AND TO THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING, THAT SPEAKETH BETTER THINGS THAN THAT OF ABEL.Heb.12:24.
AND TO THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING, THAT SPEAKETH BETTER THINGS THAN THAT OF ABEL.Heb.12:24.
This is the last entry made in the rich inventory of spiritual blessings which Christians enjoy under the gospel economy. The blood of Christ shed upon the cross is called “the blood of sprinkling,” in allusion to the blood of the paschal lamb; or more generally, to the blood of the burnt-offerings which was sprinkled upon and around the altar. The sprinkling of blood was, under the Levitical economy, the symbol of purification, as we are told by the apostle that “almost all things are, by the law, purged with blood.”
The text declares that the blood of Christ, shed for sinners, speaks better things than the blood of Abel, which was shed by the murderous hand of his brother, and called for vengeance.
There has always seemed to be a strange, mysterious influence in blood shed by violence. It has a voice mightier than all other voices, which thrills the human soul with awful terror. Once the Almighty spoke in thunder from the blackened brow of Sinai; but generations before and after that, he spoke to men through the medium of blood. This was the language of all the divine sacrifices offered in the remotest times. The instructions of the whole Levitical economy were written in blood—blood upon the altar, upon the four horns of the altar, upon its sides, around it—ever speaking in language of deep and awful meaning to the worshipper.
Man’s blood shed by violence cannot be silenced. It has a cry which rings in the ears, a voice at which all living men start back aghast. It wails like an avenging fiend in the track of murder. It will not keep still. It summons the world to find out the guilty.
The text introduces a contrast between the blood of Christ and that of Abel, or rather, between their utterances. Both spoke, and spoke with mighty power; but their languagewas far different. In the one it wasterror, in the otherpeace.
It may be a subject of inquiry, why this distinct and exclusive reference to the blood of Abel, when so many since his time have died by the hands of violence? Every murder speaks, as well as Abel’s. The bloody deed committed to-day will publish itself. It is the hardest thing in the world to conceal it. The providence of God often seems to turn the very arts and expedients which were designed to hide it and hush its voice, into the means of its detection. The stone cries out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber answers it. Blood will speak through walls of masonry, through deepest midnight darkness, across seas and deserts uninhabited.
But passing over the many dark calendars of crime which generations had filled up, the apostle singles out Abel alone, as he was the first one of our race who died, and that by the hand of violence. That murder woke the first cry of blood which the world ever heard. It was when the world was young. And as then there were no human courts establishedto sit in judgment upon crime and punish the guilty, the Almighty himself came forth from his solitude and made inquisition for blood, and pronounced sentence upon the fratricide. The testimony upon which God convicted Cain, was the testimony of blood. It cried unto heaven from the ground; and by the prompt and terrible interposition of the Almighty at that epoch, God impressed upon the race the sacredness of human life and the certain vengeance which would pursue the man who shed blood.
The blood of Abel, though it spoke a language like to that of ten thousand murders since committed, still arrests attention; for it was the first cry of murder which had shocked the world. It stands at the head of the dark roll of guilt which is still filling up. It stained for the first time the bosom of our mother earth. It flung a ghastly mangled corpse into the first family of our race, and deepened the gloom which, at the fall, settled upon the earliest history of humanity, into shadows black as Tartarus.
These considerations would be enough toprompt the apostle to single out the death of Abel from all that followed it.
And in the text he contrasts its testimony with that of the blood of Christ.
What was its utterance? What did the blood of Abel say? Come with me and stand over the revolting spectacle. Look on the clotted gore and ghastly features of the murdered man, and hear the testimony:
1. The blood of Abel testified to the actual infliction ofthe penalty of deathwhich had been passed upon the race. It is evident that Adam and Eve could not have fully understood the full meaning of the curse which had been pronounced upon them. Spiritual death, consisting in a loss of holiness and separation from God’s favor, they had already suffered. And they might have had some vague idea of that death which would close their earthly life, and dissolve the body back to dust; but they could know very little about it. They had never seen it. The death of animals offered in sacrifice would help their conceptions very little. Anxiously they questioned what more there was in the sentence whichGod had pronounced upon them. Time wore along; their family increased: sons and daughters grew up around them, and yet they had never witnessed an instance of death. Perhaps they began to doubt whether there was any thing more in the curse than what they had already suffered. With ruddy cheeks and growing strength, their posterity increased for more than a century after the fall. Their children’s children smiled upon their knees. As yet they had never seen a corpse; as yet the earth had not a single grave.
But from the blood of Abel there came a message of unutterable anguish, which dispelled the faintest hope of escape from the threatened penalty. Around his body, stretched on the bloody ground, gathered Adam and Eve and their descendants, and there in heartrending agony and distraction gazed on the dead man’s ghastly features, and read in them the first lesson of death. Yes, there was death!—death, which they had long talked about, and wondered what it was—death, which they had never seen before: it had come at last.
The awful revelation was before them. All doubt, all questioning about their fatal doom was gone. The king of terrors had entered upon his dominions, and set up his ghostly sceptre over every thing that breathed. There was his first conquest.
And from that blood there went forth a voice which published to all the living the execution of the curse. Henceforth all hope of escape must be cut off. The work of death had now begun. Adam and all his race must prepare to die.
