Unto the uttermost

Preface

Of the things contained in the following pages, this is the sum : — that the rainbow of divine propitiousness overarches -every life; that this redeemed earth is to all who dwell upon it the footstool of mercy ; that plenitude of redeeming power has, by the hand of the Crucified, been lodged in the world's heart ; that divine grace is mightier than human sin ; that beneath the vilest sinner the ever-present Christ puts the saving strength of his atoning love to lift him up into the sunlight of pardon and purity; that the line of limitation in human redemption is drawn by man himself, not by God ; that all sin involves eternal loss, all righteousness eternal gain ; that the freedom of man as a moral being, and his consequent responsibility to God, continue for ever under conditions which render response to every moral requirement eternally possible ; that

4 PREFACE.

whatever the unknown future may hold in store for any, the present life — because of the inseparable connection of Christ with it — is, in every part and particle, sufficient unto salvation for all.

Watertown, Wis.

September, 1889.

Contents

PAGE

II. A Castaway Reclaimed, .... 17

III. Grace Conquering Nature, . . . .27

I. Unto The Uttermost

" He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him." — Heb. vii. 25.

" The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." — \ John, i. 7.

" Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." — Isa. i. 18.

UNTO THE UTTERMOST.

Filtering through the religious teaching of to-day there is a spirit of moral pessimism that gendereth to despair. The appalling doctrine gains currency, that man may glide imperceptibly downward in the path of sin to a point from which there is no possibility of return to the light and freedom of a holy life. Largely as the result of the influence of the scientific spirit of the times upon religious thought, it has come to be taken for granted that in virtue of the inevitable tendency of moral force to persist in the course upon which it has started, the evil doer may sink into a condition in which he is incapable of redemption. It is averred that even in this life the erring feet of man may pass beyond the boundary line of hope, and his probation be practically ended. Over against this gospel of doom, to which false exegesis has given an

JO UNTO THE UTTERMOST.

appearance of scriptural support, it is necessary to place in boldest relief the gospel of hope, which proclaims the good news of salvation to the lost.

Christ is a perfect Saviour for a world of sinners. He is able to meet the heaviest spiritual demands that may be made upon him. Sufficiency of power abides in his cross to save the worst of men. His saving power reaches out to all who need deliverance from sin and condemnation, and reaches down to the depth of their utmost need. He is able to save all men, and he is able to save them entirely, completely. As far as the disease of sin has spread the saving power of his cross extends. Beyond his saving power no soul can sink. There is no case too desperate for him to undertake ; there is no case ever turned away, pronounced by him incurable. For the healing of the most diseased, for the uplifting of the most degraded the power of his atonement is abundantly, yea, superabundantly, adequate. He is mighty, yea, almighty, to save. " He is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him."

With the talismanic word uttermost, which stretches beyond all human limitations of the divine mercy, the vilest sinner may repel every temptation to despair. Placing that word upon the homiletical anvil William Jay fashions out of it

UNTO THE UTTERMOST. I I

the six-linked chain of gospel truth that Christ is able " to save to the uttermost ends of the earth ; to the uttermost limits of time ; to the uttermost period of life ; to the uttermost depth of depravity; to the uttermost depth of misery; and to the uttermost measure of perfection." Christ's uttermost of redemption outreaches man's uttermost of need. With an ample ransom provided, none need go down to the pit. With sufficiency of redeeming grace encompassing every life, hell is in no case a necessity, but is always and forever a choice.

Popular preaching delights in exalting the saving power of Christ. Spurgeon, in a passing sermon, gives the following: "If you are so far gone that there seems to be not even a ghost of a shade of a shadow of a hope anywhere about you, yet if you believe in Jesus you shall live. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is worthy to be trusted. Throw yourself upon him and he will carry you in his bosom. Cast your whole weight upon his atonement, it will bear the strain." All this is true as it is forcible ; but it will not do for the preacher of the gospel with one breath to say that Christ can save to the uttermost, and with the next breath to affirm that man may reach a point in perversity in wickedness which places him below the line of help and hope. Consistency there is none in affirming that the strong arm of Christ can deliver those who have sunk the deepest in the mire of iniquity, and at the same time affirming that character can become so fixed and stereotyped that even with the power of Christ taken into account change is impossible. If the one position be maintained the other must be surrendered. The two positions are logically irreconcilable.

