06.07. Appendix 1 - Ultimate Glory of Filial Service
APPENDIX.
SCRIPTURAL EXPOSITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
I. The Ultimate Glory of Filial Service.
“And his servants shall serve him.” — Revelation 22:3. THIS is an important element in the blessedness of heaven. For surely, it is the blessedness of heaven that is here described. The locality may be this earth; but it is this earth renovated and delivered from the curse of the fall. It is the “new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” The moral and spiritual aspect of the whole scene shows that it represents the Church’s eternal state. Of that perfect and happy state this is one chief characteristic, “His servants shall serve him.”
It is a notable feature, and it is put in a notable way. It is put almost as if it were God’s satisfaction and not ours that it was intended to express. At last he has gained his end. At the close of that wondrous march of his providence over angels and men of which the Bible traces the footsteps, as the consummation of all his manifold dealings with his intelligent creatures,—by much pains, as it were, and after long waiting,—he succeeds in his object. He finds himself presiding over such a household as pleases him. “His servants shall serve him.” But if this is the object on which the heart of God is set, why may it not be at once and from the beginning realised? Why may not the creative act or word surround the Creator at once with circle upon circle of obsequious subjects, as pliant and plastic in his hand as wind or fire?
Servants to serve him according to his mind he may surely have, in any number, and of any variety of structure and capacity,—from the inert and shapeless mass of matter, upwards through all gradations of life, sense and mind, to the highest faculty of thought and will, inferior only to his own. May he not thus find the sort of agents needed to perfect his ideal of the universe which he would have to unfold his glory?
No. The end is not to be thus summarily attained. The attainment of it is not the triumph of creation, but the result of an entirely different process;—a long providential and administrative system, to which angels and men have been subjected, and out of which this glorious issue comes, “His servants shall serve him.” This service of God, in its origin, progress, and perfection, may be traced in these successive stages:—I. The service of the angels before any of their number rebelled; II. The service of the elect and faithful after that event; III. The service of Christ, the Lord of angels and Redeemer of mankind; IV. The bearing of his service now on the inhabitants of hell, of heaven, and of earth; V. The final service of the future state.
I. God made the angels to serve him;—endowing them with suitable capacities, and placing them in circumstances favourable to the exercise and expansion of these capacities. All things were propitious. Moral evil was unknown. There could be no temptation. One would think that perfect service was thus secured. The recorded fact, however, of a rebellion in that angelic world, proves that there must have been something in or about the service not altogether and absolutely good; not, at all events, what may be called in reference to such a matter, the highest good. It could be nothing amiss in what God required, or in the moral nature of those of whom it was required. But that somehow the position was such as might become the occasion of feelings of insubordination springing up,—even in pure minds and innocent hearts,—the actual result proves. Our Lord identifies the offence of the apostate spirit; he “abode not in the truth” (John 8:44). If he had, “the truth would have made him free” (John 8:32) in serving; and he would have coveted no other freedom. Paul speaks of pride, or being “lifted up with pride,” as “the condemnation of the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6). And Jude (Jude 1:6) describes the sad company as “the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation.” They kept not their first estate;” or rather their “principality.” They were not content with the princely rank originally belonging to them. They “left their own habitation,”—the place assigned to them as their own,—their proper sphere for serving God.
It would thus appear that the evil originated in a desire on their part to be upon some other footing with God than that on which, as at first created, they stood. The desire may, or rather must, have sprung up in connection with some particular command. I conceive it to have been the command which the Psalmist, according to the interpretation of the apostle Paul, indicates: “When he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world,” or on the stage as it were, and in the view of creation, “he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him” (Hebrews 1:6). Exception is taken, if not to the thing commanded, at least to its being commanded. These “princes” will not “abide in the truth”—in their true position of dependence, duty, and responsibility. They “are lifted up with pride:” they become impatient of subjection and obligation. To worship “the first-begotten” may be all well; but to worship him upon compulsion and command is not so. They would have it left to their own free discretion. They are not content to be princes under the Most High. They would be “as gods” themselves; they would be their own masters. The possibility of this dark spirit of jealousy insinuating itself into the thoughts of these servants of God, so as to cause rankling dissatisfaction with the state in which they were created, shews how, even before their sin and fall, there was some element of imperfection—some latent root of possible bitterness—in that state itself. It was not a state with reference to which it could be said with full assurance, “His servants shall serve him.” The original angelic state is not the highest good.
