Iwould say to the Church, in relation to this property--
I. Appreciate it. What on earth so valuable as a true gospel ministry? In it you have, as a rule, the most richly cultured intellect, the highest order of genius, the most disinterested services, the most sanctified sympathies.
II. Protect it from worldly cares, secular embarrassments, social slanders. Take care of it--it is more precious than gold.
III. Use it. You have eternal treasures in these earthly vessels. Take care, and get from them the “pearl of great price.”
IV. Thank God for it. It is given to you in trust. You must give an account at last. (Caleb Morris.)
Christ and thought
The text must be regarded as a warning against--
I. Intellectual levity.
1. It was far from the intention of the apostle in this Epistle to speak slightingly of knowledge, or of those gifted men who are its mouthpieces. True, he speaks depreciatingly of a certain wisdom; but there was another wisdom, on account of which he was prepared to suffer the loss of all things. Paul knew that Christ had put us into a fresh attitude of reverence towards the whole intellectual world. Christ taught us--
(1) The reality of truth. “What is truth?” asks the scoffing sceptic. It is an illusion in his view. But when Christ showed us the Father, He taught us at once the reality of truth, and the truth of reality.
(2) The supremacy of truth. “Art Thou a King, then? To this end was I born … that I should bear witness unto the truth.”
(3) The accessibility of truth. That the search for truth is not a vain search.
2. And it was no part of Paul’s purpose that the Corinthians should think lightly of their great teachers. In fact, he gives those teachers a very high place. “The world” is unquestionably a magnificent thing, and the apostle puts great teachers into the same category. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” &c. Intellectual men also declare the glory of God, and with an eloquence surpassing that of the stars.
(1) Let us not, then, lightly esteem our intellectual teachers. All the great thinkers, andwriters, and scientists are ours. A ship at sea is directed from two points of view--there is the man with the lead taking soundings from below, and there is the man with the glass taking the bearings from above; so our race is indebted for its guidance alike to the science which concerns itself with the physical world beneath us, and to the theology which contemplates the world above and beyond us. And ours in this matter is a day of exceptionally high privilege. Our easily accessible libraries bring all the gifted teachers close to us. Do not neglect or despise this splendid privilege.
(2) Let us not despise our religious teachers. It seems very probable that “the Christ party” in Corinth was in danger of doing this. This is a mistake. Each generation has its gifted teachers, and these are to be reckoned as God’s choice gifts to His Church, and every lowlier teacher who speaks living words has a real value to his age. A while ago somebody suggested, with a touch of scorn, that preachers ought to be “paid by results.” “Paid by results!” How the money would roll in upon us! To speak the word, at a critical moment, which shall turn a faltering young man or woman into the path of life--how much for that? To utter thoughts which widen and purify a man’s soul, and which save him from lapsing into a sordid, sensual life--how much for that? To inspire with fresh hope one sinking into grief and unbelief and despair--how much for that? No, payment by results must be left to the great Paymaster.
II. Intellectual servility.
1. Whilst one party amongst the Corinthians set little store by any of the great teachers of the Church, the other three parties were in danger of paying these teachers exaggerated homage. Says the noble apostle: You do not exist for them; they exist for you. The apostle has just been remarking that the greatest sages have been guilty of the most serious errors; he then proceeds: “Therefore letno man glory in men.” The most gifted men are not infallible, and consequently they are to be followed with caution. The greatest teachers are only instrumental. There is a certain respect to be paid to the husbandman who brings forth precious fruits, but we reserve our full wonder and reverence for Him who alone gives the increase. There must, then, be no servility of soul in any of the congregation of the saints. No thinker must be permitted to coerce your intellect, no theologian to dictate your creed, no ecclesiastic to bind your conscience. God endows men that they may help and not enslave one another.
2. Here is a lesson for us to-day. Intellectual men are very prone to lord it over their less-gifted or less-cultured brethren. Sometimes they turn the republic of letters into a tyranny; sometimes they set up lordship in the Church. We see this despotism in philosophy. We are soon overawed by, and accept as gospel, what Carlyle says, or Arnold, or Ruskin, or Huxley, or Spencer. And we see this despotism in religion, and in the Roman Church in a very pronounced form. Now, our text warns us against such ignoble submission. “We are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” We do not stop with Paul, &c.; we are thankful for the stars, but it is still our privilege to have access to the Central Luminary; and all believers, even the humblest of them, share the illumination. It was given to tentmakers and fishermen to see truths not seen by prophets and kings; it was given to a peasant’s son to find for Christendom the Divine doctrine it had lost; it was given to a tinker in Bedford to have visions of God as Isaiah and Ezekiel had; it was given to Wesley’s “ragged regiment” to see truths of life hidden from the wise and prudent; it was given to a Northamptonshire cobbler to seize afresh and to give practical efficacy to the magnificent truth of the universality of salvation in Jesus Christ. Evils may arise out of an exaggerated individuality, but the right of the individual to be taught of God is too clear and too precious to be relinquished on any pretence whatever.
III. Intellectual partiality. These four sects were mutually exclusive, but Paul declares that all the great teachers belong to the whole Church. It has been said that an intellectual man ought to have preferences, but no exclusions; the Christian may have sundry preferences, but he ought to be prepared to get light from all who can give it. He must recognise the special truths insisted upon by philosophy on the one side, and by theology on the other, and joyfully concede the preciousness of the work wrought by the several denominations. Why should we shut ourselves up to one meadow, when the whole land is ours; to one tree, when the forest is ours; to one constellation, when the whole firmament is ours?(W. L. Watkinson.)
Or the world.--
The world is yours
It is--
I. The Christian’s temporary lodging place until God translates aim to a better world. This is the patriarchal view; they lived as pilgrims and strangers.
II. The Christian’s library. There are the books of nature--astronomy, geology, &c.; books of providence--history of nations, individuals--his own history.
