Kitabı oku: «Sermons: Selected from the Papers of the Late Rev. Clement Bailhache», sayfa 4

VI.
THE GRATITUDE OF THE PARDONED

“Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” – Luke vii. 47.

It has been observed that the Bible records with great minuteness events which a secular historian would deem beneath his notice, whilst, on the other hand, matters of great secular importance are passed over unmentioned. What ordinary historian would think of narrating such a story as the one we have in the verses before us? The Bible records it because it is a history of souls. To a Bible historian, the conversion of a soul is an event of unique sublimity, and everything that can illustrate it is felt to be a source of deepest interest. The history of outward events will pass into oblivion; the history of souls will be read in eternity.

The narrative before us is one of the most beautiful and touching in the gospel record. It was a saying of Gregory the Great: “Whenever I think of this story I am more inclined to weep over it than to preach upon it.” It is just the tale to prompt deep, quiet feeling rather than elaborate disquisition. It contains an illustration in real life of the old promise: “A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench.” It declares the Saviour’s matchless sympathy for the sinner, and the most broken-hearted sinner’s hope in Him. It teaches these lessons for all time, since in Christ and in His system of Redemption there can be no change. Let us look at the narrative somewhat closely, and may God help us to see in it Christ as the refuge of the lost, and the thankfulness to Him which must possess the soul whom He has saved. When we have said all we can, there will yet remain much more to be felt.

Before I proceed, however, let me say that this narrative must not be confounded with another which is in many respects like it, and which has been told by the other evangelists. In both cases, the name of the host is Simon, and in both a woman anoints the Lord Jesus, and wipes His feet with her hair. But the differences are numerous. In this case, the host is a Pharisee living in Galilee, and he looks on Christ with mistrust; in the other case, the host is a healed leper in Judea, bound to Christ by grateful love. In this case, the anointing proceeds from personal and grateful love, and has no other specialty of motive; in the other case, Jesus says: “Let her alone; against the day of my burying hath she kept this.” Here, Jesus is blamed by the Pharisee; there, the woman is blamed by the disciples. Pride is the root of Simon’s objection; the objection of the disciples springs from selfishness. Here a sinner is pardoned; there a disciple is honoured. Here, in all probability, the woman was Mary Magdalene; there, the woman was the sister of Lazarus.

We have no information as to the reason which induced this Pharisee to invite Christ to his house. The verse I have read as a text may obscurely hint to us, perhaps, that he himself had come under some obligation to Jesus, and not feeling any true gratitude, he thought he might acquit himself of his obligation by a compliment of this kind! Or the invitation may have sprung from curiosity, or from vanity, or from ambition. Possibly he may have wished to play the patron. Anyhow, we have no sign that he was urged by spiritual considerations. Many men come – if one might so say —locally near to Christ, who have no faith in Him, and no love for Him.

Neither have we any information as to the reason or reasons which induced Christ to accept this invitation. Several reasons might be imagined. He may have hoped, as the opportunity was specially favourable, to bring a blessing to the Pharisee’s heart. Men are never more open, or more submissive, or more susceptible to the word of love, than when they themselves are showing kindness in the form of the hospitalities of home and of the family circle. Perhaps, too, He may have felt that to decline the invitation would be to lay Himself open to an accusation on the part of the Pharisees that He neglected or spurned them, whilst He could put Himself in close communication with “publicans and sinners.” At any rate, we have here a beautiful instance of the self-denial of His love. He knew what awaited Him, and yet He went.

And now we have to notice that when Jesus had passed over the threshold of the Pharisee’s house the door was open to “a woman who was a sinner.” How was this? The simple and sufficient answer is that Jesus was there. Otherwise she would not have dared to enter within the perfumed respectability and sanctity of such a place. That would have been a terror to such a fallen one as she. But redeeming love had already begun its work upon her heart, so that she could come without misgiving, could enter with a holy confidence. When Christ appears, grace bears the sceptre, and the law loses its power to alarm.

We may take this incident, therefore, as a striking illustration of the spirit of Christ and of His true followers, as contrasted with Pharisaism in its suspiciousness, its blindness, its narrowness, and its ascetic scrupulosity.

The woman, probably under the pressure of gratitude for some act of compassionate love already received from Christ, is full of the holiest and tenderest emotions. In a fine, sacred humility, she weeps, and washes His feet with her tears. True tears they are, for they are the tears of penitence – and not of penitence only, but of thankfulness also. Confused and bewildered, perhaps, she wipes the feet on which they have fallen with her hair, and then kisses them, and anoints them with costly ointment! Such is the gratitude of the pardoned – deep, strong, irrepressible. And she expresses it in touchingly significant ways.