A father mourning over the guilt of his child is represented by Shakespeare as exclaiming :

" Oh 1 she is fallen Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again."

With this hapless wail, which shame and wounded love have wrung from an agonized heart, contrast the tender words of mercy and hope in which the Heavenly Father addresses his sin-befouled and despairing children: "Come now, and let us reason together ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." That there are sins which stain a man to the inmost core of his being must be conceded ; but that sin ever leaves an indelible stain, that it ever leaves a mark which the mercy of heaven cannot efface, no one who believes in the moral power of the gospel, and in the efficacy of the Redeemer's sacrifice, ought for a moment to admit. The resources of the saving power of Christ, for the race and for the individual, cannot be exhausted. The treasury of divine grace cannot be reduced to bankruptcy. Heaven's supplies are co-extensive with man's want ; heaven's remedy co-extensive with man's disease. Deeper than the deepest depths of man's guilt is God's mercy; deeper than the deepest depths of man's sin is the atoning power of the sacrifice of Christ. " So great, so high, and so extensive," exclaims the venerable John Arndt, " are the power and efficacy of the merit of the atonement that it would still prove a sufficient ransom if every man were guilty of the sins of the whole world. Nay, if there were as many worlds drowned in sin as there are men that live on this earth, yet would the merit of Christ and his righteousness be large enough to cover all their sins."*

Universal in the world, the power of Christ is also universal in the individual. Depth and breadth, intensiveness and extensiveness are equal, and equally complete. The Kingdom of Christ ruleth over all, and it ruleth over the whole man ; controlling the spirit, and through the spirit controlling the soul and the body, thus bringing the entire man into subjection to the

* True Christianity, Book II., Chapter II.

divine will. There is no half-work with Christ. Were his atonement less than universal in the sweep of its purpose and power it would fail to meet all that is demanded, and would leave the redemption of our fallen race still unfinished ; and were discovery to be made of a single instance in which the gospel had proved powerless to save we should be compelled to regard the sacrifice of Christ as incomplete, the power of Christ as something less than divine, and the purpose of God in redemption as a melancholy failure. A perfect, adequate atonement must contain of redeeming power, " enough for each, enough for all, enough for evermore."

If Christ be indeed a sufficient and efficient Saviour the low condition into which any man has fallen does not place him beyond the reach of deliverance. No man, and no race of men, can fall so low, that the lever of divine power cannot lift them up to a Godlike life. Within the gospel there is a moral dynamic force which constitutes it " the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." However frequently and flagrantly any man may have sinned, his case is not hopeless. The gulf of his guilt is spanned by the bridge of propitiation, and over that bridge he may pass to pardon and righteousness. In the iron wall of despair by which the sinning soul frequently finds himself

UNTO THE UTTERMOST I 5

ringed around, there is always, if he only knew it, a door of deliverance. To every soul bowed down with the burden of sin, thinking himself too guilty to be forgiven, limiting by his doubt and unbelief the mercy in which he would fain believe, Christ the Blessed One says, " Behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." With this declaration of universal mercy uncancelled, and unrecalled, it is a daring thing, an unwarrantable thing to say of any one in the whole round world that the sun of his hope has set, that all possibilities of good have been lost out of his life forever, and that henceforward he must continue to drift onward in the darkness of despair, uncheered by any glad forelooking to the possible dawning of a better morrow. Place a single soul beyond the hope of salvation, and a limit is put upon the mercy of God, and the saving power of Christ ; in fine, the salvation of Christ is made something less than " Salvation unto the uttermost"

II. A Castaway Reclaimed

" Thank God, no Paradise stands barred to entry."

R. Browning.

" Man cannot be God's outlaw, if he would."

J. R. Lowell.

" Wearily for me thou soughtest, On the cross my love thou boughtest, Lose not all for which thou wroughtest."

Judgment Hymn.

" O God ! how beautiful the thought, How merciful the blest decree, That grace can e'er be found when sought And naught shut out the soul from Thee."

Eliza Cook.

" My mercy doth outreach the universe ; Shall it not be sufficient for one soul ? "

P. J. Bailey.

II.

A CASTAWAY RECLAIMED.

