"I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shall enlarge my heart."—Ps. cxix. 32.
If we were to study the names of the different sects and parties that make up the "Ishmael" of God, we should find them to be singularly unsuggestive of such a thing as the existence of a spiritual life; nor could we easily infer from the nomenclature of so-called Christendom that "there is a spirit in man, and that the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Now, this is a very curious fact; for one would have expected that about the first thing suggested by the appellations of Christian bodies would have been some phase or other of the inward life.
But we are not going to spend our time to-night in discussing sects, or deploring their divisions, although we cannot altogether refrain regret when we contemplate the seamless robe of Christ rent into more than twain, and dabbled in blood worse than Joseph's coat was when his father said, "Some evil beast hath devoured him"; and although it does seem to us sometimes, as we contemplate the havoc of schisms and strife of sects, as if some convulsion from beneath had shaken down the towers of the New Jerusalem, and streams from the nether fires had coursed down the channels of the river of life. What we want to do is to think a little about the true Broad Church; not that branch of Christianity which commonly goes under the name, and which makes one of the instances referred to of the unsuitableness of names applied to religious schools and parties, but the spiritual Broad Church, which is the church of enlarged hearts. The school we want to belong to is the school of spiritual free-thinkers, who are at liberty to learn all that God has to teach them. The true Broad Church is that in which an enlarged obedience to God's commandments is brought about by an enlarged experience of His love; and His commandments and His love are both of them exceeding broad.
All true spiritual life must widen the soul; the more we live with Jesus, the more impossible will it be for any of us to be narrow. Our littleness takes refuge with God, and His greatness makes its abode with us; we bring Him our unworthiness and He imparts to us His righteousness; we offer to Him our hearts barren of sympathy and deficient in affection, and presently we find the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us.
Thus, when acquainted with God we cannot be really narrow; they might as well call the Lord Jesus Christ narrow. We want to be as broad in our sympathies and in our views as He was; and neither broader nor narrower.
True spiritual life will widen the soul in itspossessions, itsperceptions, itswill, and itslove; it will extend our powers ofhaving, ofknowing, ofwilling, and ofloving; and, in one or other of these four, most of our life is included.
(1) How very little we possess, both in outward and inward things. This is one of the points in which we are disposed to agree with the saying that the circumference of our circle is very near to the centre. We can grasp very little. Our hands are small and the world is large.
"Tell me how I can make my broad acres more broad," is the request of the rich man. "Tell me how I can make my narrow holding less narrow," is the cry of the poor. But a life in God makes us rich, for "all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come;—all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." "Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth." "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."
And Madame Guyon says, "Have I not infinitely more than a hundredfold, in so entire a possession as Thou my Lord hast taken of me, in that unshaken firmness which Thou givest me in my sufferings, in a perfect tranquillity in the midst of a furious tempest that assails me on every side, in an unspeakable joy, enlargedness, and liberty which I enjoy in a most strait and rigorous captivity?"
(2) How trifling is our knowledge! Yet fewer people will assent to the lack of knowledge, for many think they know a good deal. As in the times of Socrates, it is only the wise man who knows he knows nothing. And yet how little we know! We know but little of things in this world, with all our sciences and study, and we know much less about God, and glory, and immortality, and the spirits which live outside the tent of this mortal flesh, or of any of those things which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." And with all our books of theology and treatises on spiritual life, we are almost obliged to say that "all is less than nothing and vanity." But we believe that for those whom God enlarges, there is an unspeakable increase in the perceptive powers of the soul: they are taught things that no one else knows anything about, and that are hidden from the wise and prudent. There is knowledge for the simple and lowly ones; for those who, in the spiritual strength they have derived from God, run in the way of His commandments. Looking into the Father's face, and into the Saviour's heart, the soul can say, "This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." And with the knowledge there comes the aspiration that we, "being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints," and to beseech for all souls, "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." And again it is said, "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Is this a little knowledge? All things are possible to you in possession and in perception.