III. The Christian’s spiritual mart. He has much to do both with earth and heaven. He is one of Christ’s agents for extending His cause and kingdom in this world. A Christian cannot be talkative; he has too much to do.
IV. The Christian’s school-room. In this school he is taught, especially on the Lord’s Day. Ministers are teachers. The Spirit instructs by the Word. Providence is a great teacher, so arc children. Christ placed a child in the midst of His disciples to teach them humility. He places sluggards under the tuition of the ant; and the ungrateful must take lessons from the ox and the ass.
V. The Christian’s battlefield. No battlefield in heaven, it is a palace; no battlefield in hell, it is a prison. This world to Christ was a battlefield. It is only in this world that Christians have to “fight the good fight of faith.”
VI. The Christian’s place for moral cleansing and adornment. He who has to stand in the presence of God and the Lamb, must be washed and properly dressed. Priests, Levites, washed in the laver outside the holy place, were robed and dressed before officiating in the presence of God. “Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.” There are no means of saving, justifying, and cleansing sinners, but in this world.
VII. The Christian’s road to heaven. Two roads in this world--the broad road leading to destruction, the narrow way that leads to life everlasting. Let us fear lest we should miss the way. Alongside the Christian’s way there flows the river of life; be constantly drinking its waters, and rejoicing you will go on your way to the heavenly world. (J. Robertson, M. A.)
That the whole world, with all things therein, is for the spiritual advantage of a godly man
Hemay say of the whole universe, all this is mine for the advantage of my soul one way or other. Come we, therefore, to show in how many particulars we may say the whole world is a godly man’s; it is for his use--First, it is the godly man’s school or academy; it is his study or library. The heavens and all things therein are so many books, whereby he admireth the wisdom of God (Rom_1:1-32.). Secondly, the world is a godly man’s, because everything therein is given him for his necessary use. Though he hath not everything, yet he hath as much as is needful to him. If you take a man into your house and bid him call for what he will, he may command everything in the house, though he doth not call for all things, but what is for his use--that is, as if he had all. And thus the whole world is for a godly man. What wealth, what honours, what health, is necessary and needful, he is sure to have. He that dwelleth by the ocean, he hath all the water in the sea for his use, though it is not necessary he should make use of it all. He that hath the use of anything, hath the thing. Thirdly, the world is a godly man’s, as his shop and place of service. It is that wherein he works and labours for God. It is the great shop for mankind to do that work God hath appointed them. It is the great vineyard, in which God hath set every man to work. This world is for doing; the world to come for receiving. Fourthly, the world is a godly man’s inn or lodging place, It is a provision God makes for a season, till they are ripe for heaven. Thus the godly are often compared to pilgrims and strangers. Fifthly, the godly have the world as the stage or artillery-yard--a place of exercise, wherein all their graces are to be drawn out by the opposition therein. To be quickened to the height of all thy graces, by how much more the combat and conflict thou hast, is exceeding great. The greatness of the tempest will discover the great art of the pilot. Sixthly, the world is a godly man’s, because all things therein are sanctified and made clean to his use. The objection, then, is, why have the godly the least possession of it, if they have the sanctified use of it? Doth not David complain that wicked men have the fatness of the earth? To answer this you must know that even those wicked men, who are said to have the world at their will, yet they have net the world indeed, they have it not as the godly men. “The little that the righteous hath, is better than great treasures of the wicked” (Psa_37:16). First, whatsoever the wicked man hath, he hath it in wrath; it cometh from God’s anger. God is angry with the wicked all the day long. Secondly, wicked men have not the world, because they are overcome by it; the world hath them rather. Thirdly, wicked men have not the world, because they do not own and acknowledge God as the Giver of all; neither do they live to Him, but the things of the world are instruments to draw out their lusts, to make them the more wicked. They take the good creatures of God, and abuse them to wickedness. The very air, the very earth, is weary of them; yea, the timber in the house, and the stones of the wall do witness against them; they are, by the things of the world, made more wicked. Lastly, they have not the world, because they have not an holy contentation of mind; they are not quiet or satisfied in their condition. (A. Burgess.)
That godly men do only live, or the godly only do make a spiritual use of their life
I. That only godly men live. First, the godly man only liveth, because he is united to God and Christ, the fountain of life. David doth often style God “the fountain of life” (Psa_36:9). And in His favour there is life. And in the New Testament, especially by John, Christ is made the Author of all life. Secondly, only the godly man liveth, because he hath a spiritual and a new life added to his animal life. Thirdly, the godly man only liveth, because he only hath the true blessedness and comfort of this life. He only hath true joy and peace of conscience, and this only the Scripture calls life. Fourthly, the godly only live, or life is theirs, because they only know how to improve the days of their life for God. Fifthly, life is only the godly man’s, because he hath an interest in eternal life. He hath passed from death unto life (Joh_5:24). He shall never die that liveth this life. Sixthly, the godly man only liveth, because he taketh his life from God, and referreth it to His glory. “Whether we live, we live to the Lord,” said Paul (Rom_14:8). Seventhly, the righteous only live, because they mortify and subdue those sins that kill our bodies, that take away our lives. Lastly, the godly man only liveth, because, even in the last breathings of this life, his hopes and comforts do most remain. “The righteous hath hope in his death” (Pro_14:32). And this hope is called a lively hope.
II. How can it be said that the wicked do not live, when they are said to have their portion chiefly in this life?
1. They are dead in their sins, and hereby their faith, their religion, their Christianity is all dead.
2. They do not live, because they are in a condemned estate; they are appointed to wrath.
3. They do not live, because all their time is lost, so all the time of a man’s unregeneracy is no life.
4. They make everything an instrument of death--their health, their wealth, their honours, are all deadly herbs in the pot; their tongue speaks the words of death; their hands work the works of death. (A. Burgess.)
The world is yours
1. It is useful as well as curious to observe under what different aspects the world is surveyed by different persons. The politician considers it as the scene of political changes; the soldier, as the field of war; the man of business, as the place for the acquisition of wealth; the gay and dissolute estimate it by its pleasures.
