Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?
The dignity and service of the body
I. The dignity of the body. The apostle speaks in the accents of surprise, as if to imply that they ought to know.
1. Many considerations may commend the sanctification of the flesh to God, e.g.
(1) The natural care for our bodies.
(2) The possibility that the angels may have bodies resembling our own, since every angelic appearance in Scripture has been in human shape.
(3) The fact that Christ ascended to heaven in a body of “flesh and bones.”
(4) The fact that the flesh is included in His redeeming work so that in heaven there will be glory and happiness for the body.
2. But the apostle takes higher ground. The body of a Christian man is claimed and taken possession of by the God who has redeemed it--and therefore to be treated with the same respect with which a heathen would regard the temple of his idol, or a Jew the holy of holies.
3. Of course this is not true of all men. It is true that the body is fearfully and wonderfully made in all, that there dwells within it an immortal soul full of noble gifts, that body and soul are actuated by a supernatural power. But in natural men that power is the power of God’s enemy. It is to Christians alone thatthe text applies.
4. Now the idea of temple implies--
(1) Presence. In the temples of idolatry there was a visible shape to represent the spirit supposed to be there. In the Temple at Jerusalem there was indeed no figure, but there the visible Shekinah dwelt above the mercy-seat. Thus if the body be the temple of the Holy Ghost it must be because He is actually there. What a solemn thought that is!
(2) Presence, not by permission, but by right. Thus it is not that we ought from reverence or courtesy to render to God the use of a body which is our own, but it is that God assumes the use of a body which is His--bought with a price. We were God’s by creation, and the right of property thus derived still exists. But we have given to Satan what is really God’s; and the Spirit of God will not come back into a body where Satan’s seat is, nor by force take the flesh, while the affections are bestowed elsewhere. But when His grace has won the heart back again, then God comes back to His own and takes full possession of the entire man. Try to realise the force of motive which this fact supplies for holiness.
II. The service of the body. The Christian who thus thinks of his flesh as the temple of God cannot fail to acquire a higher respect for it, and it is evident that this higher respect will show itself in small things as well as in great. Follow the drunkard or the profligate, who abuse their natural health by sin, and see if the result be not neglect of the body, and misery and suffering in the very flesh they pamper. But let the grace of God change that man’s heart, and what a difference is seen! Now he holds his head erect and takes his place among his fellow-men.
1. We should jealously watch our bodies lest they be polluted with sin.
2. Respect for the body, as the temple of the Holy Ghost, should teach propriety of dress and manner, and even of bodily appearance. A saved body, destined for heaven, is neither to be neglected nor to be made into an idle gewgaw, but is to be treated with the serious propriety which becomes a house of God and the God who fills it.
3. We need to watch over all our habits, so as to keep the body in the fittest state possible to do God’s will. This is the highest object of health, that the members may be instruments of righteousness unto holiness.
4. Learn the due use and place of the body in our worship of God. The real seat of worship is in the heart, but when the heart is right, the body must share the service. Hence arises the propriety of outward forms of worship, of the bended knees, &c. (Canon Garbett.)
The temple of the Holy Ghost
1. There is a great danger in religion--as there is in everything else--of a want of proportion. To the natural man the body is much more than the soul. He can see his body; his soul is a matter of faith. The body can give him immediate pleasure; the pleasures of the soul lie chiefly in the future. To the care of the body there is little or nothing to oppose itself; to the care of the soul, the opposition, both from within and without, is very strong. Hence, to provide for that body takes by far the greatest part of a man’s life. When a man becomes religious these two things change places. The body goes into the shade; the soul is everything. The body is a thing to mortify. In all this because it is extravagant there is a danger that there will follow a reaction, and the body may become again too important, because it was made too insignificant.
2. Now let us see how God’s truth regards “the body.” The whole man is “a temple”; the body its walls; the senses its gates; the mind the nave; the heart the altar-piece; and the soul the holy of holies. And yet, as in common life, we call the walls and the doors the house, so “the body” is called “the temple,” so important, so sacred is “the body.”
3. Christ wore a body and wears it for ever. His discourses were very often about the body, and His miracles were chiefly upon the body. The body finds a place in our daily prayer--“Give me this day my daily bread.”
4. We also know the close connection between the body and the mind! how the state of the one affects the condition of the other; and how the body reflects the inner life of the man. What are features, however delicately formed, without expression? And what makes the expression but thoughts--love, tenderness, sympathy l Or, equally, on the other side, sin lowers, vulgarises, spoils, even distorts the countenance. The real beauty of “the temple” after all is its consecration.
5. And when you are dealing with some fellow-creature, what a new character the whole transaction would assume--if you would recognise the fact that that person is “a temple.” However poor, wretched, weak, wicked. Notwithstanding, the Holy Ghost may be in that man--working, striving. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The temple of the Holy Ghost
1. God does not influence us merely from the outside--play upon us as the flame flickers on the bar of the grate, but rather as the heat penetrates into the very heart and core of the iron. He enters the very centre of our being, and makes His influence felt throughout the whole.
2. This indwelling is not merely that natural indwelling which is a necessary attribute of an Infinite Being; it is gracious friendly indwelling (Isa_57:15; Joh_14:23). The apostle employs this figure--
I. To quicken our abhorrence of sensual vice. Nowhere are disorder and neglect more unseemly than in a temple; but of all kinds of disorder and neglect the most repulsive is filth. For a Christian to indulge in sensuality is to commit an abomination to be classed with the sacrilege of Antiochus Epiphanes, who offered a sow on the altar of the Temple.
II. To give an impulse to our desires for greater purity of heart and higher spiritual attainments--for those especially which imprint themselves on, and give elevation to, the bodily features. Not only should the sensual look, the bloated complexion excite our loathing: we should seek for such a state of soul as shall give a pleasing countenance. Cathedral builders used to spend much time and pains on the doorway, so as to make it worthy of thebuilding. The face is the doorway to the soul, and it becomes us to see that it does not discredit the temple. Christian men and women should feel that the dreary look of care, the peevishness of discontent, &c., do not befit those whose bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.
