The Church and saints, as houses, must be edified or builded daily
This word “edify” signifieth “to build.” This metaphor is not improperly applied to the saints, for building and edification is proper to houses. Now the Church and saints of God are as houses, and therefore may be said to be builded and edified. This teacheth us two things, first, that all Christians should be edifiers, builders; that is, should make themselves a seemly house for God to dwell in. We read what care David had to build a temple, but God would not suffer him; but now every man must build a temple for God, even his own soul. We read what cost Solomon bestowed upon the temple, but now God careth not for such temples made of stone; He will have a temple made of lively stones. All true Christians must be builders; but before they build they must know how to build, and the way to come to this knowledge is the Scripture. No carpenter will build a house without rule and square, and the rule and square of Christian building is the Word of God; by it our hearts and souls aresquared, and made fit for God’s house. If Solomon’s workmen were one month in Libanus about the work of the temple, and two months at home about their own business, let us exceed them, let us employ two months about the Lord’s building, and but one about our own business. Let us first seek the kingdom of God. And as we must edify and build houses for ourselves, so for our brethren also; so saith the apostle. Exhort one another and edify one another, but especially we must edify our children; a father should especially build his son in religion and virtue. Secondly, this teacheth us that it is not enough to begin to build in faith and good works, but we must go on, go forward, increase in it. Our progressin religion is compared to building. Houses are edified from the foundation to the walls, from the walls to the roof. (S. Otes.)
Character building
I.Every man is truly the architect of his own character. It is often said that a man is the architect of his own fortune. If a man build a fortune he has to do it with his own hands and his own brains. One thing is certain, nobody else is going to do it for him. Just so every man is the builder of his own character. Sometimes a fortune may be made suddenly, the result of an accident; but never is this true of character.
II. We must notice the important parts of this structure.
1. The foundation is essential. If it be ill laid no subsequent care, toil, or expense can avail. Human nature is a quicksand, in which are thrown all man’s efforts, his works, his wisdom, his piety; but all of them put together cannot furnish a sure foundation for character. “Otherfoundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.”
2. This foundation Rock once secured, we are to be careful to build upon it--not near or about it, but upon it, and upon nothing else. Think of an architect carefully laying a foundation, and then building on one side of it.
3. The position of the superstructure is also important. This you are to build under theguidance of the HolySpirit. Every stone we lay must bear a relation to Christ and Him crucified. The centre of gravity must fall within the base. The great leaning tower of Pisa is a wonder to all who see it, because it does not fall, for it leans fifteen feet over the base. The centre of gravity is still ten feet within the base, hence it cannot fall. There are some characters that are leaning towers; they are so strange and eccentric in many things, so far out of plumb, that we wonder why they do not fall to utter destruction. Ah, here is the grand secret: the centre of the heart’s gravity still falls within Christ.
III. Character building is a progressive work. In heathen mythology it is said that the goddess Minerva sprung fromthe head of Jupiter, at once full grown and glorious; but character, like a great edifice, is of slow growth. As the builder lays brick after brick, stone after stone, erects beam after beam, so, slowly and laboriously, this character work advances. There is not an act of our lives, however small, not a thought even, that does not add a stone to that edifice.
IV. The materials to be used are important. It is not every quarrythat can furnish materials for a cathedral Characterwill stand longer than even stone, or gold, or silver. If a man is to build for the future he must select materials that will last. Gold, silver, precious stones--love, faith, hope, self-denial, and patience, these are the materials for a lasting character.
V. We must build for eternity. We must live in the house we build. Character, not circumstances, makes a man happy or miserable. If a man has a pure and holy character, do what you will you cannot make him unhappy.
VI. We build for inspection. How careful were the old cathedral builders that the most distant work should be as well done as that nearest the eye. Why? Because they were built, not for man’s eye, butfor the eye of God,who sees all. So in character buildingthis should be our motto, Not for man, but for God, whose eye sees the most trifling act or thought.
VII. We must not mistake the scaffolding for the building. We meet a friend and ask, How is your business, your health, your family?--this is all scaffolding. Instead, we should ask, How is your character getting on, the inner man?--then we should get at the heart of the thing.Scaffolding may beswept away by the storm, but character remains just as we form it, unchanged for ever. (J. S. Holme, D. D.)
The Christian life
I.The Christian growing in holiness. “Buildingup yourselves on your most holy faith.” By the “faith” you are to understand the whole body of Christian doctrines. And this faith upon which we are to build the apostle describes as a “most holy faith.” That which is to bear the superstructure of Christian hopes should be well proved. The faith of the gospel may well be called a “holy faith”--holy in its Author, holy in its design, holy in the precepts it inculcates, holy in the rewards it holds out. Yes, everything about this faith is holy. Holy is the law its doctrines are designed to vindicate. Holy is the offering provided by the righteous demands of God. Holy is the conversation required of those who should embrace its promises. Holy is the Agent who is ordained to make us meet for the presence of God. Such, then, is the faith upon which we are to build. The text further intimates that there must be a “building up”--that is, a progressive advancement--until it becomes a perfect building of God.
II. The Christian praying in the strength of God. “Praying in the Holy Ghost.”
III. The Christian watching against the enemies of his faith. “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”
IV. The Christian waiting for his hope. “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (D. Moore, M. A.)
Building up
I. Christian edification. “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.”
1. A sure foundation. The gospel which they had received from faithful witnesses contains the fundamental truths for soul building.
2. A wise diligence. To build up a Christian character is man’s noblest ideal.
II. Spiritual aid. “Praying in the Holy Spirit.”
1. The Spirit reveals our wants.
2. The Spirit inspires us with faith.
3. The Spirit blends the labour and the blessing. The building is advanced by the twofold energy of God and man.
4. The Spirit also will bring in the final issue. (T. Davies, M. A.)
The spiritual building
I.Before building.
1. Count the cost (Luk_14:28).
2. Prepare fit matter (2Ch_2:8-9; 1Co_3:12).
3. Prepare skilful and faithful builders.
Some build a wall, but daub it with untempered mortar, which the shower and hailstones throw down again (Eze_13:11). Some flattering builders there be that gild rotten posts and mud walls, and by flatteries cause people to err (Jer_23:1-40.). Some that square their work by a false rule; not the Word, but some profounder school-learning.