2. The blood of Abel spoke of the deep and awfuldepravityof human nature consequent upon the fall. It showed that man’s fallen nature was early ripe for the most atrocious wickedness. The seeds of corruption implanted in that nature required no long period of ages to bring forth their fatal fruits. They developed themselves with most terrible rapidity. The earliest crime on record in the history of the race, is of Titanic proportions. Old as the world has grown in guilt, it has yet found nothing to surpass it. Familiar as we are with its dark and drearyannals, its oft-repeated chronicles of wickedness, there is not in them all a more thrilling testimony to the deep and universal depravity of fallen nature, than is uttered in that first cry of blood which went up from the ground into the ear of God. It would seem as though man’s darkened spirit could not wait for death to begin his fatal work upon the species by what we now call the natural course of sickness and disease, but he must himself chide death with tardiness, and lift his own hand with murderous intent, and slay his fellow.
The blood of Abel speaks not of Abel calmly yielding up his breath, while his head lies peacefully on his mother’s lap. It calls us to no softened couch over which fond parents bend in agony, and catch the placid smile which lingers on the countenance, and gather up the few rays of hope which beam in the dying eye, and which seem to whisper that death may, after all, be not so formidable a thing.
In no such way does it speak to us. But it is Abel murdered, Abel stretched upon thecold ground, weltering in his blood, a mangled, ghastly spectacle. And every clotted blade of grass, and every bloody stone has found a tongue, and cries, “A brother’s hand has done the hellish deed.” We stand aghast, and ask for no more appalling testimony to the total depravity of the species. Try as we may to soften down the hideousness of that depravity, after all our study to find something to relieve the odiousness of that corruption which festers in the soul, there is a voice in the earliest history of the race, a voice of blood which mocks our arguments and banishes our cherished convictions.
3. The blood of Abel cries forvengeance. It was the only testimony the Almighty produced when he summoned Cain to trial. The deed was done in secret. No one saw it. No one heard the dying man’s last groan. His lips were sealed, his tongue was stiff and cold, and the murderer thought that by a brazen and persistent denial of his crime, he could escape detection. But though Abel could not testify, and no living man saw the uplifted hand which smote him, still there werewitnesses enough. Dumb things grew eloquent, and the voice of blood published the foul deed to God and man.
From what we have read of the history of murderers, it would seem that there was something more than a rhetorical figure in those words in Genesis, which give a voice to the blood shed by violence. Hundreds and thousands have heard such a voice. Often it amounts to nothing, that the assassin has concealed his crime from his fellow-men, and can walk abroad in the community with no suspicious eyes turned towards him. He is haunted by something which keeps publishing his guilt. The ghastly visage of his victim rises before him, and follows him. It shakes its gory locks at him, crossing his path everywhere like an avenger who will not be appeased. Its avenging cry rings in his ears. He starts at the sound of his own footsteps. Every thing seems to echo it. The rustling of a leaf alarms him. The murmuring waterfall tells the bloody tale; the winds wail it through the air. It seems to him that all the world has found it out. Inanimate thingshave grown articulate, and published it. He expects the next man who meets him in the street will accuse him to his face. And not unfrequent is it, that by the very alarm and uneasiness, the strange anxiety and restlessness which he betrays, the eye of suspicion is turned upon him, and a clue is furnished, which leads to the disclosure of his crime.
This avenging cry of blood is the hardest thing in the world to silence. It will not be appeased without the life of him who shed it. It is the voice of retributive justice, speaking from the throne of God, and echoed from the inner judgment-seat of the human conscience, demanding blood for blood. It is an awful voice, which, for the first time, the world heard when Abel’s blood was shed.
But it is time we turned to listen to another voice to which the text invites us. It is indeed the voice of blood; but it is a strange, a new voice, which speaks a new language to the soul. It is the “blood of sprinkling.” The crucifixion of the Son of God was a most foul and atrocious deed of blood: but in consequence of a special and extraordinary arrangementby the Godhead, called the covenant of redemption, that blood spilled on Calvary received a new significancy, and spoke better things than blood had ever spoken before.
1. The blood of sprinkling speaks better thingsto God, than the blood of Abel did. That blood cried unto God from the ground for vengeance, but the blood of Christ sends aloft to the Almighty’s throne a far different testimony. It speaks to God of a full satisfaction made to his law and justice for the sins of guilty men. It stands before the eternal Majesty, and challenges the divine attributes of truth and holiness and justice to say aught they can against the sinner’s acquittal and acceptance. It holds up before the glittering sword of justice the cleft side and dripping hands of Jesus, and boldly asks, Is not this enough? It declares to God that now it is consistent with himself and his righteous government to pardon the transgressor, and extend to him the open hand of reconciliation. It pleads for guilty sinners in the heavenly world, and before the throne of Jehovah; and louder than the roll of the eternalanthem, and the shoutings of the angelic choirs, its mighty and prevailing voice is heard, “Spare him; for I have found a ransom.” It bids mercy reveal her lovely face, and sway her sceptre over a fallen, but now redeemed world. Yes, the blood of sprinkling is heard in the highest heaven. It speaks in the ear of God.
2. It speaksto men. It proclaims to them a new and living way of approach to God. The apostle tells us, in the epistle to the Hebrews, that this way is through the blood of Christ, and that Christ hath consecrated this way to us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
Before this new provision was made, the only way of acceptable approach to God was through the covenant of works which required complete personal obedience to the divine law. That way was closed. Sin broke it up, and man had no possible means of repairing it. Another way must be discovered, else we must remain under condemnation. The blood of sprinkling opens up a new and living way. It speaks to men of pardon, and assuresthem that the sacrifice of the cross was a full propitiation for their sins, which God himself has approved. It declares to sinners, that now God can be just, and the justifier of the ungodly; that it has done all that was necessary to satisfy divine justice and avert the sentence of wrath which was over them, and that the very God who before appeared to them as a consuming fire, is now plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive.