III. To stimulate us to render God His due. The temple is a place of worship. Net that we can of ourselves provide offerings worthy of God; we must ask Him to give us of His own wherewith to serve Him. But if He dwells in us He will inspire with the feelings and produce in us the fruits that constitute the most acceptable offerings. His presence is not like that of a star in the firmament which, bright though it be, communicates nothing of itself to our distant planet. It is rather like the presence of the sun, which cannot shine without brightening earth and sky and sea; without giving its colour to the rose, its fragrance to the lily, its flavour to the peach; without ripening the golden grain and cheering and brightening the hearts of men. God cannot dwell in the soul without corresponding influences; without fostering love and purity; without making sin more odious and holiness more attractive; without giving it strength to banish the one and to follow the other. Conclusion: The Holy Spirit may be resisted and grieved, and in consequence withdrawn, and the painful discipline of separation and chastisement may be substituted for loving fellowship (Hos_5:15; Isa_57:17). No loss can be more grievous. Far better the keenest application of the scourge than the sentence--“Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.” (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
The redeemed sinner a Scruple of God
I. Whose the Christian is. Before the apostle tells us this, he makes it evident that we must have some master. “Ye are not your own!” You are bondmen. And this is no mere figure of speech. I know that if we look around us, it does not appear true. Freedom, independence, is the boast of earth and the pride of man; but go into heaven, and the very sound of it would dismay. The creature’s real glory and happiness consist in his willing dependence on the God who made him. And this the Christian feels. While others are proudly asking who is lord over them, he knows himself to be God’s property. And this is true of the Christian at all times. God says concerning every living soul and every clay-built dwelling-place a soul has occupied, “They are Mine.”
II. How he became God’s. There were several ways by which one man might become the property of another.
1. He might be born of a slave, and the owner of his parent would have a right to him also. And if Christian fathers could entail a glorious bondage on their children, what pangs and fears would many be spared!
2. He might be purchased. And this was a transaction so common that all would enter into the meaning of any illustration drawn from it. Money transferred the Greek slave from one master to another; so the blood of Jesus is the means whereby the sinner is rescued from his native thraldom, and brought “into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” By sin he became the servant and property of Satan. The blood of Christ makes an atonement for the transgressor’s sin; in a legal sense, it does away with it, and thus annihilates that on which Satan’s title to him rests.
III. What God makes him. A temple, which imports--
1. A rebuilding, a restoration. Man was originally the temple of Jehovah, but sin entered, and, in one short hour, this noble piece of Jehovah’s workmanship became a mournful ruin. Some traces indeed of its original glory may still be discovered, but to what do they amount? They serve only to show the greatness of its degradation. His lofty understanding overthrown; his affections, which once rose to the skies, now grovelling on the earth; a spiritual being, and yet bounded in his ideas and enjoyments by material objects. But the blood of Christ having ransomed, now the grace of Christ transforms him. In the very hour when he becomes the Lord’s, a work of restoration is commenced within him, that never ends till it brings shape and beauty and glory out of a mass of ruins. And this is sanctification.
2. Dedication. It is this which distinguishes a temple from every other building. The purchased sinner is consecrated to holy purposes.
3. Residence, the abode of the Deity within it, to whom it is consecrated. We must labour to take in the idea of God dwelling within us; not carrying on His work of mercy in the heart like a bystander, but as leaven works in the meal, mingling itself with the mass it is changing. To the man of the world this is all a mystery, perhaps a delusion. And no wonder. It is understood only by experience, and of things like this he has had no experience. To the man of God it is a blessed reality. God never enters the heart alone; blessings unspeakable follow in His train--light end purity and joy.
IV. What God expects from him--glory. Now the glory of God is not such a glory as results to a man from the circumstances in which he is placed; its source is to be found in God’s intrinsic excellences. To glorify Him, therefore, is to bring these excellences into light. And the redeemed sinner does this.
1. Passively. His very redemption is an amazing exhibition of the Divine attributes. In this point of view, the creation of a world is as nothing to the salvation of his lost soul.
2. Actively. We are so to live and act that all who see us may be reminded by us of God. Now it is by the body chiefly as an instrument that the work must be done. The seat of religion is the soul, but its effects will be visible in the frame which the soul animates. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The sacredness of the person
1. The whole person of the believer is as sacred to God as the Temple was. Stronger language is impossible.
(1) In both the plan is Divine.
(2) In both human agency was called into requisition. In the building of the Temple and in the salvation of the soul man must work out the plan.
(3) In both the work is transcendent.
(4) But the chief point is the fact that the Temple was the dwelling-place of God typical of His indwelling in the regenerate heart.
2. Our endeavour will be to consider the sacredness and preciousness of the persons of the saints in the light of the price of our redemption. That we should take our stand by the Cross in order to obtain the highest view of human nature may not be consonant with the opinions of many. There are other standpoints.
(1) There is the commercial standpoint. On this pinnacle you may stand for a lifetime to witness incessant activities in the hives of industry, which offer their tribute of praise to the greatness and dignity of human life.
(2) Look also at the results of scientific research; what a mass of wonders meets your eye!
(3) There is also the literary standpoint, whence we see mind, like a cataract, pouring its contents in numberless volumes.
(4) Art is no less wonderful. But to none of these lights do we now ask you to come. Ascend Calvary where the noblest view of human life is obtainable.
I. The purpose of the saviour’s life was to redeem mankind. Every great life has its purpose bound up in its very inclination and disposition. This is pre-eminently true of the life of Jesus. The purpose to save men preceded every thought, and left its impress on every act.
II. To ransom mankind was the ruling passion in the life of jesus. The life of the Saviour was unique in thefulfilment of its design.