THERE are in Scripture certain things hard to be understood, which have unwittingly been wrested to the destruction of human hope. The gospel message which has been sent " to proclaim release unto the captive," has been changed into a message of doom ; the door of mercy which God has opened in his Word, the hand of false interpretation with unseemly haste has shut ; limits have been set up from beyond which the wanderer cannot return ; the soul to which Eternal Mercy clings has been too readily surrendered to the blackness of despair; the ambassador of Christ, ceasing to publish salvation, has, without heaven's sanction, begun to ring the death-knell of souls.

An illustrative example of the manner in which the words of Scripture are frequently perverted by reading into them narrow, preconceived ideas touching the scope of redemption, is afforded in the interpretation which is commonly given to the oft-quoted words in Hosea iv. ij.

14 Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone." These words have been taken as setting the seal of doom upon souls now living on this fair earth. They have been so explained as to send despair to many a heart. Take the following exposition by the gentle-hearted Matthew Henry, as a fair sample of what has been written upon this text : 44 Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Let no man reprove him. Let him be given up to his own heart's lusts, and walk in his own counsels. It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin ; for God to say concerning a sinner ; He is joined to his idols, the world, the devil and the flesh ; he is incurably proud, covetous, or profane ; an incurable drunkard, or adulterer; let him alone; conscience, let him alone ; minister, let him alone ; Providence, let him alone ; let nothing awaken him till the flames of hell do it."

Such an interpretation, to say the least of it, presents a very forbidding aspect. To harmonize it with those other Scriptures which plainly teach the willingness of God to save the guiltiest sinner is a feat surpassing the highest dialectic skill. No common mind could identify as one, the God who spurns from him this offending child, saying, ' 4 Let him alone," and the God whose heart-yearnings over this very prodigal voice themselves in the tender words, " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah ? how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together." * There is one presumptive mark of correctness which the interpretation referred to fails to reveal — harmony with the moral convictions of humanity as to what is right. That it is based upon an entire misconception of the text, we proceed to show.

The first question to be considered is, "To whom does God here speak?" A plain answer to this question not only produces a rift in the clouds, but clears away the whole cloud-bank of difficulty that has settled down upon the text. Evidently the prophet Hosea was not told to let Ephraim alone. If he received such instruction he was mindful to disregard it. Unceasingly did he beseech Ephraim to repent of his sins, and turn to God. There can be no doubt that the injunction, " Let him alone," was given to Judah. A study of the context makes this abundantly evident.

The ten tribes had hived off under Jeroboam and formed themselves into a separate kingdom. The wily usurper Jeroboam, seeing that if he was to maintain his power over the rebellious

* Hosea xi. 8.

tribes, he must prevent them from assembling at Jerusalem as had been their wont, reasoned thus: " If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam, king of Judah." In order to strengthen his hold upon them he revived the ancient calf-worship, with which they had become familiar in Egypt. Taking counsel of his evil confederates, he made two calves of gold and said unto the people : " It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem ; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel, and the other in Dan." Cut off from the worship of Jehovah in Jerusalem, the people of Israel soon forgot the God of their fathers, and followed after strange gods. In the expressive language of the text they became joined to idols — in love with them — wedded to them.

Now Judah, although tainted with idolatry, was in the main true to God. The prophet, drawing a contrast, says : " Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, even the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful among the saints." And in the text under consideration, God, through his faithful servant Hosea, exhorts the people of Judah to let Ephraim or Israel alone, lest by keeping company with him, they become infected with idolatry. Again he says : " Though thou Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend, and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven." How needful this expostulation : The men of Judah were neighbors, and kinsmen to the men of Israel ; and the Lord knew that if once they began, under cover of friendship, to attend their idol festivals they would be ensnared. Hence he, in effect, says : — " Go not upon the devil's ground; turn away your faces and your feet from these places of vanity ! Ephraim is glued to idols, let him alone ! Do not keep company with him or he will make you as corrupt as he is himself."

A very practical lesson, this. The only safe course for any one is to shun the society of the ungodly ; " to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." " Evil communications corrupt good manners." Nothing is more ruinous than evil companionships. " Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not even go across it, turn from it and pass away."

