The sinless Christ

Front matter

INLESS GHRI3

I

GEORGE IH^^njRVE

Contents

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I. The Sinless Christ 3

II. The Crisis of a Soul . . . -25

II II

" Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." — Luke xv. io.

What a contrast is this to the estimate of things which prevails on earth ! Crowds of human beings, wild with enthusiasm, toss up their hats and make the air ring with their hurrahs ; but it is for the victory of their national arms or the triumph of their political party. Church bells peal out their inspiring strains as if to waken man and nature to gladness and thankfulness; but it is only for a formal festival or to summon already devout souls to worship God. The faces that we gaze on in the streets do not often indicate much joy at all ; but when they do, it is commonly only the joy of social pleasure or commercial success. The world is for the most part absorbed in admiring itself, or the one part is absorbed in envying the other. Or, if not so bad as that, its joy springs from the discovery it makes, the knowledge it gains, the canvas it paints, and the fortunes it gathers. It is not wholly so, I know. There are some who do show the heavenly spirit and rejoice in the progress of reform, the upHfting of the lowly, and the salvation of the lost But alas ! these are a minority. The common judgments of earth are quite different and utterly forget the real values of the things which they applaud.

But the world of spirits which looks down on this judges by another standard. It smiles in pity at men's love of toys that will soon be broken. It sorrows to see noble powers prostituted to unworthy ends. The pleasures which most men find only awaken sadness in the angels' hearts. The world seems all awry, given over to delusion, insane with its self-love and self-applause. These angelic eyes are eager to see other spectacles, and whenever they behold a prodigal rising from his sins and setting his face toward home, or a proud man bending on his knees before the altar and confessing in sincerity the wickedness of his pride, or a sinner of any kind, convicted of his sinfulness, and crying, " God, be merciful to me a sinner," then the song breaks forth from the heavenly hosts, and round the throne of God the angels of His presence chant a new triumph of their Father in the rescue of another human soul.

This contrast was part of the general reversal of opinion about the worth of things which Jesus taught to be necessary. He said, Many that are first shall be last and the last first." I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God !" " Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." These declarations turn the popular ideas upside down. They precisely reverse the common judgment. Even the best Christians do not fully share the mind of Christ upon such subjects, and the most of us are following Him a great way off. Especially is it pitiable to see the indifference to moral qualities and the practical unbelief in the danger in which every sinful soul stands. We must needs pity ourselves that we can be so indifferent. It may do us good, by helping us to judge ourselves more faithfully and to serve others more wisely, to inquire why there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. From what we are elsewhere taught, and from what we may naturally infer, it is possible to give an answer to the question, and it may let some of heaven's light in upon our darkness.

I. I suggest, therefore, that in the presence of the angels of God there is known the full value of a human soul. We do not realize the value of a soul, for several reasons. We think more, for example, of institutions than of individuals. We see that certain great corporations (as I may call them) appear to be important for the progress of the race and the well-being of society. The Church is important for the culture of morals ; the school for the discovery of character and the attainment of knowledge ; the State for the protection of property and the order of society. We make these as of first value and give them our zealous support. What matters it that thousands perish on the field of battle, if the nation be preserved? It is of more moment, we are apt to think, to advance the cause in which we are interested than to stop in our career to give heed even to the particular persons by whom the cause is to be upheld. Men die, we say, but institutions live. The great ideas, which are embodied in them, must be perpetuated, and if they are, the greatest end has been accomplished.

It is natural for us thus to feel and argue. It is true that, relatively to the race, institutions are more important than individuals. It is true that the country is worth preserving even at the cost of a million lives. It is true that, so far as our efforts go, institutions rank above men. But we should be one-sided and one-half blind if we let this truth absorb us. For what is society but the aggregation of individuals ? What are institutions for but for the particular men and women whom they help ? In upholding them we ought to remember that their worth is wholly based on the value of individual souls. They are not ends in themselves. They will perish with the men that use them. We make great mistakes when we forget the man, in the machine, or the soul in the society. Heaven does not make this blunder. It sees the worth of each, be he the most obscure. The angels know that in the ultimate analysis institutions exist for men, not men for institutions.