(3) How little is ourwill-power. We often want to do right, and the force of habits or of grooves is too strong for us. We have not enough momentum to carry us out or enough moral force to deny the past and to assert the future. Constantly rises up in judgment the days that have been; and when looking at the blessed vision of God of the days that shall be, the past rises up and says, "It is not for you"; and we have not power to deny this, and to believe in God that He will work all the good pleasure of His will in us. It seems almost impossible for us ever to become saints. When we get to understand a little about righteousness and holiness, we do feel utterly inadequate to choose such a righteousness, or to compel ourselves to live out such a holiness.
The only remedy is the Divine enlargement of heart which comes from the visitation of the Spirit. We carry our brokenness to God; we put our helpless will at His feet, and He energises it, and sends us back from the altar-steps, or from the glory where we have met with Him, able to say, "Idelightto doThywill, O my God."
And although for each one of us there will be a Gethsemane, "a place of tears," as there was for the Master, yet we shall come through with our will unbroken, because it will be the will of God strong within us.
(4) How small is our capacity for loving or forgiving. Many think they have capacity for an infinite love, and would be able to exhibit it if they could find a worthy object. But I believe our love is a strictly measurable quantity, and dependent on the state of grace we are in. Only those who have the Spirit within them, energising them, can truly love at all. Again, we fall at the Lord's feet, and tell Him we have no power even to be civil to some people, much less to love them; scarcely power to put up the weapons of revenge against some; and even to those whom, like the publicans and Pharisees and sinners, we love because they love us, we have not been able to make an adequate return for the love they have lavished upon us. Then God teaches us that there lies in Him the power of enlarging the human affections, and He enlarges our hearts that we, "being rooted and grounded in love,"—not only in the experimental realisation of His love to us, but also in the experimental living out of our love to Him, and to all that He has made and given us,—are able to "run the way of His commandments." For that is His new commandment, "that we love one another." Our practical state will depend on the enlarging of our hearts. We talk of large-hearted people, but they are not so by nature in the sense God wishes. It needs a Divine operation and a definite Divine experience to enable us to live out the law of the New Testament.
Thus todomore, we must first of allbemore. This is the Gospel way all through. God never teaches us that we are todoand afterwards tobe. What preachers tell you about dead works means simply that it is a mistake for us to try to do before we have learned to be. You may see a little child trying to lift a heavy weight, and you tell it that it must wait till its muscles are stronger: it must wait till it hasbecome. This was the way at the beginning in conversion: "dead works" means that in us there does not dwell force or power to lift the great weight of the commandment or righteousness of God; hence they are useless or stupid works. When you find in your heart your inability to fulfil the Divine commandment, and have not the strength and power you want, though all day trying to lift the heavy weight, you come to God and say, "It is plain that, as I am, I cannot live out this righteousness, and I come for a new life to live it out. I must have Thine own strength." Then we understand our Lord's saying, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
You have lived this out in some way since you were converted; but you have not realised enough the more blessed life; you know a little of walking in the way, but running in the way brings you face to face with something outside your strength and power. It is no use to try and do work which needs a stronger man, unless we can become stronger men. Many make a mistake here; they are trying to live out holiness before they have got the heart-enlarging. But it is no use our trying to be holy, until God makes us holy. We try to take the first part of the verse alone, and then we break down. "My heart breaks down: I can never be a runner." You are trying to live out His commandments, without having the visitation of the enlarged heart; you must get on to definite dealings with God for a visitation of the Spirit; when He has come, you will have the strength and peace of God with you. It seems to me painfully sad to hear people sorrowing: "I know it is my privilege, but I cannot make it real; and although one can sometimes do little acts of mercy, or even attain to humble acts of faith, the life does not flow on naturally and simply." Andit will not, unless you have an experience at the back coming out of His visitation.
To do more we must be more; get a new master, be a new man; get a new experience, and you will be a new Christian.
All writers who have spoken of the advanced spiritual life have taught that there is an enlargement of the soul, and they use the strongest language possible.
So we find Madame Guyon saying:—
"This vastness or enlargedness which is not bounded by anything, however plain and simple it may be, increases every day; so that my soul in partaking of the qualities of her spouse, seems also to partake of his immensity."—Madame Guyon, vie. ii. 4.
And Philo:—
"Having broken the chains by which it (the soul) was formerly bound, which all the empty anxieties of mortal life fastened round it, and having led it forth and emancipated it from them, he has stretched, and extended, and diffused it to such a degree that it reaches even the extreme boundaries of the universe, and is borne onwards to the beautiful and glorious sight of the uncreated God."—Philo, de ebrietate, 37.
