06.06. Lecture 6th - Privileges/Obligations of Sonship

LECTURE SIXTH. THE PRIVILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS OF SONSHIP.

Now are we the Sons of God— 1 John 3:2. THE relation of fatherhood and sonship, if it is what I have ventured to represent it as being, must involve in it privileges and obligations of a definite and distinctive character. For it is in itself a definite and distinctive relation. It is something more than the mere infusion of a certain measure of fatherly feeling, such as prevails in the homes of earth, into the ordinary moral administration of God; to the effect of tempering the rigid and exact severity of strict justice and qualifying judgment with mercy. It is something different, also, from the kindly and fatherly sort of feeling with which God, as ruler, may be supposed to regard his once rebellious subjects when they are returning to their allegiance. If either of these accounts is held to exhaust the idea of God’s fatherhood, its practical bearing on our happiness and duty can be only very vaguely felt and described. A general notion or impression of benignant graciousness on God’s part, calling for gratitude on our part, is nearly all that can be made of it, or got out of it.

It is true that, as regards its actings and manifestations, this general notion or impression of graciousness may be broken up, as it were, into details. The analogy of the human family may suggest a variety of particular instances. The subject is often treated in this way. God is represented as discharging many different offices towards his people, all of them indicative and expressive of an affection like that of a parent—such as putting upon them his name; giving them access always to his throne; pitying, protecting, and providing for them; chastening and correcting them; keeping them safe till they reach heaven at last. But to a large extent, these may be all classed as benignant offices of government,—and of government merely.

They all, however, stand out in a new light, and become far more clear, specific, and well-defined, when they are viewed in connection with the true and proper fatherhood of God, as distinguished from what I may perhaps be allowed to call the analogical. The more the special and peculiar nature of that relation is recognised, the more will these and other similar dealings of God be seen to be special and peculiar also. And if there should turn out to be any one speciality in particular—any one peculiarity—attaching to the position of sonship in the creature, as constituted by participation in the sonship of the uncreated,—then that peculiarity may be expected to give its tone and complexion to the whole practical development and working out of the relation, both on God’s part and on ours. I cannot help thinking that there is such a guiding principle to be found, if rightly sought for, in Scripture.

Here I must once more refer, in the outset of my search, to the holy angels, whom I think we ought to look upon as our brethren in our sonship.

Let us attempt to realise the situation of those who stood the test, and their state of mind, when their companions sinned and fell. What a shock to them! They may almost be moved to exclaim: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalms 11:3). What a shuddering sense of insecurity, what a thrill of fear, may pass along the ranks and agitate the bosoms of the faithful, in the view of infidelity on the part of their comrades, so utterly unaccountable.

They are indeed themselves still standing, through grace, in their integrity. But how many who seemed as steadfast and strong as they have miserably fallen! And they have fallen, too, without a cause; there has been no temptation from without, nor any previous corrupt tendency within. And there is nothing in the order issued from the throne that should have awakened in reasonable minds and loving hearts suspicion or resentment. If it was a demand upon them for homage to the Son, surely that was a most honourable service. But, as it would seem, they insist on having liberty, in the sense of absolute independence. In the mere relation itself of subjectship, necessarily implied in their state as creatures, they find a certain element or source of irksomeness. And when the sense of their being necessarily, simply as creatures, subjects and “servants under the yoke,” is powerfully and pointedly borne in upon their consciousness, by the assertion of sovereign authority, in the form of an express, positive, and peremptory commandment, no matter how righteous and even gracious the commandment may be;—how righteous in its ground or root of equity, how gracious in its loving tendency towards a better state;—they cannot endure the idea of being thus ruled. In the absence alike of outward solicitation and of inward covetousness or desire, it is not easy to conceive of the trial or temptation which proved fatal to the lost angels, as having been different in its principle, working, and effect, from the line of thought and feeling which I venture hypothetically to trace. But if so, what a discovery breaks upon the unfallen! Is it not, in fact, the discovery of an element of instability inherent in the very constitution and essential nature of the relation of subjectship itself? It is not an incidental fault or failure in the working out of that relation;—such as might be remedied for the present by proper appliances, and prevented for the future by proper precautions. Does it not rather indicate a radical vice, or source of weakness, in the relation itself ?*[1] For what guarantee, let us ask,—putting ourselves in their place, —could the obedient angels have,—after witnessing the fall of so many of their companions,—what guarantee could they feel themselves to have,—against their own fall, as at least a possible, and even not very unlikely contingency? No doubt they have stood one trial. They have obeyed, by God’s gracious help, as they freely own, in the instance of this one commandment. But who can tell? Other commandments may be issued from the throne; commandments that may be felt to be more grievous. The very necessity now imposed upon them of disowning,—perhaps judging,—so many of their race whom till now they had counted brothers,— may well be supposed to awaken apprehension. May not the sternest loyalty give way? May not the infection, if not of insubordination, yet at least of pity for the victims of insubordination, grow and spread? Thus these pure spirits may well, in these circumstances, begin to apprehend that it is only too natural for the creature, as such, to feel the subjection to authority and the obligation of obedience to law, implied in his being a creature, to be irksome and vexatious; that the yoke of mere subjectship is, from its very nature, apt to become galling; that, apart altogether from the character and condition of those who are under it, if that is their only standing, it has in itself a tendency to call forth in them, be their character ever so pure and their condition ever so good, a disposition to cast it off and to aspire to the liberty of independence. The holy angels have seen all this only too clearly and too terribly proved and exemplified before their eyes. How, after this, can they reckon their own footing, as subjects, to be quite safe? For my part, I cannot imagine any way in which the standing or position of a creature—considered simply as a subject under the government of God—when God is viewed simply as Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge—ever can become absolutely and infallibly safe. Of course God is able to keep any one occupying that standing or position, and no other, in perfect and inviolable security for ever. He can so keep any one anywhere and always. But the standing or position itself may be precarious nevertheless. It is, as I think, a necessity of its very nature to be so. Evidently it was so originally. The fall of the untempted angels, as well as that of tempted man, proves it to have been so. Nor, as regards the unfallen, is there anything in the mere fact of their having on one occasion stood some test of their obedience, and received some gracious acknowledgment for doing so, that can of itself suffice to make it different, in this respect, from what it was before. But it is impossible to reconcile ourselves to the idea of these holy intelligences being left,—after the issue of that trial which had proved so disastrous to their fellows, and out of which they might well feel that they had made a narrow escape themselves,—on the same footing merely on which they had previously been. “God is not unrighteous to forget their work and labour of love,” in that they have heard his voice, and at his command “worshipped,” shall I say? “the first begotten.” In the sin of their former associates they have now come, in a sense, to know evil as well as good. And this very knowledge, marring the unconscious confidence of innocent and blissful ignorance, must tend to awaken misgivings in their minds, and make them feel their footing insecure. In short, it would seem that they cannot be allowed to stand where they were. If they are to be protected from the risk and the fear of falling, they must be raised. And so, according to my view, they are. They receive the adoption of sons; and that ensures their safety. They are no longer servants only, but also sons. Having been tried, they are now trusted. Having disowned the servile spirit of insubordination, they receive the Spirit of the Son. Having refused to aspire to a lawless liberty of independence, they are—and it is a meet “recompense of reward”—put in possession “of the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

