very precept, ’Be ye angry and sin not’ (Ephesians 4:26), allows, and indeed enjoins on him, in due place, a pure moral indignation, not for self but for right. And he is no babe in the sense of showing a purposeless and unthinking credulity; he is to be ’no more νήπιος, infantine, carried about with every wind of teaching, but in love living true,’ ἀληθεύων ἐν ἀγάπῃ (Ephesians 4:14). He ’walks not as foolish but as wise’ (Ephesians 5:15). With full regenerate will, using the power of his Lord in him, he ’takes himself in hand’ for all that is right; he decisively (Ephesians 4:25) ’puts away lying’; ’puts away (Ephesians 4:31) all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and railing, and malice.’ We note well the uncompromising decision, the holy power of expulsion, assumed here to be used by the regenerate man. His strength is wholly in God’ his will is what grace has made it; yet it is as truly as ever his will. And we note again the absolute and summary exclusion from the Christian life of all that extensive class of sins which we so easily let pass as tolerable, but which are intolerable in Christ; the sins of tongue, of temper, of self-vindicating jealousies. They ’have to go,’ and in Christ they can be commanded to go, out of the Christian life.

Just as decisively, the New Testament Christian suppresses--in his Lord, in the power of his union and salvation in Him--all untruthful act and purpose. ’He steals no more’ (Ephesians 4:28). And ’greed’ (Ephesians 5:3) is put quite away; words of a large reference in what they really cover. He allows ’no putrid word,’ λόγος σαπρὸς, from his lips. The talk which trifles with impurity and plays with sin is absolutely over with him. ’All uncleanness’ is dismissed from mention; and the hideous banter and raillery of profane allusions to it (Ephesians 5:4), μωρολογία καὶ εὐτραπελία, are gone the same way. The man’s assurance of his salvation in the Holy One leaves him only the more awfully convinced that no impure life can possibly find place in the true ’realm of Christ and of God’ (Ephesians 5:5); and that the vainest of ’vain words’ are those which would explain away the coming ’wrath’ (Ephesians 5:6), sure to fall upon ’the sons of disobedience.’ He does not only even avoid the ’unfruitful works of the darkness’ (Ephesians 5:2); he ’reproves’ them, ἐλέγχει, shows them up, by conduct marked and unmistakable, and, where there is occasion, by faithful words. By a personal witness not self-righteous but righteous, he ’evinces’ the dark and unclean hollowness of the life of sin.

Altogether, he ’walks accurately’ (ἀκριβῶς, Ephesians 5:15), thinking nothing unimportant in life, nothing outside the law of the Christian walk. He is covetous of occasion for God, and ’buys it out for himself,’ ἐξαγοράζεται (Ephesians 5:16), from the bondage of self-willing and world-loving use. He does so ’because the days are evil’; because, that is to say, he lives in a world of sin, and the circumstances of the hour will not lend themselves to his Master’s use; his own unregenerate effort must win occasion from them. His holy walk is not only negative, of course, but positive. He remembers (Ephesians 4:12) that however private his place, and in Church order however unofficial, though he be neither ’apostle, prophet, evangelist or pastor-teacher,’ he yet has ’a work of ministry’ because he is ’a limb of Christ’; he has his part and function in ’building up the Body.’ In respect of temporal want around him he takes pains to be able (Ephesians 4:28) to ’give to him that needeth.’ His talk is not only such as to do no harm; it is aimed at the truest good; by the grace of Christ it is a means of grace (Ephesians 4:29); ’good for edifying, for strengthening in Christ, as the need may be’ (πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν χρείας), ’that it may minister grace to the hearers.’ One beautiful use of voice he specially loves to make, in the sweet ordinance of Christian psalmody, twice enjoined by St Paul (here, Ephesians 5:19, and in Colossians 3:16) as a normal thing in the Christian life; surely not in public worship only, but in the home where Christ is Head. And over the man’s whole life, like an echo of such ’psalms, and hymns, and spiritual odes, with song and instrument (ψάλλοντες), in the heart, unto the Lord,’ runs the music of a thankfulness which sounds on in everything; ’giving thanks always for all things unto our God and Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:20).’ It is a somewhat Puritan life, is it not? But none the less is it not beautiful with a light and colour quite heavenly in its cause, quite practical in its application? And is it, for our modern world, a mere daydream? No; even now, amidst the confusions of society and religion, amidst so much that is crude and blatant in the current life of the poor world and of the too often worldly Church, such lives are lived in Christ at this hour. There still exist such sanctuaries of homes, bright on occasion with smiles and sinless laughter, but quite innocent of words, of pursuits, of tone, of temper, that would make discord with the presence of Christ; full of the works of love, and of witness for Him Who is their secret. The home of the New Testament Christian is the crown and perfection of this lovely picture. Truly, as I have said in one of our earlier readings, the Christian home is the masterpiece of the Gospel. And our day brings many a warning with it, as the world sees the home more and more invaded from without and troubled by revolt from within, that nothing but the Gospel, nothing less than Christ, will finally secure home in its true existence at all. There is no Œcolampadius, no Hausslicht, no ’Homelight,’ like the New Testament Christian. Separated in his Lord from the world, he is yet made tenderly amalgam-able in his Lord towards every claim, every approach, every bond, every union, that Christ can sanctify.