So in Dr. Cudworth's sermon, which was printed some time ago:—
"When we have cashiered this self-will of ours, which did but shackle and confine our soules, our wills shall then become truly free, being widened and enlarged to the extent of God's own will."—Cudworth, Sermon before the House of Commons, p. 21.
"There is a straitnesse, slavery, and narrownesse in all sinne; sinne crowds and crumples up our souls, which, if they were freely spread abroad, would be as wide and large as the whole universe. No man is truly free but he that hath his will enlarged to the extent of God's own will, by loving whatsoever God loves, and nothing else.... He enjoys a boundlesse liberty and a boundlesse sweetnesse, according to his boundlesse love. He enclaspeth the whole world within his outstretched arms, his soul is as wide as the whole universe, as big as yesterday, to-day and for ever. Whosoever is once acquainted with this disposition of spirit, he never desires anything else; and he loves the 'life of God' in himself, dearer than his own life."—Id., p. 56.
And finally in theImitatio Christi:—
"They that willingly and freely serve Me shall receive grace for grace. But he who desires to glory in things out of Me, or to take pleasure in some private good, shall not be grounded in true joy, nor be enlarged in his heart, but shall many ways be encumbered and straitened.... And if heavenly grace enter in and true charity, there will be no envy nor narrowness of heart, neither will self-love busy itself. For Divine charity overcometh all things and enlargeth all the powers of the soul."—De Imitatione Christi, iii. 9.
We conclude, then, that self can never measure the length and breadth of the Divine love, and run in the way of His commandment. We need God to make us understand God; we must be in union with Him in order to obey Him. Distances on the earth may be measured by a foot-rule or a surveyor's chain, but to measure the spaces between the stars we must have a base-line in the sky. Only by being partakers of the Divine nature can we live out the Divine life; and no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him.
"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.
"He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My sheep.
"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He saith unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he saith unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep."—JOHN xxi. 15-17.
The whole story contained in these verses carries us back in thought to the time when Peter denied the Lord. They contain the first recorded words which passed between Christ and Peter since the latter had said, "I know not the man," and the Lord had "turned and looked upon Peter." He had his special token of lovingkindness at the Resurrection in the message which the woman brought: "Tell His disciples and Peter," in the witness given to himself, "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon," and in his participation in the blessing when the Lord stood in the midst and said, "Peace be unto you"; but these are, I think, the first recorded words addressed directly to Peter.
Peter had professed to be faithful above others; and now the Lord asks him, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" and the question thrice repeated can scarcely fail to remind us of the triple denial.
If we consider what must have been the state of Peter's mind after he had denied the Lord, we shall see that the circumstances recorded indicate a crisis in his life-history. How the enemy must have come in like a flood! what desolation of spirit he must have experienced during those lonely moments that followed the look of the Lord, when he went out, and wept bitterly! the enemy was come against him in full force, and legions of evil spirits had arisen to destroy his faith for ever.
One would say to him, "Thou hast sinned against special warnings; the Lord said to thee particularly that Satan had desired to have thee that he might sift thee as wheat. A little later on He said, 'Pray that ye enter not into temptation;' and a sin against special warning is more than twice a sin; and it was that sin which of all others thou didst think to be so great that it was impossible for thee to commit it."
Then another spirit would say, "Thou hast sinned against special promise; for thee the Saviour prayed; but now it is clear that thou hast outsinned the Mediator's grace and the Intercessor's prayers"; and at the thought black despair and utter hopelessness would enter his soul, as if to make it their eternal abode.
Then a third spirit would suggest the thought, "I said, 'I know not the man!' Dost remember, Peter, how He Himself said, 'I will declare unto you, that I never knew you;' and again, 'Whosoever denieth Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father in Heaven!' No word of Christ shall be broken; yea, thou thyself hast in past time established thyself on the faithfulness of His truth!"
Again would come the thought, "By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned; and of every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account in the day of judgment—how much more then for adeliberateword, affirmed, and reaffirmed, and affirmed again."