Then again, we are apt to think of external dress and circumstance rather than of the internal life which is the reality of a man ; of the fruits and flowers rather than of the root which bears them ; of the gaudy palace rather than of the man who lives therein. We are apt to think reputation worth more than character, forgetting that if the two differ, character will pierce through the husk of reputation and make its true form known. We are apt to think more of effects than of causes, forgetting that but for the causes the effect would never have been. We value show above substance, forgetting that without the latter the former will soon die.

It does not require an angel to see the mistake of all this. Behold the king of Babylon walking among his palaces and saying, " Is not this great Babylon, that I have built by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" — when lo ! the splendid vision vanishes, and the distraught brain of the mighty king makes him seem but as a beast of the field. Or behold the man whom Jesus pictures, reclining on his costly couch and saying, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be meriy," while already the fatal disease is developing within and the solemn fiat comes, " Thy soul shall be required of thee." The worship of externals may well be called by Scripture, madness and folly. They change like the seasons. They vanish as day into night. They are only the dress of human life, the clothes we wear for a little while, the house in Avhich for a few years the spirit lives. The spirit is the reality. The man is more than his raiment. The character outlasts the reputation, and the soul the body.

Heaven, I say, is not thus deceived. It sees as in panorama the shifting scenes of human history. It sees the houses of one generation crumbled and others built out of their stones ; the applause of one age dying before the forgetfulness or derision of the next ; the forms of human life melting into others like the scenes of a dissolving picture, while from the ever-changing spectacle human spirits emerge into the light of the other world, bearing with them none of the drapery of earth, but stamped indelibly with qualities of mind and heart which are to belong to them forever.

We say that in the presence of the angels of God there is known the worth of a human soul ; and with the illusions of earth corrected, two other facts must complete that knowledge. The one is the fact of immortality; the other is the capacity of every soul, as these must appear to them.

To us the immortality of the soul is a faith ; to them it is a vision and a fact. They have not known death. They do not stand gaping as we do into the darkness of the grave. They realize the immortality of the soul as we cannot do. They see its destiny stretch out into endless ages. By reason of the little span of man's earthly existence we, on the other hand, fail to feel this authority, and because our faith in immortality is a faith and not a realization of it, it is hard to feel the lessons which it teaches. It is difficult to believe in the supreme worth of that which perishes from our sight after so short a term of being. Materialism cannot beHeve in the value of single lives. But heaven knows the truth. Angelic spirits know that spirits do not perish. They see that while the physical universe passes away, the souls which God has made He has made to live forever. They see that the future gives no promise of an end to any person. It is not an immortality of man that they see, but of men, each preserving his own for everlasting ages. It is not the immortality of spirit that they see, but of spirits. Personality is immortal ; and as they gaze on this crowded world they realize that every human being will continue to exist when the entire framework of nature shall have changed its form, and when myriads of millenniums shall have passed

by.

But more, they realize the capacity as well as the immortality of the soul. Immortality without capacity would amount to nothing. It would be the immortality of an animal. It is the capacity of the soul which makes its immortality so full of significance. The spirits of the better world realize the capacity of the soul from what they themselves possess. A man who has a trained intellect, who has thought much and suffered some, who has known the world by observation and experience, looks at a little child with half sorrowful, half envious thought, as he reflects on the child's capacity for what it yet knows nothing of He wonders to what use these latent powers will be put. He wonders what bitter sorrows the young, blooming mind will feel ; what marvelous thoughts will rise in that fertile brain ; for his own experience of life has taught him of what the mind of man is capable.

How much more must they know who enjoy powers that we have not, but which we shall surely have ; and to whom the now dormant or budding capacity of the human soul is seen to contain infinite promises and pledges ! They know the souFs capacity for happiness through the attainment of a perfectly moral life and of the rapture which thrills themselves. They know its capacity for knowledge, of which the glimmerings of earthly scene and thought give trivial foregleams. They know, too, its capacity for suffering, and that the bitter trials of earth are a solemn warning to it of what, through greater losses and more bitter effects, it may endure. They know, in short, its capacity for growth that gives it supreme importance. They know that it can rise to God and join with themselves in His happy and glorious service.