II. In building.
1. Lay a good foundation, both for matter and manner.
(1) The matter is Jesus Christ (1Co_3:11).
(2) Then the manner of laying this foundation sure is to dig deep, as you know the foundation of a great house had need to be. Lay it in humility and godly sorrow, called in Heb_6:1 the foundation of repentance, because it can never be laid without a deep sense of sorrow for sin, giving us a clear sight what need we have of Christ.
2. The foundation thus laid. Lay all the materials skilfully upon the same foundation; for building is an artificial coupling of all materials by square upon the same foundation. So here--
(1) There is use of many materials. In every mean house there must be somewhat of everything, some stone, timber, lime, lead, glass, iron, and in this building must be some degrees of all graces--some faith, hope, love, knowledge, and the rest. Faith as gates of brass, and door to let us in unto Christ and His Church for salvation; knowledge as windows to lighten the house, or else all would be dark; hope as the glass or casements to look out unto things believed, specially the life to come; love as the cement to knit all together; patience as the pillars, bearing all the weight of the house, etc.
(2) These and the rest of the graces muse be laid together (2Pe_1:5).
(3) By line and square of the Word (Exo_25:40).
(4) All upon the same foundation--Christ.
3. Build up to the laying of the roof and ridge tiles, still striving to perfection (Heb_6:1; Eph_2:21).
III. After building.
1. As the Jews, having built an house, must dedicate it to the Lord, so do thou thine. Especially the temple and tabernacle were solemnly set apart for His service and sacrifices. Do thou also offer in this thy house the daily sacrifice of prayer, praise, alms which smell sweet (Php_4:18). Let it be the house of prayer, a spiritual house, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1Pe_2:5). Yea, offer thy soul and body a reasonable sacrifice, living and holy (Rom_12:1), which is the right dedication of thy house.
2. Furnish thy house with needful utensils. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
The principles and prospects of a servant of Christ
I. The principles which are here suggested to us as constituting true religion.
1. True-religion is here represented as a building, the foundation of which is laid in the faith of Christ. “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” Whether it relate to personal or to social religion, this must be the foundation of the fabric, or the whole will fall.
(1) One lays the foundation of his religion in what he calls reason; but which in fact is his own reasoning. The same inspired writer who in one sentence commends “understanding,” in the next warns us against “leaning to our own understanding” (Pro_3:4-5). To strengthen ourselves and one another in this way is to build up ourselves on our own conceits.
(2) Another founds his religion on his good deeds. Good deeds undoubtedly form a part of the building, but the foundation is not the place for them. They are not the cause but the effects of faith.
(3) A third builds his religion on impressions. It is not from the death of Christ for sinners, or any other gospel truth, that he derives his comfort; but from an impulse on his mind that his sins are forgiven, and that he is a favourite of God, which is certainly nowhere revealed in the Scriptures. We may build ourselves up in this way, but the building will fall.
(4) A fourth founds his religion on faith, but it is not a “holy faith,” either in respect of its nature or its effects. It is dead, being alone, or without fruit. The faith on which the first Christians built up themselves included repentance for sin.
2. That religion which has its foundation in the faith of Christ will increase by “praying in the Holy Ghost.” We must not live in the neglect of prayer.
3. We are given to understand that by means of building on our most holy faith, and praying in the Holy Ghost, we “keep ourselves in the love of God.”The love of God is here to be understood, not of His love to us, but of ours to Him.
4. We are taught, that when we have done all, in looking for eternal life, we must keep our eye singly and solely on “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
II. The prospects which these principles furnish as to a blessed hereafter. “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
1. Thefirst exercise of mercy which the Scriptures direct us to look for on our leaving the body is, an immediate reception into the presence of Christ, and the society of the spirits of just men made perfect.
2. I do not know whether I ought not to reckon under this particular the glorious progress of Christ’s kingdom in this world. Why should we suspect whether our brethren who rest from their labours be from hence interested in this object? If there be joy in heaven among the angels over one sinner that repenteth, why not among the glorified saints.
3. Another stream of mercy for which we are directed to look, will attend the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consist in the dead being raised and the living changed. By looking for this part of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be reconciled to death even before we meet it.
4. But there is another stream of mercy beyond this, to which we are directed to look, and which pertains to the last judgment. (A. Fuller.)
Well-built Christians
I.The first thing is to secure a solid foundation. That foundation is not to be created; it is already provided--Christ Jesus. All else thanthis is crumbling clay or shifting sand. Shallow conversions make shallow Christians. I trust that you have dug deep, and laid your foundations well. The Eddystone lighthouse is not only built on a rock, it is built with iron bolts and clamps into the rock. So you must be built into Christ by a living union of your weakness to His strength, your ignorance to His omniscience, your poverty to His wealth of grace, your sinfulness to His perfect righteousness. The best part of a true Christian is the unseen part, as the vital part of a tree is its root. So the innermost graces that lie, as it were, in the very depths of a Christian soul next to Christ are the most precious and powerful and enduring portion of the man.
II. But a building is not done when the foundation is laid.Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is only the initial process, and then comes the command to build up yourselves on our most holy faith. God’s quarry is rich in materials. It would be a good thing for our Churches if solid granite were in greater demand. Flashing marble is very ornamental for lintels and capitals. But in these times we need more firm granite of honesty, courage, truthfulness, and self-denial. Every now and then a Church is disfigured by an ugly crack or rent in its walls from the fact that a bit of friable pumice-stone was put in there in the shape of a swindling or frivolous professor. What is true of a Church as God’s building is equally true of individual character; nothing should go into a Christian’s character except what is taken from God’s quarry.