I scarcely need remind you of the picture of the New Testament Home as here viewed in its details (Ephesians 5:22-33; Ephesians 6:1-9). We have as it were seen with our eyes this Wife, in her conjugal loyalty, in the dignity which is involved for her in the reverent leadership of the Husband. We have seen this Husband, remembering at every turn the sanctity in Christ which surrounds his whole relation to the Wife:--’as the Lord loved the Church, and nourisheth and cherisheth it, aye, and gave Himself for it,’ so is his whole life one of watchful, affectionate, self-sacrificing devotion to her whom Christ has joined to him, casting round their union the glory of the ’great mystery’ of His own eternal Bridal. We have seen these Children, obedient, reverent, keeping willingly ’the first commandment with promise.’ We have seen these Parents, scrupulously avoiding an irritating and tyrannic discipline, but in their heaven-given commission (there is no commission in the world more direct and more sacred) ’developing them (ἐκτρέφετε) in the discipline and cautioning (νουθεσίᾳ) of the Lord.’ Lastly, we have seen these Slaves, the Onesimi of these Philemons, their masters’ conscious brothers in Christ, but all the more entirely and intelligently and nobly their servants in conscience; true as steel to duty, which they now find themselves elevated to do; recognizing in the menial task the glory of the will of God; doing it ’from the soul’ here and now, and looking hereafter to the ’reward of the inheritance.’ We have seen these Masters, brought in Christ to find brothers and fellow-servants in their bondmen, and to drop for ever the accent of the domestic despot.

Space absolutely forbids me to dwell on that last noble phenomenon in the morals and polity of Christ, the apostolic treatment of domestic slavery. I can only in passing remark on the illustration given us in this instance of some of the deepest characteristics of the Gospel in its application of itself to the problems of society. We see here, what Goldwin Smith long ago remarked,^[14] ’the perfect freedom of the Gospel from the spirit of political revolution’; its entire abstinence from that setting of class against class which is a wanton incendiarism in the house of the State. We see the absolute impartiality which speaks to each party, with equal explicitness, not about its rights but about its duties; only with more fulness and emphasis telling the stronger party about its duties to the weaker. And we see the call to them both to look beyond time to eternity for their motive and their law; to find in Christ, equally and always, the inspiring and enabling power for duty, in every detail alike of the simplest service and of the largest authority. So did the Gospel take a way, prescient as its Author, to abolish a tremendous evil, not through an untimely, unhallowed, pernicious appeal to passion, but through a spiritual transfiguration of the human parties in the matter.