The woman’s action was distasteful to the Pharisee. The touch of a Gentile, or of a notoriously wicked person, was supposed to leave pollution behind it, and therefore by the Pharisees it was scrupulously avoided. Thus Simon had no understanding whatever of the scene before him. He had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, how the angels were filling heaven with the music of their joy over this poor sinner who had repented. A weak human virtue might be contaminated by contact with such an one as she had been; but not His who was the Christ of God. No doubt, apart from the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, apart from the strength which God imparts to the soul by His grace, a man does run the risk of polluting his morality by allowing it to be touched by the impure streams of his fellow-creatures’ vices. This has always been so fully recognised that we have a whole system of proverbial philosophy on the point. Christ, however, was perfect, and His purity was such that it could not incur this danger. Outward contact with “sinners” could bring no contamination to Him.

Simon took offence at the conduct of the woman, and began at once to indulge in dark, though unspoken, suspicions against Christ for permitting it. His suspicion took this form: “This man professes to be a prophet, and is regarded as a prophet by His followers. But surely, if He were a prophet, He would have known this woman’s character, and would have repelled her from Him, instead of permitting such demonstrations of affection as these.” Simon’s notion of a “prophet” was that he must possess at least two qualifications. (1) He must have a knowledge of the characters of the persons with whom He has to deal. On behalf of merely ordinary, human prophets, this was an exaggerated claim. To what prophet could Simon point who was able to read the heart? How did he know that Christ had ever seen this woman before? And on the supposition that He had not, on what ground could Simon demand that, in order to be entitled to the designation of a prophet, He should show an insight into her character at the commencement of the very first interview. Christ had the insight; but Simon felt constrained to doubt it for no other reason than that He did not instantly repel the woman from Him. (2) And so, in Simon’s judgment, the second qualification of a “prophet” consisted in such a moral exclusiveness as would forbid contact with sinners. He thought that, if Christ did know what manner of woman this was, His tolerance of her conduct at this time was sufficient proof that He could not be a good man, and was not, therefore, to be regarded as a prophet. A prophet’s sanctity would have forbidden such a scene as this. But again we ask, Whence could such a notion have sprung? Who among the “prophets” ever stood aloof from sinners? Was it not emphatically to sinners that they were sent?

Simon’s reasoning was full of sophistry, and the sophistry came from a defective heart. Had he known the nature of the Saviour’s mission – as one which demanded a perfect knowledge of all hearts, combined with grace, love, and power to save the worst – he might perhaps have felt and reasoned differently.

His thoughts were unspoken, but Christ divined them, and proceeded to deal with them. To the personal imputation He made no reply. It was a little thing to Him to be judged by man. It was sufficient for Him to aim at two points. One was to vindicate the woman on well-known principles, and the other, to lead the Pharisee to self-examination. With these two objects in view, He utters a parable, and applies it to the case in hand. The parable and its application are both marked by a mingled faithfulness and love. He makes Simon himself to be the judge in the case He describes, and on the basis of Simon’s own judgment He brings the practical point right home to the proud heart of the man. By a few sharp and striking contrasts, He shows that the woman, sinful as she has been, has manifested more love to Him than Simon Himself whose guest He is! Though a discredited stranger, she has done for Him what Simon, His host, had failed to do.

“Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee.”

“Master, say on.”

“There was a certain creditor, who had two debtors: the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”

“I suppose, he to whom he forgave most.”

“Thou hast rightly judged. Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house; thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”

Having said this, Christ crowns His work of love by saying to the woman, “Thy sins are forgiven.”

Now in all this we have an explanation and a vindication of the grateful love to Christ which fills and animates the pardoned soul. This love is shown to us —

I. In its source. The grace of Christ in forgiving sins. Grace! How great! since it forgives all equally; the debtor who owes five hundred pence as well and as completely as the one who owes fifty – greater sinners and lesser sinners alike! For sinners of every grade there is but one relief, and that is Divine mercy – needed by those who have sinned least as well as by those who have sinned most, and equally sufficing for both. Grace! How free! since it forgives where no satisfaction can be made. “Nothing to pay;” such is the condition of every sinner before God. “Without money and without price;” such is God’s gracious invitation.