Therefore I say they know the value of a soul. What we imagine, they see. What we try to believe in, they behold as fact. On the soul of man these heavenly watchers and messengers fix their eye, — not on his rank or his wealth, not on his body or his circumstances, but on his soul, his personal inner life, his consciousness, for in that is the germ of his everlasting destiny.

2. This being so, I suggest further that in the presence of the angels of God there is known the curse which sin brings to any soul under its power. To feel the curse of sin we, unfortunately, have to see it in its most revolting forms. We have to look at the drunkard in the gutter or at the home made desolate by the crimes of one member of the household. Even then we are inclined to half extenuate it. Perhaps we consider it simply disease. But the higher we ourselves rise in moral life the more clearly do we see its baleful powers, its deep roots, its clinging fetters, its essential character; until at last we are convinced that the Bible was not wrong in describing under this name something which is real and universal among men, and which constitutes the fatal source of all man's woes. But in what a light must sin, in even its mildest form, appear in the presence of the angels of God !

They know, for example, the mind of God Himself upon the subject and the principle of His government. Matters which to us are questions of revelation are as plain as day to them. They are like statesmen who know the will of the sovereign and have made a study of government. They see the whole extent of the problem which sin presents to the moral government of God. They reahze that if He were not to punish it. His empire would fall to pieces. They know the extent of that empire, the necessity of upholding truth and righteousness throughout all the worlds which constitute it, and that the moral Governor of the universe cannot permit rebellion to go unpunished in any of His creatures. We think it does not make much difference, that God can easily overlook such matters, that no great consequence will follow if we do transgress. So we often do in offences against human government, and perhaps thoughtlessly appeal to the pardoning power to release a criminal. But the magistrate and his advisers know that if law be not enforced it will fall into contempt, and that the integrity of the State rests upon its sanctity.

So a child will fancy that disobedience to parental law is a matter of small consequence. It may relate to but a trifling affair and the father's

3^ punishment may appear unduly harsh. But the parent knows that the principle of obedience must be upheld, both for the sake of the offender and for that of the family. If it be despised, the child will go from bad to worse, character will be ruined, and the home wrecked. So, I say, heaven knows the necessity of God's punishing sin. It may weep over the offenders ; it may long to save them ; but it sees clearly that God's government and God's nature require that sin, in any form, should meet its penalty.

Moreover, the joy which the angels have in their holy life must make them reahze the horrible effects of sin. What loathing a pure mind feels for rank and black impurity ! Let any man of noble character come into close contact with a degraded, polluted, sin-defiled wretch, and though he may long to save him, he cannot help turning in abhorrence from the spectacle itself Or, when a man has risen from the mire of shameful deeds and by dint of diligent self mastery and fellowship with Christ has attained a better life, with what disgust will he look back upon the slough in which he once wallowed ! ^ As we rise in character we see the baseness of that which is below us. As the tastes become refined we shudder that any debasing appetite is possible. Out of the joy of a pure, sweet and holy, and intelligent mind, we see the wretchedness of ignorance and crime. So must the angels of heaven feel. By the joy which they have in holiness, must they perceive the vileness of wrong, the depravity of sin, the misery and sorrow^ which are the dregs of the sinner's cup.

Hence, I say, they know the curse of sin. Knowing the value of a soul, they know the awfulness of its position, if it be a sinful soul. Take any poor, degraded, battered specimen of humanity that you see arrested on the street and hurried to the police station ; and what will be your feeling if in it you recognize a member of a well-known, cultured family, who began life with bright hopes and fine abilities, and whose downward course has been the breaking of noble hearts ? Your thoughts will help you to understand the thoughts with which pure spirits of the better world look down on earth. They know the love of God, for they enjoy it themselves and understand what grief the sinner causes to his Father. They know the principles of God's government, and understand that even though He love He must punish the rebellious. They see the deepening degradation of sin, the sinking of the soul into blacker depths. They see eternity waiting to carry out the sentence and to intensify the stain, immortality itself threatening to become a curse, and the very capacity of the soul only promising keener misery and unrelieved disgrace. Oh, could we see ourselves as Jesus says the heavenly spirits see us, how abashed we should be at the spectacle, and what a different estimate we too would take of the real reasons for rejoicing which may be found in this imperiled and distraught world !

3. But by the considerations which I have suggested, we may now enter fully into the Saviour's meaning when he said, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.'^ For repentance is the crisis of a soul. See what it implies.

It means that a man has wakened up to a sense of his moral danger. A glimmering of the light in which the angels live has reached his mind. He has roused himself from the lethargy and indifference in which he has formerly lived. His eyes have been opened. He sees the immorality of sin, the godlessness of it, and by his undestroyed faith in an almighty God he knows himself to be in danger. He has been like a man sound asleep in a burning house, dreaming peacefully of his wealth and his luxurious home, with pleasant visions flitting before his mind, the shadows of the still higher realities which he had thought himself to possess, and then is wakened roughly and suddenly to discover that his house is on fire, and his life in danger. Discoveries like this come to a man with the authority of a revelation. He can hardly tell how or why they come, but come they do, and with their coming all life changes its appearance. The mind wakes up. Old truth takes new power. Formal faiths become intense convictions. Such a discovery is implied in a man's repentance, and if the moral peril of a sinner be real, as Jesus says it is, the first step to safety consists in seeing it.

Then repentance means that a man, being awakened to his danger, has had a debate within his soul concerning sin and righteousness. He may see his danger and yet not fly from it. Some men take fearful risks. They deliberately do wrong in the face of undeniable consequences. He who repents has done more. He has seriously debated within himself what he should do in view of his discovered danger, and in that debate his soul has stood at the crisis of his existence. I think that to watch a man at such a crisis is more intensely interesting than any scene in any chapter of human history can be. Behold him ! It is an immortal mind grappling with the question of its moral duty, and, by consequence, of its moral character! But though immortal it is not wholly free. It has long been used to sin. It is fettered by evil habits. Its sight of divine realities is dim. But it is deciding the supreme question of its being. Before it the two parties appear which contest the loyalty of every man. Conscience utters its imperious voice. Desire speaks in soft, luxurious tones. God calls ; sin pleads. Reason is divided. The will hesitates. Arguments rise from the depths of the pit clothed in fair words and specious doubts. Counterarguments descend from heaven to meet them, and on the debate hangs the question of the godliness or the continued sinfulness of the soul. Does this not seem to you a thrilling moment, when a soul has resting upon it the responsibility of its future and hangs in the balance of its judgment? The mere fact that such an experience is possible proves the soul to be greater than all of nature and in its essence akin to God, and the debate is more momentous than any other, though it be held in the forum of the most obscure life.

But repentance means still more. It means that the soul has felt not only its danger but also the wickedness of its sin. There is a great difference between the two. No man repents who merely flies from danger. Repentance means sorrow for having acted as we have ; condemnation of our past principles ; regret based not on expediency or fear, but on conscience. But when a man thus condemns sin in himself, he shows a better nature already appearing. The divine Spirit is also working in him. His better self, his immortal conscience, is asserting itself In his self-condemnation he is coming to himself The experience is mortifying. It may be attended with upbraidings for the past and fears for the future. But it is the demonstration of life. It proves him to be not yet lost. In the sorrow for sin because it is sin we see the soul already becoming renewed and testifying to its divine sonship.

Now, finally, repentance means that having been thus awakened to the danger and the wickedness of sin and having debated the question between God and his enemy, the soul has turned from sin, has condemned itself and its former master, has believed that God for Christ's sake will forgive and receive him, and has humbly turned to Him, again resolved to sin no more. This is the climax of the crisis. Behef must come, belief in God's forgiveness, belief in God's willingness to help it to a better life, belief in

Christ as God's anointed Saviour for the sinner. The immortal soul turns again toward home. The prodigal rises and says, " I will go to my Father." The leper falls at His feet, exclaiming, " If Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean."

There is joy for angels and men in such a sight. It means that the lost child wants to feel his Father's kiss, that the immortal spirit of man is returning from its wanderings, and that another soul is saved. Oh, what are the victories of martial valor compared with such a victory as this ! What are the works of genius compared with this work of grace ! What emancipation can be compared with this emancipation of an immortal soul ! The Father cries, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him ; . . . for this my son . . . was lost, and is found." No wonder Jesus says, " There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one (aye, over even one) sinner that repenteth," for the crisis of an immortal soul has been turned, and the decision is for God.

There is scarcely need of any application of this subject, yet I would have you who are Christians learn from it to seek with new zeal and interest the salvation of your fellow-men. Warn them of their peril. Press the debate upon them. Point to them the sinfulness of sin. Do not play the role of the prodigal's elder brother, but realize as angels do the value of a soul, the glory of a sinner's repentance.

I would make a direct appeal to every one who is unreconciled to God. You must repent. You must face the question whether you will belong to God or to sin. You are a sinner in God's sight. You need a new heart, new principles to live by, new hopes of the hereafter. There are blessed spirits waiting your decision. Christ Himself waits for it. On you I cast the responsibility of making it. If you have any faith in immortality, any sense of what your souls are capable, any conception of the curse and ruin which sin is working in you ; if you have any ear to hear the words of the Son of God, " I came to call sinners to repentance," I pray you, while you may, to heed His summons and ask forgiveness from your God. " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Ill

Ill

" Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God." — Luke xii. 8.

We find this expression, or one like it, falling several times from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth, and more particularly as the opposition to Him increased and the critical period of His life drew near. He evidently felt it necessary to draw out by means of pubHc confession the vague, latent faith of such of His followers as might be true disciples. For He was forming the nucleus of His future Church. He did not expect to erect His kingdom while He was in the flesh. He knew that the little company of believers would be the agents by whom He would work His triumph. Hence to commit them fully to His cause was an object of prime importance. It was not enough to go to Him by night, with a half-doubting faith, and say, "We know that Thou art a teacher come from God." Nicodemus must face the Sanhedrin itself and confess his faith. It was not enough to follow wiiii the crowd that thronged His journeys through Galilee. It was not enough to question with one's self, " Who is He ?" and " Is not this the Christ ?" or to seek from His beneficent touch healing for the body. All this interest and enthusiasm would melt before the first heat of persecution like wax before the sun. It would not stand the strain of His absence. It was too selfish, too ignorant, too worldly. There must be gathered a band of public confessors to be taught and consecrated if the cause of Jesus was to advance to the salvation of the world.

Yet we can appreciate the difficulty of such a public avowal at that time. The Saviour was so different from what tradition and custom had expected in the Christ. The opposition of the chief priests and Pharisees, to whom the nation had been wont to look for religious guidance, was pronounced against Him. His own life, too, seemed shrouded in mystery and leading into darkness. He did not explain all His ideas. To follow Him was like entering on an unknown way. He Himself plainly intimated that it would lead through peril and perhaps to death. There was truly need that He should set over against this requirement of public confession the glowing promise recorded in our text. The Saviour felt this, and hence connected salvation itself with open confession of His name.

He did not, of course, mean thereby the mere confession of the lips. He did not ask for the huzzahs of the multitude, such as were heard later on when He crossed Olivet in triumph. The confession of Judas was as little a real confession as the denial of Peter was a real denial. He meant such a confession as the leper's, when he knelt at His feet, saying, " Lord if Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean " ; such as the woman's, who, in Simon's house, anointed Him with her precious ointment ; such as that of Bartimaeus, the man that was born blind ; such as Peter's — "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" — to which Jesus answered, Upon this rock I will build My Church." Such a confession made under such circumstances was the very voice of God Himself in the human heart witnessing to His Son, — and of such it was that Jesus said, " Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God."

We are presented, therefore, with the duty and privilege of confessing Christ before men.