It was as if a judgment-seat were already set up in his soul, and the spirits were pleading him outside mercy; not one would speak in his behalf. Even the promises and the threatenings were against him; the first saying, we strengthened him; and the second, we warned him. Then some voices would testify against him on a side where one would think nothing would have been said, "Thou hast injured the faith; thou hast weakened the brethren; thou hast been infidel against love, and for such there is no repentance; thou hast sold thy Lord at a cheaper rate than Judas!"
"Dost thou remember, Peter, that tree which the Lord cursed, because, when He had a right to expect fruit from it, it bore none? Was there ever a time when the Master expected so much from thee as this? and now He has come, and found 'nothing but leaves.'"
Then, perhaps, one ray of hope would gleam into his darkened soul—"But the Lord did pray for me, and He never prayed in vain. He said, Father, I know that Thou hearest Me always; and He prayed for me."
And then the spirits would answer, "But the Lord prayed for thee that thy faith might not fail, andit has failed; where now is the power of the Lord's prayer? And if that has failed what remains for thee unless it be a certain fearful looking-for of judgment. If even He who said, 'Father, I thank Thee that Thou hearest Me always,' has been refused in His petition; even God is against thee, and the stars in their courses rule thee down, Simon, son of Jonas."
Another bitter shaft enters his heart: "Dost thou remember, Peter, how the Lord said of His own followers, 'I have kept them in Thy name, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition'? Thou hast not only made vain the Lord's prayers, but denied the Lord's faith, and caused Him to appear before heaven and earth as a false witness. Would He speak like that now, if He were beginning His intercessory prayer again? Would He not have to say, 'None of them is lost, except the Sons of Perdition, the Denier and the Betrayer'? So that even Christ's words failed to meet his case."
"And now, Peter, the high priest is asking Him of His disciples and His doctrines; what thoughts must be in His mind about thee when He takes up His testimony concerning those for whom He has lavished His life! The question will wring His heart anew into great drops of blood."
"Moreover, thou hast sinned against the strongest light and the highest privilege; it was given to thee to be with Him at the most solemn and sacred times: thou wast with Him at the transfiguration in the Holy Mount; and if ever heaven could strengthen earth, thou shouldst have been a strong man. Thou wast with Him at times of special Power, when only two or three were privileged to see the grace and glory flow down upon the suffering and the dying. Will not the greatness of thy privilege be the greatness of thy condemnation? He always chose thee to be with Him in special times when He went apart for prayer: to whom much is given, of them will much be required. Oh! how hast thou fallen!" and the spirits away in the darkness would say, "Thou art become even as one of us."
Then he would remember how in his own family, almost in his own flesh, he had received special mercy; and that work of healing would rise up to condemn him. Sin against mercy is sin without mercy; a thousand times thou art condemned, having sinned against such light and privilege and grace.
Then some spirits would whisper, "Dost thou remember how when many were leaving the Lord, because His doctrines were hard to receive and His steps hard to follow, He asked the question, 'Will ye also go away?' Who was it that answered so readily, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' Would it not have been better to have denied Him at the first than to have waited till the light had grown as clear as it has been, and to have deserted Him when He needed thee most? Better to have denied Him then, when evidence was feeble, than to disown Him, known as thou hast been privileged to know Him!"
We are not told one word about what Peter did or where he went, except that he went out weeping. When the morning came and they were leading Jesus away to crucifixion, John was there, but no mention is made of Peter. And yet I think I know where he went, and can see him taking his way across the brook, which so lately he had crossed with Jesus, to the garden of olive-trees. He would say to himself, "Here is the place where the Lord came and found me sleeping"; and "Here He said to me, 'Pray, pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'" Going a little farther, he would come to the place where the Master Himself had prayed. He would kneel and pray there too; in the place where there were still lying on the ground great drops of blood, the earth still wet with the strange sorrow of the Lamb. There, in his despair, he would kneel; and yet even in his despair would be turned towards God. His heart would be turned, even when he thought it never would be turned again; he would be there, without comfort, and yet God comforting him. Maybe, for him, too, there were strengthening angelic ministries; for there are more of these heavenly messengers with us than we think. Perhaps some words of ancient promise might be brought to his mind by God, as he was kneeling there; such as, "My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken Thou me according to Thy word!" "A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He bring forth judgment into victory." "He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." But whatever means were adopted, we believe that God was with him—comforting, restoring, saving, strengthening him. All this prepares us for the scene by the Lake.