This is a very different thought, however, from the one which has been too frequently extorted from these words. When rightly understood, this text gives no countenance to the fearful doctrine that when wickedness reaches a certain point God leaves men to themselves — gives them up to perish hopelessly in their sins ; that when the need is sorest he cuts the soul adrift and abandons it to its fate ; that when sin abounds grace diminishes, until it fades completely out.

There is thus no warrant furnished by the text before us for leaving the most notorious sinner alone, in the sense of ceasing to make him an object of reforming effort. This is exactly the thing which the Christian ambassador is not to do. Down to the dying moment he is to stand beside the sinner telling of the mercy that stoops to receive the fragments of a wasted life ; telling of the blood of sprinkling, and challenging earth and hell to show a sin it cannot cleanse.

In the treatment of a peculiarly aggravated type of a transgressor — one who has come within the circle of Christian discipleship, and has previously wronged a member of the Christian brotherhood — the rule laid down is, " Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted." But should the wrong-doer prove unrelenting, should all efforts to win him back prove abortive, what then? "Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." Does that mean, " Spurn him from you ; let him feel the fire of your indignation ; let him be given up to walk unhindered in the path to ruin?" No. This rather is the meaning: — " If by his evil conduct he has denied the faith, and you cannot longer fellowship with him as a Christian, treat him as a brother man ; treat him as Christ treated heathen men and publicans ; labor and pray for his repentance and restoration." Church discipline has for its ultimate aim the recovery of the fallen. Hope of realizing this aim ought never to be abandoned. When upon an infamous transgressor the severest ecclesiastical penalties must needs be visited, the end to be sought is, "to deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved, in the day of the Lord."*

It is of the utmost moment to catch the spirit of divine hopefulness which irradiates the Bible ; and so be led to see a possible saint in every actual devil. Untiring effort to save, can spring only from unfailing hopefulness of success. When hope dies effort will cease. Unfaith in the possibility of the reformation of the worst of men will show itself in the absence of works. The unscriptural doctrine that some men are in a hopeless state will always bear its legitimate fruit in the paralyzing of Christian endeavor. No sane man will continue his efforts to resuscitate a corpse. If the vital spark has fled, every motive for further exertion is taken away. It has sometimes happened, however, that people have been laid out for burial before they were really dead, and those who have been hastening them to interment have been surprised by unmistakable signs of returning vitality. And in like manner souls that were given up for burial in the grave of hopelessness have not unfrequently been quickened into newness of life.

Turning to Ephraim we find that he did actually repent. The castaway was reclaimed ; the dead became alive ; the apostate returned to the pure faith from which he had drifted away. His inner disposition and outward conduct alike were changed. He came to loathe what once he had loved, and to love what once he had loathed. With the deepest revulsion of feeling, he exclaimed, " What have I any more to do with idols!" That to which his heart had been "joined " he cast away as a thing abhorred. And God, who is rich in mercy and ready to forgive, was quick to observe the first sign of penitence. " I have heard him and observed him," he says. " When he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

GRACE CONQUERING NATURE.

" Grace works into the natural life of a man a supernatural life, which differs from the former as essentially as the world of glory differs from the present world of decay." — Dr. Franz Delitzsch.

" Give me a man who is choleric, abusive in his language, headstrong and unruly ; and with a very few words — the words of God — he shall be rendered gentle as a lamb. Give me a greedy, avaricious, close-fisted man, and I will presently return him to you a generous creature, freely bestowing his money by handfuls. Give me a cruel, blood-thirsty wretch, instantly his ferocity shall

be transformed into a truly mild and merciful disposition

In one laver — the laver of Regeneration — all his wickedness shall be washed away." — Lactantius.

III. Grace Conquering Nature

" Total depravity" in the sense of general or universal depravity is an incontrovertible doctrine ; but total depravity in the sense of complete depravity in the individual is a doctrine which falsifies human history, and vilifies human nature. There is something good in man. Human nature produces other and better crops than weeds of wickedness. As sweet, fragile flowers are found growing upon barren deserts, among the snows of Lapland, or on the mouths of slumbering volcanoes, so in corrupt hearts are often found some of the fairest flowers of virtue. In man at his worst there remain some vestiges of goodness, some hint of the glory from which he has fallen. Were depravity total in the individual there would be nothing to save ; nothing would be left to work upon for the restoration of man to spiritual health. Nevertheless, the melancholy fact remains that the strongest tendency in man is towards evil. Viewed abstractedly sin is an unnatural thing: it is a violation of the laws of the moral nature of man. " Whoso sinneth against God wrongeth his own soul." Viewed practically it is natural to the depraved heart to fall into sin. The corrupt tree bringeth forth bad fruit. " The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies."