III. Some christians are not built up symmetrically. They are lopsided, and their painful deficiency is on the ethical side of their religion. They can sing in a prayer-meeting, and pray devoutly, and exhort fluently; but outside of the meeting they cannot always be trusted. What they lack is a rigid sense of right and a constant adherence to it. They need more conscience, a conscience to detect sin, and a granite-like principle to resist its seductions. The word of these Christians is not always to be relied on; in matters of business they do not always go by the air-line. Every wise builder makes constant use of his plumb-line. All the showy ornamentation that he can put on his edifice amounts to nothing if the wails are not perpendicular. Sometimes we see a flimsy structure whose bulging walls are shored up by props and skids to keep them from tumbling into the street. I am afraid that there are thousands of reputations in commerce, in politics, and even in the Church, that are shored up by various devices. It is a mere question of time how soonevery character will fall in if it is not based on the rock and built according to Jesus Christ’s plumb-line. It may go down in this world: it is sure to go down in the next. We ought to lay the plumb-line up against all our religious acts and services, even against our prayers. If failing to use the Divine plumb-line in character building is a great mistake, it is another mistake that the little everyday actions are madeof small account. You could hardly make a worse blunder. Christian influence mainly depends on what you may regard as little things. It is the aggregate of a good man’s or good woman’s life that tells for the honour of our Lord and Saviour. It is by adding the brick of courage to the brick of faith, and to this the brick of temperance and the brick of patience, and the brick of brotherly love and the brick of honesty and of benevolence, that a noble Christian character is reared. Nothing is of small account that involves your influence in a sharp-eyed world. Other people’s eyes are upon you as well as your Master’s eyes. The Athenian architects of the Parthenon finished the upper side of the matchless frieze as perfectly as the lower side, because the goddess Minerva saw that side. Every one of the five thousand statues in the cathedral of Milan is wrought as if God’s eye were on the sculptor. Michael Angelo said that he “carved for eternity.” Every true Christian is a habitation of God through His Spirit. Young friends, build for eternity. And let every one take heed how he buildeth; for the Architect-in-Chief will inspect each one’s work on the great day of judgment. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
The building up of Christian manhood
I.First of all the faith. “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” I might say broadly, no splendid man was ever built up, no fine character was ever formed, but by a positive belief--a faith. And definite belief is the thing from which Christian manhood starts. Now, to build upon the “faith”--
1. We must first have a clear notion of what the “faith” is.
(1) That is, to begin with, we must distinguish between the faith and accretions to the faith; between the tree and the parasites that have entwined themselves about the tree; between the rock and the sand which has accumulated upon the rock. We may persuade ourselves that we are jealous of the honour of the faith, that we are its champions, whilst we are the champions of the very things that obscure, mar, limit, cripple it. A very few years ago one of the noblest cathedrals in England used to be habitually spoken of with contempt. Its nave columns were huge masses of commonplace material overlaid with plaster. But some one, one day, had the wisdom to dig into this plaster, and lo! beneath were noble columns of exquisite marble. Nobody said, that I know of, that it would be desecration to destroy this venerable plaster, and very soon it had vanished; and now you have the original columns, an honour to the genius that designed them. That is all that is going on in these days. Destruction, do you say? Nay, it is restoration, not destruction; it is the bringing back of the temple of Divine truth to its original design and proportions, the bringing out again of the lines of its pristine beauty.
(2) Then, secondly, we must grip the faith, understand the faith, present it clearly and vividly to ourselves. To understand a thing does not necessarily mean to remove all mystery from it. You cannot build upon mist, you cannot grow strong on mere sentiment, you cannot foster Christian manhood upon vague emotionalism. If your faith is to have anything to do with the making of you, the first thing is to state it clearly and distinctly to yourself.
2. Again: To build upon the faith, we must be continually carrying it further. The circle of Christian truth is a wide one; the applications of every Christian fact are endless, the sweep of every Christian doctrine is infinite. And we must be carrying every Christian truth continually further; we must search all the ramifications of it. This implies first, that we must never cease from fresh, ever renewed, and expectant study of it. I have heard people speak of mountain scenery. I have asked them, “Do you know Snowdon?” “Oh yes!” “And, pray, how often have you ascended Snowdon? Or”--for there is something more important than merely to ascend to the summit; it is quite as necessary to live at the foot--“how long have you lived within sight of it?” “Oh, I saw the mountain once; spent a day in the neighbourhood once. I ascended it, too. Oh yes, I know Snowdon!“ “Ascended it once, saw one aspect of it, and you know it! Why, you must live there to know it. You must watch the mountain in a hundred moods. You must see it when spring creeps up its sides, and when winter has set its throne of snow upon its summit; you must see it sleeping in a trance of summer heat, and hear the shouts of its children when the floods are out. Then you may say that you know it.” So of the faith. We cannot sum up its doctrines, settle them, and have done with them. We must pitch our life before them. We must live out every experience in their presence.
3. The power to be passive is as requisite as the power to be active. There are subtle beauties, finer shades of meaning, in every gospel truth; you cannot force these, but they will disclose themselves, if you can wait and give them time. There is a story in every great picture which you cannot master in a hurry; you must lend yourself to it, give yourself up to it in active passiveness. And so there are glories here which you must sit down to see; quieter tones in the voice of Jesus which you will never hear until you cease from your hurry and distraction, until sometimes you give up even your work, your most Christian work.
II. The spiritual atmosphere in which you live. That, in the next place, determines your progress in Christian manhood. “Praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God.”