1. His life was one supreme effort that men may feel that the salvation of the soul is the highest of all objects.
2. The cold reception He received did not damp His ardour.
III. To redeem men jesus laid down his life. It was then the entire surrender of the price became apparent.
IV. What jealous care must be taken to guard this temple from the intrusion of sin! God dwells in you; let no unhallowed thought enter. Let the body be pure. There are two steps in entire consecration--the Spirit of God must sanctify the soul, and the soul must sanctify the body. Therefore, touch no unclean thing. (Weekly Pulpit.)
The Christian’s obligation to a holy life
Note--
1. That sinners of every class are excluded from heaven (1Co_6:9).
2. That sinners of every class have been changed (1Co_6:11).
3. That those who have been changed are under immense obligations to cultivate a holy life. The text teaches us--
I. That the Christian’s body is the temple of God. The body is frequently called so(1Co_3:16; 2Co_6:16; Eph_2:22). Three ideas are suggested--
1. Special connection with God. God is everywhere, but He had a special connection with the Temple of old. God is with all men, but “Thus saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity,” &c.
2. Special consecration to God.
3. Special manifestation of God. Though the universe reveals God, yet, in the Temple was the Shekinah. There is more of God seen in a good man’s life than elsewhere throughout the world.
II. That the Christian’s being is the property of God. “Ye are not your own.”
1. This does not mean--
(1) That your personality is net your own. You will never be absorbed in God.
(2) That your character is not your own. Character is the creation of a moral being--an untransferable thing.
2. It means that our existence is absolutely at His command; that He has a sovereign right to do with us whatever is pleasing in His sight. The reason of this is assigned. “We are bought with a price.” Christ has redeemed us, and has laid on us the strongest conceivable obligation to live a godly life (Rev_14:5).
III. That the Christian’s duty is to glorify God. Not to make Him more glorious than He is--this is impossible. A holy mind is glorified in the realisation of its ideals. St. Paul’s Cathedral glorifies architecturally Sir Christopher Wren, inasmuch as it is the realisation of his idea. Man glorifies God when he realises in his life God’s ideal of a man. All beings glorify God as far as they realise His idea of their existence. This includes two things--
1. That the human body be under the absolute government of the soul. The crime and curse of humanity are that matter governs mind; the body rules the soul.
2. That the human soul be under the government of supreme love to God. Love always--
(1) Seeks to please the object.
(2) Reflects the object.
(3) Lives in the object. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
God’s Temple
WhenPompey captured Jerusalem he entered the Temple. On reaching the vast curtain that hung across the “holy of holies,” into which none but the high priest could enter, and that only on one day of the year, he wondered what the dark recess might contain. He drew the veil aside, but the glory had departed and there was nothing there. How many Christians to-day are like that? Temples without a God. All beautiful outside. But when we lift the veil and pass beyond it to where the glory should be there is nothing to be seen. The glory is gone. This brings to our remembrance the old legend which tells us that on the night before the temple on Zion was burnt, the solemn words of the retreating Divinity were heard sounding through it, “Let us depart.” “I will arise and return unto My place till they acknowledge their offences.” Should this voice be heard to-day by you, let your cry be, “Abide with me, King of life and glory. Leave me not!” And the answer will come, “This is My rest for ever, here--mystery of love--will I dwell, for I have desired it, even the temple of thy heart.”
The temple of God must not be defaced
What right has any man or any woman to deface the temple of the Holy Ghost? What is the ear? Why, it is the whispering-gallery of the human soul. What is the eye? It is the observatory God constructed, its telescope sweeping the heavens. What is the hand? An instrument so wonderful that when the Earl of Bridgewater bequeathed in his will £8,000 sterling for treatises to be written on the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, and Dr. Chalmers found his subject in the adaptation of external nature to the moral and intellectual constitution of man, and the learned Dr. Whewell found his subject in astronomy, Sir Charles Bell, the great English anatomist and surgeon, found his greatest illustration of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God in the construction of the human hand, writing his whole book on that subject. So wonderful are these bodies that God names His own attributes after different parts of them. His omniscience--it is God’s eye. His omnipresence--it is God’s ear. His omnipotence--it is God’s arm. The upholstery of the midnight heavens--it is the work of God’s fingers. His life-giving power--it is the breath of the Almighty. His dominion--the government shall be upon His shoulder. A body so Divinely honoured and so Divinely constructed, let us be careful not to abuse it. When it becomes a Christian duty to take care of our health, is not the whole tendency toward longevity? If I toss my watch about recklessly, and drop it on the pavement, and wind it up any time of day or night I happen to think of it, and often let it run down, while you are careful with your watch, and you never abuse it, and you wind it up at just the same hour every night, and then put it away in a place where it will not suffer from the violent changes of atmosphere, which watch will last the longer? Common sense answers. Now, the human body is God’s watch. You see the hands of the watch, you see the face of the watch; but the beating of the heart is the ticking of the watch. Oh! be careful and do not let it run down. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Keep thyself pure
(sermon to young men):--
1. Do not be surprised at the intensity of this remonstrance. Only think what a conception St. Paul had of the purity which Christ required; think what a sink of iniquity was the city of Corinth. It was London and Paris in one. It combined the worship of Plutus and Venus. The extravagance of its luxury was only matched by the depth of its licentiousness. Corinth was at that time the Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire. You might be tempted to say--Ah! no Christian could remain pure in such a place. So some of the young men of Corinth thought, and the apostle wrote to them that it was an entire mistake. I believe some of you young men have just the same notion that these Corinthians had. You say London is quite as trying to one’s principles as ever Corinth was. Perhaps so; yet even in Corinth there were those who remained proof against contamination. The grace of God proved sufficient for them.
2. Of course, he is here writing to Christian men (1Co_6:11). It was of little use to exhort others to a life of purity. An unconverted man regards himself as his own property, and naturally feels that he may deal with that property as he chooses. The alternative is to be the redeemed of the Lord Jesus (1Co_6:20). Christ gave His life for our salvation, that all who accept of Him should be saved; and if we believe, He claims us as His own. This is not a hardship, but a joyous liberty. And the secret of it is, that He puts His Holy Spirit within us, making us new creatures, with new desires, new likings, new motives.