2. But each of these estimates is essentially erroneous. The Word of God affords the only criterion by which we can form a just judgment of the world. Instructed, therefore, by the light of Scripture, the Christian looks upon the world as fallen, and under a curse; but by the same Divine light he discovers that God, in His great mercy, has sent His Son into the world to save and raise it.
3. Every Christian, therefore, views the present world not merely as it is in itself, but as it is connected with this great plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. Its aspect is thus totally changed; it becomes a school of discipline, in which God places the heirs of salvation for their improvement and growth in grace; a theatre of instruction, in which are continually exhibited striking, examples of the truth and excellency of God’s precepts, the vanity of earthly pursuits, and the folly and evil of sin; a scene for the display of the bounty and goodness of God to those whom Christ has received as His disciples.
4. Thus “the world is yours.” It is intended for your use; it is adorned for your enjoyment; it was never formed to gratify the purposes of ambition, to satiate the lust of wealth, to be a scene of dissipation and unhallowed pleasure. The world is abused whenever it is used for these purposes. But yours is the world who use it for those ends for which its gracious Creator formed it; who survey its scenery, its mountains, &c.; and feel that they are yours because they were made by your Father. The world is yours who receive the bounty of Heaven with a thankful heart, and employ it, as God has intended, to your own lawful advantage and the good of ethers. The world is yours to enjoy it with moderation, thankful for the conveniences it affords you while a pilgrim and a stranger in it, in your way to a better and heavenly country. The world is yours who enjoy the blessing of God upon all your possessions and occupations in it, and possess in your souls “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” (J. Venn, M. A.)
Christ and nature
I. Let us seek to establish the truth of the text--that the world is ours. Many ridicule this assertion. The conception that the earth was the centre of the universe has been entirely disproved. Now, man imagines himself to be the centre of the universe of things, the end for which the whole creation has groaned and travailed through countless ages, and groans and travails still. This view is declared to be an insane egotism. Let us see.
1. The world is realised only in man. It was only a mass of dark force, a dance of atoms, a whirlpool of vibrations, until Adam came. The universe is revealed only in the sense and in the thought of humanity.
2. The world is comprehended only by man. Geology makes the world of the past ours; astronomy makes the worlds above our head ours; a score of sciences make the world at our feet ours. The world is ours, for we comprehend its laws, perceive itsunity, mark its developments, rejoice in all its wonderful movements and manifestations. A thing is pre-eminently made for the mind which comprehends it.
3. The world is claimed only by man. Man instinctively acts as if the whole world belonged to him. Ages ago the Psalmist celebrated the splendid sovereignty of man: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.” And the fact is not less apparent to-day. Each living creature keeps within its narrow world, but men with telescope, microscope, spectroscope, go forth to claim the wide universe. If men acknowledge that the material realm has a centre, a master, an end, they are compelled to recognise that humanity alone meets the requirements of the case. If you take away man you must put what is inferior in his place.
II. Let us show how in Christ we realise our property in created things. “We see not yet all things put under” man. He has dropped the sceptre, or it has been wrested from him. But in Christ the government of the world is being restored to us. To illustrate this, look at--
1. The Christian creed.
(1) About God. In Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, the powers of nature were regarded as Divine, and the God that is above was denied (Job_31:26-28). Now, Christianity delivers us from this tyranny of superstition, by making manifest to us “the God that is above.” “You are the world’s,” says a sceptical science, reducing us to a sad idolatry, a sad slavery. The world, like fire, is a grand servant, but a bad master. “You are God’s,” says Christ. He fixes our eye on the God of heaven; He tells us that God made the world for us, that He rules it for us, and just as we hold to that doctrine and serve God, so shall the world be ours, ministering to our utmost satisfaction of soul and sense.
(2) About man. Some of our teachers love to exalt nature at the expense of man. They remind us of the vastness, force, and duration of the universe, as against our limitation, weakness, and mortality. And when they have done this, it is easy to add: “You are the world’s; it is everything, you are nothing.” But Christianity asserts with mighty emphasis the dignity of human nature. There is an element in us that is not in the universe; an element vaster, for it dreams of infinity; stronger, for it forces nature to do its bidding; more abiding, for it claims immortality. The dignity of man has been demonstrated by the fact of the Incarnation. God will see a sun go out as we see a spark, butBethlehem and Calvary declare that the redemption of the soul is precious.
2. Christian character. What humanity has lost of authority over nature through ignorance, lust, pride, sloth, covetousness, violence, cruelty, it shall recover through Christ in humility, kindness, wisdom, earnestness, truth, and love. Through righteousness shall we become heirs of the world. More righteousness, and our dominion shall extend over the vast, wild, mysterious forces of the material universe; more righteousness, and the birds of the air, the beasts of the field shall become our loyal subjects as we do not now dream; more righteousness, anddesert places shall blossom as the rose.
3. Christian civilisation.
(1) How does it come to pass that science should have attained to such perfection in Christendom? Science sprang up ages ago in China, but it soon became an aborted, arrested thing; it flashed out with the Moors, only to sink again into the darkness of paganism. How is it that it is not found where Buddhism reigns, or Confucianism, or Mohammedanism? Christ has girded our scientific men, although some of them know Him not. The glorious science which is making the world ours, is ours because Christ is ours.
(2) How does it come to pass that the commerce, which is realising the riches of the world, should have sprung up and come to such wonderful perfection in Christendom? It is because Christ has set up amongst us the kingdom of God and His righteousness that all things are being added unto us. Conclusion--
1. If the world is ours, let us carefully claim it. There would be less “godless science” if religious people more directly and fully put in their claim to nature. If you notice a piece of unclaimed ground anywhere, somebody will shoot his rubbish there; and so if we neglect to claim nature for God, an atheistical science will soon accumulate its rubbish there. Be sure you realise all that creation will give and teach. Enjoy all its physical fruits and treasures so far as they may be given unto you. Then, remember its intellectual ministry. It is to enrich thought, to exalt and expand the mind, to kindle the imagination and feeling. But, above and beyond all this, nature has a ministry to our spirit. Our Lord showed us this. What lessons He found in the lily and in the bird! &c. “The world is ours.” It is a magazine of instruments for our service; it is a school full of diagrams for our instruction; it is a sanctuary whose grand symbols, properly interpreted, are sacraments indeed. Man was not made for the world, but the world for man, and we must be careful to realise all the wealth and blessing of our great inheritance.