3. The blood of Christ speaks peace to the humanconscience. Anxious as the sinner may be to escape the penalty of his transgressions, his conscience holds him to the conviction that that penalty must be endured; for God, whatever else he be, must be a God of justice, and must insist upon the sanctions of his law. Much as our selfish nature longs to escape suffering for sin, the conscience sternly says it cannot be. That suffering must be met. The penalty of transgression must be borne.
And now comes in the voice of blood, and says it has been borne, for the dying Saviour was made a curse for us. His cruel sufferings were in the stead of ours, and “on him waslaid the iniquity of us all.” Conscience can now be at rest, for its claims are satisfied. There is peace through the blood of the cross. The sinner may take refuge here from every accusing voice, and cherish the sweet consciousness of forgiveness.
Again, it speaks ofinward cleansingfrom pollution. Under the Levitical service, the sprinkling of blood was the symbol of purification. It typified the effects of the blood of Christ. The soul that comes to it experiences an inward renewing, and becomes the seat of gracious affections, implanted by the Holy Spirit.
And lastly, it speaks of final and completesalvationin the heavenly world. It is the purchase price of redemption which God the Father has already accepted from Christ his Son. It is all a sinner needs to enter heaven. By it he is fully justified, and adopted into the family of God. It fills the soul with joy and peace, and enables it to hope with confidence for the future glory. It is the believer’s title to eternal life, which he can carry with him through the gates of death, andwhich secures him a joyous welcome to the realms of purity and bliss, whither the Forerunner has already gone to prepare mansions for his people.
Such is the language which the blood of sprinkling speaks. No other blood ever spoke like it. No other voice has borne such tidings of great joy to sinners. Turn your anxious ear to every quarter; go listen to the law; go through the universe and summon all the voices which testify of the Almighty, which bespeak his might and majesty, his wisdom and goodness, and you listen in vain for any utterance of peace and hope and favor to a sinner, like that which is proclaimed in the blood of Calvary. That voice which breaks forth from the cross of Jesus is the apocalypse of the world’s redemption.
It is the voice of hope and salvation for a lost and guilty race. It reverberates along the arches of the heavenly world, and calls forth a smile of reconciliation on the face of the Almighty. It rolls over against Sinai, and lo, the dark clouds scatter, and the lightnings cease to flash, and the thunders growstill. It comes to the human soul burdened with guilt and shame, and assures it of pardon, peace, and eternal life.
Thousands upon thousands have heard it, and gone to glory listening to it. It is still speaking. It will keep on speaking till all the dwellers on this earth shall hear it, and an innumerable company out of every kindred and tribe and people shall be saved by it.
I conclude with the solemn words of caution with which the apostle follows up the text: “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.”
There are many calls in the world which we may well refuse to listen to. Many are crying, Lo here, and, Lo there, whom we may refuse to follow. There are many teachings in the various departments of science and history which are interesting and profitable subjects of study; but we may remain in ignorance of them without materially affecting our well being for time or for eternity.
It is not so with this voice which speaks to us in the blood of a crucified Saviour. Here are utterances which it well becomesevery man to hear and study. It will not do, sinner, to turn away from it. It is a voice of authority and power. It tells of the inexorable work of divine justice, of the stern exactions of God’s violated law. It tells of an expiation for your sins, of deliverance from the wrath to come. It publishes hope and salvation to the guilty and the lost, pardon and reconciliation with your offended God. It invites you to trust your guilty soul upon the Saviour, to come with godly sorrow for all your transgressions, and accept of God’s free grace in a Redeemer. It assures you that your God, against whom you have sinned, is now ready to forgive; that his hand of mercy is reached out to you, and heaven and eternal life are open to you. Oh, hear it; it is the only hope left for you. In all the universe there is no voice like it, which can bring peace and comfort to your soul. Oh, hear it. Though other voices call loudly to you, and importune you; though the world besets you, and business, pleasure, wealth, and honor clamor in your ears; though pride and passion and sinful lusts cry out, and seekto drown its utterances, still turn your ear to the cross, and seek salvation in the atonement which is published there.
For, ah, if you “refuse Him that speaketh,” you must perish. You have, in so doing, thrust away from you the only provision which has ever been made to save you from wrath to come. You close behind you the door of reconciliation which the Son of God has opened. You trample under foot the only flag of truce which heaven has sent down to this revolted province. You put an end to all further negotiations for peace, and you rush on the thick bosses of Jehovah’s buckler. Oh, pause, we beseech you. Stop before you reject the great salvation. Come and listen a while to what the blood of Jesus says. Ponder it well before you turn away. Take into account the consequences of its rejection, and see if you can well afford to refuse its blessings.
Christians God’s Temples.
KNOW YE NOT THAT YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLETH IN YOU? 1Cor.3:16.
KNOW YE NOT THAT YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLETH IN YOU? 1Cor.3:16.
The frequency with which the apostles speak of Christians under the figure of a temple, is worthy of special notice. In the sixth chapter of this epistle, Paul calls our bodies the temple of the Holy Ghost. In the second epistle, he calls believers the temple of the living God, in whom God dwells. In Ephesians he describes them as a great building, upon Christ the corner-stone, fitly framed together, growing unto a holy temple in the Lord.
