CHRIST’S teaching in the Sermon on the Mount contains an ideal of life. It is an ideal for the individual disciple, that he is to be perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect (Mat_5:48). When he becomes a disciple he becomes a member of the Kingdom of God, and within that sphere he with other disciples lives his life and endeavours to reach his ideal. He presses toward the goal in order to obtain the prize of his high calling.
Now the ideal of personal perfection may not be reached in this life. But the follower of Christ is bound to make every effort by faith and love to be “perfect,” not only in the first sense of acceptance in Christ, but also in the further sense of fellowship with Christ. He must not be content until every thought is brought into captivity to the mind of Christ. He must learn, by however slow and painful a process, to love his enemies. If any man smites him on the right cheek he must turn the other, understanding that that is an instance of a general principle which he is to apply according to the circumstances in which he is placed and the opportunities which his life oilers. As he does these things, and other disciples do them with him, the will of God is done on earth as in heaven and the Kingdom of God comes.
We admit that many evils may arise out of premature attempts to live the life of angels, forgetting that we are but men: but the ideal would be useless if it exercised no influence on our lives and actions, if it brought the world no nearer to Christ. At some time, we know not when; at some place, we know not where; in our hearts, if not in the history of nations, we believe that truth and peace will prevail. The ultimate end is the love of God and man diffused throughout the world and in every age; and we may make some progress towards the realization of this great hope.
But the end on which we fix our eyes is a long way off, and we cannot anticipate the silent influence of opinion. [Note: B. Jowett, Sermons Biographical and Miscellaneous, 301.]
1. The Kingdom of God is not limited in its realization by the conditions of our present existence, but it is manifested under them. It is in the world though it is not of the world. The scene on which it is shown to be realized is the scene of human life. The Spirit, which is consistently spoken of in the New Testament as a pledge or instalment, guaranteeing the fulness of the future Kingdom, was in the actual experience of the early disciples far more than a mere earnest of the future. It was a present Reality which dominated and possessed them, a transforming Presence by which they were moulded and inspired. Outwardly it was manifested in ecstatic utterances, in the enthusiasm of prophesyings, in healings and works of power. Inwardly it wrought in them as a fountain of love and joy and peace, a certainty of salvation so glad and strong and free that it could face rulers and kings, suffering and persecution and death, and “count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” (Php_3:8) their Lord.
2. Thus the most important question is not, Are we to wait until after death for that “perfection” which we are told to reach? Nor is it, Are we to look for the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God in time or in eternity? The question is, Did Christ promise the immediate coming of the Kingdom, or did He warn His disciples that the victory over the world would be slowly won? For if the Coming was immediate, the disciples would, of course, proceed at once to put His precepts into practice and probably with a literal interpretation of their meaning. But, if the Coming was to be long delayed, they would understand, and every generation would understand after them, that these precepts were to be put into practice as it was found possible to apply them, and not even then with the literality of a legal instruction, but under the direction of a living spirit. Thus, in the one case, they would probably refuse to become soldiers, since they had been told to love their enemies; they might even decline to take any part in civil affairs, since their citizenship was in heaven. In the other case, they would recognize that their heavenly citizenship all the more required of them to accept the duties and responsibilities of earthly citizenship.
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;-
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames! [Note: Francis Thompson.]