^[14] Does the New Testament sanction American Slavery? (1863.) The almost closing paragraph (Ephesians 6:10, etc.) seems even violent in its transition. From the Christian home, with its pure peace and love, its divine and human pieties, we seem, as in an antithesis to the vision of Dothan (2 Kings 6:1-33), suddenly to see the New Testament Christian beleaguered with the personal powers of evil; ’world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual things of evil in the heavenly world.’ Their leader lays his stratagems (Ephesians 6:11). His forces wrestle for the man’s fall, and aim darts of fire at the vitals of his soul. And the believer meanwhile stands immovable and victorious, in a panoply of which every part (to quote St Jerome’s comment here) is (the Lord our Saviour;’ ’by "all the arms of God" the Saviour is to be understood.’ The Christian ’takes up’ (ἀναλάβετε) Christ in His Truth, in His Righteousness, in His Blessed Hope, in His sure Word, and is safe in Him. He makes sure of the ground with ’feet shod with’ Christ in His atoning and present ’peace.’ So, ’having done all,’ having wrought his Lord’s will in his Lord’s power, ’he stands,’ erect and without a wound, in Him. But is the transition violent? Surely not, in that spiritual truth of things which lies behind temporal phenomena. Where do the powers of darkness beset us? Most of all where by nature we are least on guard. And where is that? In the common day and hour; not least often amidst the unanxious liberties of home. There, if Christ is not in command, only too possibly the man may most freely wander out of Christ. And out of Christ we are at once upon the enemy’s own ground.

Here close our studies in the Epistle to the Ephesians. I will not waste words in explaining again what is obviously true, that the essay has been extremely fragmentary and in every respect imperfect. A few short readings on such a theme give room only for some suggestions upon some aspects of it. But I trust we have not read this wonderful Letter together, even thus, without receiving some fresh and helpful impressions from it upon our spirits. We have at least found that it has in it that mysterious quality of Scripture; you cannot touch the bottom of it, nor climb the height. Like the riches of Christ, like the plan of God, those vast things of which it speaks, it is ἀνεξιχνίαστος, unsearchable; we cannot track the labyrinth in and out and all around; it eludes us still, while it perpetually meets us; there is always yet another path to be discovered, another green vista, another holy bower with its shining temple of truth in the midst of it. As Alford said of the Apocalypse, in the act of closing his exposition of it, and with it his great Commentary on the New Testament, so may we say here: ’I commend to my gracious God and Father this feeble attempt to explain this glorious portion of His revealed Scripture. I do it with humble thankfulness, but with a sense of utter weakness before the power of His Word, and inability to sound the depths even of its simplest sentence.’ May this poor contribution to Scriptural study do something, however little, to quicken in us Christians, and especially in us Christian pastors, a consciousness of the sanctity and inexhaustibility of the Word of God written. May we evermore know this for ourselves, behind all our manifold work for the flock; then shall we, under God, quicken in them the holy curiosity of the true Bible-reader. And then, and only so, will they with us, in these days of debate, rest calmly but immovably upon the rock of the Word, which abideth and also liveth for ever.

Renan, in the last pages of his Saint Paul, presumes to say that Paul, the narrow, the dogmatic, the intensely personal Paul, has in our century seen his reign come to an end. ’Jesus,’ on the other hand (how repulsive to the believer is the sceptic’s humanitarian use of the blessed Name!) ’Jesus’ maintains an immortal influence; He is ’at the right hand of the Father’; words which must not be mistaken, however; Renan believed in no personal God at all. But why is He thus and there? Because, in the little we know of His person and His words, we find ’the great Artist, the Man of the Ideal, the divine Poet.’ Nay, blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord, we know another Jesus Christ than--only that, and we know another Paul than Renan’s travesty. We know the true Messenger and the eternal Message; we possess them as facts of history, as treasures of the heart. And we can never have done with the Messenger, because the Lord, Who is his Message, proves Himself in us to be our eternal Life. The End