The apostle Peter, also addressing Christians, says, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house;” and Jude in his epistle exhorts them to build themselves up on their most holy faith, and keep themselves in the love of God.
The figure of a temple was a common and favorite one with the apostles. Two reasons may be assigned for this.
It was easily understood by those whom they addressed. The Christian converts, whether at Corinth, at Philippi, or at Rome, were familiar with these structures. In almost every city of Asia Minor and the whole Roman empire, their massive columns and lofty domes adorned their streets, and invited them to the worship of the gods. The sacred temple of the true God at Jerusalem also was not unknown to those who were scattered over Asia Minor. Many of the early converts in those parts were of Jewish extraction, and were well acquainted with the temple service at Jerusalem. The figure of a temple was a familiar one, and universally understood by the early Christians.
A second reason for its frequent use in the New Testament is its appropriateness and significancy. The apostles employ it to present Christians in their peculiar position and obligations. It is a most suggestive figure, sometimes applied to Christians individually, atother times to them as a body, the church fitly framed together, and growing unto a holy temple in the Lord.
1. The temples of antiquity were mostcostlystructures. Seldom were they erected out of the fortunes of any private individual; the resources of an empire were often spent upon them. The contributions of all the cities of Greece were expended on the famous temple at Delphi; its gorgeous shrines were thickly overlaid with gold, and within its walls were gathered the choicest statuary, and all the combined wonders which art could furnish.
At Rome, the magnificent temple of Jupiter shone with the gilding of more than 12,000 talents, while upon its foundation alone was expended thirty thousand pounds weight of silver.
Ancient Athens exhausted her wealth and the sublimest achievements of art upon those vast and imposing structures built in honor of the gods. The Parthenon, rising in majestic splendor on the brow of the Acropolis, dazzled the eyes of the beholder. Every thoroughfare boasted of some splendid pile. In theage of Pericles, the vast treasures of Greece, the finest marbles from the Parian quarries, the chisel of Phidias and the pencil of Zeuxis, the brass and ivory and gold and ebony and cypress from many lands, were all employed upon those structures which rendered Athens the wonder of the world.
The temple of God at Jerusalem also was built at vast expense. The nation brought their gifts. No private individual was able to construct it.
And are not Christians like the ancient edifices, in the cost which has been incurred in their behalf? Does not the apostle justify this point of comparison when, after saying that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, he immediately adds, “for ye are bought with a price?” In estimating what it cost to make a human soul, ruined and defiled, into a spiritual temple for God, we cannot enter into any arithmetical calculations of dollars and cents; for says the apostle, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold.” But we must speak of a great expenditure, a mighty outlay whichhas been incurred. To build the soul’s ruins into a temple is a grander, costlier work, than to build the Parthenon. Man could build the latter, but God alone could build the former. And even for him to do it, required a new and special administration, and the sacrifice of his only Son.
In constructing these spiritual temples, the eternal Son left the realms of glory, and became “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He was rich, but he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich. To compute the cost of this work, you must take the measure of that infinite sacrifice which the Lord Jesus has made for you: tell what it was to leave the throne of heaven, and become a man on earth; to obey the broken law and bear its curse; to die in agony upon the cross. To compute the cost, you must reckon up the value of that blood which was shed on Calvary, and of the mighty agency of the Holy Spirit which is actually employed in restoring and refitting the human soul.
There is no earthly calculus which can furnish the true answer. There are nocorruptible things, such as silver and gold, which can be weighed against the precious blood of the Son of God. Yet this was the price paid for your redemption. This is what these Christian temples cost—temples which the world cares little for, but temples growing beautiful to the eye of God, around whose portals angels hover as ministering spirits, to bear aloft to the throne the prayers which are breathed within them.
2. A temple is remarkable for itsdurability. It is not like a tent, or a tabernacle, pitched for a short season, and then taken down. The materials which are used, and the manner of their construction, show that it will endure. The temples of antiquity were built for ages. Plutarch, when speaking of those of Athens, says, “Now they are old, they have the freshness of a modern building. A bloom is diffused over them which preserves their aspect untarnished by time, as if they were animated with a spirit of perpetual youth and unfading elegance.”
Those sacred structures, so familiar to the early Christians, stood unchanged whilegenerations passed away. Time seemed to pass them by, while men and all their other works mouldered under his touch.
How aptly does this suggest to us the imperishable nature of that work which the Holy Spirit carries on in the temple of the human soul. It is no ephemeral work. Every Christian coworking with God, is working for eternity. That soul which has become a temple, will stand the changes of time, and the floods of temptation. The world cannot demolish it. It is a work of grace. And where God has begun it, he will carry it on to the day of redemption.
The durability of a temple also symbolizes the imperishable nature of the church, the great house which God is building in the world. It shall advance till the world shall end. Other institutions wear out. Colossal edifices of state totter and fall, and the wrecks of mighty dynasties lie strewn along the centuries. But while every thing else grows old, the church of God endures. The great house grows greater; spiritual builders are at work, in our own and in other lands, quarrying out new stones, andpolishing them, and setting them in the walls. Many a time have its enemies battered it, and threatened to lay it in heaps; but the gates of hell have not prevailed against it; it endures; it still rises; column after column is added to it; it will rise till frieze and cornice and arch and dome are finished, and the top-stone shall be set with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it. The church, the great temple of God, shall stand.