This must have struck Peter as very like another passage in the intercourse between him and Jesus. Strange scene! we are back in Galilee; we experience again a night of fruitless toil. This was my place of consecration at the first; and these nets, which I borrow now, were then my own; and it was in the morning that the Lord was standing on the beach, as He did even now.
There is no mere repetition in this story: to a soul in Peter's case the one impossible thing would be that he should ever regain the place from whence he fell. And the Lord was going to convince him, by means of these similar circumstances and the miraculous draught of great fishes, that there was for him, even for him, such a thing as a fresh start; and that he should not mourn because there was "no returning upon his former track." When the boat had been brought to land, the Lord questioned Peter, not saying, "Thou didst deny Me," but "Dost thou love Me?" and finally repeats in his ears the old word with which He moved him to tread the heavenly way at the first—"Follow thou Me."
There were now no boats or nets which Peter could leave for the Lord, but the whole drama of consecration is acted over again. "Follow Me, Peter; what thou hast missed shall yet be given thee; formerly there was a point beyond which thou couldst not follow Me; but now thou shalt tread in My footsteps, even to the cross which thou didst fear at the first, and to the shame from which erewhile thy soul recoiled." "Another shall carry thee whither thou wouldest not: this spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God."
"He that lacketh these things is blind and short-sighted, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."—2 PETER i. 9.
The chapter from which these verses are taken describes two arithmetical processes, the working out of one of which belongs to us, and of the other to our Father in heaven. The first is an addition sum: "Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly-kindness love." Writing down the figures of the sum, and computing the total, we have it set out fair and clear,—"Ye shall never fall." The other is God's multiplication sum:
"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord"; and the result of the working comes out,—"Ye shall be made partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." I suppose it means that if we are willing to go on at an arithmetical progression, God would work in us at a geometrical one; and so, patiently persisting in holiness, and hungering after righteousness, we shall be in heaven before we know where we are.
But such passages trouble some folk who don't like to think that a Christian has anything to do in the matter of his own salvation; who say "It is finished" over a work that is only begun in them, and "Jesus paid it all," when a voice within is saying, "How much owest thou unto thy Lord?" or, perhaps, if they do not put it quite so strongly as that, they are, to say the least, gravely suspicious of the existence of a creaturely activity in the spiritual life.
Let us settle, then, in the beginning, that God never requires us to exercise ourselves to win His favour, nor calls us to work for One in whom we have no faith. He never says, "Add to your darkness grace; and to grace mercy; and to mercy peace." That would be impossible; for grace, mercy, and peace are experienced in the Divine operation; and it is because we have so received them that we are able to fulfil the commandments given to us. God sets us this sum to work, but He gives us a clean slate on which to work it; He cleanses that inward tablet on which we have been working out quite a different sum, whose total is given in the words,—"The wages of sin is death"; He purifies it, that there may be written thereon the steps and the summation of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, some one will say, "Does every one have to go through a process of development of virtues such as is indicated in this epistle, and must every one have them all, and produce them in the same order? May we not develop just a few of them, by a sort of spiritual selection, as flowers have their own colours, and the creatures their own forms and features?" To this we answer (i.) that if you are to be a saint, as God has called you to be, you must have the qualifications and nature of a saint; (ii.) we ought not to recoil from this sum, as if the casting of the figures were necessarily a long process. No, not long! how long does it take one to reach love? Why, we commonly use the expression "falling in love"; and when the heart is awakened to the sense of the universal presence of the Father, it is not difficult to love men for His sake. As for the virtues, we must have them all. Shall we imagine an impatient saint, called to follow Him who when reviled, reviled not again; an ignorant saint, a partaker of Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; an intemperate saint, to follow Him who was living at a cheaper rate, for a man, than the foxes or the fowls; an unloving saint! into whose heart have been breathed the words, "Love is the fulfilling of the law," or, which is the same thing, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth"? Yes, we must have them all. What, will you complain, like little children, because your Teacher has been giving you too many rows to add up? will you say, "Lord, you overrate my powers; you think too highly of the grace that you have given me; I know you, that you are a hard man, an austere man"?