1. “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” There aremany aspects in which the love of God is looked at in these Scriptures; and I think this is as remarkable as one of them--that to be “in the love of God,” to live in the constant sense of it, is one of the indispensable conditions of spiritual growth that Christian manhood is impossible without. The world is full of analogies of it. To begin with, we make nothing of the truths of the gospel; they never become more than opinions; they are never vitalised, unless you live in the love of God, and breathe it as the atmosphere of your life. You delight in your garden. Cultivate the taste. You go and look at your plants. You see that they have everything they need. They are set in the right soil, they have the due amount of moisture, they have sufficient heat. But you forget them; you let the fire go out, and you go in a week and find your favourites all dead. Or you remove them into a cellar. You give them everything, even heat, but you shut out the light, from them, and you go and visit them by and by, and find that you have a collection of ghosts--pale, colourless caricatures of plants. Nay, if you want them to grow, and you would delight in their beauty, you must give them warmth and sunlight. And so of this. You can make very little of the Bible unless you keep yourselves in the warmth and light of God’s love. You take every rule of conduct in the Book, and you try to live them out one by one; you shut your lips and determine, exert all your force of will, keep yourself tied to the grim angel of duty; but you can make nothing of them. They simply stupefy you, and, dull and discouraged, you shrink into yourself. Love is a necessity to me. I have no courage to try to live without it. To preach law, to set clearly before myself the lines of duty, is not enough for me. I pine for love. I become a guest at a house, and there is a card hung up on your bedroom wall which practically says, “Life is ticketed off into a distinct number of rules in this house; we live by the clock here; meals are served with the regularity of the tides; the sun rises according to signals which it receives from this house”; and from that moment I am miserable. Omnipotent law, stern law, grim-faced, sublime law! But I am sick and tired of hearing of thee. Majestic, beautiful, terrible; if I were strong and heroic, and never made a mistake, the gospel concerning thee might be pleasant to hear. But I want something more to be preached to me to live, to be strong and courageous thereby; I want warmth, I want sunshine, I want the sense that God’s benediction is upon me, I want love. Everything then, the sternest command, the hardest duty, becomes food to your soul, and you grow and become robust thereby. The health of God, the deep peace of God, sinks into your soul, and there is nothing in life that can beat you.
2. “Praying in the Holy Ghost.” Prayer keeps the sense of God and heaven alive in the soul; it keeps up the bond of connection between earth and heaven. I go into a man’s house--this is not altogether fiction--and he begins to moan over the wretched climate of this land. The sun never appears. Dark and dull and depressing; there is no light by which a man may do his work. I look around me, and lo, every window is dust-covered, no sunlight can pierce it, and I say, “My dear sir, excuse me, but suppose you begin there; clean these windows to start with. The sun does shine sometimes, even in England; be ready when it shines to receive its glorious wealth of light.” And so here. I am ready to contend a great deal for prayer; I am ready to contend for some things which prayer effects that once I was not very sure about. But in any case, this I am sure of--it keeps the windows of the soul clean, it facilitates the entrance of God into the soul, it puts the soul in touch with all spiritual realities. If there be a God, He must reveal Himself to the soul that prays; if there be an eternal world, pray, and you must pray yourself into the midst of it. Come here. Stand amid the wealth of this glorious revelation. Would you understand it? Would you have the light of it fill your soul? Would you miss nothing of it? Would you have it irradiate your work and change the fashion of your countenance? Then “pray without ceasing.”
III. Our growth depends upon the soul’s outlooks, the inspirations that lie for us in the future. “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” There is a famous essay which I am never tired of reading--Emerson’s “Prospects”--the outlooks of life. I went the other day to see a member of my congregation who is a great sufferer--a woman who is half her life--three-fourths of her life--a prisoner. I condoled with her, sympathised with her. “Come up into my little room,” she said. “There, sit in that window. When the torture begins, when I am worried and weary, when the fog gets into my brain and the fever into my bones, and I begin to burn and welter in my misery, I run away here. This outlook across the fields soothes me, heals me, and I am myself again.” I understand. I like to do my work with a window through which I can now and then look out before me. Then, I like to see the man who insists upon having mental outlooks. No man’s life need be utterly material. Work, but always work with outlooks towards the world of thought, with windows towards the world of genius, make the work shine with the light that comes from the loftiest range of human vision. So in a higher sense still. Life is often hard; the years become more and more exacting; but it is not a prison. The sorrows are many, the strain is sometimes terrible; but oh, the prospects! the window of life which Christ keeps open towards heaven! I rest there. There is not a vista that looks in that direction, but I am often there. Rest you also there this morning, and let some of the aches be smoothed out of you as you rest. Listen to the murmur of the river as it wanders through fields whose green never withers, and as you listen, the beauty, the calm, the deep peace, shall pass into your face. But now to close.
1. This prospect is ours of God’s free mercy disclosed to us in Jesus Christ. We believe in the Divine mercy.
2. This is the last word: as the years move on, thought, anxiety, endeavour--everything gathers there--to make sure of that. Oh, we have had our dreams. We have been full of ambitions, we have swept all earthly prizes into our lot; but they have become infinitesimally small. I care for nothing but this--shall I attain unto the “eternal life”? I have been on sea. I have made more than one voyage. We had some weeks before us, and we were full of plans when we started. I even proposed new subjects of study to myself which were to be pursued during the voyage. But one day the cry went out, “We are getting near land.” Instantly there was a great bustle of preparation. The expedients devised to while away the voyage; books with which we had been busy, half finished--everything was put away. We thought of nothing but to be ready to land. Dreams of wealth, of fame--oh yes, we have had them. But they are nothing to day; I dismiss them all. I am looking out wistfully for the shore; I want to be ready when the cry comes. Breezes from the land, laden with the fragrance of the sweet fields, are in my face. I strain my eyes. It is nigh at hand. Let me be. Perish everything, so that an “abundant entrance” be given me “into the ever lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (J. Morlais Jones.)
How is the doctrine of religion most holy?
First, in itself, being without fault and error and having sundry excellences, being full of Divine wisdom and truth, and the only instrument whereby God’s infinite wisdom and goodness is made known unto us. Secondly, in regard of the effect and operation, which is to make the creature, but especially man holy (Joh_17:17). It sanctifieth men instrumentally, in that it maketh them resemble God in many graces. Thirdly, it is most holy, because it sanctifieth all inferior creatures to the use of man, so as he may use them with good conscience (1Ti_4:4). (W. Perkins.)
The Church a house
1. The faithful are the house of God (Heb_3:6; 1Ti_3:15; 1Pe_4:17).
(1) Christ is the foundation. The sole foundation (1Co_3:11). A strong foundation (Mat_7:25).
(2) The Church is a house in respect of believers, who are the stones of which this house is built up; and these stones are naturally--
(a) Rugged and unpolished, till they are hewn, smoothed, and made fit for the building (Hos_6:5).
(b) Of several sizes--some greater, some less.
(c) Though different in size, yet cemented and united one to another.