This, as it seems to me, is the peculiar benefit of sonship; this is its great radical, distinctive, characteristic property. It puts an end conclusively to probation, in every sense and in every form. It secures permanence of position in the household or family of God. But it is only when it is held to be of the same sort with that of Christ that sonship can be shown to involve this consequence. If we take the merely analogical view of the relation of fatherhood and sonship between God and his children,—conceiving of it simply according to the similitude of fatherhood and sonship among ourselves,—we cannot see in it any element of absolute and inviolable security. A son’s standing in his earthly parent’s house is not absolutely and inviolably secure. He may go out, or he may be thrust out. It is true he is not, strictly speaking, upon trial; the right to be at home with his father is not, in the ordinary sense of the term, conditional. Still it may be forfeited, or it may be despised and practically renounced. He may be tempted and may fall, and that too even irrecoverably. If our standing as sons in the divine household is imagined to be at the very best simply like my son’s standing in mine, it is not divested of the condition of precariousness. There may be more safeguards in the one case than in the other. God is able to take more care of his children than I can take of mine. That, however, is only a difference of degree. Some insecurity, be it more or less, still attaches to the relation. And if those called to be sons, in the sense now supposed to be put upon sonship, have seen others as good and strong as themselves fall,—or if they have themselves fallen and been with difficulty recovered,—I can see no reason why, even in the bosom of the holy, heavenly home, they may not be occasionally, or rather constantly, haunted by the apprehension that possibly after all they may be cast away.

I do not forget here the bearing upon the point now under consideration of the doctrine of free justification. I am quite aware that, apart from sonship altogether, God’s act of free grace in justifying those who believe is held to carry with it, as a consequence, involved in its very nature, the inviolable security of the justified. I fully allow, or rather decidedly assert, that by the purpose of God, expressed in his promises, it does so. Nay more, it must be admitted, that in the justified state itself there is that which puts the servant of God in highly favourable circumstances for maintaining his integrity. Holding justification to be perfectly unconditional, so far as we are concerned,—all of grace and not of works,—I can see how it does place us, in some respects, in a far better position than that which Adam occupied before he fell. We are not merely put again upon trial and probation; permitted as it were to have another chance,—to venture on a second experiment,—to make a new attempt to establish a righteousness of our own. We have always the righteousness of Christ on which we may stand as giving us a title, not inchoate merely, but complete, to acceptance in the sight of God. Unquestionably, therefore, we start upon our new course of obedience, as his subjects and servants, at a great advantage. We have not, like Adam, to make good for ourselves our standing as God’s righteous subjects and servants, but only to preserve it as freely given to us by God. We have not to work our way to that standing, but only to hold it fast.

Still we have to preserve it and hold it fast. And there is nothing in it or about it, considered simply in itself, to secure infallibly that we shall preserve it and hold it fast. No doubt, as I have already said, God is able to secure this, and is graciously pledged to secure it. But for anything that appears to the contrary, his way of securing it may be just through our receiving the very adoption of sons for which I plead. For let the relation in which we stand to God as subjects and servants be taken at its very best, as it subsists in the case of justified believers;—and that is its very best;—I still desiderate in it the element or condition of absolute inviolability.