3. Our body then becomes the “temple “ of this Divine Spirit, and all its members are under His control. It is a very solemn and suggestive metaphor. There is no consecrated edifice that is really so sacred as the body of a Christian. The temple at Jerusalem has for ages been laid in ruins:; the only temples God now owns are the two which Paul so clearly defines in this epistle; first, the spiritual society of His own people in the aggregate (1Co_3:16), and, secondly, the fleshly frame of each individual believer.
4. Perhaps the most common plea with which the impure quiet conscience is that which the apostle herechallenges, “Our bodies are our own; we may do with them what we will.” But they are not your own, says Paul; your bodies are the purchased property of the Lord, and are consecrated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What an argument against self-indulgence in any form! These are, as we are told in this chapter, sins “against the body”; desecrations of God’s own temple! And if “any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” You recollect that, when Christ was about to visit the Jewish Temple of old, and found its hallowed precincts defiled, He made a scourge of cords, and drove out all the vile intruders. There are young men in some of our mercantile houses, respectable in appearance, and gentlemanly in bearing, who, through vicious indulgence, have already gathered a hell around them, from whose tortures they can find no escape. How did they begin? By being irregular in their habits, careless in making acquaintanceships, tampering with stimulants, and theatre-going, and gambling; and finally, every conceivable form of Satanic revelry! Ah! let me ask, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.”
5. Oh, the heartlessness of vice! It is not so long ago since a young man of good family., excellent prospects, and pleasing address, died miserably like a dog in Paris, with not one to shed a tear over his cold clay, of all the depraved profligates that had sponged him and joined in his hilarious orgies.
6. There are plenty who will try to persuade you that it is a sign of weakness to be pure, and call you verdant, orapuritanical, and ask if you are still tied to your mother’s apron-strings. And, unless you are prepared to stand that vulgar bluster, you are all but certain to be caught; and from the gates of hell shall ascend another shout of victory. I remember what a thrill went through me, as I first gazed upon the gloomy walls of the Prison de la Roquette, in Paris, which is set apart for criminals that are condemned to be executed, and read over those huge, hideous gates the inscription, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here!” Bat hardly less hopeless are those who once enter upon the path of the profligate. Facilis descensus Averni. Oh, keep a thousand miles from the verge of the pit! Avoid everything that is likely to act as an incentive to sin.
7. Perhaps you think of these bodies as mere temporary tabernacles, soon to be taken down and dissolved. There is a certain measure of truth in this, of course. But in a higher sense, the Christian’s body is not a tabernacle, but a temple, a permanent and enduring structure (Rom_8:11). Oh, with what a magnitude of interest and importance does this thought invest these fleshly temples! Some time ago an aged saint was being borne to his burial. He had been very poor, and with indecent haste they were shuffling his coffin out of their way, as though glad to get rid of him, when an old minister who observed it, said, “Tread softly, for you are carrying a temple of the Holy Ghost.” (J. Thain Davidson, D. D.)
Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.--
Ye are not your own
1. To be “our own” is our very greatest ambition. To be our own masters, that is nature. To feel bought with a price, to forego all independence, to own ourselves God’s property, and to seek His glory--that is grace.
2. When Satan first attacked our first parents, nothing could have done so well as this, “Ye shall be as gods”; and, in that reach to be their own, they perished.
3. God has been pleased so to order it, that no man can truly say, “I am my own”; “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are,” &c. Oh, we all know how we are trammelled by circumstances, there is not a single action in our life that is perfectly free. In what a higher sense this word is true of those to whom it was said, “Ye are not your own.”
4. Of all the happy conditions upon earth, the happiest is to give up the whole heart to an authority which the whole heart can quite love and respect--an authority also which only needs proprietorship to make the relationship exquisite and the engagement perfect. Note--
I. God’s property in you.
1. Had one whole world been given for your salvation the price would have been a large one; but the whole universe would not have given so great a sum as the death of Christ. One single life offered for you would have been vast, but Essential Life Himself was the ransom of your soul. Ought you to be a poor, wretched slave, to fear sin, death, and hell, when the Son of God took fear, sin, death, and hell into His own heart to make you free?
2. The art of man may contrive a thing, and he has a right to anything that he has made. But he contrives out of what he finds already made, not what he brings into creation. But God made your body, soul, and spirit. A father has a right to his child, but God has done more than made you His child, for He has given you the spirit of a child, to cry “Abba Father.” A husband has a property in his wife--but marriage is only a type of the union between Christ and His Church. Every man has a right to his own body--Christ has more than a right to His body, being the Head, and we all members in particular; so that each condition of life teaches us with one common voice, “Ye are not your own.”
II. The consequences arising from that fact.
1. The great privilege which attaches to being the property of God. What-ever property one has, it entails certain duties upon the proprietors, and certainly God will not fail in fulfilling the great relationship in which He stands to His creatures. Are you “not your own,” but God’s? Then observe “ all things are yours,” &c. God holds Christ--Christ holds you--you hold everything. Then if “you are not your own,” nothing which you have is your own, not your cares, griefs, or sins. God has undertaken for you in everything. The member may pass everything up to its Head--the thing possessed may refer everything to its possessor.
2. The duties which spring out of this great privilege.
(1) God has made you a part of His Church, the body of Christ. In that Church we all belong one to another. Each has his particular gift to contribute to the mutual good, one has love, another intelligence, another experience--all belong to the Church.
