May 17

MAY !7

The common salvation. - Jude 1:3.

IN eulogizing the gospel the finest epithet the Apostle could attach to it was its commonness. Common to all ages, all countries, all conditions, all characters; for “the grace of God,” saith another Apostle, “hath appeared unto all men.” Christianity was designed to be a “light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well as “the glory of the people Israel.” Hence Christ is not compared to a lamp, which can shed but a partial and confined illumination, but to the orb of day, which irradiates the valley and the hill. “I am come a light into the world.” This will be the final result of Christianity. Down to this time it has had to do with individuals and families; by and by there will be the “nations of those who are saved.” “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” And to this universal extension it is every way adapted; there is nothing in Christianity restrictive. The Jewish religion, though divine in its origin, was confined, and necessarily confined, to one people.

But Christianity has no locality; “The hour cometh,” said our Saviour to the woman of Sychar, “when neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem shall men exclusively or superstitiously worship the Father.” By revealing pardon, mercy, sanctifying grace, and eternal life, it is easy to see that the gospel addresses man only as man, regardless of any adventitious circumstances. It regards all men, wherever they are, first, as guilty; secondly, as depraved; and thirdly, however guilty and. depraved, as destined to immortality. It passes by all the little distinctions that exist for a few moments here between the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate, and verifies the language of the Apostle, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” And surely this will much more strongly apply to those minor differences, that subsist among those who equally “worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” It teaches us to say, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” It rebukes all persons who would confine salvation to their own party, and who anathematise those who are walking without the line drawn by their prejudice, ignorance, and pride.

The gospel teaches us to say of every disciple of Jesus, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.”