I consider that our Lord has really settled this whole matter in one remarkable passage which, as I take it, is the divine key to unlock the mystery of God’s fatherhood and his people’s sonship. It is this; “The servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the son abideth ever. If the son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:35-36). The Lord is here arguing with “those Jews which believed on him,” about liberty. He has given them the promise that “if they continue in his word,” and so prove themselves to be his genuine disciples, they shall “know the truth, and the truth shall make them free” (John 8:31-32).. Then they are not now free. They feel that the Lord’s promise implies as much. He regards them as now in bondage; an imputation which they somewhat indignantly disclaim. They disclaim it as being inconsistent with their being “Abraham’s seed” (John 8:33). For they quite well understand that Christ is not speaking of civil or political liberty, or even of what is commonly called religious liberty. The question raised, as they clearly enough perceive, respects, not their position with reference to men at all, but their standing before God, in his house or family,—which of course they counted their own church and nation to be. In our relation to God, as being members of his household, are we not already free? Is not our footing in that relation a footing not of bondage but of freedom? Our Lord meets them first with an appeal to their own consciences: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). You can scarcely deny that you commit sin; that you do more or less consent and yield yourselves to sin. So far, you serve sin. It has dominion over you. You said you never were in bondage; never had a master. But has not sin some mastery over you? Then you are not free; free, as you boast, to serve God only; free to dwell in his house for ever. You may be in God’s house. But if so, it is not as being free in your relation to him. For that you cannot be, while, committing sin, you are the servants of sin. Your position in the house can be only that of a servant; whose position at the very best is precarious and insecure;—“for the servant abideth not in the house for ever.” As a servant, he has no right to such a privilege; nor indeed has he any capacity for realising it. He is distracted between the claim upon him for undivided allegiance on the one hand, and his inclination towards compromise on the other. He can only be God’s servant partially; having still a hankering after independence and self-will, which is the service of sin. Therefore “the servant abideth not in the house for ever.” He cannot be sure of thus abiding, so long as he is a servant merely. “But the son abideth ever” (John 8:35). I as the Son am free;—so they must have understood his words, for they could not doubt that he was speaking of himself;— I as the Son am free, and as the Son “I abide in the house for ever.” Would you have true freedom? Enter into the freedom which I have as the Son. “For if the Son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Clearly, as I apprehend his words, the Lord intends, in this divine reasoning, to represent his own sonship, and that alone, as absolutely ensuring permanence of position in the house or family of his Father. And just as clearly, to my mind, he indicates his willingness to share that sonship, and that feature or quality of it, with us. In this view, the connection is not a little remarkable which he virtually establishes between our participation in his sonship on the one hand, and on the other hand, our freedom from the risk or hazard of “committing sin,” so as to forfeit the certainty of our abiding in the house for ever. For I cannot help thinking that the Lord has here in his mind that servile tendency which, as I have already said, I hold to be inherent in mere subjectship, if it be not joined to sonship such as his;—the tendency, I mean, which must ever make the committing of sin, even to the extent of the subject and servant losing his place in the house, conceivable as at least a possible contingency. He seems to say first, that “committing sin” is incompatible with our being free in the house—free, in the sense of being sure of abiding in it for ever. And then he seems to say also secondly, that if we are “servants” only in the house, and nothing more, we are not, as servants, inviolably safe from “committing sin.” Accordingly he assigns this as the reason why we cannot, as servants merely, be absolutely sure of abiding in the house for ever. In order to that, we must become partakers with him in his sonship, and in the freedom which as the Son he has. “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

If I am right in this last idea, it may suggest a close harmony between our Lord’s teaching in this passage and what, as we have seen, John says in his First Epistle about those who, “being born of God,” are “called sons of God,” having “his seed remaining in them,” as the germ of an absolutely impeccable nature or life—a nature or life incapable of sin (1 John 3:6-9).*[2] For now we may see how,—both in respect of its implying community of nature, and in respect of its implying community of relation, with Christ the Son,—our sonship, securing our indefectibility by excluding the very possibility of sinning, thereby makes our abiding ever in the house absolutely certain. Of course, as regards our sense, or assurance, or apprehension of this certainty,—that can be realised only in so far as the sonship on which it depends is, in all its fulness of holiness and grace, itself realised. But in so far as it is, the assurance which it warrants is entirely trustworthy. In fact, it is the only assurance any one need desire. “The Son abideth ever.” An attentive study of those two wonderful chapters in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans—Romans 7:1-25 and Romans 8:1-39—would, I am persuaded, not a little confirm the representation which I have been giving of John’s doctrine, and of the Lord’s.

If we trace the progress of that experimental exposition; in which, emerging out of the depths of an apparently hopeless struggle between his renewed will and the power of indwelling corruption—a struggle in which he feels himself all but overmastered by evil, as if in spite of himself he could not help “committing sin” and so being “the servant of sin”—Paul rises by successive steps to the highest climax of assured triumph and holy joy; it is worthy of remark that it is mainly through the apprehension of sonship that he reaches that elevation.