(2) This claim of God’s proprietorship is not perfectly recognised. We may assign Him a part of our lives--a part of our money--a part of our time--a part of our energies--a part of our affections, but God will have no partnerships. He is too great to be a partner, He requires all of us. God is worthy of everything--yield all yourself to Him. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Man acting independent of God
Theprinciple which is recognised in these words is the very reverse of that by which all men are naturally actuated. We reason, we act, not as if our bodies and our spirits were God’s, but as if they were our own. This is the fault of human nature. Man is a fallen creature, in a state of apostasy. He has cast off his allegiance to God. God is not in all his thoughts; God’s authority is not acknowledged, His glory is not regarded, His law is not obeyed. And what is the cause of all this? Does he not know that he is God’s? Is he ignorant that all he is, and all he has, are from God? If the authority of God can only be established in the conscience, if His right to reign in the heart, and to demand all we are and have, be once acknowledged, what solicitude, what sorrow for sin, what opposition to self, what efforts, what prayers, what gratitude, what submission, will be the result! And who can escape the conviction that the whole heart, and mind, and soul and strength, should be given unto God?
I. What can more clearly show that we think ourselves our own, than presuming to devise our own religion? God has vouchsafed to us a communication of His purposes. He has favoured us with the inestimable blessing of revelation. Now what is the disposition with which we should receive it? We know that it is with meekness we should receive the engrafted word. But where is this meekness to be found? Truly not in natural men. It is not the religion which is most agreeable to the revelation of God, but most consonant with the opinions of the world, which they adopt. There is an amazing insolence and impiety, and casting off subjection in calling good evil and evil good, in adding to the Word of God or in taking from it, and thus in virtually finding fault with the instructions of Divine wisdom, which is in fact finding fault with God Himself, and expressing a wish that He were the reverse of what He is. It is saying, We are our own, and we will have a religion according to our own wisdom and our own wishes. It is a dangerous thing, however plausible, to contend for the right of private judgment, and to suppose that if we only follow the dictates of our own conscience, and adopt sentiments such as we think to be sound, we must be right. The rule of faith and the rule of practice remain uninfluenced by the changes of conscience, and immutably the same, whether conscience approves and disapproves, perfectly or imperfectly. And a man is equally responsible to God whether his conscience is enlightened or unenlightened, and every time he contends for the authority of conscience in opposition to that of God, he does in fact, like that man of sin, oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitteth on the throne of God, showing himself that he is God. Error is far from being harmless. It has a most pernicious effect upon practice. And in proportion to the importance which is attached to sentiments is the evil which those that are erroneous produce.
II. We act as if we were our own by doing our own will. A respect unto all God’s commandments is the only thing which can prove our regard to His will. If we keep the whole law, with the exception of one point, we are guilty of all. Whether, therefore, we are moral, or immoral, and whether we observe religious duties, or neglect them, we are, in all this, consulting our own will, and acting upon the supposition that we are our own. Nor is the case at all altered by our good conduct proceeding from conscientious motives and the fear of God’s wrath. For a man’s conscience may be awakened, and his fears excited, so as to constrain him to do many things with the view of conciliating God’s favour, and saving his soul, while at the same time his partial obedience furnishes abundant evidence that his own will is still preferred to the will of God, and that, in the most plausible parts of his conduct, he is not actuated by any genuine principles of obedience.
III. We act as if we were our own by seeking our own ends. Whatever we do in an unregenerate state, whether it be in itself good or bad, we seek in it an end that is not worthy of God. We have said that the true end of man is to glorify God. But men seek, not the honour of God, but their own honour. They not only do their own will, but they do it for their own purposes. The original depravity of man is so entire that it is a difficult and long-protracted business to make him, with all his new and Divine nature, propose the glory of God as the end of all his ways. (M. Jackson.)
God’s right to our services on the ground of creation
I. Because we were made by Him. The more we know of the structure of the human frame, how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, the more are we persuaded that it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves. And if we consider that we are made of the dust of the earth, that if God bad not breathed into us the breath of life, we must have been nothing better than the dust under our feet; we shall see the propriety of glorifying God in our bodies which are His. And if we contemplate the rational understanding, the immortal spirit, by which we are distinguished from the beasts that perish, and assimilated to angels, and to God, we shall perceive that these are a still higher ground of claim upon us for services the most spiritual. When human creatures use their bodies and their ,spirits for the low purposes of sensuality, vanity, and ambition, or without any view to the service and honour of Him whose they both are, they are guilty of an injustice to God and a robbery of God, which, if conscience were not stupefied or perverted, would fill them with horror and overwhelm them with fear. Who call calculate the value of an immortal existence and of a capacity for happiness, exalted as its Divine original, and lasting as eternity? Who can calculate his obligations to God for such an existence? And who, then, can calculate the extent of his wickedness in habitually forgetting that he is not his own in using that existence without any avowed aim to the will and glory of its Author? I need not say that the bodies of them whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, and who mind earthly things, are not used for the purpose of honouring God, for in all this God’s laws are violated and His glory given to another. All who live in pleasure are dead while they live and dishonour God in their bodies. And it is equally clear that they who live in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another, as well as they who argue against religion and would discourage piety, are not glorifying God in their spirits, but openly dishonouring Him. Have you considered, and do you act upon the principle, that as all your faculties of body and of mind are God’s, they ought to be employed for the promotion of His glory?
II. We were made for God. The great end of creation is the glory of God. And all things, but men and devils, do glorify Him. Angels in heaven glorify Him, and all things in heaven and earth, and in the waters under the earth, glorify Him, by manifesting His perfections. Fallen men and fallen angels only answer not the design of their creation. Now let this truth be remembered--that you were made for the purpose of glorifying God. And would you oppose and defeat the end of your existence? Shall there be no concurrence between the design of God in giving you life and your design in living? How great must be that guilt which is contracted by living in opposition to the great end of God in calling us into being! Few things excite more opposition in the human mind than the attempt to reinstate God upon His throne, to assert His right to reign in our hearts, the Sovereign of our thoughts and affections, and to maintain that it is our duty to resolve all we think, and speak, and do, into His will. This is being righteous overmuch; this is enthusiasm. Now, can anything show more clearly how completely we have departed from God, how totally opposed to Him we are in the spirit of our minds? Remember we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and how shall we dare to appear as usurpers before our Sovereign and our Judge? If you exalt yourselves against God He will bring you down, and who shall deliver? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Not your own
1. The passion for freedom is probably the strongest. Nothing is more wonderful than the secret working of this passion in securing gradual emancipation. There have been times when ages of serfdom had apparently crushed it out; but at the first impulse from without it was seen that the fire of freedom did not smoulder; and when the impulse has grown strong the passion has sometimes maddened men, blinding them to all sense of justice. And so the spirit of freedom has in turn made slaves of them. It was so in Paris a hundred years ago.