2. Does any one object, “But this proprietorship is all visionary--how can a man without a foot of land say, the world is mine?” To say that the fields and hills are ours only when we have certain parchments made out in our name, and locked up in our iron safe, that is the artificial proprietorship. That is truly ours which enlarges our mind, rejoices our heart, purifies our life. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Or life, or death.--
Life and death are yours
I. Life is yours.
1. It is obvious that St. Paul does not mean that any one is supreme over the events or circumstances of his life. Save in so far as virtue conducts to health and prosperity, there is, in this sense, but one end and course to the righteous and the wicked.
2. St. John wrote in Patmos, “He hath made us kings.” This royalty was untouched by transportation and imprisonment. This is a sufficient commentary upon the text. Life is yours still, whatever its condition. You are not its slave because it is adverse. The man who can say, “I have learned the great secret, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content”; “I am in the hand of God, and God is my Father”--is a king in reference to that life, and every part of it. But this empire of the man over his own life is the privilege of him alone who recognises Christ’s empire over him. “Life is yours, and ye are Christ’s.” Give yourself to Him, and then life is yours.
(1) For enjoyment. A Christian living his Christianity is a happy man. He has a sense of safety, of independence, of dignity, and of tranquility, in his life; and those two other delightful things, the sense of being cared for, and the sense of having a secret “For the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him”--a secret of explanation, and (better still) of confidence, between himself and One “whom to know is eternal life”--which must give a joy to the most sorrowful of his experiences, and fully justify, in point of happiness, the apostle’s saying to him “Life is yours.”
(2) For improvement. If to be conscious of growth in anything, knowledge of a language, or skill in a game, or insight into a science, &c., is one of the purest pleasures of which this human nature is capable--what must it be to know oneself the recipient of Divine grace, for illimitable progress in all that is beautiful and lovely and of good report?
(3) For communication. When once the thought has entered, “I am not my own, I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,” with it there comes the recollection, I am not only the recipient, I am also the transmitter of life. You can help others to live. Your very look and voice may be a help to them. Your happiness, strength, integrity, loving and holy influence, may, through grace, quicken into newness of life some dead soul.
II. Death is yours.
1. Who shall echo this? Who that has seen death can do so with any feeling of truth? No, rather we say, as St. Paul (in a different connexion) says, Death reigns. Death is the limit of our free action, as well as the terminus of our long journey. All may be ours up to death, but not further.
2. How shall we interpret this which is here written as to our ownership of death?
(1) Your own death is yours.
(a) Death is the master of the fallen being, as fallen. It makes every plan precarious. How soon must this right hand lose its cunning! There is not a purchase which can be more than a few years’ possession, because of this reign of death over the individual. Hence that feverish eagerness in crowding two years’ work or ten years’ work into one.
(b) It is into existences thus circumstanced that St. Paul bears the startling explanation of the gospel, “Death is yours.” Instead of thus cowering and grovelling before the grim phantom, play the man. Death is yours. Take it betimes for your possession, and it shall be great gain. Look to it as the goal and prize of your being; expect it as the admission into a presence which is the fulness of joy, and you will find its very name and nature transfigured. See it as the gate of life, and it shall be yours, not you its, while you live; and it shall be yours, not you its, when you come to die.
(2) The death of others is yours.
(a) We are apt, by fallen nature, to see ourselves cruelly vanquished by the onslaught of death upon those we love. Many who could face their own death with something better than fortitude, areyet conquered by death when he assails them through another.
(b) Yet in Christ we still own the dead. They are ours, not in hope only of reunion, but in possession too and fruition. Our richest stores of all must surely be those which are the most safely garnered. Our most real heirlooms are the memories and the affections of the dead. Death has set his seal upon them. What they were, in faith and patience, in wisdom and beauty, in grace and love--that are they for ever, that are they to us. (Dean Vaughan.)
Christ and life
We maintain that life is ours as against--
I. The fatalist, who teaches that we are the slaves of time, place, organisation, and circumstance. Our personal life is sacrificed to the exigencies of nature and humanity; just as the Egyptian tyrant made slaves of the Israelites, and compelled them to build the pyramids, so we are simply tools in the hands of necessity, building strange structures which at last are sepulchres. In opposition to this, the apostle declares that “life is ours”--our servant, with a hundred hands, enriching us with measureless blessings. Christ liberates us from the bondage of the outside world. Science is man asserting his liberty as against nature; history is man asserting his liberty as against the despotism of climate, situation, and material fortune; and Christian life is man asserting his personal liberty as against hereditary influences and current circumstances, and using these in such a way that they build up his character in the full power and beauty of righteousness. Man apart from Christ is too often the manifest creature of circumstances--success inflates him; failure crushes him; darkness makes a worm of him; and sunshine a butterfly. But in Christ life becomes ours, and we use it towards the attainment of that ideal moral perfection which is the mark of the prize of our high calling. You are not the poor vassals of outside forces, you are not sacrificed to the type, you are not insignificant as the coral worm which builds the reef and perishes in the depths, you are free to use the world, and to be served by it in the very largest and grandest sense. The bee does not find honey in every flower, nor the diver a gem in every shell, but in Christ all things are yours, and every emotion within, every action and circumstance without, shall strengthen and refine.
II. The pessimist, who holds that life is our foe, that to live is a misfortune. It is little matter whether you are rich or poor; life is weeping; the rich man wipes his eyes with a silk, the poor man with a cotton handkerchief, and it doesn’t much matter. It is little matter whether you are wise or ignorant; perhaps it is better to be ignorant, since he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Froude writes of Carlyle, “Every day he told me he was weary of life, and spoke wistfully of the old Roman method. Increasing weakness only partially tamed him into patience, or reconciled him to an existence which, even at its best, he had more despised than valued.” John S. Mill says his father “thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by … He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having; but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility.” Miss Martineau says, “You will feel at once how earnestly I must be longing for death--I, who never loved life, and who would any day of my life have rather departed than stayed. Well! it can hardly go on very well much longer now. But I do wish it was permitted to us to judge for ourselves a little how long we ought to carry on the task which we never desired and could not refuse.” That is, she wishes that suicide were permitted. “The world’s winter is going, I hope, but my everlasting winter has set in.” Thus sadly wrote George Eliot. Now, in opposition to all this, the text declares that in Christ “life is ours.” The New Testament everywhere holds human life as a precious and blessed thing. Not that Christianity fails to recognise the sad element in human life. Yet, in face of a groaning and wailing creation, it maintains that life is the crowning benediction, to be prized by us all, to be held fast with gratitude and wonder and hope. And living in Christ we prove that life is a blessing. Christ makes man to rejoice in life--
1. By discovering a great purpose in it--the perfection of our immortal spirit, through the love of God and the keeping of His commandments. Here is something to live for.
2. By putting a great strength into it. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.”
3. By putting a great love into it. The great curse of life is egotism, selfishness. If our pessimists would only leave their selfish moonings and lay themselves out to help, and bless all who are about them, it would soon change their philosophy.
III. The sensualist. There is an idea abroad that life belongs to the man who lives to the end of self-indulgence. To see theworld of animal indulgence is spoken of as “seeing life.” One following a course of licence is said to be “fond of life.” Such life is called “fast life,” “gay life,” and those who live it say to the Christian, “You have some advantage now, you have also great expectations beyond, but surely this life here and now is ours.” This we deny. Life, here and now, is ours--it is our inheritance who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. A man who merely lives on the carnal side misses the real depth and fulness of life. You may say that the Greenlander is alive, and that he enjoys life; but what a different thing from the life of Europe! And the spiritual life of man goes still beyond. Now, the man who knows not this life, knows not the true life of man--living for meat and drink and raiment, he is dead while he liveth. To be carnally minded is death--the death even now of the finer faculties of the living soul. Christ enables us to realise life in all its fulness.
1. The life of the senses is ours in Christ. He is “the Lord of the body,” and as we live to Him the sensational life becomes ours. The very restraint and moderation which the Christian creed imposes on all material enjoyment only puts us in fuller possession of that enjoyment. We lose our life to find it.
2. Christ leaves us free to expatiate through the whole intellectual world.
3. And, most of all, He brings out that Divine nature of ours in which we most truly and gloriously live. As the summer shines on the landscape, and brings green leaves out of the barren stems, full flowers from the sleeping bulbs, singing birds from the silent woods, a world of sweet smells and bright colours and rich music, so Christ acts upon human nature, realising its instincts, its faculties, its powers, making it to blossom as the rose, to stretch its wings like the eagle, to thrill with joyous feeling as the harp with many strings. Our modern poet tells that “more life and fuller” is what we most need. Surely we find this in Christ. He came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly.
IV. The ascetic, who denies to the Christian the pleasures of life; he considers that the more meagre, starved, and sad our life is, the safer and better it is, and the nearer to the true ideal. Let us remember that in Christ “life is ours”--all good, bright, glad things. And life shall be ever brighter with us to the perfect day. True life implies constant renunciation, but it implies also constant acquisition. We do not so much putaway joy and gladness, as we keep changing one joy for a higher, one glory for a fuller, one gift for a more excellent gift. Christian life often involves self-denial; but every act of renunciation is followed by the acquisition of a strength and treasure, a beauty and blessedness, altogether more deep and precious. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Death is yours
Death is the property of the Christian--
I. As bringing a conclusion to all his sorrows. It is, to the Christian, the Red Sea, where all pursuing enemies are arrested and perish--the confines of Canaan, where thewilderness, with all its privations and perils, terminates--the perfect sleep, in which the toils of the day are all forgotten, not a dream even, or floating reminiscence, disturbing its composure.
II. As forming the introduction to his heavenly joys. When Hannibal was conducting his troops through Alpine heights, before deemed impassable, and they were ready to yield in despair amid the snows and crags and gulfs which surrounded them, he found it sufficient for their reinvigoration to tell them of the fertile Italy they were triumphantly to subdue. Be the boundary of life, then, ever so steep, frowning, and unproved, should not the prospect of Canaan suffice to sustain us amid all its wilds and terrors? We must not judge of what death is to the departing soul by what it is to the survivors. Elisha prayed that his servant’s eyes might be opened to see the defence by which they were encompassed. Were a similar prayer to be heard on behalf of Christians lamenting the departure of friends, a sight would be exhibited superior at once in its glory and its efficacy.
III. As itself contributing to his present and future well-being.
1. The Greeks and Romans had an adage that no man should be accounted happy till he was dead--thus indicating that a desirable end was a chief element of happiness. But in the connection of our text we have death classed with the present possessions of the Christian, subordinated to his interests, and enhancing life itself by augmenting holiness, usefulness, and reward. Paul says (Act_20:24), “But none of these things (trials, &c.) move me; neither count I,” &c. And so the last stage, anticipated and realised, gives energy to prior stages; and life, while it lasts, is turned to account, and rendered more vital and vitalising, through that solemn change beheld in the vista (2Pe_1:13, &c.).
2. Death is serviceable to the Christian not only in prospect, but also at the time it befalls him, in affording him occasion for the greatest of victories. There is not, indeed, always the same manifestation of triumph; but it comes effectually and seasonably. “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory,” &c. In case entrance to heaven be abundant, then indeed is grace specially magnified, and the soul in which it dwells is blessed in its commendation. We have not many accounts of death-bed scenes and experiences in the New Testament. Still examples are given us which verify the exclamation, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace!” Nothing in all Stephen’s foregoing service was so serviceable to the cause of the gospel as his martyrdom, and on the very border of sealing his testimony with his blood Paul said, “I am now ready to be offered,” &c. Come, ye devotees of pleasure, and witness such spectacles; and say if all your cravings for delight can find anything to equal this transport! Welt may it extort from a very Balaam the aspiration, “Let me die the death of the righteous.” It will be eternally good for the Christian to have died. He will thereby be made more like to the Saviour. Think, too, what eternal life will gain by contrast with this. Conclusion: The practical lesson of all is to make sure of death being ours. With multitudes the great aim is to secure benefits of which death will despoil them. By all their acquisitions they are only extending the ravages of the King of Terrors. Be it your aim to coerce hostility into friendship, and make the very spoiler yours. (D. King. LL. D.)
Death is yours
I. The forerunners of death are for our advantage. These, indeed, are often not joyous but grievous at first, but afterwards yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. In common life we often consider those things which are attended with a very considerable degree of pain, as advantageous, because they areso in their results. For instance, a man suffers the amputation of a limb, because he hopes that the operation will be productive of good: and so it is eventually; life is spared. Now, on the same principle, but on higher grounds, we should learn to submit to those afflictions, whatever they may be, that are the precursors of death, to put us in mind that the great destroyer is on his way. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,” &c.
II. All the circumstances of death are for our advantage--time and place and manner. “My times are in Thy hand.” And we know that God’s time is the best; and the place, too, in which we shall expire, and the manner of our death--both will be of Divine appointment, and will prove to be the best. The manner of your death--whether itbe natural or violent--whether it be a sudden death, or preceded by a lingering and distressing illness--all these things are ordered by the Lord.
III. The consequences of death are for our advantage. I do not wonder that people are unwilling to think of death who have not a good hope through grace; but the heir of eternal life can look forward beyond all the dark clouds that intervene between him and the consummation of his happiness, and “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” “Death is yours,” if you are members of Christ, for your advantage
1. Because there will then be an end of all evil--not only moral evil, or sin, but all natural, inward suffering.
2. Because as soon as it takes place, your happy spirits, disentangled from the encumbrance of these tenements of clay, enter into eternal rest. (J. Entwisle.)
Death an advantage to the Christian
Deathis ours--
I. As the means of deliverance from all the inconsistencies and sinfulness of time. Select any of the people of God whose lives are recorded in the Word of God, and how often have we reason to deplore their inconsistencies! But for deaththis would be the eternity of their history.
II. As the means of delivering us from all weakness and imperfection, whether of body or of mind.
III. As the means of relieving us from the isolated position which we occupy in this world. About the angels we know nothing; we are separated from them. What do we know about the immediate presence of God; the joys of a glorious immortality; the power of the fellowship that is formed around the everlasting throne? By death we enter into the universal region of the good. Conclusion: Sinner, death is notyours--he brings you no benefit. You are his victim. He comes as the messenger of justice to lead you to the judgment seat, to hear the doom which you are to undergo, world without end. Painful as your pilgrimage on earth may be, it is your highest happiness. Your happiness must terminate with its close. You are death’s, and when death seizes you, instead of delivering you from your sins and imperfections, all your sins and imperfections are confirmed for ever. (J. Burnett.)
Death, the privilege of the believer
“Death is yours” if you look at it--
I. In reference to others.
1. It is so when you seriously regard its universal appointment. There are multitudes who acknowledge this mournful fact, but who derive no advantage whatever from the solemn occurrence. It is otherwise with the Christian; he beholds a number of lessons which, by Divine grace, he is enabled to learn.
(1) He sees the evil and malignity of sin; for there is no rational explanation of the cause of death, but as a penalty due to the violated law of God.
(2) He discovers, also, that “the creature is made subject to vanity”; for it is not the old and decrepid alone who die.
2. It is so when you are impressed by the deaths of particular characters.
(1) When “the wicked is driven away in his wickedness,” he is shocked to reflect on their awful doom, and makes the earnest appeal, “Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men.”
(2) When he hears of the righteous who have expired in the expression of a firm faith and joyful hope of immortality, he pours forth the fervent petition, “May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like his.” There is also something in the aspect of the death-bed experience of many a fellow-Christian which has a tendency to banish the fears and animate the holy courage of the fellow-believer.
II. In reference to ourselves. “Death is yours,” as it is--
1. A complete deliverance from sin.
2. A final termination of suffering.
3. A retreat from injurious and distressing associations.
4. Secures your admission to the enjoyment of all possible good. (J. Clayton.)
Death for the advantage of the good
Let us consider in how many particulars death is a godly man’s; it is for his benefit and comfort. And first, in this respect, because by death he gaineth, he is invested with greater glory, joy, and happiness than this world can afford. All the while a godly man liveth in this world he is a loser, he is kept from his best treasures, he is not enjoying his best blessings, which will be vouchsafed to him. The apostle doth fully express it (2Co_5:4). We would gladly be clothed with immortality, yet to put off this mortal body is grievous; as little children cry for their new garments, and yet cry while they are putting them on. Secondly, death is a godly man’s, because it putteth a period to all those miseries and troubles he was here exercised with. It is the haven, after all the tossings he had in this world. Thirdly, death is theirs, because it is the finishing of all their works and service, and by that they come for their wages. How doth the labouring man long for the end of the day, or the week, that he may come to receive his wages? Fourthly, death is the godly man’s, because the meditation and thoughts of it are sanctified to him. He liveth as one that expecteth it daily. Fifthly, death is the godly man’s, because he only knoweth how to die well, as we told you. Life was his, because he only could tell how to live. So death is his, because he only knoweth how to die. Simeon saith (Luk_2:29). Sixthly, the godly man hath death as an advantage, if you respect the time and season of his death. His death is not only mercy, but the time of his death is mercy. The term of every man’s life is appointed by God, “To Him belong the issues of death” (Psa_68:20). Now God in great wisdom and mercy hath determined the time of thy death. Lastly, even the violent death of martyrdom, which cometh by the cruel and bloody oppression of implacable enemies, that is theirs. It is a mercy, a gain, and honour. The apostles rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to lose what they had for Christ’s sake. (A. Burgess.)
Death of rude appearance, but welcome to the good
Many a man has an ill-favoured countenance, is lean and haggard, pale and sallow, and mean in his attire, who yet, under an ungainly exterior, conceals great talents and virtues. Such is the case with death. Ah me! how much of what is good and sweet and blessed is concealed beneath its sour aspect and transient bitterness! It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery. As often as I think of death I figure to myself that I see a messenger coming from a distant land, bringing the good news of nay Saviour, the Bridegroom of my soul, and of the inheritance which He has purchased with His blood, and reserves for me in heaven. What care I although the messenger may have an ugly face, be armed with a long dart, wear a tattered coat, and knock rudely at my door? I attend less to his appearance than to his business. (Gotthold.)
Death a blessing
Icongratulate you and myself that life is passing fast away. What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea, this delightful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. Oh, the expectation of living here and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair! But thanks be to that fatal decree that dooms us to die; thanks to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life; and thanks, above all, to that Saviour Friend who has promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of paradise and everlasting delight. (J Foster.)
Death brings freedom to the good
Mr. William Jenkyn, one of the ejected ministers in England, being imprisoned in Newgate, presented a petition to King Charles II. for a release, which was backed by an assurance from his physician that his life was in danger from his close imprisonment; but no other answer could be obtained than this: “Jenkyn shall be a prisoner as long as he lives.” A nobleman hearing some time after of his death, said to the king, “May it please your majesty, Jenkyn has got his liberty.” Upon which he asked, with eagerness, “Ay! who gave it him?” The nobleman replied, “A greater than your majesty--the King of kings”; with which the king seemed greatly struck, and remained silent. (Scripture Doctrines Illustrated.)
The Christians mastership over death
Development in our life on earth is limited, as is the development of the bird in the egg. The bursting of the egg-shell is no disaster, but a relief and a profit. That breaking of the shell brings the bird into a world that is unspeakably more glorious. Death is our servant, not our master--through Christ an immeasurable blessing. Because--
I. It restores us more nearly to our friends who have gone beyond.
II. It brings us nearer to Christ.
III. It places us in a position more favourable for soul growth.
IV. It increases our capacity for usefulness. Those who are faithful in this life in a few things, will be made in the life to come rulers over many things.
V. As a consequence our happiness will be greatly augmented. (Homiletic Monthly.)
Christ and death
Christ makes death ours--
I. As He gives us assurance of the life beyond. If we consider death with the eye of the materialist we feel that we are death’s. We are delivered helplessly into its cruel hands, and it strips us of everything. But Christ makes death ours by giving us the assurance of immortality.
1. Men have an instinct of immortality. It has been found in the lowest savages, and in the most intellectual races. Very strange and diversified are the manifestations of this instinct, but that it exists in the human heart is beyond question. And this instinct we are bound to respect. “But then,” says Mr. Darwin, “arises the doubt, Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” Here he does his own theory injustice. Are not the instincts of the lower creatures on the whole marvellously correct? And, may we not ask with confidence, if the instinct of the caterpillar pointing to the butterfly, if the instinct of the swallow discerning far beyond the sea a land of sunshine and flowers, if these instincts prove no mockery, why should the instincts of human nature, pointing to a grand perfection in a world above and beyond, prove untrustworthy?
2. And reason has a powerful verdict to give on this question of our immortality. Even sceptical philosophers cannot do without this great doctrine. George Sand felt that without immortality there is a painful “deficiency of proportion.” Darwin felt it “an intolerable thought” that after such long-continued and costly progress we should all be annihilated. And Edgar Quinet concludes “that, whilst the human race pursues on earth its career of perfection, the individual continues its parallel march in some place and in some form already prepared for it by Providence.”
3. But whilst human instinct and reason thus declare for immortality, the subject at last is left in deep uncertainty. It may be nothing more than guess-work and illusion. But when Christ comes all is changed. He makes eternity a fact. You cannot come into contact with Him without tasting the powers of the world to come. He brought life and immortality to light. It is the same change that we witness when we see alchemy changed into chemistry, astrology into astronomy, speculation into science. In Christ the dream becomes a reality, the inference a certainty, the desire knowledge and experience. Christ has shown us that through death we find “more life and fuller,” even length of days for ever and ever.
II. As he gives us fitness for the life beyond.
1. We are sometimes disposed to consider the question of immortality as altogether an intellectual one; we think if we can only succeed in establishing it on logical grounds, that we have nothing more to do than to surrender ourselves to the mighty comfort. But the moral element enters very largely into it. It is conscience that makes death terrible, the unknown world so dark and dreadful. This Epistle goes to the depth of the thing: “The sting of death is sin.” Without sin we might view death with the uneasiness with which we might suppose a caterpillar to view a chrysalis; but a wounded conscience brings in another element, and we shrink from death with sore amazement (see also Heb_2:14-15). If it had not been for sin we should have feared death only as a young bird fears to try its wings, but we fear death now as the bird fears the barbed arrow which drinks up its life.
2. It is very easy for us to see what a vast difference is made in our estimate of death whether we bring in or leave out the idea of guilt. Look at the death of a malefactor. How truly repulsive and terrible is death in such a case in all its circumstances! Consider, on the other hand, the death of a martyr. Here the material adjuncts are pretty much the same; but how different is the effect of the whole spectacle! The very same spectacle of death is a horror or a triumph according as you bring into it the idea of guilt or innocence, of infamy or glory. The consciousness of sin makes death an enemy. Because we are children of disobedience we are all our lifetime in bondage to the fear of death; we are debtors, there is an execution out against us for arrest, and we are always trembling lest the bony policeman should lay his cold grip upon us, saying, “You are my prisoner,” and so shut us up in the prison till we have paid that uttermost farthing we never can pay.
3. Here once again Christ makes death ours. He changes death for us from the death of a malefactor to the death of a martyr. He takes away the guilt and power of sin. He satisfies the conscience as He does the intellect. And as He gives peace to the conscience He gives purity and life to the whole personality. Christ becomes the Resurrection and the Life, freeing us from the death of sin, awaking in us the life of righteousness, and so making us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Christ, so far as we gather from the New Testament, never saw any one die; I do not believe that any one else could have died in His presence; death cannot come where Christ is. Let Christ, then, be with you in your last hour, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Spoiling the spoiler
The believer stands with his heel on the neck of the king of terrors. Death is yours as--
I. A conquered foe transformed into a friend. A lion’s carcass with the honeycomb in it.
II. An opportunity to glorify God. The Christian’s way of meeting death, not that of the Stoic glorifying his firmness, nor that of the sceptic glorifying his shame, but of the believer magnifying the grace of God. Showing forth Christ’s power perfected in his weakness.
III. A redeemer from servitude to the clayey body, and subjection to the discordant, tempting, crippling influence of the physical.
IV. A convoy to heaven--a gateway to glory, a herald of coronation. The dawn of “Graduation Day.”
V. A boon. Rest to the tired pilgrim; harbour for the storm-tossed voyager; Sabbath eve to the working man. Conclusion: Faith in Christ is victory over death. (Homiletic Monthly.)
Or things present.--
Things present
We reckon present things at the highest rate: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” The little present, to our apprehension, eclipses the great past or the greater future. In the case of the true Christian--
I. His temporal possessions are his own. The ungodly man for awhile engrosses the good things of this life, but they are sent to him often in anger, and are taken away in wrath. As for you, whatever of earthly good the Lord has apportioned you, is in a most blessed manner your own; because--
1. Honestly got. The Christian owns no stolen property or unrighteous gain. Dishonest persons may be rich, but none of their riches are in truth their own; like the jackdaw in the fable, they wear borrowed plumes.
2. Acknowledged to the great Giver with becoming gratitude. Gratitude is, as it were, the quit rent to the great superior owner, and until we discharge the claim, our goods are not lawfully ours in the court of heaven.
3. The due portion which belongs to God has been conscientiously consecrated. The tithing of the substance is the true title to it. It is not altogether thine till thou hast proved thy gratitude by thy proportionate gift to the cause of the Master.
4. We seek to be graciously guided in the use of them. They are not bestowed upon us absolutely; they are ours within the lines of law and gospel, within bounds of sobriety and holiness; not as masters, but as mercies. The benediction of heaven sweetens the lawful use of earthly goods. You are not required to play the ascetic. John came neither eating nor drinking; but the Son of man, who is your master, came both sating and drinking. There is no piety whatever in your accounting the gifts of Providence as necessarily temptations; you can make them so, but that is your folly and no fault of theirs. Vain are those who sneer at nature and the lavish bounty thereof. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” It is no crime to enjoy the beauties of nature, but a sign of idiocy to be unaffected thereby. Fair scenes, sweet sounds, balmy odours, and fresh gales, your Father sends them to you, take them and be thankful. Let us note well, before we leave this point, that any of God’s saints who have but little of this world’s goods, may yet remember that all things are theirs, so that up to the measure of their necessities God will be quite sure to afford them sustenance. The Lord is your shepherd, and you shall not want.
II. Temporal trials.
1. Tribulations are treasures. Saints gain more by their losses than by their profits. Your present trials are yours--
(1) As medicine. You need that your soul, like your body, should be dealt with by the beloved Physician.
(2) As means of strength. No man becomes a veteran except by practice in arms. Experience worketh patience, and patience brings with it a train of virtues.
(3) As windows, through which we get the clearest views of Christ. Do you understand what it is to come up to Christ’s Cross, and to be conformed unto His death? It is only as you do this that you will have fellowship with Jesus, and understand what His love was towards you.
2. You who are cross-bearers, I would remind you for your comfort--
(1) That you have to bear the cross, but not the curse. Your Lord endured both. The penal result of sin Christ has exhausted, and now the cross that comes to you is garlanded with love.
(2) That your Lord sends you a cross, but not a crush. Your cross is proportioned to your strength.
(3) That your cross is not a loss. It shall only be a putting out to interest that which is taken from you that it may be returned anon with usury.
III. All our circumstantial surroundings. These are ours as subservient to our usefulness. You wish to win souls, and say, “I wish I were a minister”; but you have a family round about you, and you have to keep to that farm, to manage the shop. Now the position you occupy is, all things considered, the most advantageous for doing your utmost for the glory of God. Suppose the mole should cry, “How I could have honoured the great Creator if I could have been allowed to fly it would be very foolish, for a mole flying would have been a very ridiculous object, while a mole fashioning its tunnels and casting up its castles is viewed with admiring wonder by the naturalist, who perceives its remarkable suitability to its sphere. The fish might say, “How could I display the wisdom of God if I could sing, or mount a tree, like a bird!” But you know a fish in a tree would be a very grotesque affair; but when the fish cuts the wave with agile fin, all who have observed it say how wonderfully it is adapted to its habitat. It is just so with you. If you begin to say, “I cannot glorify God where I am, and as I am,” I answer, neither could you anywhere. “But I have a large family,” says one, “what can I do?” Train them in the fear of God. “I work in a large factory with ungodly men, what can I do?” Needless inquiry! What cannot the salt do when it is cast among the meat? “I am sick,” says another; “I am chained to the bed of languishing.” But your patience will magnify the power of grace, and your words of experience will enrich those who li