Deliverance from condemnation, of course, comes first (Romans 8:1-11). That is fully brought out, so as to do ample justice to the free grace of God in justifying “him which believeth in Jesus.” But the apostle passes on and up to the position or platform of sonship. And, I think it especially deserving of notice that he very emphatically connects the realisation of our sonship,—or our receiving the Spirit of adoption to enable us to realise it,—with our mortifying the deeds of the body;—“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

“If ye mortify the deeds of the body.”—It is the very body of which he had so sadly complained a little before, “0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”—it is that body of which he now speaks hopefully;—“If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” And why? “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

What can this mean but that it is the fact of our becoming “the sons of God,”—and as such “receiving, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”—that turns, as it were, the tide of battle in the strife between us and the evil that is in us? “The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God;” and so gives us, in virtue of God being our Father and “his seed” remaining in us, the capacity, in a sense and measure, of being sinless,—or of feeling that “we cannot sin because we are born of God.” Continuing servants merely, we could never be quite sure of our standing firm and being successful in striving with the flesh. But now that we are sons, so far as we realise our sonship, we “mortify the deeds of the body;”—for, as John puts the same thought in other words, “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” Is not Paul’s practical appeal in this passage to the sonship, as the secret of the believer’s victory over indwelling sin, proved thus to be in harmony with the Lord’s representation, as I have been trying to explain it? And is it not very much equivalent to what John says in his Epistle: “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (Romans 4:5). He so believes as to partake with the Son of God in his sonship. But Paul has not done with the sonship when he represents our realising it, by receiving the Spirit of adoption, as that grace or experience by which, we “mortify the deeds of the body,” and “overcome the world.” He fills his own mind, and ours, with large expectations of future blessedness and joy, connected with the sense of this sonship, attested by our own conscience and the Spirit’s powerful co-operation. He brings in all creation as waiting anxiously for these expectations to be fulfilled (Romans 8:19-22). And having reconciled himself and us to this attitude of waiting, amid creation’s groanings and our own, by reminding us of the Spirit of the Son ever “helping our infirmities” (Romans 8:23-27), he carries us far back into the depths of the past eternity, that we may see there the original and everlasting ground of our security as sons of God by adoption,—which is really nothing short of the security of that only begotten and well-beloved Son with whom our adoption makes us one;—“We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose;—for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren;—moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Finally, he crowns the whole with the bright view of God’s eternal purpose at last accomplished, and his Son rejoicing as “the firstborn among many brethren,” all “conformed to his image as the Son” and so glorified with him. Thus, the apostle fixes, on the side, as it were, of both eternities, “the sacred chain that binds the earth to heaven above.” Called as sinners,—justified as subjects,—glorified as sons;—so runs the climax. Whereupon there breaks forth the greatest perhaps of all the songs of inspiration;—beginning with “What shall we then say to these things? if God be for us, who can be against us?”—and ending with the glorious challenge—“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 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” (Romans 8:31-39). This element of inviolability—“the Son abideth ever”—is what determines the whole character of the relation of fatherhood and sonship, as subsisting between God and any of his subjects and servants. Christ was in the position of a subject and servant when he uttered the words. And I can almost fancy that I see him as he utters them. I think it must be with intense self-consciousness that he utters them. There is a falling back upon himself, and his own unchanging fellowship with the Father, in his utterance of them. Let what may happen, “the Son abideth ever.” He instantly, indeed, dismisses all exclusive thought of self, as if he stood alone. What I am, I would have you to be; but what I am chiefly thinking of when I say that, is that “the Son abideth ever.” It is the sense of my abiding ever, as the Son, in the Father’s house, that sustains me, whether you continue in my words or not. And it is that abiding ever in the Father’s house, and the sense of it, that I long to share with you; making you free, as I am free: “For if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

All through his service of humiliation this thought was ever present to his heart—“the Son abideth ever.” It was his consolation, his strength, his joy. It gives singular weight and force to very many of his expressions with reference to what the Father is to him and he is to the Father; investing them, as it does, with a certain strange complexion or character of conscious, confident unchangeableness. Hence the intense repose which, amid all its strange and often terrible vicissitudes, marked the life of Christ. Hence his sleeping in the storm, and his quiet demeanour before Caiaphas and Pilate. He was always selfpossessed, because he was always conscious of his sonship, and of his abiding ever in it. There was no need of haste; no room for feverish or fitful agitation. Let him be working ever so busily, let him be suffering ever so acutely, Jesus is always resting. “The Son abideth ever.”*[3] Is not this the explanation of the calm, serene, quiet peace which underlies the whole troubled experience of Christ? “The Son abideth ever.” He abideth ever as the Son. Let him be tried, buffeted, tormented to the utmost; let him even have to be made sin and made a curse for us; still “the Son abideth ever.” And he can say in the worst extremity, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;” having said just before, in the same spirit of unruffled composure, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“The Son abideth ever.” I believe that if we study the human and earthly life of Christ with that as the motto or key to it, we may come to a better understanding of what the relation of fatherhood and nsonship between God and us, if we are in his Son, really is,—and ought to be apprehended by us to be,—than we could do by means of the most minute and articulate enumeration of fatherly acts and offices on the part of God, and filial duties and responsibilities on our part. I own, therefore, that I have a feeling of relief in being warrantably compelled to say, that I have no time or space left for what I might call relational details. The relation itself is manifested and acted out in the history of the man Christ Jesus. Let an insight into the relation be got, by deep thought exercised upon the history. Let it be thought, however, based upon this one condition—that there is in the relation a very peculiar element of inviolability.