3. The temples of antiquity were distinguished by theirbeauty of proportion and perfection. The Greeks and Romans employed the genius of their master artisans and their finest sculptors. All that the highest skill and taste and cultivation could do was profusely lavished on those immortal works of art; and the results produced were those models of architectural strength and symmetry which succeeding ages, with all their boasted progress, have not excelled. Unity of design, the adjustment of many parts in one harmonious whole, each part fitted to its appropriate place, with nothing left out and nothing superfluous, but all united to produce animpression of beauty and harmony on the mind of the beholder—these were the characteristic excellences of those grand old temples to which the apostle compares Christians in our text.
They too are temples in the harmony and proportion of that character which the Holy Ghost builds up within them. Christian character is symmetrical. Like a stately temple, it combines many parts. Faith, love, humility, patience, meekness, hope, endurance, forgiveness, courage, zeal—all these are the materials which constitute the spiritual edifice. But distinct as they are, they together make one consistent character.
This harmony of the Christian graces is one of the best tests to distinguish true piety from its counterfeits. The want of this is singularly apparent in the bigot or the enthusiast. Such persons generally exhibit a disproportioned, unbalanced character. A few virtues stand out in unnatural prominence, while others seem wanting altogether. A few duties they will perform with the utmost punctiliousness, while others equally essential they neverthink of. Religion with them becomes identified with some favorite dogma or ism, and tends in that direction to a monstrous development. This distortion of character, this fungus growth in one direction and utter barrenness in others, evinces a want of grace altogether. Such persons are not temples framed by the Holy Ghost. Rather are they like rude, unsightly structures reared by some unskilful hands. Remember, if you are a Christian, you must exhibit the work of religion in yourwholecharacter. You cannot cultivate one grace at the expense of another. You cannot be all faith and no love; all humility and no self-denial; all zeal and no charity. It is not in that way the Holy Spirit works. The different parts of the spiritual edifice, says Paul, are “fitly framed together,” and “grow unto a holy temple in the Lord.”
4. Another peculiarity of the temples was, that they werethe property of the deityto whom they were dedicated. No private individual owned them. Neither kings nor emperors nor the state were their proprietors; but theywere regarded as belonging solely to the gods in whose honor they were built.
And how true is this of Christians, those spiritual temples which God has in the world. The apostle, speaking of the whole church of God, says, He has purchased it with his own blood. And to believers individually he says, “And ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price.” “None of us liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” A better title in the universe cannot be found than that which Christ has to Christians. He has bought them, ransomed them, redeemed them. They are his absolutely. He is the sole proprietor of these temples. No one else owns them. They do not own themselves. This is your position, my Christian friend. What you are and what you have about you belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. You owned his right to it all when you professed to be his disciple. Whatever demand is made upon you for your time, your labor, or your property, by him or his cause, you are in duty bound cheerfully to pay. Ye are God’s building;ye are God’s temple; ye are not your own.
5. The significancy of the figure employed in the text will further appear when we consider theuseto which a temple is devoted.
A temple was regarded as the dwelling-place of a divinity. The pagan temples had their sacred shrines, attended by priests or vestals, who claimed to repeat the oracle uttered by the gods. In the true temple at Jerusalem, Jehovah manifested his special presence, and the holy of holies was his dwelling-place. The Christian therefore may well be called a temple; for says the apostle, “The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”
The hearts of many impenitent men are sometimes visited by God’s Spirit, as is indicated by the sudden awakenings of conscience; but never is the Spirit said to dwell with them.
Christians are truly temples, as they enjoy the presence of God’s Spirit. That presence is manifested not by oracular voices or ecstatic visions. Fanaticism may recite the vagaries of the imagination, and call them new revelations of the Spirit; it may be ever on thelook-out for signs and omens, and boast that it can “dream dreams;” but such manifestations are no proof of the indwelling of God’s Spirit.
It is not in this way the Bible teaches us that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us; but it points us to the fruits of the Spirit, which are far different. He shows his indwelling by enlightening the believer into the truth. He reveals the things of God to us. He quickens faith in us, and prompts to duty. He fills the soul with peace and joy, by showing us the promises of God’s word, and pointing to their certain fulfilment. He guards us against temptation, by quickening us to prayer. He guides us in duty, by pressing upon the conscience the precepts and commands of Christ. In this way does the Holy Spirit give evidence of his presence. In this way he dwells in believers. There may be seasons when the Christian loses the consciousness of His presence; but He has not departed: even in his backslidings, the Spirit does not forsake him, for the temple where He has dwelt he leaves not to desolation.
Again, the Christian soul is a consecrated temple, a holy place.
Even the pagan temples were consecrated places. They were employed for such rites and observances as were supposed to be acceptable to the deity which dwelt in them. Some of their festivals were scenes of revolting licentiousness, it is true; but they were not displeasing to the divinity they honored, for those divinities themselves were as polluted as their worshippers. Their temples and shrines were as pure as the gods whose name they bore.
The temple of Jehovah, at Jerusalem, was most holy, for Jehovah is the God of holiness. Holiness was enstamped on every stone. “Holiness unto the Lord” was written upon its every apartment. No unclean thing was allowed to cross its sacred threshold. No profane hand was allowed to touch its consecrated vessels. That sacred temple, inhabited by the God of infinite purity, in whose sight the heavens are not clean—that sacred temple whose inner shrine none dare approach but the mitred priest in robes of sanctity and withsacrificial blood, and he but once a year—that temple is a symbol of a true Christian soul—a consecrated, holy soul. This attribute, holiness, is the strong point of comparison. “For the temple of God is holy,” says the apostle, “which temple ye are.” Not that the believer attains to immaculate purity in this life, for the New Testament teaches no such doctrine of Christian perfection; but he is holy in that he is a consecrated one, devoted to God’s service. Indwelling sin may manifest itself, imperfections may trouble him, but his mind and will are against them. He does not seek them. He does not go out to drag any polluted thing within the temple. No, he hates their presence; he longs and prays to be free from sin. Whatever imperfections are within him are the remains of former corruptions, and grace is overcoming them.