II. In its law. It is in the nature of things that love should beget love, and that the love thus originated should be measured by the extent of the favour which has been shown. “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Hence, love does not precede pardon, but is the fruit of it, and is proportioned to the sense of obligation. This doctrine, clear as it is, is not apprehended by all, and is even contradicted by some. The inveterate spirit of self-righteousness has made men say: “See this woman. By loving much she obtains the forgiveness of many sins.” This is palpably the reverse of Christ’s teaching in this case. Love to God can never be the growth of unrenewed and unforgiven hearts. “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” This shows the true order: forgiveness and then love. So that love is no plea for pardon; Christ does not say, “Thy love hath saved thee,” but “thy faith.”

 
I love the Lord. He lent an ear
When I for help implored;
He rescued me from all my fear;
Therefore I love the Lord.
 

III. In its character. It is an all-absorbing feeling, which prompts the offering of the best gifts to the Saviour, and which fills such offerings with the spirit of devoutness, humility, and self-denial.

Two closing thoughts.

1. Men may be very near to the source of salvation and eternal life, without coming into the realisation of these blessings. In the outward sense, Christ was very near to this Pharisee and to his friends; but they did not perceive His spiritual power. They thought He was only a man like unto themselves; possibly, perhaps, on a somewhat higher plane of manhood, though many of them do not seem to have given Him credit even for that. His forgiveness was announced to this poor sinful, but contrite woman in their hearing; but the best effect it had upon them was to fill them with a dubious wonder, and to set them on questioning His authority. Near as they were to Him, they failed to see in Him, what “the woman who was a sinner” saw. Such is the position, practically, of multitudes to-day. Not, indeed, that their nearness to Christ is a local nearness, as in the case of those who were immediately around Him in the days of His flesh. They could look upon His outward form, could literally hear His voice. Not so now. But there is another nearness to Him which is moral and spiritual. We have His Word – the record of His life, the Divine repository of His teaching. We have the ordinances of His worship – ordinances by which His Word is brought more home to our understandings and hearts. We have the influences of His truth shed over all the scenes in which we move. The surface influences of Christianity modify and, to some extent, mould the whole of our social life. Moreover, Scripture takes account of the differences in human character. This woman, who was a sinner, and this Pharisee were not alike in their relation to Christ. There was one to whom He said, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” Not far from it, and yet not in it. Are there no such cases now? All are sinners; but depravity is developed in much grosser forms in some than in others; and religious influences, which fall short of effecting a complete conversion, nevertheless often deter men from plunging into extreme vice. It is mournfully possible to be near to Christ, and yet not to come into the enjoyment of His salvation.

2. On the other hand, there are instances in which people obtain salvation who seem, as to character, farthest away from it. The case of this sinful woman is an illustration in point. We have no right to mitigate or to extenuate her guilt. Let it be recognised in all its dark completeness. As an actual sinner she had sunk very low. Her sin was against nature’s purest laws, and was of the kind that soon and effectually kills shame – one of the most fatal forms of sin, and declared to be such, not only by God’s law, but by the common consent of the universal conscience of the civilised world; a sin committed against the strongest restraints – the restraints of sacred womanhood; perhaps against the memory of the holy associations of childhood, a father’s tenderness, a mother’s love, and all the joy of a happy home. Such was this woman – “a bruised reed.” But she was brought to tears under a sense of Paradise lost, the tears of despair; and yet again to tears of joy under the sense of Paradise regained. How many more – far off as she – have been made nigh; treated by fellow sinners as the offscouring of the earth, yet drawn to the Saviour. They are brought to the cross; they repent, believe, are sanctified, and exult in the consciousness of eternal life. Constrained by the mercies of God, they yield themselves a living sacrifice to Him.

The whole scene before us is one of the boldest triumphs of reconciliation and love, in contrast with Pharisaic suspicion and unforgivingness; and it supplies the fullest inspiration for the largest hope.

May we all come to Christ as this woman did, and hear, as she heard, His gentle “Go in peace!”

VII.
CONSECRATION

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” – Romans xii. 1, 2.

In bringing this passage before you, I have to dwell specifically on the motives to self-consecration to God, and to what is involved therein; and I do so with the twofold object of reconsidering the sources of our Christian hope and strength, and the incentives to our growth in the Divine life.