All other conceivable relations, so far as I can see, may be violated. Husband and wife may part. Rulers and subjects may be arrayed in arms against one another. Friends may disagree, and brothers may fight. Parent and child on earth may be mortal foes. All other conceivable relations admit of fluctuation and variety, according to change of circumstances. They are all liable to breaks and interruptions; to fitful and capricious movements on one side or other; to strange alternations of pathos and of passion. This relation alone; the relation between the Eternal Father and his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,—and in Him, so far as they can realise it, between “his Father and their Father” and “the little ones whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren;” this relation alone is always and for ever the same. From whatever may be turbulent, uncertain, or uneasy, in any other relation, we may take refuge at any time in this one. Be the temptation that assails upon the history. Let it be thought, however, based upon this one condition—that there is in the relation a very peculiar element of inviolability.

All other conceivable relations, so far as I can see, may be violated. Husband and wife may part. Rulers and subjects may be arrayed in arms against one another. Friends may disagree, and brothers may fight. Parent and child on earth may be mortal foes. All other conceivable relations admit of fluctuation and variety, according to change of circumstances. They are all liable to breaks and interruptions; to fitful and capricious movements on one side or other; to strange alternations of pathos and of passion. This relation alone; the relation between the Eternal Father and his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,—and in Him, so far as they can realise it, between “his Father and their Father” and “the little ones whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren;” this relation alone is always and for ever the same. From whatever may be turbulent, uncertain, or uneasy, in any other relation, we may take refuge at any time in this one. Be the temptation that assails us ever so strong; be the affliction that tries us ever so severe; be the work we have to do ever so hard, or the death we have to die ever so cruel;—in the unchanging fatherhood of God we, like his Son, may have evermore quiet peace. Is it not in this view worthy of remark that it is in immediate connection with one of his most intensely filial appeals to the Father—that which opens with such a burst of grateful love, “I thank thee, 0 Father,” and closes with so sublime an assertion of mutual intimacy and insight, “No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him,”—that Jesus issues the gracious invitation to the weary, and gives them his gracious assurance of rest (Matthew 11:25, Matthew 11:30)? It is his own rest which he promises to share with them; the rest which his “meek and lowly heart” always possessed, under a yoke such as never any other had to take upon him, and a burden such as never any other had to bear; the rest which made him feel even that yoke easy and that burden light. “I will give you rest.” Surely, I repeat, it is his own rest he means to say that he will give. It is that rest in the Father’s knowledge of the Son and the Son’s knowledge of the Father of which he has just been speaking. His own knowledge of the Father he shares with them, revealing to them the Father. And it is by sharing with them his own knowledge of fatherly and filial love that he shares with them his own rest;—the rest which that knowledge must always have imparted to his own soul, even when it was most troubled. Have we not here the essence of what is implied, whether in the way of privilege or in the way of duty, in the relation of fatherhood and sonship between God and us?—First, there is rest, the Son’s own rest, in the ever-present consciousness of his filial fellowship with the Father. And then, secondly, there is the Son’s own “meekness and lowliness of heart,” as he takes upon him whatever yoke the Father is pleased to lay upon his neck, and bears whatever burden the Father is pleased to lay upon his shoulders. For so he sustains the joint character of the Father’s servant and the Father’s son, in which he “glorifies the Father on the earth, and finishes the work which the Father giveth him to do” (John 17:4).

I now bring these Lectures to a close. I do so with the feeling that, however inadequately I have handled my great theme, I have at least thrown out some suggestive thoughts. I do not pretend to have established any peculiar views of my own. Very possibly not a few of the opinions I have advanced, and the criticisms by which I have supported them, may be shown to be crude conjectures and unwarrantable interpretations. Be it so. I shall still cherish the hope that more competent workmen may enter into my demolished labour, and may rear a better structure. For I cannot divest myself of the impression that, whether I am right or wrong in my notions of the Divine Fatherhood, the subject has not hitherto been adequately treated in the Church. In particular, I venture on a critical observation touching the theology of the Reformation. The subject of Adoption, or the sonship of Christ’s disciples, did not, in that theology, as it seems to me, occupy the place and receive the prominency to which it is, on scriptural grounds and warrants, entitled. It may be thought at first sight presumptuous to hazard this remark; but let the explanation which I am disposed to give of the fact be duly considered. The Reformers had enough to do to vindicate “the article of a standing or falling Church,”—justification by faith alone; to recover it out of the chaos of Popish error and superstition; and to reassert it in its right connection with the doctrine of the absolute Divine Sovereignty, which Augustine had so well established. Their hands were full. It need not be matter of surprise that in their case, as well as in that of their predecessors, the early fathers, there should have been lines of theological inquiry on which they scarcely at all entered.

One might almost say that it has fared somewhat ill with the truth, as regards God’s fatherhood and his people’s sonship, at both eras—both in the primitive Church and in the Church of the Reformation. It may, perhaps, in some respects, have had more justice done to it at the former era than at the latter; although the patristic literature shows too plainly how the controversies about the supreme divinity of the Son tended to draw men’s minds away from the sonship of his disciples. The divines of the Protestant Reformation and their successors gave their main strength to the questions at issue between them and Rome; of which questions this could scarcely be said to be one. The creeds and confessions of the Protestant and Reformed Churches, as well as the theological systems of their colleges, are for the most part extremely meagre and defective in what they say on the subject. In some it is not even noticed; in others, it is made a part of justification, or a mere appendix to it; in none, I believe, does it receive sufficiently full and distinct treatment. Hence perhaps it is that the doctrine of the fatherhood has been so little understood and so much abused in recent days.