Does it matter in what order we ascend our virtue-scale? Not at all. An addition sum comes to the same thing whether you put it 23 or 32. For myself, I would like to begin the addition from the bottom row, starting with love; but it does not matter, so that all the figures are included. The Apostle goes on to speak of the effect of such a chain of experience upon the perceptive powers of the soul; he who has these things, well; his eye shall see the King in His beauty and the land of far distances; he who has them not, he is blind and short-sighted; or, as Luther and the Vulgate render it, is blind, and gropes with his hands. Spiritual short-sightedness is the result of the neglect of the pursuit of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. An indistinct vision may result from one of two causes: a fault in the eye, or an obstruction in the atmosphere. If you cannot make out a distant object while other people can, they will say to you, "How short-sighted you are!" but if no one can discern it, the probability is that something external has made vision impossible. Now, in the things of God, it is almost always the first defect that mars our perception; and the main reason why "eye hath not seen" is in our own nature, and not because God has not prepared nor revealed such things for our perception. To them that love Him, He reveals; wherefore let us add to kindness love, and we shall know. There are many things to which we are blind, because we have not practised ourselves in looking for them, nor do we know in what direction to look. I remember, when in the Isle of Arran, watching through a mist for the coming of the steamer from Glasgow; our landlady found it long before we could detect it, because she was more used to the quest; her eyes were keener, and she knew the direction in which to look. And the soul that ardently believes and hopes, knows well how to lift up its eyes to the hills from whence its help shall come, and to discern the help when it appears.
There are some people who seem ignorant of the fact that God has given them spiritual faculties suited to the observation of spiritual realities. They are like folks who, if they were put down ten miles from home on a clear night, would never be able to tell you on which side of the sky the sun would rise; because they never exercised their powers in the observation of the way the skies go round. And not only may we discern spiritual realities, but more than that, it is written that the pure in heart shall see God. For God has not given up revealing Himself to men yet; but this is an age in which, while there are many who know Him a little, there are few who know Him much. He spake to the fathers. He is speaking still. Enoch was not the last of whom it should be said, "He walked with God, he pleased God"; Isaiah not the only one who could say, "I beheld the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up"; Paul not the only one who should be privileged with rapture to the third heaven; George Fox not the only one to whom it was given to say, "I was come up, through the naming sword, into the Paradise of God." Many there are who have known "the Most High God no vision, nor that One who rose again."
God, who at sundry times, in manners many,Spake to the fathers and is speaking still,Eager to find if ever, or if anySouls will obey and hearken to HisWho that one moment has the least descried Him,Dimly and faintly, hidden and afar,Doth not despise all excellence beside Him,Pleasures and powers that are not and that are.Aye, amid all men bear himself thereafter,Smit with a solemn and a sweet surprise,Dumb to their scorn and turning on their laughterOnly the dominance of earnest eyes.Whoso has felt the Spirit of the HighestCannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny;Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.
Yes! things that were seen of old may be seen again; voices that spake to prophets and seers be revived in the innermost soul of God's faithful children; God is not dead; the Lord Jesus has not been raised from the grave to be placed in an inaccessible limbo, far from the sight of believing eyes: the Holy Spirit still speaks, as of old time, by holy men; He has not left the world yet, He dwelleth with you, He shall be in you.
Suppose I were to say to you that if you were to go down to Hastings you would be able to see the French coast clearly and distinctly, you would say, "Impossible even to the longest-sighted person; it is more than fifty miles away"; and yet, as you may see in the Philosophical Transactions for 1798, the coast of France was so visible, without a telescope, from Calais to St. Vallery, with the fishing-boats, and the colour of the houses clearly perceived. When you hear this, you say, "Well, if it is in the Philosophical Transactions, it must be true, and if it happened once, it may happen again." Good enough reasoning; and the Scriptures are the Spiritual Transactions, the record of God's dealings with and revealings to men of old time. If they are true, He has unveiled the hidden mysteries not once or twice to waiting souls; and what He has done, He not only may do again, but will do, wherever He finds a truly humble heart in which to work and rest. If He stood by Paul, saying, "Fear not," just as really and maybe as evidently will He stand by you: If He guided him in his work, restraining him from preaching here, and calling him to service there, He will give you also leadings just as certain and maybe as distinct. But, do you say, "Are we then to seek for signs and wonders, to fast and pray, ardently longing for the Divine revelation, until the vision dawns?" I do not say so; but rather add unto your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall, and an entrance shall be abundantly ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
"And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of His exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem."—LUKE ix. 30, 31.