The apostle commences his appeal with the word “therefore.” This is a logical term, leading to a conclusion from premises which have been previously stated. It does not stand alone, but in an argument resumes in itself all that has been advanced. Take careful note of the simple words of Scripture. There is point in them all. If, for example, the use of the word “therefore” in this text be overlooked, we shall be unable properly to feel the force of the apostle’s appeal. What is it, then, that the apostle has said in this epistle, and of which he intends, by this word “therefore,” to remind his readers? He has been giving to them a large, full, grand exposition of the great truths of redemption. He has prepared the way for this by a graphic picture of the sinfulness and helplessness of human nature. He has shown that the heathen world is grossly depraved – in a state of alienation from God, which is to a certain extent wilful (chap. i. 29-32). He has proceeded to demonstrate that, with all their advantages, the Jews are no better at heart than the heathen, and as truly sinful, condemned, and hopeless as they (ii. 17-24). The conclusion supplied by these facts is, that none are righteous – that all, Jews and Gentiles alike, have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that all stand on the same ground of spiritual danger. This brings out the fact that redemption is the pressing need of the whole world. The way is now clear for the presentation of the gospel. The basis of redemption is Christ’s work of atonement. The foundation of the plan of salvation is God’s free grace – His boundless, sovereign love. Christ came forth from the Father as the expression of this. He suffered, bled, died for us, to meet the claims of the Divine law on our behalf, and to procure our justification and peace. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood” (iii. 24, 25). “Jesus Christ, who was delivered for our offences” (iv. 25). “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 6-8). Salvation, then, is founded upon the atonement of Christ – a proper work of propitiation, providing for pardon and justification. The condition of this salvation on our part is simply the acceptance of it by faith. Faith is primarily the repose of the soul in Christ’s redeeming work – a yielding to God’s method of saving us. It operates to this end independently – yea, even to the exclusion – of all works of self-righteousness. “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” It is inconsistent with all boasting. “Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” This simple condition of salvation is the only one which can be adapted to our need. Sinners as we are, our condition is hopeless unless redemption be offered to us as a free gift. This redemption is secured to all who believe by God’s unalterable purpose and promise. It is not vitally affected by recurring doubts and fears, nor even by our often insufficient struggles against sin (viii. 28-39). The result is inconceivably glorious; freedom from condemnation, adoption into God’s family, joy, peace, full favour with God here, and heaven with its perfect glory, consummated in the resurrection, hereafter.

Now, it is at the close of all this that the apostle’s “therefore” comes; and these are the facts and principles which give to it its point and force. It links all the disclosures of Divine love with the obligations of redeemed souls. Since God has done so much as this for you, what then? By the remembrance of the sin which left you without hope; by the greatness of the love of God who, to save you, gave His well-beloved Son to an atoning death on your behalf; by the greatness of the love of Christ who, to save you, consecrated Himself to this perfect sacrifice; by His birth and death, by His cross and passion, by His resurrection and ascension; by the freeness and the simplicity of the condition on which Christ’s salvation becomes yours; by your present peace; by your hope which blooms with immortality and with eternal life; by these, the mercies of God, I beseech you, yield yourselves to God. That surrender must be the first, the natural, the inevitable result of any vivid and practical realisation of the Divine goodness. “Yield your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”

The Apostle Paul was pre-eminently the teacher of what are called the doctrines of grace. In the system of Divine truth which he gives us, he leaves no room for the indulgence on man’s part of the least sentiment of pride. The gospel, in his view, is the Divine expedient for what must otherwise have been a desperate and hopeless case; an expedient, therefore, which – since, from first to last, it is the expression of God’s free and sovereign love – cannot allow of any self-glorying to man as unregenerate, or of any self-satisfaction to man as Christian. Hence the uniformity and consistency of his teaching with respect to “works.” In the believer and the unbeliever alike, these “works,” judged by “the law” – the standard of moral perfection – are all defective, and therefore unavailing. The same truth applies to them all at every stage of the Christian’s progress towards heaven. In no sense does salvation come by “works,” “lest any man should boast.”

On this point, however, the apostle has always been misunderstood by persons who have pushed his teaching to an illegitimate conclusion. If all be of “grace,” why insist upon “works”? The objection was made in his day, and he met it. It is made in our day, and has still to be met. It is sufficiently met by Paul’s own method. Paul’s doctrine of grace could never, in his mind, lead to “licentiousness,” and it is one of the most remarkable phenomena of religious thought that it should have ever been suspected of doing so. The Christian man, in Paul’s view, is the regenerate man; and the regenerate man is the holy man. Without the spirit and life of holiness Paul would have deemed it absurd to consider a man a Christian at all. The passage before us, even if there were no others of the same kind, is sufficient to prove how indissolubly connected are privilege and obligation in the Christian life. As we have seen, the apostle draws the exhortations which commence with this chapter, and which are exhaustively presented in all their variety and comprehensiveness – exhortations to a complete consecration to God in all the practical forms which it can assume – from the great gospel system, the system of salvation by grace and by grace alone; evidently taking it for granted that, by the contemplation of the grace for man which is in Christ Jesus, the minds of his readers would be softened, and prepared to acknowledge the claim.