II. May we venture to look into the abode of the angels after their ranks have been so disastrously thinned? He whom, at the Father’s command, they have consented to worship—“the first begotten”—is among them. But for that, blank consternation may well be on every face, and a painful misgiving in every heart. True, they have stood the test; and their obedience, doubtless, is rewarded by some decisive token of the divine regard. But it is a terrible proof of the peccability of their nature and the precariousness of their position, that is ever before their eyes. The poet says—“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” But ignorance is now out of the question. They know the possibility of transgression; and though they know its penalty too, that does not allay their anxiety. The mere dread of incurring the doom of disobedience will go but a little way to reconcile them, or to keep them reconciled, to a state of things which so many of their number felt to be irksome and intolerable. It may prevent the outward and overt act of rebellion. But it does not tell upon the inner man; or, if it does, it is at least as apt to irritate as to subdue. So far then as the influence of the sad catastrophe itself goes, it makes no change for the better in the standing of those elect ones who, through grace, survive it. On the contrary, they may seem to be even in worse circumstances than before for serving God.
That, however, cannot be. He whom the Father has been introducing to them for their worship, will see to it that it shall not be. He will at all events prevent any injury coming upon them through the knowledge of evil which they have unwillingly got. By his divine presence with them, and by the power of his Spirit in them, he will so confirm them in their loyalty to his Father’s throne that no sense of present insecurity, and no fear of future danger, shall mar their serene and settled peace. But more than that he does. From henceforth he has their regards fixed upon himself. In obedience to the Father’s command they have worshipped the Son. Already, as their recompense, they see his glory, as the glory of one altogether worthy of their worship. But the Father’s voice to them is, Ye shall see greater things than this. Worship him still, wait, and watch. Keep your eyes fixed on him. For in him, as you are soon to see, a higher and better platform is to be reached, on which God’s “servants shall serve him.”
III. For what is the next important step in this development of service? I pass over the probation and the fall of man; events but too well fitted to awaken new alarm, as if another experiment had been tried and failed. I come at once to the incarnation; that great era in the universal providence of God, to which, without knowing beforehand what its precise nature was to be, not only believing men were accustomed to look forward, but the unfallen spirits also. For they clung in faith and hope to him whom the Father would have them to worship; being taught to expect some still more signal “bringing in of the first-begotten into the world” than that which had been the occasion of the trial of their obedience, and its reward. As the fulness of the time drew near, the angels,—having accompanied this divine person in all his previous intercourse with the patriarchs and with the ancient church,—had their eyes rivetted on Bethlehem-Ephratah,—whence he was to “come forth unto God, who was to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth had been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2). They took part in the divine arrangements about the births of the Baptist and the Christ. And when the holy child Jesus, of whom they spoke to the shepherds, lay before them in the manger, we can imagine a voice coming to them “from the excellent glory,”—“Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth” (Isaiah 42:1).
Service is now to be ennobled indeed. In every view it is to be so; in the person of the servant; in the actual work of the service; and in the spirit pervading it all.
1. Who is this servant? A man—the man Christ Jesus; a volunteer—his manhood voluntarily assumed, his service voluntarily undertaken; a Son—the Eternal Son of God the Father whose servant he becomes — himself “God over all, blessed for evermore;” Son of God and Son of Man; uniting in his own person the highest prerogative of rule and the humblest obligation to service; entitled to command the whole universe, as its Creator-God, and bound, in his created manhood, to be under the yoke in this narrow corner of his own vast dominions. What a servant has the Father found to serve him now!
2. And then, what is the service? its nature? its conditions? its work? It is service undertaken in the room and stead of others; and these others, the fallen children of men. The terms of it are his fulfilling all their obligations, and meeting all their liabilities. He consents to be their substitute, under the law which they have failed to obey, whose penalty of death they have incurred. And he consents to this, in the full knowledge that the obedience required of them must be rendered by him, and the penalty incurred by them must be visited on him,—to the very uttermost of the law’s righteous demands.