2. A large proportion of the members of this church were slaves. You can imagine what a gospel the life of Christ would be to these. And, to the honour of those who organised the first churches, we must always remember that they were not afraid to welcome the slave. Well, then, you may say, “Was it not a cruel thing of the apostle to remind them that they were not their own?” Have you ever wondered why Paul should describe himself as “the bond slave of Christ”? Was it not because the people to whom he was writing were slaves, and as if he would say, “I too am a slave; I too am bound, not with iron, but by love”? What a grand revelation that was to the slaves! “Ye are Christ’s.” No chains or bondage could alter that. Better the fetter and the chain with Christ than the purple and the throne without Him.
3. And now these words have just as splendid a ring for us to-night. The law has discovered that they are true in part. The other day they brought before a court of justice a frightened, miserable woman, who had tried to drown herself. She pleaded that her life was not worth preserving. She said it was hers, and she could do with it as she liked. But the law stepped in and said, “You are not your own. Your life is not your own. You have no right to squander it.” This meant that the law is founded on the Christian principle that every man’s life belongs to his fellow-men as well as to himself. And that was what Christ came to teach. His life was given for everybody.
4. But the idea is not only what you may not do, but what you must do If you are Christ’s, then every thought, word, action, must be what Christ would have them be. When Peter and John first began to preach in Jerusalem they were thrown into prison, and strictly commanded not to preach any more in that name. But Peter answered “We must.” It is not a question whether we should like an easy-going life. We must obey God, though it leads us to stripes, imprisonment, and the cross (see also Act_21:11-14).
5. But perhaps you think that such claims are only strong when we reach manhood or womanhood. But think of Christ, at twelve years of age, saying, “I must be in My Father’s house.” Twelve years of age, but He felt the power of the Divine “must,” and yet that One was Lord of heaven and earth. Surely if any one could go through life with no constraint it was He; but He saw that to redeem mankind, even Omnipotence could not refuse to take the cross from childhood to the grave. “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”
6. And now what part has that Divine “must” begun to play in your life? Do you feel that it is stronger than the “must” of men? Young man in business, would you let the word of an earthly master outweigh the command of the heavenly Master? Do you think you can slight Christ on the week-day and make it up to Him on the Sunday? Young men, newly awakening to find how strong the streams of tendency are in this world, look at life in the light of Christ, and not in the light of what everybody says and does. It is no excuse for looseness of conduct that it is the fashion. Christ waged relentless war against many of the fashions of His day. Servants, remember whose you are and whom you serve. You can hire your souls out and no wages can recompense you for the loss of them. There may be some here who have received from the Master on trust certain talents which they have been hiding in the earth. If you are letting your lives rust, remember you are abusing another’s property, for “you are not your own,” &c. (C. S. Horne, M. A.)
Not our own
1. The first motives which influence us in Christian experience are usually self-regarding; and it is natural and right that they should be so. Salvation stands at the beginning of the Christian course, in order that our self-regarding interests may be set at rest, and that we may thus be left free to pursue an end that lies outside them, and yet is in perfect harmony with them.
2. We are not only redeemed from death, but purchased unto God. So long as we claimed to be our own, Satan possessed a certain legal right over us. He moved man to break away from his original relations with God, and to claim himself for himself. In doing so man became a spiritual outlaw, and as such fell under the supremacy of the prince of lawlessness. The great enemy held him by right as well as by might, because it is God’s law that what we sow we reap.
3. But, on the other hand, since Satan owes his power against us to the operation of Divinely-ordained law, when once the necessities of law are satisfied, the claims of Satan against us are cancelled. Thus we are ransomed from Satan the moment that we are justified before God, and brought back to that position from which man fell of being God’s and not our own. Only Adam belonged to God because He had made him for Himself; we belong to God because He has bought us back. Thus a new element is introduced into the case, and one that appeals to all the strongest emotions of our nature. He who robs a Divine Creator of that which He has made for His own glory commits a crime, no doubt; but he who has been brought back from the fatal effects of this crime by the dearth of his Benefactor, and then declines to recognise his obligation, is guilty of an enormity which casts that other crime into the shade.
4. As the result of redemption we come under the influence of Him whose will is law throughout the universe, and whose entrance into our nature insures our true moral freedom. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death. But here is a new property claim, a claim de facto where the others were claims de jure. His presence is our liberty, for “where the Spirit of God is there is liberty”; but it is the liberty which comes by full surrender of ourselves to Him. He does not enter our nature either as a conqueror, trampling down all resistance, nor as a mere auxiliary to help us out of a difficulty; rather as a constitutional Sovereign to reign according to the true laws of our ransomed nature.
5. But it is not by any means the rule that we apprehend His claims all at once. When the benefit that we seek has been obtained, it is only natural that, having been greatly forgiven, we should greatly love. But, alas! these warm feelings do not always last, when they subside the devotion subsides with them. It often happens, therefore, that after a considerable time has passed from the moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit leads us back, as it were, to the cross to learn more fully the lesson which we only partially learned. We find perhaps that we have been acting as though God existed for us, instead of realising that we exist for God; and then comes the definite question leading up to an equally definite decision, Is it to be self or God? When the Spirit of God thus induces a crisis, it often happens that a very marked and definite act of consecration ensues, bringing about an entirely new epoch in our Christian life. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
Ye are bought with a price.--
God’s right to our services on the ground of redemption
Ifon the ground of creation God has a right to our services and may demand that we glorify Him with our bodies, and with our spirits because He hath made them, it must be evident that His right to them on the ground of redemption is still stronger.