There is one patent mark of natural depravity of which the Scriptures give special mention, viz., wrath, or anger. All men are said to be "by nature children of wrath."* That is to say, all men are by natural disposition and tendency prone to wrath or anger. The reference is not to wrath of which they are the objects but to wrath of which they are the subjects. " Children of wrath " are those of whom wrath or anger is predicate, just as " children of disobedience " mentioned in the previous verse, are those of whom disobedience is predicable, " disobedient children."

But, assuming for the nonce that the reference is to divine, punitive wrath, the question arises, who are the objects of divine wrath ? Men as men, or men as sinners ? Unquestionably the latter. The children of disobedience, and the children of wrath are one and the same. And is it not in perfect harmony with the natural constitution and course of things that children of

* Eph. ii. 3.

GRACE CONQUERING NATURE. 3 I

disobedience, who fulfill the desires of the flesh and the mind, should be also children of wrath ? " It would," says Dr. Morison," be utterly unnatural were any but the children of disobedience to be the children of wrath ; but it is natural that all the children of disobedience should be children of wrath." If the objective meaning of the term " wrath " be insisted upon, Meyer is undoubtedly right in asserting that it is only through the development of natural disposition into actual sin that men become the objects of divine wrath. The presence of inborn qualities can never of itself make man the object of divine displeasure and punishment. Man is not responsible for his natural tendencies and inclinations, but solely for his conduct in reference to them. So long as evil tendencies are resisted there can be no guilt ; only when welcomed and yielded to does temptation become sin. Moral tendency may depend upon things beyond the sphere of choice, but moral character is always the result of moral action. " To suppose that a being may be morally evil before he has done evil, is to suppose that a moral character may be made for him, and not by him." Inherited tendencies to evil are misfortunes, not crimes ; they demand pity, not blame. It is actual sin, and actual sin alone, that brings any one under the wrath of God.

By the great majority of commentators the question has never once been raised, whether the wrath here referred to may not, after all, be subjective rather than objective ; whether, in other words, the reference is not to the wrath of man rather than to the wrath of God. It has been quietly taken for granted that these words teach the hideous dogma that man is born an object of divine wrath and condemnation ; that before he has committed a single sin, he carries within him an "inborn childship of wrath." Augustine in view of this text did not hesitate to affirm that "as soon as man is conceived he is condemned." Calvin, echoing Augustine, is certain that " Paul testifies that we are born with sin, as serpents bring from the womb their poison." Dr. Charles Hodge, echoing Calvin, declares that, "the truth here taught is . . that mankind as a race are fallen, that they had their probation in Adam, and therefore are born in a state of condemnation."

One fatal objection to the above interpretation is that the term " children," in the expression "children of wrath," does not mean babes; but is employed metaphorically to denote those who are under the dominion of wrath, as children are under the dominion of a parent. Children of wrath are not those who are born under wrath, but those who by the peculiarity of their being, are predisposed to wrath. Their inclination to wrath is not acquired, but is inherent and inherited. In a word, it is natural.

It lies entirely outside the present purpose of the Apostle to discuss the question of original sin. His object is a more practical one. He sees men in the pit of evil, lost and helpless, and his one concern is to get them out. He does not bend over them asking them how they got there. He does not stop to inquire whether they fell into the pit, or were born in it. It is enough that they are there; unable to deliver themselves. Every struggle to escape reveals the presence within them of a principle of evil which has gained the mastery over their moral natures. They are prone to evil. They are by nature children of all unrighteousness.

Anger is only one sample of the poisonous growth which springs up rank and abundant in the human heart. The name of sin is Legion. The native, inborn propensities of man incline him to every form of sin. Before he is quickened by grace he lives in the unbridled lusts of the flesh. There is within him no holy restraining power. According to the very constitution and order of things he is the child or slave of his own unhallowed desires. Perhaps in nothing is the sinful nature of man so obviously manifested as in the tendency to anger. All men are by nature 3.