3. And what of the spirit pervading the whole service? Meek, gentle, uncomplaining submission; the entire surrender of his subject will to the will of him whose subject he is; unshaken loyalty to the God and Father whom he serves, even when the cup given him to drink wrings from his body the bloody sweat and from his soul the cry of agony; disinterested, self-sacrificing affection; these features, and such as these, marked the spirit in which this wondrous servant served his wondrous service. In one word, the spirit of that service was sympathy; sympathy with him whose servant he was; sympathy with the service itself;—“I and my father are one;”—“the works which the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son;”—“my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”
It is real and actual service all along; entailing upon him privation, toil, obloquy, pain; exposing him to cold, hunger, thirst; the temptations of evil spirits; the reproach and violence of evil men. Throughout it all he simply served; not acting for himself, in self-support, self-vindication, or self-defence; but acting wholly for God and leaving all to God; It was service growing dark and dreadful as its close drew near. In prospect, it appalled his human spirit with its unutterable woe ; and when the hour came at last, full fraught with the venom of sin’s sting and curse, and the blood-red wine of the righteous vengeance of the Most High, he sank under the burden as well nigh more than even he could bear. But still he simply served. He saved others; himself he did not save. As a servant under the yoke, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost;—with these words upon his lips,—expressive of a servant’s resignation as well as of a Son’s trust,—“Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Well may the Father say, “Behold my servant!”
IV. What a voice to echo through all worlds—in hell; in heaven; and on earth!—“Behold my servant!”
1. Is it heard in hell? Does it ring in the ears of lost angels, and lost men? For lost angels—See what that service of God is which you resented as a galling burden and spurned as a humiliating bondage! The place which was not high enough, or free enough, for you, the very Son of the Highest himself does not disdain to occupy. You, indeed, would not be servants; it seemed drudgery and restraint to you. What worship you are to render, what work you are to do, must be matter of spontaneous choice, not of prescribed command. To worship and work to order,—to be obedient merely, nothing more, and nothing else,—you felt to be an unworthy sort of homage from you to God; unworthy of your angelic nature and your princely rank. So you felt once. But what have you to say now? What plea have you now,—when God points to the birth, the life, the death of his own Son, and says,—“Behold my servant!” What! Was my service a degradation, my commandment grievous, my law severe, and myself too austere and hard a master to be obeyed in love? You dare not think so now, when you behold my servant! For lost men—How will they feel when at last, too late, the full meaning of that service of the Son of God flashes upon them? It was a bloody service to him, but he did not deem it either unreasonable or unrighteous. To him “the law,” even while he was enduring its condemnation, was “holy; and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” If we lift up our eyes in hell, being in torment,— sharing the punishment prepared for the devil and his angels,—compelled by God to “behold his servant,” and as we behold him, to justify God and condemn ourselves,— how must we recall, with unavailing groans of self-reproach, the day, the hour, when he invited us to share with him in that service of his;—in its infinite worth and efficacy, its gracious fruit and issue, its blessed filial spirit, addressing to us the call;—the Servant inviting us to be his fellow-servants;—“Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls: for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
It must be a terrible voice for hell’s inhabitants to be hearing always—“Behold my servant!”
2. It must have been a blessed voice when heard in heaven. When the obedient angels saw him whom they worshipped “taking upon him the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of man;” when they saw him “being found in fashion as a man, humbling himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;” they were well prepared to worship him anew, even in his humiliation. When “God highly exalted him, and gave him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,” all their tongues were ready to “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Php 2:7-11). For now to these bright “morning-stars,” the mystery of that service of God which is perfect freedom is unveiled, in the person of this Son and Servant, and in his gracious work. Nor is it as mere onlookers that they get an insight into this mystery. As he has carried them along with him in all his ministry towards our fallen race,—and very specially in his taking our nature and serving, even to suffering, in our stead,—so now, he carries them along with him and associates them with himself in his subjection to the Father, as at once his Servant and his Son. They partake with him in the full grace and glory of that double relationship. Service is to them what they perceive it to have been to him. It is divested of every element of precariousness, and therefore of every element of grievousness. It is their joy and crown. Their footing is identical with that of him whom they worship. It is as sons of God, “in the first begotten,” that these servants of God in heaven now serve him; hearing always the voice that points out the great exemplar—“Behold my servant!”
3. To the followers of Christ on earth this voice should come home with peculiar power—“Behold my servant!” See how the Son, as servant, served God! And learn how God would have you, as sons, to serve him, in the Son!
First, however, let us make sure that we enter into that service of the Son, as undertaken and accomplished for us. It stands for us instead of any service that might be required of us as the condition of our peace with God. Let us look ever first at the servant and the service in that light. As the bankrupt and beggared servants of a righteous God, laden with the burden of long accumulated guilt, utterly unable either to cancel the past or to satisfy the claims of the present and the future, let us accept as our substitute this servant whom our Father has chosen for us. What fault have we to find with him? Personally, is not he every way qualified to represent us, to consult and act for us, to serve on our behalf? To serve! And what service? Does it not fulfil all righteousness and atone for all sin? Is it not, as a service of penal endurance, adequate to the utmost rigour of punishment that we have deserved? Is it not, as a service of merit, enough to purchase the choicest blessings that God’s favour can bestow? Let us thankfully accept this servant, and his service, as ours. Let us suffer him to place us where his service entitles all for whom it avails to be placed. And where is that? Where, but where he is himself? It is his position that we are to occupy; it is his relation to God that we share. And whatever service is now imposed upon us,—it is as occupying his position and sharing his relation that we meet it.
Then may it not be expected that the spirit which pervaded all his service shall pervade ours also? If our standing is thus identical with his,—if we receive the adoption of sons, in and with the Son of God, and have his Spirit in us, crying, “Abba, Father,”—should not the service of God be to us precisely what it was to him? It may extort from us groans; it extorted them from him. Its toil may weary us; it wearied him. Its pain may make our soul, as it made his, exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Our fellow-servants—the angels—know well what our sufferings may be in the service which they see us share with him whose sufferings they never can forget. They delight to stand by us, as they stood by him, when, as “ministering spirits,” they are “sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of guilt, utterly unable either to cancel the past or to satisfy the claims of the present and the future, let us accept as our substitute this servant whom our Father has chosen for us. What fault have we to find with him? Personally, is not he every way qualified to represent us, to consult and act for us, to serve on our behalf? To serve! And what service? Does it not fulfil all righteousness and atone for all sin? Is it not, as a service of penal endurance, adequate to the utmost rigour of punishment that we have deserved? Is it not, as a service of merit, enough to purchase the choicest blessings that God’s favour can bestow? Let us thankfully accept this servant, and his service, as ours. Let us suffer him to place us where his service entitles all for whom it avails to be placed. And where is that? Where, but where he is himself? It is his position that we are to occupy; it is his relation to God that we share. And whatever service is now imposed upon us,—it is as occupying his position and sharing his relation that we meet it.
Then may it not be expected that the spirit which pervaded all his service shall pervade ours also? If our standing is thus identical with his,—if we receive the adoption of sons, in and with the Son of God, and have his Spirit in us, crying, “Abba, Father,”—should not the service of God be to us precisely what it was to him? It may extort from us groans; it extorted them from him. Its toil may weary us; it wearied him. Its pain may make our soul, as it made his, exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Our fellow-servants—the angels—know well what our sufferings may be in the service which they see us share with him whose sufferings they never can forget. They delight to stand by us, as they stood by him, when, as “ministering spirits,” they are “sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” But the loyalty to God his Father, and the sympathy with God his Father, which they saw in him throughout all his service, they may, in a measure, see also in his brethren. Not only in the fervid apostle whom the zeal of God’s house is eating up and the love of souls is urging to an untimely tomb; not only in the martyr whose service is to praise God amid the flames; but in this hewer of wood or drawer of water making conscience of serving God in his lowly calling; in yonder poor, bed-ridden, widowed, childless soul, content that her service should be solitary suffering and waiting for the Lord—the same mind may be found which was in Christ. Angels, as they look on, rejoice to perceive how, even in this sin-burdened earth, God has servants who really serve him. And when the earthly service with all its trials is over, they rejoice to carry them to Abraham’s bosom.
V. But it is not in this present state of things that the object on which the heart of God is set is altogether attained. Even for the angels, and still more for the saints, a change for the better is in reserve. There are things in God’s majestic plan which the angels desire to look into, and which they cannot so look into as to be satisfied, until they see what the end is. Even they must be taking much on trust, and living by faith, as to not a few particulars in the great volume of providence now unrolling itself before them—the sealed book which the Lion of the tribe of Judah is only gradually opening. Saints on earth, at any rate, are compassed about with many infirmities; exposed to manifold assaults of the devil and so tempted and wounded in the war they have to wage with evil that they find it no easy matter always to feel that “God’s commandments are not grievous.” And even saints gone to their rest are waiting for the resurrection of the body. “The family in heaven and earth that is named of our Lord Jesus Christ”—is broken, divided, tossed and tried; great part of it still journeying through the wilderness; none of it having, at the very best, anything more than a sort of Mount Pisgah view, as yet, of the full blessedness of the land of promise. But it is otherwise when “the Lord cometh again.” A fresh song of praise bursts from the hosts of heaven, as they accompany the “first-begotten,” once more coming forth,—the Father “bringing him in,”—into the world, on the final occasion of his reunion with his redeemed. The great reconciliation is complete. The mystery of God is finished—the mystery of his will, which he hath purposed—“that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth.” (Ephesians 1:9-10) All are gathered together, all are one in Christ. His service of obedience and atonement has effected the full reconciliation; accomplished the eternal purpose; consummated the universal union. And now, what remains? What but this eternal glory and joy,— “His servants shall serve him?” The service of God, thus reached and realised, who may venture to describe? Some of its conditions, however, are indicated in this passage (Ephesians 1:3-5).
1. (Revelation 22:3) “There shall be no more curse.” Not only are we to be ourselves personally delivered from the curse; but nowhere all around is there to be any trace of its malign influence; and never again is there to be any risk of its return. The personal justification, the removal of the curse, which is all matter of faith now in the hidden life of the soul—and, alas! too often but dimly and doubtfully apprehended—will then be matter of open discovery and proclamation. Our own hearts are assured, and all the universe is advertised, that no curse can ever henceforth be our portion. Our bodies as well as our souls are perfectly delivered. And then to us creation’s groans are over. No blight of sin is on the soil we tread; no taint of sin is in the air we breathe; no evil element is in the paths we have to tread,—the works we have to do,—the pleasures we have to enjoy,—the company we have to keep. All is holiness and peace. Service may well be different from what is now, when “there shall be no more curse.”
2. (Revelation 22:3) “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in the city.” No anarchy, or lawless liberty, or proud self-government is there. Subordination, discipline, and order prevail. God manifestly reigns. And he reigns in a character that must charm away all jealousy, even in the most sensitive of his subjects. “The Lamb is in the midst of the throne.” Subjection to that throne never can be felt to be irksome. Never can any feeling of impatience of such a yoke intrude; nor the faintest shadow of a suspicion of its being grievous; nor the remotest desire to shake it off and be more free. One look at “the throne of God and of the Lamb” must ever suffice to satisfy.
3. (Revelation 22:4) “They shall see his face.” It is a blessed thing to see God’s face even now. The sight of it, by faith, makes duty pleasant, and even trial sweet. Alas! however, that face is often hidden. Dark clouds of unbelief roll in upon the soul. Or there is a frown, a shade, upon my Father’s loving countenance. My waywardness and wilfulness have dimmed, as it were, his loving eye with grief. What heart have I then for his work? What courage to fight his battles? What strength to face temptation? What enlargement of heart or opening of lip to show forth his praise, and teach transgressors his ways? How wearisome is the whole business of obeying him and doing his will felt to be! What a drudgery does it become! what a lifeless and joyless form! “Hear! 0 Lord, when I cry with my voice; have mercy also upon me and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek; hide not thy face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger” (Psalms 27:7-9). What must it be for me, as God’s servant, to serve him, when no such cry can ever any more be heard—when I shall see his face always!
4. (Revelation 22:4.) “And his name shall be in their foreheads.” When we stand “with the Lamb on the Mount Zion” (Revelation 14:1),—with the “hundred, forty and four thousand,”—we are sealed as his servants for preservation from the winds of judgment. We have even now “his Father’s name written in our foreheads.” It is a hidden name: legible enough to the Lamb, and to the angels executing his pleasure; but not legible to an unbelieving world; and, alas! not always legible to ourselves. In mingling with the multitude who, instead of that name, receive the mark of the beast in their right hand or in their foreheads (Revelation 13:16),—it is not always easy for us to maintain our integrity as the Lord’s servants and not his,—“to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.” But in that city, all have the same character; all are impressed with the same seal! From every brow there flashes in glowing brightness the same new name—the name that is above every name. There is no promiscuous fellowship with the ungodly to disturb or deaden pious feeling; to disconcert or embarrass a pious walk. Nor in fellowship with one another, is there any of that hesitancy which too often casts a damp over pious meetings here. There, all alike mutually know and are known. They never can be hinderers,—they never can be other than helpers,—of one another’s joy in serving the Lord.
5. (Revelation 22:5) “There shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light.” All is open, beatific vision. “They that fear the Lord and obey the voice of his servant” may sometimes “walk in darkness” here. It may be darkness that dims, not only their comfortable assurance, but their clear and certain perception of the path of duty. They see no light; or the light they see comes fitfully, in gleams and glimpses; sharing the imperfection of the instruments and channels through which it reaches them. It is midnight with them, and they have only a little flickering candle to shed its unsteady flame into the thick gloom in which they are groping. Even if it is midday with them, and the bright meridian orb is over their head, its scorching rays may smite or blind them; or yonder cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, may in a moment clothe the sky in sackcloth. Oh! to be where there is no night, to make the twinkling taper welcome; nor even any day, dependent for its clearness on the glorious sun! To know God and his will, not circuitously, through means, ordinances, and providences; but directly, by immediate insight into himself and immediate communication from himself. Even here, what the Spirit shows us of the Father and the Son,—though it may not hinder the night being often dreary and the day cloudy,—suffices, if the eye is single, to guide us in the right way. What must it be to have the same Spirit opening our eye evermore to the light which the Lord God himself gives,—in which he dwells,—which is his very nature! No more distraction, no more despondency, when—seeing light in that light—“his servants shall serve him.”
6. (Revelation 22:5) “They shall reign for ever and ever.” It is as reigning with him that they “see light in his light.” It is from his point of view, as seated on his throne, that they survey and contemplate all things. They have a common concern with him in the government of the universe, which in a measure he shares with them. Their reigning with him is partly the effect of their having learned to serve him; otherwise, he could not so far trust them as to admit them to any participation in his authority and rule. Hence the welcome, “Well done good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many.” But their promotion for faithful service is chiefly valuable in their eyes because it enables them to render service more faithful still. The position which they occupy raises them above the questionings and heart-burnings, the jealousies and misgivings, that are apt to rankle in the minds of mere subjects. The confidence reposed in them honourably binds them. Because “they shall reign” with him, therefore his “servants shall serve him.”
Let us see, then, what sort of service God desires.
“Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; they are a trouble unto me: I am weary to bear them” (Isaiah 1:13-14). So the Father speaks from heaven. And so also the Son speaks on earth. “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” “The Father seeketh such to worship him;” he is weary of all other worship. And I am come to tell you so. Nay, I am come to see to it, that what the Father seeks he shall surely find. Yes! though it is to cost me the shedding of my blood, to expiate guilt and win the gift of the Holy Ghost,—that men, reconciled and renewed, may give my Father what he wants—their hearts. Let all formalists—all whose religion, such as it is, and it is not much, is a mere weariness of the flesh; a painful perfunctory work of necessity; a routine which they dare not dispense with but cannot take delight in—hear this solemn warning. His servants,—the only servants he cares to have,—are such as make his service a reality. “His servants shall serve him.”
2. And what is the first and indispensable condition of our thus serving him? Is it not to shake ourselves free from the legal covenant which gendereth to bondage, and close with the covenant of free grace and perfect peace? Otherwise, what Joshua said to the people when they so stoutly declared “We will serve the Lord, for he is our God,” may be said to us;—“Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins” (Joshua 24:19). He cannot accept of any service rendered in self-righteousness. He cannot overlook the radical vice of a heart not right with him. We must renounce our own service, as placing us on a right footing with God, and accept as our substitute him whom the Father commends to us as “his Servant;”—laying hold on “the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:73-75).
3. That we may “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” we must beware, above all things, of a servile spirit; the spirit that is ever grudging what is asked, and stretching to the utmost any license supposed to be allowed; the spirit that tries to steer very close along the shore by the exact letter of the law; the spirit that is for drawing the line very sharply between the lawful and the unlawful—between what may perhaps be tolerated and what is expressly forbidden. It is the spirit of bondage that is always prompting the questions,—must I? may I? may I not? The “Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father,” speaks otherwise;— 0 Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds” (Psalms 116:16).
4. The same Spirit of adoption enables us also to enter, with enlarged hearts, with clear intelligence and full sympathy, into the vast and comprehensive plan of God, for “gathering together into one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are in earth.” Thus we keep out the spirit of bondage. The imagination and the heart are filled with sublime views of God’s magnificent purpose in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;—so as to be ever anticipating that bright day when we shall join the assembled throng, whose highest glory is,—that “reigning with God,” they, as “his servants, serve him.”
Satan’s proud defiance is, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” Alas, it is as vain as it is proud! In the place of torment, God, in his terrible justice, reigns alone. Satan, and his angels, and his victims, serve in pena1 chains and penal fire for ever. But the saints who have “overcome are set down with Christ on his throne, even as he overcame and is set down with the Father on his throne.” All in the Father’s confidence, all in the Father’s interest, all sharing the glory of the Father’s reign,—they “are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. And he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them” (Revelation 7:15).