We must bear in mind that this spiritual temple is not new in its material parts. It is an old, ruined, dilapidated temple, rebuilt, repaired, cleansed, and reinhabited. The devil, who before held it, has been banished. The Holy Ghost has taken possession, and set itapart for God. Yet some vestiges of its old state linger here and there for a time; the divine Architect has not yet finished it. When it is done, it will be pure as heaven, and shine in the beauty of holiness for ever and ever. The work is going on.
The Christian is no longer a sinner, courting sin; he is set apart for a sacred use; he is taken away from the service of sin; the world has no right to him; he has no right to go after it. Oh it is not every use you can put a Christian to, for he is devoted to the service of God; he is called into holiness; he is washed and sanctified.
And now, in the review of our subject, let us walk about these living temples and notice their most prominent peculiarities, that we may see what manner of persons we ought to be in all holy conversation and doctrine.
As temples, they are costly edifices, bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. They are enduring, built to stand the temptations of time, to survive the wreck and conflagration of the last day. They are beautiful in their proportions,with no heavenly grace left out, and no foul deformities suffered to remain. They belong to God. They are not their own. They are God’s building. They are the dwelling-places of God’s Spirit. They are holy: washed, sanctified, and consecrated to God’s service.
Such is the picture of God’s people which the apostle holds up before us when he says, “Ye are the temple of God.” I confess it is a bold and highly-drawn picture; but it was the pencil of inspiration, and not mine, which drew it. The soul of every true saint is that temple. It has a holy of holies where God’s Spirit dwells. The world, the flesh, and the devil have been cast out. It has an altar on which the sacrifice of thanksgiving is laid, a censer in which burns the incense of prayer, which rolls aloft to heaven, while the voice of praise and adoration echoes through its arches and along its aisles.
Sublime and beautiful picture! Is it a fancy piece; or is it a reality? It is a reality. The apostle’s soul was such a temple. There were such temples in Corinth when he wrotethis epistle—temples more grand and beautiful than all the Corinthian columns and gilded domes which adorned that city. Every true saint is such a temple. Every professor of religion claims to be one.
My friend, take the picture home, and look at it. Study it well, and see if you can see yourself in it. Ah, you professing Christian, does your soul look any thing like it? If indeed it be a temple, does it not become you to watch its portals with untiring vigilance, lest pollution enter it? Have you kept the temple pure? Our text calls you to serious self-examination. Go inside the temple, and look about. See if its walls be not hung round with pictures of earthly idolatry. See whether pride and vanity and fashion have not built their altars within. See whether greedy avarice has not set up the tables of the money-changers there, and well-nigh turned the temple of the soul, which is God’s house, into a house of merchandise. Listen whether there is heard there the tumult of angry passions, and the clamors of selfish and forbidden lusts.
Oh search the temple well, for God willsearch it soon. “The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple; but who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap.”
None but the pure in heart, the sanctified in Christ Jesus, will endure the trial. These shall stand the fires of the judgment-day, and shine in bliss and glory for ever in the city of God.
But not a few professed temple-builders will be confounded, and their work consumed; for the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.
God’s Witnesses.
YE ARE MY WITNESSES.Isa.43:10.
There is a sense in which all the works of God declare his glory, and bespeak his eternal power and godhead. But in the work of redemption through Jesus Christ his Son, he places his people in a peculiar position, and employs them in a special mission. They are surrounded with a world of ungodliness and impenitence, and he has commissioned them to bear an authoritative testimony in behalf of Him.
As professed believers, they stand before the world as those who are the subjects of his grace, who have embraced and tried that religion which is offered to them in Christ Jesus. They claim to have actually received Christ, and to have submitted to his authority. God calls them his people; they call themselves so. In them grace exhibits what it can do by what it is already doing.
They hold a peculiar relation to a godless world around them. God acknowledges them to be standing for him: “Ye are my witnesses.” They are bearing testimony in his behalf before the jury, consisting of the multitude of unbelievers. They are credible witnesses. The world is willing to listen to their evidence, and judge of the religion of Christ by what they say and do.
They represent the Saviour whose name they bear. They are speaking to the world in all they say and do, wherever they go. They are always on the stand giving in their testimony. The ungodly world is listening to them, and taking down the evidence, and judging of Christ and of his religion by the declarations which they make; and they have a right to do so.
God says of these professing Christians, “Ye are my witnesses.” And other men say, We will hear you and take your testimony, and cross-examine you, and give our verdict from what you declare to us. Every Christian, by his very profession of religion, puts himself in this solemn position, and invitesthe scrutiny of the world. He cannot escape from it. He must testify for God, and woe be to him if in his life and conversation he belies his profession, and dishonors his Saviour’s cause.
God has a testimony of himself in his written word. But this documentary evidence will not satisfy an unbelieving generation. Men want parol evidence to confirm it. They call for the living witness, and insist upon examining him and hearing him give in his testimony. Professing Christians are such witnesses. And what they say in their lives and professions is often of far greater weight with the ungodly, than what is said by inspired evangelists and apostles. This living testimony of God’s people is a kind of evidence which carries conviction with it. The Bible itself points men to it, and tells them to decide by it upon the value of its own utterances. “Ye are my witnesses,” saith God. “Ye are our epistle,” says the inspired apostle. The world will take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus.
All parties concerned seem to agree uponthe important position the people of God occupy in this world. God expressly declares that they are his witnesses. They say the same when they openly profess his name. They take the stand before the jury of the world, and raise their hand to heaven and swear that they will testify for Christ. The world looks on, and says, We will hear the testimony, and judge of what religion is, and what is the genius and spirit of the gospel system of salvation by what we find in them.
The case then seems fairly opened, and all parties understand the issue. Let us look further at the nature of the evidence.
1. Believers are Christ’s witnesses as tothe real value and efficacyof that salvation which the gospel offers. As it is presented in God’s word, it claims to be effectual in taking away the curse of sin, and in bringing the sinner back to peace and reconciliation with God. It claims to quiet the fears of a guilty conscience, to awaken a sense of pardon and good hope of eternal life, and to furnish, in the atonement and death of Jesus Christ theSaviour, all that the guilty soul needs for its justification and peace with God.
But does it do this? Can it really accomplish in the soul of a sinner this which it claims to do? Does it ever actually produce such a change of feeling, awaken such hopes, restore such peace, as it tells about? On this subject, believers are important witnesses. They profess to have tried the efficacy of these representations in their own experience. They tell the ungodly they have found this sense of pardon, have felt this peace, have rejoiced in those hopes which the gospel speaks of. They have come to Christ as the atoning sacrifice, and he has proved himself to be to them all he claimed to be.
The work of grace in the hearts of Christians is such, that they can tell sinners what it is. They declare it in their songs of praise, their thanksgivings and prayers, and earnest love to their Redeemer.
2. Professing Christians are witnesses to the world as to what thatstandard of moralityis, which the precepts of the gospel require of its followers. They profess to live accordingto that standard. They have taken the commands of Christ to be their rule of duty, and they virtually tell others to judge of what the religion of Jesus Christ requires, by the way they live and act. They have undertaken to give a practical exhibition of what is the meaning of those Bible directions which comprise the sum of religious duty. The question with them is not what the world thinks to be right or wrong, not what public opinion approves or disapproves; but what does Christ command. This is their rule of duty; this is what they profess to live by. And the world understand it so. They therefore take what they find in Christians’ lives and conduct to be what religion consists in. They care not to search for the letter of the precept in the Scriptures, so long as they have the living witness before them, who says he is showing it to them every day.
Christians are such witnesses. They may well tremble at their position. But they have placed themselves in it. They have undertaken to be witnesses for Christ. Oh, it becomes them to be careful what they are saying.It becomes them to inquire what idea the world gets of Christ and his religion, from the way they carry themselves among their neighbors.
Every one knows that example is more powerful than precept. Every professing Christian’s example directly involves in it the honor of Christ, and the welfare of his cause. It is competent evidence, and the world takes it. That professor who lives in violation of Christ’s commands, and by his example approves what the religion of the gospel forbids, is a perjured witness on the stand, and gives a false testimony.
That Christians are thus expounders of the gospel, witnesses as to what are the duties it enjoins, and what constitutes practical religion, none can deny. The impenitent take them to be such. Whatever Christians do, they say must be right. Whatever the church practices and countenances, is a sufficient justification for them in doing the same. Whatever is done in the green tree, can certainly be done in the dry.
If God’s people can travel and visit on theSabbath, or engage in promiscuous dancing and card-playing in the nightly assemblies of amusement and frivolity, or resort to the gamester’s arts to make money for Christ, surely such practices cannot be wrong for others; for Christians would not do wrong, nor deny their principles. The world reason in this way, and they reason well. The logic is good, and cannot be refuted. They have a right to take notice of Christians as God’s witnesses, and to infer that whatever they do is consistent with the morality of the New Testament.
3. Christians are witnesses to the world as to what are thesacrifices and self-denialswhich the religion of Christ requires of its disciples. That the gospel does make these a condition of discipleship is plain to every mind. Whosoever doth not “deny himself, and take up his cross,” cannot be my disciple. Again and again are Christians said to sacrifice all for Christ, and to be crucified to the world. Now what these Scripture representations mean may be learned by the practical lives of God’s people, for they profess to beliving such lives of self-denial, to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. In them the impenitent find what religion prohibits; how it separates its follower from the world; how it lays its cross upon him, and calls upon him to bear reproach and shame and wrong and persecution for Christ’s sake. Such a testimony Christians are bound to give; and blessed be God, they have been able to give it in all ages of the world. For,
They are God’s witnesses in theirendurance of sufferingfor Christ. Even when laid aside from the active, stirring duties of life, and passing through seasons of sore trial, they are still in the service of Christ, and giving to the world a most valuable testimony of the sustaining and comforting power of his religion. Witness-bearers they are still, when they endure with a cheerful patience the wearisome nights which are appointed to them, and in the midst of disease and the sinkings of nature can tell to all around them of a peace which passeth all understanding, of a joy and hope which are undimmed by all thedistress of the present hour. Who can measure the influence which the religion of Christ has gained in the world through this kind of testimony?—a testimony which the witnesses have given in when their eyes were suffused with tears, and earthly misfortunes pressed sore upon them—a testimony plaintively whispered in the dark midnight of affliction, from the couches of languishing, the chambers of bereavement, and the graves of the lost and the loved. It many a time seems that the Christian’s usefulness is gone, when he is no longer able to sing in the sanctuary and engage in active labors for Christ; but it is often far otherwise. Though life’s scenes be changed, he is bearing witness still; and through months of infirmity and suffering is telling the world what Christ can do to cheer and comfort when all other comfort is gone. “Ye are still my witnesses,” says the Redeemer to his people, “even when I chasten you sorely; and through your testimony the world shall know of my power to save and comfort.”