I. The guilt which soul and body had contracted, Jesus Christ hath not bought us with a price when innocent and deserving. His redemption supposes immeasurable guilt, the violation of a law which is holy and just and good, the rejection of Divine authority, the contempt of Divine majesty, theimpeachment of Divine wisdom, the abuse of Divine godness, the defiance of Divine vengeance, the crime of injustice, and ingratitude, and rebellion, and sacrilege. Look at the defiled body and the polluted spirit, see in them everything that is earthly and sensual and devilish, and say if there is in them any quality to attract the Divine favour. Is there not everything fitted to excite the abhorrence of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity? And yet He redeems you! He redeems you from the vileness of your bodies, and the apostasy of your spirits. What, then, is the perverseness, the accumulated ingratitude and sacrilege of using bodies and spirits so redeemed for the purpose of still dishonouring Him!
II. But connected with this guilt is danger. Every sinner is exposed to the curse of God, and, but for redemption, must perish eternally. It is redemption from ruin by which you are urged to glorify God, in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. Who does not feel the force of this argument? Who can feet thathe owes his deliverance from ruin, his deliverance from even temporal distress, to the benevolent exertions of a friend, without feeling himself bound by ties of gratitude to serve him to the utmost of his power? And shall that be withheld from Christ and from God which is so freely yielded to man?
III. Christ redeems the body and soul, not only from ruin, but ruin immeasubable. Who can calculate the misery of them who are destroyed both body and soul in hell? Is a cold and reluctant service an appropriate return for deliverence from everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power?
IV. Christ has not only redeemed body and soul from everlasting destruction, but by His redemption has procured for them immeasurable felicity. Does the circumstance of our ears being familiar with the sound of fulness of joy in the presence of God, and of pleasures at His right hand for evermore, render the felicity of heaven less valuable? Substantiate all this felicity. View it as a reality, as a reality at hand, as that which yourselves must possess, or not possess, in the course of a few fleeting moments, and then say whether there is not a reasonableness, a suitableness in glorifying God in those spirits, and in those bodies, which are to be the subjects of this felicity through the efficacy of His redemption.
V. The greatness of the price with which you have been bought. You were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And can you, after this purchase, question His right to your bodies and your spirits? Can you think that you are justified in withholding your services from Jesus Christ, in living to yourselves, in not inquiring into His will, in not devoting yourselves to His glory? Why should the principles of justice be recognised in your transactions with men, and renounced in your dealings with God? But God demands your services, not merely because He has bought them with a price, hut because in buying them He extends to you--
VI. The most immeasurable mercy. It is infinite mercy that redeems you from destruction the most awful, infinite mercy that exalts you to happiness the most inconceivable, infinite mercy that buys you with a price the most costly, by all this infinite mercy so manifested you are urged to glorify God. How fervent should be our love, how animated our exertions! Every thought andevery affection should be God’s. Were we suitably affected by His love, we should see sin and ingratitude in every thought and word and work. The insensibility and worldliness of our minds and the inadequacy of our best returns would humble us in the dust. And our disproportionate humility itself, for making returns soimperfect, would be numbered among our grievous offences. The more of heart andsoul we put into our services the more of freedom and delight shall we enjoy. We can imagine no happiness equal to that of living as not our own, living to God only, constrained by gratitude, and directed by justice to serve Him whose we are. (M. Jackson.)
Redemption and its claims
(text and 1Co_7:23):--
I. “ye are bought with a price.”
1. Redemption is a greater mercy than creation. It is no mean blessing to have been made, and to have been made a man rather than a dog, to have been blest with intellect and an immortal spirit; but for all that it would be better for thee that thou hadst never been born, if thou art not redeemed.
2. Providence also calls before our minds a great mass of mercies; but providence is second in its blessedness to redemption.
3. Redemption is that which gives effect to all the other great blessings of God.
(1) Election, the well-head of grace, needs the conduit-pipe of redemption to bring its streams down to sinners. We are chosen of God, but unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.
(2) Redemption is the foundation of all real peace.
(3) It is through redeeming grace that we expect to enter heaven.
II. Therefore redemption is the Lord’s paramount claim upon us. Other claims, such as those of creation and providence, are forcible, but this claim is overwhelming. The love of Christ constraineth us. Think--
1. What you were redeemed from.
(1) Sin.
(2) Its punishment.
2. Reflect most lovingly upon that dear friend who redeemed you. Not an angel, but Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.
3. Then think of the price He paid. The text does not tell us about it, and surely the reason is that words cannotexpress the mighty sum. The famous painter, when he drew the picture of Agamemnon at the sacrifice of his daughter, felt that he could not depict the sorrow of the father’s countenance, and therefore he wisely put a veil over it, and represented him as hiding his face from the fearful sight. So the apostle seems to have felt. This price has been fully paid. I have seen lands which have belonged to men who were reputed to be rich, but there was a heavy mortgage upon them. But there is no mortgage on the saints. “It is finished,” said the Saviour, and finished it was.
III. The extent of this claim.
1. The first text says--
(1) That it includes--
(a) The body. This body of yours is holy, and it will rise again from the dead. I charge you, by the blood of Christ, never defile this body either by drunkenness or by lust.
(b) The spirit. Keep that pure too. Christ has not bought these eyes that they should read novels calculated to lead me into vanity and vice, such as are published nowadays. Christ has not bought this brain of mine that I may revel in the perusal of works of blasphemy and filthiness. He has not given me a mind that I may drag it through the mire. Your whole manhood belongs to God if you are a Christian. Every faculty, talent, possibility of your being--all were bought.