(3) The Church is a house in respect of God. He dwells in it. He furnishes it with all necessaries, yea, ornaments--His ordinances, graces, etc. He protects it. He repairs it. He cleanses it.
2. The Word of God is the foundation of a Christian. It is a foundation to bear a saint out in all his duties, comforts, belief of truths. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)
The Holy Trinity
I.Let us consider this mystery as a received truth of christian doctrine. “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” Now the sum of that faith, we are told, is this, “that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity.” And the Catholic Church has always been very jealous of this fundamental dogma. She has never hidden it; never shrunk from the definite statement of it. With regard to the mysteriousness of the doctrine, the point is conceded. The question is, whether by a looser theology--by a charitable vagueness of expression, or by a scheme of definitions which should define nothing--we should ever be able to get rid of this mystery? A man must be an angel to understand even an angel’s powers; and he must be himself infinite who could comprehend an infinite existence.
II. Let us consider this great mystery as it throws light upon the nature and moral government of God.
1. This it does in that it exhibits God as sustaining towards us the most beneficent personal relations; thus removing the cloud which had been spread before the throne, and presenting the Godhead under a form which, as Burke well expresses it, “softens and humanises the whole idea of Divinity.”
2. But in relation to the clearing up of mystery in the Divine procedure, we claim it asa further advantage of the doctrine we are considering, that it is specially revealed in conjunction with a scheme for the pardon and recovery of mankind. (D. Moore, M. A.)
Praying in the Holy Ghost.
The inspirer of prayer
Jude, a brother of our Lord, speaks of the prayer which transcends the normal religious capacity of human nature as one of the conditions through the observance of which the believer must keep himself in the love of God and in the steadfast expectancy of consummated redemption. The attachment of friend to friend is apt to be weakened, if not destroyed, where communication ceases. When some member of family is away in a foreign land, the only antidote to the chilling effect of distance is correspondence, and correspondence which is free, vivacious, unconstrained. If the correspondence become stilted and formal only, it is about as hurtful to affection as complete silence. The heart must send its pulsations through every available channel of intercourse if love is to be kept alive. And that is true in the sphere of the religious life. No man can keep himself in the love of God without using all the lines of communication God has opened to him, and the prayer with which we keep ourselves in correspondence with God must be permeated by supernatural help and vitality. The Spirit of God helps prayer long before this ideal of praying in the Holy Ghost is completely realised in the daily experience. In the imperfect prayer which He does not as yet pervade with this supreme ascendency, He is present, in some degree at least. The man who prays before he is the subject of a new life is unconscious of the Divine presence which stirs up his prayers and prompts his faint desires after better things. When a believer has learnt to pray in the Holy Ghost, he is awake to the nearness and active operation of a mystic Being who incites and energises his prayers and makes him inherently well-pleasing to God. In him who prays according to this evangelical standard, the Spirit stimulates the sense of need. Many are comparatively prayerless in their habits, because there is no sharp sense of need at the core of the life. The age itself is so interesting, and fortune pampers men with so many worldly benefits and luxuries, that they have scarcely any aspirations which need to be fulfilled in supernatural spheres. Their souls have not been harrowed with grief or made to ache with want; and if they pray at all, it is in imitation of prevailing customs only, or as a tribute to the semi-sacred memories of childhood. Where men pray without personal convictions and in imitation of current usage, desires will press to the forefront of their prayers which ought not to be there, or there in very subordinate positions only. “Ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” When their frivolous and shallow wishes seem to be gratified, such men cease to pray, and when crossed and baffled they drift into moods of mingled mortification and scepticism, and either tacitly assume or openly proclaim the uselessness of prayer. Our natural desires can no more mature into true prayer than the bits of coloured gauze in the milliner’s shop, representing orange, peach, and cherry blossom, can set into fruit. Till the Spirit comes to us, we are shut up in the senses, and can no more feel the throb of the great currents which course through the spiritual world, than the creatures in the glass cases of an aquarium can feel the enthusiasms which ebb and flow in the veins of a great nation. There can be no right and enduring sense of need unless through the constant inspirations of the Spirit. But the unspiritual are not only shut up in the senses and the things of the senses, they have no keen realisation of the deepest needs of the world. They assume that a broad law of betterment is at work in human history, and if there is any exception to the law, every man is to blame for the drawbacks which stint and embitter his own life. The bitter cry of the outcast multitude finds no echo in their hearts. Human nature without the Holy Spirit of God is too narrow and self-occupied to find a place for the spiritual wants and woes of others in its supplications. Prayer languishes everywhere through this lack of desire, not only for ourselves, but for others likewise. Like the ship described by the “Ancient Mariner,” it is becalmed in a sea of breathless stagnation, slime, and death. Prayer cannot move without desire. Things will be far otherwise when the Spirit comes to us, and not only prompts our prayers, but so encircles us with His presence and power, that the world, its maxims, chilling influences, and sordid traditions of conduct, can scarcely get near us or affect us in any way. If we live in the atmosphere created by the inspirations of the Spirit, self-knowledge will grow, and a more adequate interpretation of our own needs will arise within us, and our affections will be so fed from the fountains of the Divine unselfishness that we shall be acutely sensitive to the needs of the world, and shalt pray agreeably to the counsels of Him whose name is Love. He whose soul is permeated by the presence and teaching of the Spirit will be kept from asking those things which are at variance with the counsels of the Most High. Strange and sacred restraints are cast about the believer whom He actuates, and no petty, foolish, self-seeking prayers will be likely to pass the lips. Where the influences of the Spirit are wanting, every kind of mistake is possible. Things frivolous and even hurtful are insatiably desired, and the prayers presented bear the stamp of unregeneracy. Wherever the Spirit is honoured and discerned, He will prompt us to ask for what is supremely important, and will make us submissive to all the will of God. The nature possessed by those right and acceptable desires which are instilled into it by the Spirit will instinctively exclude what is false, foolish, and wrong from its prayers. Indeed, there will be no room for such things to unfold themselves. The Holy Ghost brings its subjects into active and happy sympathy with the Divine plans, and makes that sympathy to dominate every temper and act of devotion. By such prayer we shall keep ourselves in the love of God, for if we never find the heavens as brass, our faith in God’s tenderness and fidelity cannot deteriorate. All such prayer will strengthen the tie uniting us to God. In the prayer offered under those influences which the Holy Ghost creates to compass and enswathe us in our access to God, there will be an answering sense of the efficacy of Christ’s work. It is His special mission to glorify Christ, and He never forgets the absorbing end for which He was sent. He can perhaps fulfil this mission more impressively through those prayers of the saints which He helps and animates than by those accompaniments of conscience-arresting power