I have long had the impression, that in the region of that great truth there lies a rich field of precious ore, yet to be surveyed and explored; and that somewhere in that direction, theology has fresh work to do, and fresh treasures to bring out of the storehouse of the Divine Word. For I am not one of those who would lay an arrest on progress in the science of divinity, and compel it to be stationary.*[4] I would not, indeed, be disposed to reopen discussions which, after ample investigation, under the useful and, perhaps, necessary pressure of controversy, have been satisfactorily closed; or to unsettle the conclusions to which the Churches have harmoniously come on the vital and cardinal articles of the faith. I do not call for any revision of our creeds, confessions, and catechisms. By all means let them stand untouched; as monuments of the vast erudition and mental power of other days, and as safeguards of truth and bulwarks against error for ages yet to come. But it is no disparagement to these symbols to say of them that they do not exhaust the whole volume of revelation. For that is simply saying that the compilers were uninspired men, and that “the riches of Christ are unsearchable.”

Take our own books, for instance, our Confession and Catechisms. I never have had any scruple to affirm that their statements on the subject of adoption are by no means satisfactory. No doubt all that they say is true; but it amounts to very little. The answer in the Shorter Catechism is really, in substance, scarcely anything more than that adoption is adoption.*[5] In the other documents, the matter is handled more fully, and some of the privileges of the children of God are enumerated. Still even in them the whole matter is left in the last degree vague and indefinite. And no information whatever is given, nor is any opinion expressed, as to how the relation of Sonship is constituted, or as to what its precise nature is. The contrast is very remarkable, in this respect, between their treatment of the subject of adoption, and their treatment of all the other topics connected with the purchase and application of redemption; plainly showing, as I cannot but conclude, that while they had fully matured their views and made up their minds upon these last,—and were, in fact, quite at home in them,—they were very much at sea as to the former.

I hold them, therefore, to have virtually left the whole of that department of theology which bears on God’s paternal relation to his people, and their filial relation to him, an entirely open question,—a perfect tabula rasa,—so far as any verdict or deliverance of theirs is concerned. I consider that we have the fullest liberty to sink new shafts in this mine, which they evidently had not explored, if only we take care that our diggings shall do no damage to any of the far more important mines which they did explore,—and explored so thoroughly and so well.

I have endeavoured to lend some help in the way of, as it were, breaking ground. I have sought to observe the caution which I have now given, and I trust I have not violated it. Some of the thoughts I have ventured to throw out may seem to some critics to be nothing better than speculations. But I hope it will be admitted that none of them touch the foundations of the sacred temple of truth, or displace any of its stones. What I have advanced may, perhaps, in the long run and in other hands, add some features of symmetry and beauty to the structure, and even strengthen some of its buttresses. But all the old glory remains untarnished; all the old refuges for the weary and the lost are as open and as secure as ever.

I thoroughly believe that the line of inquiry which I have been tracing is as safe as I think it will prove to be interesting for any one who will prosecute it with due reverence, docility, and humility of spirit. I commend the subject to the study of younger and fresher minds. And in doing so, I can scarcely suggest a better text from which to start than that wonderful answer, as it has always appeared to me, in the Larger Catechism, to the question (65), “What special benefits do the members of the invisible Church enjoy by Christ?” They “enjoy union and communion with him in grace and glory.” This covers and comprehends all; union inferring communion. It explains their justification, as being community of righteousness with him. It explains their regeneration and sanctification, as being community of nature with him. It explains their adoption, as being community of sonship with him. To which last I assign the highest place. For whereas in the others we have communion with him principally in grace, it is preeminently in the sonship that we have communion with him in glory.

__________ [1]* See Appendix I.

[2]*See this text discussed in preceding Lecture, and relative Note.

[3]* See Appendix IV.

[4]* See Note A.

[5]*Q,. What is adoption? A. Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.

__________ NOTES TO LECTURE SIXTH.

Note A. (Page 285.)

I GIVE the explanation of my meaning which I embodied in a closing address to the students of the New College a few weeks after the delivery of the lectures. This will explain the form and character of the present Note.

I yield to no man in my admiration of the Westminster Assembly and its symbolical books. I doubt if ever synod or council sat to which the Church catholic will ultimately acknowledge herself to be more, if so much, indebted. I believe that its doctrinal decisions, on all the questions fairly before it, will stand the test of time, and ultimately command the assent of universal Christendom. That is my firm conviction. And it is just because that is my firm conviction, that I assert the right of respectful comment on the Westminster Standards, as on all human compositions; believing, on the one hand, that a man’s reverence for these noble documents may be not the less sincere for its being intelligent and discriminating; and, on the other hand, that the more they are subjected to the light of growing and advancing theological science, the more will their excellency and value appear; and the more also will the importance, or rather the necessity, be felt, of holding by the “whole doctrine contained in them,” as the only safe anchorage in any and in every storm.

Into the general question of the use and abuse of creeds and confessions it would be quite unseasonable here to enter. I would only say that, if they are pleaded as a bar in arrest of progress by means of biblical study and free theological inquiry, it will be difficult to defend them in consistency, either with the rights of human reason, or with the paramount authority of the Divine Word.