(2) That consequently “Ye are not your own,” which implies--
(a) That I may not claim the right to do what I please, but what Christ pleases. I am to please my Master in everything.
(b) That I may not follow my own tastes if in any way I should so bring dishonour to the name of Christ.
(c) That I must not trust my own reasonings. If I were my own teacher, then, of course, I should learn my lessons from my own book; but I have a Rabbi, even Jesus, and I am resolved with meekness to learn of Him.
(d) That I must not seek my own ends. I must not live in this world that I may trade and get riches, butit must be that I may use them for Him.
2. In my second text the apostle draws another inference: “Be not ye the servants of men.”
(1) Do not even follow good men slavishly. Do not say, “I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Calvin.” Who is Calvin and who is Wesley but ministers by whom ye believed as the Lord gave unto you?.
(2) Do not pin your faith to anybody’s sleeve. Keep close to Christ.
(3) Do not give yourselves up to party spirit.
(4) Do not give yourself to any scientific speculation, educational effort, or to any philanthropic enterprise so as to divert our minds from the grand old cause of Jesus and our God.
(5) Do not follow the fashions of the world.
(6) Let no man be your master. If ye have masters according to the flesh, serve them with all faithfulness; but as to any master over your spirit, allow no one to be so; consciences were made for God alone. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Redemption, and its claims
There is within us a strange tendency to the acquisition of property, and therefore there is something startling in this announcement. We have been gloating upon our fancied proprietorship; it awakens us to the consciousness that we are only stewards. Nay, it lays hold upon ourselves, “Ye are not your own.” And this may perhaps account for the comparatively trifling success with which religion has been favoured. It allows no compromise, it claims supreme and undivided homage. Notice--
I. The great fact asserted, that we are purchased, and tee position into which we are brought because of that purchase.
1. While we would insist upon this as the prime cause of our being the property of God, we would not be supposed to invalidate others. “He has made us, and not we ourselves.” He has, from the beginning, even until now, preserved the creatures He has made. But in redemption He has so impressively displayed His interest in our welfare, His yearning over His purchased possession. The apostle’s language implies an acknowledgment of our fall, and refers to the provision of that covenant by which that fall was to be remedied. You will not fail to remark how Christ Himself spoke of those who believe on Him as peculiarly His own. “My sheep,” &c. His greatpurpose was that He “might purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” If that people are spoken of in their collective capacity, they are as theChurch of God, which He has purchased with His own blood. As to these declarations, the statement of St. Peter comes as a hallowed appendix. “Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things,” &c. Now, surely there can be no more strictly legal title to property than this.
2. Note an exquisite fitness in theconnection between the purchase, and the position into which that purchase brings us. Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have something to lay hold of outside itself, and it will never willingly denude itself of any object of solicitude and love. Hence, if you would dispossess the mind of one object, you, must overbear it with the preference of another. If you extirpate one affection you must introduce another into its room. We see this strikingly illustrated in the progress of human life. The tastes and habits of childhood depart, but the heart is not bereft; new tastes acquire their influence, new affections exert their ascendancy. So it is in reference to matters of a higher moment. You will never drive from a worldling the pursuit which engrosses him by a mere naked demonstration of its worthlessness and folly. All that you say is true, and the man knows it; but the spell is over him. And is it not natural, when you think of the feelings of the man, and of what you are wishing him to do? You tell him to cultivate religion: it is his abhorrence. You tell him to renounce the world; why, it is all he has. Here, then, comes the question. We cannot prevail upon the heart by the simple act of resignation to give up everything unpleasing to God. May we not induce it to admit a higher affection? Here it is that the fitness of the connection becomes apparent. “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.” The heart, which all other means had failed to affect, is melted by the power of the Spirit, applying the gospel of God. We can deny the claim no longer; we acknowledge it at once as a natural and inalienable right, and we are bound to it with a tenderer tie, because He, to whom we are to swear our fealty, has been mysteriously one of ourselves. Our sense of possession is gratified.
3. Does not this point out the most effective method of preaching? It is not the demonstration of the moral law, but the preaching of Christ that prevails. This is the master spell; this, like the rod of the prophet, swallows up the enchantments of opposing sorcery. I announce it, then, as a natural and inalienable right. “Ye are not your own.” Everything around you urges to a recognition of the claim. Nature reminds you of it, as in the fulness of her gleeful melody she wakes her hymn of praise, acknowledging her dependence on Him by whom she is sustained. Providence reminds you of it. It sounds from the tomb, where the forms you loved are sleeping. Above all, grace reminds you of it. “I beseech you, by the mercies of God.” That is the culminating point even of an apostle’s motive.
II. The course of conduct which a consideration of such position is calculated to induce you to pursue. “Therefore glorify God,” &c. We need not remind you that by no service of yours can you increase God’s glory; but you may make it manifest. God is always glorified whenever He is seen.
1. Let your devotedness to God be entire.
(1) Glorify God in your bodies, for they are His. Beware of regarding them as a number of organs and senses to be pampered, or as stately forms to be adorned and admired. The Spirit dwells not in an unhallowed temple. In your bodies, therefore, glorify God, by temperance, chastity, and the practice of every Christian virtue; by doing without weariness, and by suffering without murmuring; by letting your hands be active in the service, and your feet swift in the way of His Commandments.
(2) Glorify God in your intellects, for they are His. How often has science poured her treasures before him who knew not God, and how much of the choicest literary art is devoted to the service of the devil! In the midst of a perverse generation, bow yourself in unconditional allegiance to the Bible. Learn the true humility of knowledge. Stand out in all the nobleness of religious decision: spirits--students of the great Spirit; minds--drinking in the lessons of theimmortal mind, which transforms them while they listen.
(3) Glorify God in your whole nature, for it is His. Never mind the opposition with which you may have to contend, nor think that you live to struggle alone. Your Saviour has sent His Spirit to help you, and that Spir