vouchsafed in connection with the preaching of the gospel to the world. Just as great winds once carried to rocky islands and barren peninsulas the seeds out of which arose at last tossing forests of beauty and far-ranging zones of sweetness and fragrance, so the great Spirit brings into the poor, barren prayers of those who are touched by His breath a seed of new things, and diffuses there the beauty and the fragrance of Christ’s efficacious redemptive act. Christ by taking away sin took away the incompetence of human prayer, and the Spirit makes us steadfastly conscious of the fact. No being purified by trust in that sacrifice can pray out of proportion to the rights it has secured. We are brought into participation with a priesthood that cannot be denied. This secret, undefinable persuasion of the unknown power inherent in Christ’s sacrifice and mediation is a mark of those who pray in the Holy Ghost. The prayer upwinging itself through that special atmosphere with which the Holy Ghost enwraps the obedient soul is characterised by a sense of filial confidence. The grace of assurance it is His joy to bring makes the widest possible difference in the tone and quality of the devotional life. The Spirit cannot come from the God of love to a contrite soul without bringing tokens, pledges, intimations of God’s forgiving love. He gives us access into an unshadowed grace in which we may stand to the very end; and if we retain this unfailing witness, we shall always be on speaking terms with God. Never let us think of it as a superfluous luxury of the religious life rather than an essential privilege. It is given to open for us constant and intimate access to God, and is vital to the prevalency of our prayers. Where the Spirit of assurance is lacking, prayer is a voice in the outer court of the Gentiles, rather than the freedom of speech accorded to Abraham and Moses. But when the Spirit helps prayer, it is a cry in the circle lit up with the benignity of fatherhood. Prayer, falling short of this standard, is only a little above the level of pious mechanism, and cannot nourish the high affections of the soul towards God. Prayer in the Holy Ghost involves the mystic interchange and fellowship of love. Where prayer is presented under these supernatural conditions, there will be a true apprehension of the vast resourcefulness of God. The Pentecostal atmosphere is full of the Spirit’s interpretation of the wisdom, power, generosity, intimate nearness of the Father; and prayer necessarily acquires a distinctive tone from that atmosphere out of which it arises. The fact that the Holy Spirit is more sensitive to our needs than we who are the subjects of them should satisfy us that He has also measured the help laid up for us in the deep counsels of God. As we pray, He shows God to us in all His amazing plenitudes, and makes His strength authoritatively ours. The man who prays without these inspirations is like one who, wrapped about with the ignorance of the stone age, stands upon the shore and yearns for some distant world of which he has dreamed. The plains there would supply his need of bread, the leaves and fruits of the forest would heal his maladies, and the metals hidden in the hills would defend his life and give him the material from which to construct a better civilisation. But he is not dwelling in an age charged with the spirit of scientific discovery and achievement. He cannot cross to this promised land and possess its good. So it is with the man who prays in the Holy Ghost. Not only does the wisdom of God interpret the secrets of redemption to his heart, but the power of God brings him into a new world in which all things are possible. And thus does he keep himself in that love of God which means victory over all seen and unseen foes. We are all familiar with the effect of atmosphere upon the quality of work, and the ease with which it is accomplished. In some parts of the world, malaria and tropical heat speedily turn healthy and capable colonists into sickly loiterers and rickety “ne’er-do-weels.” No race seems able to toil under the frightful conditions of climate which prevail on the Isthmus of Panama. And, on the other hand, some climates are so crisp and exhilarating that the laggard finds it difficult to do less than a fair day’s work. Unknown ingredients in the air seem to accelerate the blood and spur to strenuous exertion. The qualities of the work done by poet, painter, musician, may almost be told in the terms of the atmospheric pressure prevailing at the time. Genius, just as much as the unopened flower bud, needs the bright, bracing day to bring out its splendour. And the soul requires, for the reaching out of its highest powers towards God, a refined and well-balanced element, which we can only describe as “climate” or “atmosphere.” The difference between praying on the mere level of our natural perceptions and sympathies, and praying in a realm pervaded by the unfailing inspirations of the Spirit, is not unlike the difference between drudgery on a tropical swamp and movement on a glorious tableland. In the one case prayer is an effort, a burden, a vexation, and an idle penance; in the other, a joy, a sunrise, a melodious outrush of upper springs, glad spontaneity, life pulsating with the sense of power and victory. Under this covenant of more perfect help and privilege, ought not prayer to attain a surpassing prevalency? By praying under these Pentecostal conditions we may come to reach the apostolic mark of continual and unceasing prayer. Is not He who prompts and upholds the supplications of those receiving His baptism of fire present at all times, and unsleeping in His subtle ministries as the providence of the great Being whose attributes He shares? If we dwell in a circle of which He is the vitalising centre, our conscious and even unconscious movements of thought anal feeling will be informed by strange stimulations. Acclimatised to these sacred conditions, the habit of prayer will be a second and a better nature to us. The stimulations of this unseen and ever patient Helper never fail, and so it is our privilege to “pray always and not to faint.” This exhortation seems to imply the constancy of the laws under which the Spirit operates, and our power of so conforming those laws as to reach this lofty experience. It ought to be no little encouragement to us that this habit is spoken of as one of the conditions of our perseverance, and it must be therefore just as practicable for us to pray in the Holy Ghost as it is to keep ourselves in the love of God. To have this close communion with the Most High is not a distinction of pre-eminent saintship, but the privilege of all who abide in His love. He who would thus pray must cultivate tempers of daily spirituality, and to that end must shut out the world, the flesh, and the devil in their manifold disguises. Where the things which are adverse to God are thrust out the Spirit of God will surely come in. It is an axiom in ventilation that unless there be an outflow for the vitiated air it is quite useless having an inlet for that which is pure. The winds of God’s life-giving Pentecost will steal into us if we give free exit to every giddy pleasure which makes the Bible an insipidity, to every darling pursuit which conflicts with the perfect love of God, to whatever deteriorates the intellect, the conscience, and the affections. One of the fair cities of the earth is begirt with pine forests, and has streaks of silver sea about it on every side. Nature lies quite close to its streets and squares, and exhales there day and night the sweetest airs and the most reviving zephyrs. But if one of the citizens should shut himself in an air-tight compartment with the diseased, even in that fair city of health the result would be inevitable. If, on the other hand, all doors and windows be open, the invisible tides of mystic sweetness and strength cannot fail to lave him. The Divine breath is always playing upon those who inhabit the true city of God. Let us make ourselves accessible to it at every point, and take heed that we do not shut ourselves in with the foul and deadly contagions of the world. The tone of our daily speech and thought and life will react upon our prayers. Let us live to keep ourselves ever fit for this high intercourse with God, as the enthusiast in art or poetry or music lives for his work. Never grieve the Spirit who holds in His hand your very power to pray. He can sever at will your communication with the throne of all grace and power. (T. G. Selby.)