What, then, is the nature of the consecration to which we are thus urged? “That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Every word in this description tells: and if we gather together the elements of the service commended, we shall find that nothing is wanting, and that under the various particulars we may range all the duties and beauties of a consecrated Christian life.

The only point on which a question might be raised is as to the meaning of the terms: “That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Some have supposed a contrast here between the dead bodies of the animals offered in the old sacrifices and the living self-consecration of the Christian. If the supposition be just, the idea is both beautiful and suggestive. I think, however, that the ultimate meaning of the apostle is that the believer in Christ should devote himself wholly to God, and that the term “your bodies” is only another term for “yourselves.” We cannot imagine an acceptable bodily, or external sacrifice, without the participation in it of the conscience, the judgment, the heart, the whole man. The apostle puts his thought somewhat more fully in the kindred passage: “Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.” Observe, then, the elements of this consecration.

1. Individuality. It is to be a personal thing. “Present yourselves.” We cannot fulfil our Christian mission by transferring it to other hands. There are no proxies in religion. Organisations, committees, associations, the giving of money – all have their propriety, but none of them can take the place of personal “presentation.” For convenience’ sake, organisations of various kinds may be resorted to with a view to the maintenance and spread of the gospel in the world, and undoubtedly may be usefully employed in spheres beyond the reach of personal endeavour; but the individual Christian must himself be engaged in the service of God. Every believer in the Saviour has his own sphere of service, in which no fellow creature can be substituted for Him. The Christian law is: personal service always in so far as it is possible; vicarious service only in so far as personal service cannot be rendered.

2. Activity. “A living sacrifice.” No man fulfils his Christian commission in mere retirement and contemplation. It is true that he is not to be “of the world;” but in the nature of the case he must be “in” it. Retirement and contemplation are, indeed, needed for the rest and growth of the soul; but action is at least equally indispensable. Our practical life is the chief part of our testimony for God, and the chief weapon of our aggressive warfare upon the unbelief and irreligion around us; and in order that it may be effective, it is required, in its fulness and in its energy, to be pervaded, invigorated, impelled, and directed by the Christian spirit. Every scene, every experience, every development of life is to be hallowed. If we “present ourselves a living sacrifice,” we relinquish all self-claim, and give ourselves up to God to be used by Him for the purposes of His glory. As Christ’s sacrifice began with the moment when He left His Father’s throne, so ours must begin with the first consciousness of our salvation – “a living sacrifice,” the consecration of the whole life with all its powers.

3. Holiness. “Holy,” because to God, with the full intention and devotion of the soul. This scarcely needs to be insisted on. There may be an apparent religious devotedness which is not real, because it takes the form of ostensibly religious acts – acts, however, which have not their origin and their impelling force in grateful love to God for His saving mercy, but in some kind of selfishness, and which are therefore unholy in themselves, and unacceptable to God. The consecrated life is the life which is in sympathy with the whole character and will of Him by whom the supreme blessing of redemption has been bestowed.

4. Reasonableness. The true consecration is not the result of any mere positive or arbitrary enactment, the ground and propriety of which cannot be discerned. The true Christian does not spend his life upon a certain principle, and consequently in a certain way, merely because he is told to do so. The service which he renders to God rises out of his felt relations to God. If it were not commanded at all – if it were not even formally hinted at as an obligation – it would still be natural, “reasonable,” and therefore right. The realised “mercies of God” would be instinctively understood to claim it – instinctively felt to prompt it. “Your reasonable service.” The words are significant. “Service” is properly homage. “Reasonable” is that which pertains to the mind. So that the apostle’s phrase stands opposed to all mere religious externalism. It is the homage of the life to God with the full consent of the mind, in the consciousness of the sacred obligation arising out of the enjoyment of the Divine mercy in the salvation of the soul.

Such service is declared to be “acceptable to God.” It is so for the sake of Christ whose grace has infused into the soul the life out of which it springs; it is so because the motives which determine it are right and good; and it is so because it is the loving gift of His own children.