We shall not attempt to explain the whole subject of the Transfiguration, but let us consider for what Jesus went up into the mountain. The common opinion is that He went up to enjoy Himself—in search of some spiritual ecstacy. But in this case there would have been no transfiguration. Spiritual rapture comes after earnest labour through eager prayer—it is not found by seeking—we have not to look for feelings or ecstacies; we need "to know the will of God, and to do it."
Jesus went up into the mount to pray about death—the subject which had a little before been borne in upon His mind—for we read in Matt. xvi. 21, in the narration of events just preceding the Transfiguration, that "from that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." When the devil took Him up into a mountain, he showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said unto Him, 'All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.'" When the Spirit of God took Jesus up into the mountain, He showed Him the cross, the shame, the suffering,—the spear and the crown of thorns, and said, "All these will I give Thee."
The highest experiences of the Christian life are close bound up, in the Divine will, with suffering. Jesus went up into the mount to get a better view of His approaching sorrow.
The Transfiguration is slightly apprehended and seldom discussed. Very few sermons are preached, or great pictures painted, or hymns sung, on the subject. Almost the only verse one knows about it—
When in ecstacy sublimeTabor's glorious steep I climb,At the too transporting lightDarkness rushes o'er my sight,
implies that it is a subject beyond human understanding.
We have hymns on His Incarnation and Advent, His Divine Glory and Worship, His Mediatorial Character and Titles, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Intercession and Reign, and the Second Advent, but none specially referring to the Transfiguration. Yet it contains many wonderful lessons we all need to know. We have felt, perhaps, that it was an experience peculiar to Christ—with which we can have nothing to do—but the Scriptures say otherwise; the word here rendered "transfigured" is the same as that translated "transformed" in Romans xii. 2, "but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your minds," etc., and "changed," in 2 Cor. iii. 18, "are transfigured into the same image from glory to glory." We want so to look at the glory of Jesus, that, at the same time, we may see His sorrow as well—and be "transfigured into the same image; for if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together."
There is no man who understands the Transfiguration like John Ruskin. He says: "We are afraid to harbour in our own hearts, or to utter in the hearing of others, any thought of our Lord as hungering, tired, or sorrowful, or having a human soul, a human will, and affected by the events of human life as a finite creature is: and yet one-half of the efficacy of His atonement and the whole of the efficacy of His example depend on His having been this to the full. Consider therefore the Transfiguration as it relates to the human feelings of our Lord. It was the first definite preparation for His death.... What other hill could it have been than the southward slope of that goodly mountain, Hermon, which is, indeed, the centre of all the promised land, from the entering in of Hamath to the river of Egypt; the mount of fruitfulness, from which the springs of Jordan descended to the valleys of Israel. Along its mighty forest avenues, until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies, His feet dashed with the dew of Hermon, He must have gone to pray His first recorded prayer about death; and from the steep of it, before He knelt, could see, to the south, all the dwelling-places of the people that had sat in darkness, and seen the great light, the land of Zabulon and of Naphthali, Galilee of the Gentiles: could see even with His human sight, the gleam of that lake by Capernaum and Chorazin, and many a place loved by Him and vainly ministered to, whose house was now left unto them desolate: and, chief of all, far in the utmost blue, the hills above Nazareth, sloping down to His old home; hills on which the stones yet lay loose that had been taken up to cast at Him, when He left them for ever. 'And as He prayed two men stood by Him.'"
"Among the many ways in which we miss the help and hold of Scripture, there is none more subtle than our habit of supposing that, even as man, Christ was free from the fear of death. How could He then have been tempted as we are?—since among all the trials of the earth none spring from the dust more terrible than that of fear. It had to be borne by Him ... and the presence of it is surely marked for us enough by the rising of those two at His side."