Praying in the Spirit
1.Without the Spirit there is no praying.
2. How excellent and honourable a work is that of prayer! The whole Trinity has a work in this holy exercise.
3. As without the Spirit there is no prayer, so without prayer a man evidently shows himself to have nothing of the Spirit.
4. Needs must the prayers of the saints be acceptable. They are by the Holy Ghost.
5. How good is God to His poor saints! He not only grants, but makes, their prayers.
6. It is our greatest wisdom to get and keep the Spirit.
(1) It is obtained in the ministry of the gospel.
(2) It is kept by following His motions and suggestions.
7. How happy are saints in all straits! They have the Spirit to help them to pray. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)
Keep yourselves in the love of God.--
The means of preserving us from sin, and of promoting in us holiness
On the one hand we are taught here a universal principle of religious obedience; and on the other hand we are taught here what the ways are for procuring and cherishing it. “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Do so; and undoubtedly you will have no similarity of character with those men who, “having not the Spirit, are sensualists,” and in being so are “separatists“ from the communion of true Christians. But how shall you be enabled to obey this injunction? By “building yourselves up on your most holy faith“--by praying in the Holy Ghost--and “by looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life.” To have love to God, and to have this Divine affection in vigorous exercise, is to give security for the renunciation of all sin, and for the choice and accomplishment of all duty. It forms the very principle of action, which is applicable in every situation, and during all time. Can the devout affections be really the object of my careful cultivation, without at the same time being accompanied by the desire and the endeavour after universal holiness? Can I revere the majesty of God without the fear of offending against the dignity of His authority? Can I esteem the unrivalled beauty of His moral excellences without the anxious wish to resemble Him and to enjoy His approbation? The view of what is the native tendency of this Divine affection is indubitable. To give diligence that we may remain in the exercise of this holy affection is to give diligence that we may weaken, and finally dislodge, every opposing affection. If once there was produced in us an entire surrender of will and power, of fear and hope, to His most blessed direction--this would amount to the being actuated by the Divine “Spirit”; and so the “sensuality” that would “separate” us from the regard and obedience of Divine truth be entirely vanquished. But how shall we “keep ourselves” in the exercise of this purest and most efficient principle? The means of doing so are here enumerated:
1. In the first place, would we “keep ourselves in the love of God”?--let us “build ourselves up on our most holy faith“; that is in the grace of faith, and in its objects, the doctrines and promises of the gospel. The height of it indeed we shall never be able, through eternity itself, to form a perfect conception of. Let us heap together all those bright views, and glorious promises, which like so many sums in our shining treasure, should be added, for the purpose of giving us an idea of the riches of the Divine mercy. Let us become more deeply acquainted with, and more intensely interested in, the doctrines and the prospects of “our most holy faith,” and undoubtedly we shall be using one of the powerful, even as it is the appointed, means to “keep ourselves in the love of God.”
2. Would we succeed in these endeavours at laying our minds open to the truth, and to the efficacy of “our most holy faith“ would we overcome the aversions, and surmount the difficulties, that stand in the way of all our apprehensions, and that oppose the exercise of all our sensibilities, on its high spiritual objects; would we see the designs of Christianity, and feel them, and continue under their influence; let us follow the next admonition, and “pray in the Holy Ghost.” The Divine Spirit dictated the Scriptures; and therefore, when we pray for things agreeably to the tenor of the revealed will of God, we are said, in one sense, to pray under this influence. Now supposing that on Scripture principles, in firm though humble dependence on the grace of God, and with constancy, fervour, and spirituality, we are enabled to cherish the affections of Christian piety; do we not see that we are thereby employing the direct means of improving ourselves, both in acquaintance with the objects of faith, and in the exercise of the grace of faith?
3. In the third place, however, the devout affections we have continually to lament, are with us so cold, even at the warmest, and so wavering, even at the utmost steadiness to which we can bring them; and in all the exercises of our minds, whether in the belief or in the practice of religious truth, we have attained to so little that we can look back on with unmingled satisfaction, that we should have no encouragement, either in devotion or active duty, were our hopes of “eternal life” made to rest on the perfection of our own righteousness. Hence our only relief in remembering the unworthy past, and our only encouragement in endeavouring after something better for the time to come, depend on the privilege granted to us of “looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Sure, ample, blessed source of consolation and of hope! To this we flee, that the multitude of our sins may be blotted out, and thrown into perpetual forgetfulness. To this we repair, that the defects inherent even in our best duties, may be forgiven. Not to anticipate, with vividness, that future “life,” in which devotion shall be elevated into the sublimest purities of spiritual worship, and where faith shall have every promise and prospect realised--how the mind would faint under its frequent insensibilities and manifold lapses! But the assurance that the difficulties are all hereafter to be overcome--that the “mercy of Christ” which pardons, will gratuitously bestow the “eternal life” which it has purchased; this is what incites to persevere, and what will lead effectually in the course of devotion and practical faith. (W. Muir, D. D.)