But though all the sufferings of God’s people are made to testify of the power of Hisgrace, special significance attaches to those which are endured directly for Christ, which arise from the hatred and persecution of the world. Of those who, in past ages, have sealed their testimony with their blood, who in the dungeon, at the stake, and on the scaffold have owned Christ and defied the rage of their tormentors—of such emphatically Christ says, “Ye are my witnesses.” The very word martyr signifies a witness, in the Greek language.
And the testimony of such as have suffered and died for Jesus has carried with it a power which none can measure. It has forced conviction on the minds of the bitterest enemies of the cross, and taught the world how a believer can triumph over suffering, and conquer death. Though nowadays but little of this kind of testimony is heard, except what is echoed down from past centuries of the church’s conflicts, still believers are bound to testify many times against the scoffs and opposition of the ungodly. Their lives and example must, even now, frequently speak out boldly against the prevailing iniquity, and testify inthe face of scorn and loss and bitter opposition. But it is a good confession when you stand up for Christ, and meet the buffetings of the world for it. For every stripe you receive there seems to come an echo from the upper throne, most cheering, “Ye are my witnesses.”
We have thus endeavored to show the position which Christians occupy in the world as witnesses for God. They testify to men what the religion of the gospel actually means, what it is, and what it can do for sinners. They tell to a doubting world that it is a reality. They have tested it in their experience; have tried its hopes and promises, and tasted its saving power. The ignorant and unbelieving world can go to them and ask questions, examine them, and demand to know all about the cross, and the whole system of salvation which centres there.
These witnesses are speaking all the time. Their lives are voiceful everywhere. In the family, and in the church; in the marts of business, and the intercourse of social life; in the days of sunshine and prosperity, andthe nights of gloom and sorrow, the world is listening to what they say, and canvassing their evidence. Their testimony is long and full. It is either for or against their Master.
Christ Jesus is willing that his religion shall be tried by the lives of his disciples. What other system will bear to be put to such a test? Did scepticism ever proclaim its triumphs thus? Did the philosophic infidelity of the last century dare to boast of France redeemed from superstition under the reign of terror, and point to Danton, Mirabeau, Robespierre, and the heroes of the guillotine, and say, These are my witnesses? Would Paine and Bolingbroke ever think of summoning from the foul attics and purlieus of vice and degradation their begrimed followers, educated in their tenets, and proclaim to the world, Behold, these are our witnesses? Does Universalism ever muster its motley crew from the dram-shops, the gambling hells, and the brothels, and parade them before the public gaze to testify what it can do for man’s moral welfare and restoration? No. Every system of falsehood and error shrinks from the ordeal, andwould hide its disciples from observation, rather than stand them up before the world, saying, These are my witnesses.
But Christianity dares to do what no other system dares. God has written his great scheme of salvation on the page of revelation. But while a doubting, unbelieving world is slow to study and receive it, he sets his people boldly up before them, and challenges them to read in their lives and doings what his religion can accomplish. Look here, he bids an ungodly world, and judge what the cross can do. Trace the influence of the gospel upon these who have accepted it, and tried it, and hear what they are saying of its power and grace; for they are my witnesses, saith the Lord.
Such is the Christian’s attitude before the world: testifying every hour, speaking through all his life for Christ. Oh what a blessed, an exalted privilege! Oh what an awful responsibility! Every member of the church is in this position; every professing Christian is testifying. And, fellow-witnesses, what is the testimony we are giving? Are any disposedto shrink back from the position? Are any conscious that their lives do not read well for Christ? There is no escaping from the responsibility. Ye who have made a profession of Christ before the world are committed. Ye have taken the witness-stand, and the world is hearing you. Professing Christians, the voice of God Almighty says, “Ye are my witnesses,” and there is no escape for you. You have spoken; you have got to speak. You may seal up your lips, but your very silence speaks. “Ye are my witnesses.”
Hear it, ye professors, when ye go out into the world of ungodliness; when ye stand in the market-place for gain, and deal with a world of covetousness and greed; when ye seek for pleasure and preferment: “Ye are my witnesses.” Hear it when tempted to step aside and hold your religion in abeyance for a season, that you may join hands with the careless and the vain: “Ye are my witnesses.” Ye cannot drop your vocation; ye cannot stop the testimony. Go where you will, it follows you. Was your hoarse laugh heard in the saloon, among the fast young men whose eyeswere red over the wine-cup? Were ye seen in the companies of fashion and dissipation, whirling in the dance, rattling the dice, or bending over the card-table? Have ye forsaken the services of devotion, the sanctuary, and the prayer-meeting, for the society of open worldliness and ungodliness? Ye have not done testifying yet. God Almighty’s voice follows you, and rings in your ears, “Ye are my witnesses.” Your testimony may have been dishonoring to God; it may have been damaging to the cause of Christ; but God claims you as his witnesses, and will settle with you when he comes to review the testimony at the judgment-day. And your false, treacherous souls, blackened with the damning guilt of a life-long perjury, will meet a doom which will make the hell of lesser sinners, when compared with it, seem almost a heaven.
Christians Shining.