One chief value of such documents, as it has always seemed to me, is this:—that they mark off, as ascertained and finally settled, doctrines upon which, after thorough investigation, the Evangelical Church may be held to have made up her mind. On that very account, they render the work of the farther search after truth both easier and safer than otherwise it might be. They define, by well-placed landmarks, the territory which has been fully won and accurately surveyed; thereby at once facilitating on the one hand, and guiding and guarding on the other hand, the traveller who, with due caution, would venture to explore what may be beyond.

Hence they have been themselves progressive. There has been an advance, step by step, according as, in the march of controversy and discussion, the Church has been led to clear up her views on successive points or topics of theology, and to embody them for preservation in articulate and exact propositions. It was in this way that, in primitive times, the Church matured and fixed, one after another, her authoritative decisions on the Trinity, on the Incarnation, on the union of the two natures in Christ, on the personality of the Holy Spirit. Thus, by stages, the system grew. One article was adjusted satisfactorily; and the adjustment of it opened and prepared the way for the handling of a new subject. That in its turn being rightly formularised, if I may so say, became the point of departure for a fresh start. And so things went on; until what I may perhaps be allowed to call the Patristic scheme of Christianity, as handed down in the three Creeds and in the Decrees of the orthodox Councils, was complete; so complete, as far as it goes, that in its substance it still stands as the Fathers left it, and has never since been touched. But it has received additions. The Augustinian doctrine of grace, and the Lutheran article of justification, were movements in advance;—movements which had their consummation, as it were, in the exact science of Calvin, and the harmony of the Reformed Confessions.

Such, I think, is the manner, and such the spirit, in which the church hitherto has acted on the principle of “proving all things, and holding fast that which is good.” Thus, she may be said, in a sense, to have gone “from strength to strength,” like her great Head, “conquering and to conquer.” She consolidates her successive conquests as she proceeds. “Whereto she has already attained,” she stands firm; yet not as if she had “attained” all.

Such is the manner, and such the spirit, in which alone I consider that progress in theology either ought to be aimed at, or can be looked for. In that spirit and manner, however, I can see no reason why we should not press forward; —“ following on to know the Lord” more fully.

This, as all must admit, is a very different thing from that removing of old landmarks,—that disposition to tamper with received standards and unsettle men’s minds on vital points of the “faith once delivered to the saints,”—which many in our day, not without reason, dread. Against all that I protest strongly.

I regard with extreme alarm every indication of a tendency, or a wish, to lower by a hair’s-breadth the flag of ascertained truth from the position in which the Church catholic has displayed it in past generations. I would not throw loose again questions upon which wiser and better men than we are came to an agreement ages ago. I deprecate the introduction of new modes of thought and forms of speech about God’s law and gospel, about Christ’s work and the Spirit’s, in accommodation to the speculations of the day. The dislike of system, of definition, of logic in theology; the embracing of what is vague, shadowy, dreamy; the turning away from whatever has the aspect of distinct assertion or assurance; the refusal to be obliged to form any precise opinion, or adopt any categorical statement, with reference to such matters as man’s original state, the temptation, the fall and its effects; or such as the atonement, substitution, imputation; or such as conversion, regeneration, justification; or such as the resurrection, the last judgment, and the future state of the saved and lost;—the shrinking from a full and explicit recognition of what the Church has long taught regarding these matters;—the disposition to take refuge in ambiguous or uncertain generalities, under the guise perhaps of respect for the letter and language of Scripture;—these and other similar leanings, but too manifestly showing themselves, not abroad or in England only, but nearer home, I cannot view in any other light than as the fitful symptoms of a feverish age;—an age of small men, tossing restlessly on a bed of doubt. There is nothing of manliness in them, and nothing of progress. They all savour of imbecility. And they are all in the direction of a retrograde movement;—a retreat or fight, not an onward march. They do not help forward, they simply retard, any such advancement of theological study as might give good hope of real increase, either of light or of life.

All this I feel strongly. And it is because I feel it so strongly as I do, that I am anxious to show you a more excellent way; and to make it plain that the creeds and confessions, the systems and standards, which record the views of the orthodox Fathers and the divines of the Reformation,—even when accepted with that full, explicit, articulate acknowledgment of “the whole doctrine contained in them” about which some are so sensitive,—far from being mere obstructives, as many think they are, standing in the way of fresh thought and free inquiry,—are really the best helps to both.

It is on this account that I have sought to indicate lines of thought and inquiry still open to the students of God’s Word;—on which they can best enter, or rather can only enter, under the impulse and guidance of truths already received, and from the stand-point of attainments already made. To cast these truths and attainments away, is as if the Israelites at the Red Sea had thought to obey the Lord’s command “Go forward,” by abandoning the firm position they had already gained, and simply mingling again, as on common ground, with the Egyptians.

I fear I may be too tediously elaborating this explanation of my views on the subject of theological progress. But I own, it seems to me to be a matter of some consequence that the subject should be thoroughly cleared up. I do not deny, rather I assert, the need of regard being always had to the wants and tastes of the existing race of men, in the manner of setting before them the truth of God. Their predilections, and even their prejudices, must be considered. For as there is a right as well as a wrong development, so there is a right as well as a wrong accommodation to the spirit of the age.

If there is a demand for something less stiff and confined, less starched and formal, more genial, flowing, varied, and expansive than the old way of systematising and sermonising is accounted to be,—something with less of monotone and more of the wide compass of orchestral melody and harmony,—it is idle to ignore it or set it at defiance, even though we may think the criticism on the old way severe, and the likelihood of improving upon it but slight. It may be wise to aim at being like the “householder who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” We may thus practically convince men that the old are good—better possibly than the new. For the staple is unquestionably “the old.” The old theology of the seventeenth century; the theology of Geneva, of the Dutch professors, of the Scotch Church, of the English Puritans; the theology of the covenants, of the law and the gospel, of absolute divine sovereignty in providence and grace, of free and full salvation in Christ and nothing but utter and everlasting ruin out of Christ;— that is the theology which must be mastered;—or rather which must obtain the mastery. But it must be imbibed also. It must come to be at once the ruling principle and the sustaining food of the life of the soul; and that too as well in professional study as in personal devotion. It must mould the entire inner man of the Christian, as a teacher of others as well as a disciple on his own account. The more it does so,—in proportion as it does so,—will the disciple and teacher feel himself able and free to throw his mind and heart, with all confidence, into the tide of advancing knowledge and inquiry. He will thus be able to avail himself of all the fresh currents of thought that may be moving the world. And he will do so for the very purpose of urging forward the vessel of the Church on her voyage of divine discovery, always through the same timehonoured channel, until the long-desiderated haven is reached at last.

Therefore, I repeat, in the interest of present adaptation as well as of future progress, let us hold fast by past attain ments. There were giants in the days of the Reformation and in the century which succeeded it, who did their work well, laying deep and building high the entire structure of Evangelical Christianity. So thoroughly well did they do their work, that we never can be safe in dealing with the building otherwise than by first of all entering ourselves, heart and soul, into their labours. I rejoice, accordingly, in the opportunities and facilities afforded to students now for doing so—opportunities and facilities far beyond what I can recollect as being within reach in the days of my student life. I congratulate you on this advantage, and exhort you to avail yourselves of it; reminding you, at the same time, of the increased responsibility connected with increase of privilege. In particular, I cannot help congratulating you very warmly on your being put in possession of so trustworthy a chart to lead you, through the mazes of controversy, to what may be held to be ascertained truth, on almost all the successive questions which have been raised in the Church from the beginning until now, as that which Dr. Cunningham’s works supply.*[1]

Certainly I can imagine scarcely any better manual, in these uneasy times, than Dr. Cunningham’s four volumes. Their excellency, in my view, is chiefly seen, first, in the singular clearness and fairness with which every question is stated; and secondly, in the equally singular caution and moderation with which every question is settled. There is no one-sided exaggeration or misrepresentation. In every case, full justice is done to all opinions; they are all brought clearly out, and thoroughly dealt with and disposed of. As a calm and temperate representation of the Reformation theology generally, and of Calvinism as received in Scotland in particular, Dr. Cunningham’s lectures are invaluable. Avoiding extremes, and carefully balancing opposite tendencies, he places the system on the very footing which, as it seems to me, is best fitted, on the one hand, to make the platform or position reached impregnable as a fortress, and, on the other hand, to admit of safe advances from it as a centre into the surrounding territory. And that is the very combination for which I have been pleading. But it is not merely in the Reformation theology that Dr. Cunningham is thus remarkable for wisdom and caution, as well as for profound and accurate learning. The same features characterise his discussions of the points raised in the early history of the Church respecting its doctrine, discipline, and government. Indeed, if I were asked to select the passage in the volumes which most fully manifests these features, I know not that I could fix upon a better specimen than his treatment of the subject of the government of the primitive Church. I cannot imagine any advocate of the divine right of Prelatic Episcopacy fairly grappling with Dr. Cunningham’s statements. And as regards the Scriptural authority for Presbyterian Episcopacy,—for the parity of presbyters or bishops, and their equal title to rule,—it will be difficult indeed to shake the safe position which he takes up between the opposite extremes;—that of finding everything in our system, down to its minutest details, regulated in the New Testament in express terms;—and that of finding nothing, in the form of general principles, sanctioned by Apostolic example, that can be held to enjoin any order or impose any obligation at all.

I intended to advert to one or two practical matters in this address; but I forbear. I must hasten to a close.

I exhort you to earnest prayer for the outpouring of the Spirit. That is what we really require, in our colleges, in our congregations, over all our Church. Ministers, professors, students, we all alike need a fresh anointing of the Holy Ghost. I say this emphatically, and with special reference to the times, and the signs of the times. I am not uttering words of course, to wind up and round off properly a formal discourse. I am no alarmist. But I cannot shut my eyes to what seem to me to be tokens, if not of declension, at least of certain things which are apt to indicate or occasion declension;—such as suspicion, fear, sensitiveness and irritability, in not a few quarters;—and a kind of dissatisfaction with existing means and agencies, and craving for novel experiments. The sure remedy for all this is to be found in the revival of vital godliness through the abundant outpouring of the Spirit from on high. That will heal all sores and cause brotherly love to abound; as of old;—“When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness; and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:31-32).

Let such a flood of grace come as shall carry all along in its rushing tide. Then the Church will indeed be abreast of the age, and powerful as a present force in the world. And it will be seen that the same gospel which was preached from the beginning is still, through the mighty working of the Holy Ghost, all-powerful for the pulling down of strongholds and the building of that “holy temple in the Lord” which is to be “for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21-22).

__________

[1]*This refers to a most liberal arrangement, on the part of a generous friend, through Professor Bannerman, for putting all the students in possession of Dr. Cunningham’s works.