Keeping in the love of God
1.In perseverance there is a concurrence of our care and diligence (Php_2:12-13). The main work is God’s (Php_1:6), and the same Jesus that is “Author“ is also “Finisher“ (Heb_12:2). The deeper radication of the habit, the defence of it, the growth and perfection of it, is all from God (1Pe_5:10); but yet a concurrence there is of our care and endeavours. Well, then, let us not neglect the means.
2. Men that have grace had need look to the keeping of it.
(1) We ourselves are prone to revolt (Jer_14:10; Psa_95:10).
(2) We are assaulted with continual temptations. An importunate suitor, by perseverance in his suit, may at length prevail. Long conversing with the world may taint the spirit.
(3) A man of long standing is apt to grow secure and negligent, as if he were now past danger (Rev_3:17-19).
(4) The worst is past, we have but a few years’ service more, and we shall be happy for ever (Rom_13:11). A little more and you will land safe at the expected haven; if we have a rough passage, it is a short one.
3. Of all graces, love needeth keeping.
(1) Because of all graces it is most decaying (Mat_24:12; Rev_2:4). Flame is soon spent, graces that act most strongly require most influence, as being most subject to abatement.
(2) Because love is a grace that we can ill spare; it is the spring and rise of all duties to God and man.
4. The next note is from the coupling of these two: “The love of God,” and “looking for the mercy of Christ unto eternal life.” See the like connection (2Th_3:5).
(1) Love allayeth fear (1Jn_4:18).
(2) Love quickeneth desire (2Pe_3:12).
5. From that “looking for the mercy,” etc., observe that looking earnestly for eternal life is a good means of perseverance.
(1) What this looking is. It implieth patience, but chiefly hope.
(a) Patience in waiting God’s leisure in the midst of present difficulties (Heb_10:36; Luk_8:15; 1Th_1:3; Rom_8:25).
(b) Hope. This looking or expectation is not that blind hope that is found in men ignorant and presumptuous, that regard not what they do. This hope which I press you to is a serious act, arising from grace aiming at its own perfection. Again, this looking is not some glances upon heaven, such as are found in worldly persons, who now and then have their good moods and sober thoughts; but alas! these sudden motions are not operative, they come but seldom, and leave no warmth upon the soul, as fruit is not ripened that hath but a glance of the sun. Again, it is not a loose hope or a probable conjecture; this hath no efficacy upon the soul. Thus negatively I have shown you what it is not, but now positively; it is an earnest, well-grounded expectation of blessedness to come. It bewrayeth itself--
(c) By frequent and serious thoughts. Thoughts are the spies and messengers of hope; it sendeth them into the promised land to bring the soul tidings from thence. A carnal expectation filleth men with carnal musings and projects, as Luk_12:18; Jam_4:13. It is usual with men to forestall the pleasure of their hopes. Now, so it is also in heavenly things; men that expect them will be entertaining their spirits with the thoughts of them.
(d) By hearty longings (Rom_8:23). As the decays of nature do put them in mind of another world, they begin to lift up the head and look out (Rom_8:19).
(e) By lively tastes and feelings. A believer hath eternal life (Joh_17:3). He beginneth it here.
(2) Let me show you the influence it hath upon perseverance.
(a) It sets us a-work to purge out sin (1Jn_3:3).
(b) It withdraweth our hearts from present things (Php_3:20).
(c) It maketh us upright and sincere; looking asquint on secular rewards is the cause of all our declinings (Mat_6:2).
(d) It supporteth us under those difficulties and afflictions which are wont to befall us in a course of godliness.
(e) It helpeth us to resist temptations.
6. The next point is from that clause, “the mercy.” The ground of our waiting and looking for eternal life is God’s mercy, not for any works or merits of ours; we cannot challenge it as a debt: sin and death are as work and wages, but eternal life is a donative (Rom_6:23).
7. This mercy is called “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thence observe, that this mercy which we look for is dispensed by Jesus Christ; He purchased it, and He hath the managing of it in the whole economy of grace.
(1) Get an interest in Christ, otherwise we cannot look for mercy in that great day (1Jn_2:28).
(2) It maketh for the comfort of Christ’s people and members. Our blessed hopes are founded upon the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His hands to dispense them. From thence you may collect--
(a) The fulness of this blessedness. An infinite merit purchased it, an infinite mercy bestoweth it.
(b) The certainty of this blessedness. Christ hath the managing of it. He never discovered any backwardness to thy good nor inclination to thy ruin.
8. The last note is from that clause “unto eternal life.” The great benefit which we have by Christ is eternal life.
(1) There is life; all that you labour for is for life, that which you prize above other things is life.
(2) It is an excellent life. The life of sense, which is the beasts’, is better than that vegetative life which is in the plants, and the rational life which is in men is better than the sensitive, and the spiritual exceedeth the rational, and the glorious life the spiritual.
(3) It is a happy life.
(4) It is eternal life. This life is but a flower that is soon withered, a vapour that is soon blown over; but this is for ever and ever. Well, then, let this press you to keep yourselves in the love of God till this happy estate come about. (T. Manton.)
Self-keeping
“But ye, beloved.” These three words, repeated within a few lines, come upon the reader with some unexpectedness. They tell us, what we may have forgotten since we read the “beloved” with which the Epistle opens, that the holy energy which pulses through this short letter, though sometimes it approaches to vehemence, is not the energy of a character that works to one side only. They tell us that the energy is one of sympathies, after all, and not of mere antipathies. His vehemence is to be traced to the depth and strength of His love. When this verse occurs, the turning-point of the Epistle has just been passed. The thunderstorm of invective, which the writer has been hurling against certain godless disturbers of the purity and peace of the Church, spends itself almost abruptly here, and the Epistle seems to gather to a close among the quiet sunset light of a sky that has been clarified by the storm. These last calm sentences are directly for the saints whom he loves. &l