It was Christ's first preparation for death—and, therefore, to understand His Transfiguration we must understand His Crucifixion too; to see Hermon, we must go to Calvary; to discern how the fashion of His countenance was altered, we must witness that other time in the garden, when "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down on the ground"; to fathom how the three disciples slept through the glory, we must remember how they slept through the sorrow too.
The word rendered decease is a strange one. It is literallyexodus—"going out." They spake of this exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. The same word occurs in the second epistle of Peter: "I will endeavour that ye may be able after my exodus to have these things always in remembrance"; and it is worthy of notice that the verses which follow are a reminiscence of the Transfiguration.
We have conferences on many subjects—on peace, on holiness, on temperance: who ever heard of another conference (as this was) ondeath?
A listener might have heard some such words as these:—
First Moses might speak: "I, too, know what it is to want not to die. I did not fear the act of dying, but the manner—away out of the Promised Land. But when I saw the will of my God in all its beauty, then even this bitter disappointment seemed bearable, and the kiss of my God at the last made up for all. Death is only a kiss to those who love God; and if I had not followed the will of my God in this, what had I not lost? I had missed burial at the hands of the sons of God, and my feet would not now be standing in His presence."
Then Elias might say: "I had no fear of death: nay, I even prayed for it, saying, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers. It was not death that I feared so much as the fashion of dying when I fled from the face of Jezebel. But to-day I am thankful that my dying was not left to my choosing; if it had been so, I had missed the fiery chariot by which I climbed up to the Presence of my King,—the swift seraphic march that brought me home."
And then Jesus might say, perhaps, something like these words—
I wish to have no wishes left,But to leave all to Thee...And yet two wills I find in MeWhen on My death I muse;But, Lord, I have a death to die,And not a death to choose.
Then Moses might speak again: "Let us call God's providences by their sweetest names: death is not death to those who love God. Thou, O Sinless One, call it not death, call it exodus. It was my lot once to lead the people of God out of slavery and degradation, out of heavy labour, out of the furnace of iron; and yet methinks that will be the true exodus when Thy people pass over, O Lord, Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed, when Thou by Thy dying lips dost proclaim deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; when, through the deep sea of Thy sorrows, a passage is made by which the ransomed shall return. Call it not death; call it an exodus—a mighty deliverance of the people of God."
Then Elias: "O Son of God, right well do I know that the strength of one man may be made the strength of many; and the triumph of many may spring from the victory of one. I myself have stood alone in the face of an opposing people; yet by the strength of God I came off conqueror, and many were persuaded to cry, 'The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God,' and the power yet remains in which I stood; it glows, and grows within thee; it floods the air; it streams down thy garments. Fear not! thou shalt bring many souls, not merely to assent to the truth, but to the Truth itself. And especially standing conqueror over death, thou shalt deliver them who were all their lives in bondage through the fear of the same. The love of God shall uphold thee; the strength of God be thine."
Then Jesus: "In the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God."
Then Moses might continue: "Death is our best friend—he strengthens our eyes to behold the glory which in the flesh it would blind us to see. Once I was afraid to behold the glory of God. I stood in a cleft of the rock, covered, as He passed by—but now, now, I can bear to stand and gaze in the presence of my King."
Then Elias would reply: "I too knew what it was to be afraid of His glory; in the mountain I wrapped my face in my mantle, but when His swift messengers came to bear me home, I cast my mantle behind, in token that I would never need it to shroud my face again. It is the same for Thee—already that glory smites upon Thy forehead, and gilds Thy garments, and floods Thy face with light, but beyond, beyond, Thou shalt be crowned with glory and honour."
And Jesus would say, "Thy will be done—Thy will be done."
Then Moses once more: "A mother has two kisses for her child: one, a daybreak kiss, wherewith she draws aside the curtains of the soul; and one a good-night kiss, sometimes given in the dark.
"And so hath the Eternal His two loves: the love in the light, which now encircles us; and the dark love on which our souls lean back to sleep. Those who have felt God's daylight kiss can trust Him for it in the dark. For thee to die will only be to lie back in the Everlasting Arms."
Then Jesus: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."
"And behold there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, and they spake of His exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem."