091. And Now I Began to Look in the Bible with New Eyes and, Especially, The Epistles of the Apo...

XCI ‘And Now I Began to Look into the Bible with New Eyes: and, Especially, The Epistles of the Apostle Paul Were Sweet and Pleasant to Me.’ THE true derivation of the English word ‘religion’ has long been a disputed question among learned men. But the best scholars of our day are fast coming round to Cicero’s root. That great genius in language held that the Latin word religio originally meant the continual reading and rereading of the sacred books. To Tully, as to David, the truly religious man is he whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither; and all that he doeth shall prosper. That is to say, true religion, even in its etymology, stands firm and fruitful in the continual reading of the word of God, till that word dwells richly in the assiduous reader’s mind and heart. Cicero’s etymology continually comes to my mind as often as I open Bunyan’s impressive paragraphs on the Bible. And that true etymology comes even more to my mind as often as I open Halyburton’s autobiography everywhere. But it is with Bunyan and his new eyes and his new Bible that we have specially to do to-night. From the beginning to the end of his Grace Abounding, Bunyan describes to us the successive eyes with which he read his Bible from first to last. When Bunyan began first to read his Bible it was with the eyes of a child. As a child he greatly delighted in the enthralling stories of the Bible. The garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah and his ark, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and all their adventures, Moses and his floating cradle among the bulrushes of the Nile, the gigantic labours of Samson, and the pious prowess of David, and so on. Then, through the native strength and the native originality of his mind, though he never went to school to the Fathers or to the early Councils, he began to look into his Bible with the eyes of a student. All our well-read divinity students know those most interesting passages in Grace Abounding on the Apocrypha and on the Canon, and such like. And then after that the eyes of a sinner intent on seeking his own salvation were given of God to Bunyan. And it is most helpful to ourselves when we are intent on seeking our own salvation, to see what special parts of the Bible brought salvation to John Bunyan, who writes himself down on his title-page as the chief of sinners. And then long afterwards we see him employing his eyes on his Bible as a Puritan preacher. All true preachers are greatly interested in watching what texts Bunyan chose to preach upon as he went deeper and deeper into his texts, and as he became more and more spiritual, and more and more evangelical, and more and more experimental, in his preaching. And, as we go on through his wonderful book we rejoice to trace how the eyes of a true saint are more and more given him of God; the eyes of his understanding being enlightened that he might know the hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of His inheritance in the saints.

After Bunyan had once got his new eyes, this was the way he immediately began to read his Bible and especially his New Testament.

‘Me-thought I was as if I had seen Him born; as if I had seen Him grow up; as if I had seen Him walk through this world from His cradle to His cross; to which, also, when He came, I saw how gently He gave Himself to be hanged and nailed upon it, for my sins and wicked doings. Also, as I mused upon this His progress, that scripture dropped upon my spirit, He was ordained for the slaughter.’

Let us all learn to read our New Testament in that way. For reading in that way is not only a sure evidence to us that we have got new eyes from God, but as we go on to read in that way our eyes will become more and more new every day. Scale after scale will fall from off our eyes till we shall see deeper and deeper into the word of God every time we open it. This is what has been called reading with ‘the eye on the object,’ which is the only true and fruitful way of reading the Bible and everything else.

‘Especially the Epistles of the Apostle Paul were sweet and pleasant to me.’ If Dr. Thomas Goodwin is right when he says that reconciliation is the main argument of the Bible, then that argument comes to its consummation and its crown in Paul’s Epistles. And that was Paul’s own conviction and assurance about his Epistles and about his whole apostleship. For he claims in every Epistle of his that to him above all other men had been committed the word of reconciliation. Now if that is so, then Bunyan is entirely right in his immense indebtedness to Paul, and in his immense enjoyment of Paul. And we also are right if Paul’s reconciliation-Epistles are immensely sweet and pleasant to us. And in the pulpit they only are the true successors of Paul who say more and more with Paul every new Sabbath day.

‘Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’ But you are not preachers of reconciliation like Paul and Bunyan. You are only retired and private readers of Paul’s Epistles of reconciliation. Only, are you even that? Have you got your new eyes from God even yet? When you sit down at night for a little heart-sweetening reading after another heart-embittering day to what part of your Bible do you turn your eyes? Luther said that since he was always sinning so he was always reading the Romans and the Galatians. Now since you are always sinning what are you always reading? We are all confiding friends here, and I will not ask you such homecoming questions as that, without answering for myself. Well, for myself, I often sweeten my heart, at the end of the day, with this passage out of Paul:

‘Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.’

Now, if you know anything in all the world more sweet to the sin embittered heart than that, I would like you to tell me where I can find it. Many of your new eyes have been fastened, like mine, upon this also: ‘To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.’ And on this: ‘Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.’ And on this:‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ And then, what consolation and what sweetness there is in the seventh and eighth chapters of the Romans, especially when we read those two chapters together at the same down-sitting. Only, do you ever do that? Speak out, and say.

‘Indeed, I was then never out of the Bible.’ Just so. When once any man has really got his new eyes from God, and when once he has fairly gone into his Bible with his new eyes, that man will never again be long out of his Bible. His daily life will not let him be long out of his Bible. And especially his evil heart will not let him be long out of his Bible. His house may be full of books, and not bad books either; but his Bible is the only book of them all that wholly answers to his life around him and especially to his life within him. But let me throw in this parenthetically at this point. Rich and full as John Bunyan is, on the splendid service his Bible did him, our own Halyburton is richer and fuller far. And Jacob Behmen tells an anxious inquirer to cast himself once every hour into the depths of his Bible: aye every half-hour; and he will find himself to be straightway penetrated with the divine glory, and will taste a sweetness that no tongue can express. ‘Thou wouldst then love thy cross more than all the goods and all the joys of this world’ — so Jacob Behmen assures his disciple.

‘I was then never out of the Bible.’ Have you ever had a time in your whole life of which you could so speak? When was it? Was it when you first got your new eyes from God? And when it seemed to you as if your new eyes were far too new and far too good for you to throw them away upon anything but your Bible? Or was it when some great sin of yours threatened to find you out? Or again, was it in some great shipwreck of desire and hope when all your other books on which you had fed your desire and your hope had suddenly become so much dust and ashes in your mouth? Was it then that you began to find such a sweetness and such a solace in your Bible, that like Bunyan you were never out of it? And when, like Jacob Behmen’s obedient disciple, you plunged yourself back into your Bible every half-hour? A time of a great bereavement also sends some people back in a hurry to their deserted Bible. When their life was full of all manner of prosperity, when their days and nights were full of family affections and family interests, when their head was anointed every day with fresh oil, and when their cup was always running over, in those days they could not away with Paul’s Epistles or anything else of that so heavenly kind. But when they sat solitary, and when no man cared for their soul, then their Bible began to come to its own again in their broken hearts. Then like Bunyan

‘it was marvellous to them to find the fitness of God’s word to their case. The wonderful Tightness of the timing of it, the power, the sweetness, the light, and the glory that all come with it.’ And then the forsaken soul rose up out of the dust of death, and said:

‘I will go, and will return to my first Husband, for then it was better with me than now.’

‘And, now, I began to look into the Bible with new eyes, and read as I never did before. And, especially, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul were sweet and pleasant to me. And, indeed, I was then never out of the Bible, either by reading or meditation.’

Delightful! Delightful! But what is this? For I turn the leaf, and I find this:

‘I am convinced that I am an ignorant sot; and that I want those blessed gifts that other good people have: the blessed gifts of spiritual knowledge and spiritual understanding. For I am tossed continually between the devil and my own ignorance, and am so perplexed, especially at some times, that I cannot tell what to do.’

Now, are you not — some of you — secretly glad to hear that? Does that not immensely comfort you? I am sure it does. At any rate, it immensely comforts me. To know that John Bunyan with all his new eyes and with all his rapturous love for Paul’s Epistles, yet at some times felt himself to be a sot of a man; and to be tossed about by the devil and by his own ignorance of divine things — does that not comfort you? At any rate, I say, I for one get great comfort and great hope out of all that, as well as out of such corresponding Scriptures as these: ‘I am dust and ashes,’ said Abraham; ‘I am a worm, and no man,’ said a psalmist; ‘I am a beast before God,’ said another psalmist; ‘I was shapen in iniquity,’ said the greatest and best of all the psalmists; ‘I am a man of unclean lips, and all my righteousnesses are but so many filthy rags,’ said the most evangelical of all the prophets; ‘I am more brutish than any man,’ said one of the wisest of men; ‘I abhor myself,’ said Job; ‘I am sold under sin,’ said Paul;‘None but the devil could equal me in pollution of mind and heart,’ said Bunyan. And, again, ‘I am an ignorant sot, tossed about by the devil at his will.’ And so on — in every sincere and genuine saint of God who is undergoing a great sanctification for a great service on earth and in heaven. Dear, sin-tormented people of God! Do not be too much cast down! You are in good company. You are in the best of company. Angels envy you and your company, They would exchange all their glory for such an experience and for such a prospect as yours. Meantime, take these sweet and pleasant passages out of Paul, and take them home with you:

‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.’

Wherefore, comfort your hearts with these words, and with a thousand more words like these, in Paul’s so sweet and so pleasant Epistles.