“Barabbas, Part 12:” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
This is Part 12 of our Series, Barabbas. Tonight we will be concluding our second “rabbit trail” in our examination of this topic. That rabbit trail phrase is, “we are.” Barabbas was a valid symbol of us as being guilty and worthy of punishment for our misdeeds, but being chosen without merit, to be released without punishment.
When Barabbas left that Judgment Platform, all similarities ceased for us. Unlike Barabbas, for us – in the present tense – “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:15). We are, now... right now, by and through Christ, renewed and transformed in ways Barabbas never dreamed of. So let's begin...
Our first “we are” declaration, tonight is at Hebrews 3:14: “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;”
The Preacher's Homiletical states, “Safety in continuing.—“If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.” St. Paul expresses the same truth in commending “patient continuance in well-doing.” And the risen and living Lord bade His Church be “faithful unto death.” Older Scriptures present the same truth, “Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord.”
I. There is no safety in beginning a Christian profession.—There might be, if we were translated as soon as we had planted our first footstep on the Christian highway. There is not, because that first step does but start a pilgrimage, which is a serious testing of that beginning. The teaching which exaggerates the safety of an act of beginning is mischievous.
II. There is no safety in spasmodic experiences.—Such as are provided for Christians in times of religious excitement. Many think they are safe because they have felt intense feelings occasionally.
III. There is only safety in continuance and persistency.—Because the Christian life is a moral cult, an advancing sanctification, a man only keeps right by keeping on.”
Albert Barnes adds, “For we are made partakers of Christ - We are spiritually united to the Saviour. We become one with him. We partake of his spirit and his allotments. The sacred writers are accustomed to describe the Christian as being closely united to the Saviour, and as being one with him. The idea is, that we participate in all that pertains to him.
It is a union of feeling and affection; a union of principle and of congeniality; a union of dependence as well as love; a union where nothing is to be imparted by us, but everything gained; and a union, therefore, on the part of the Redeemer of great condescension. It is the union of the branch to the vine, where the branch is supported and nourished by the vine, and not the union of the ivy and the oak, where the ivy has its own roots, and merely clings around the oak and climbs up upon it.
What else can be said so honorable of man as that he is a “partaker of Christ;” that he shares his feelings here, and that he is to share his honors in a brighter world? Compared with this, what is it to participate with the rich and the frivolous in their pleasures; What would it be to share in the honors of conquerors and kings?
{This} cannot signify, as some explain, participation merely in the blessings of Christ’s death, but must be referred, as our author here affirms, to the spiritual union which subsists between Christ and his people. That union doubtless involves, as necessary consequents, “a union of feeling and affection, a union of principle and congeniality, a union of dependence and love.” Yet, we think, it is something more. It is a “real” and vital union, formed by the one Spirit of Christ, pervading the head and the members of the mystical body. And this is the “foundation” of all union of affection, etc.
If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast - If we continue to maintain the same confidence which we had in the beginning, or which we showed at the commencement of our Christian life. At first, they had been firm in the Christian hope. They evinced true and strong attachment to the Redeemer. They were ardent and devoted to his cause. If they continued to maintain that to the end, that is, the end of life;
if in the midst of all temptations and trials they adhered inflexibly to the cause of the Saviour, they would show that they were true Christians, and would partake of the blessedness of the heavenly world with the Redeemer. The idea is, that it is only perseverance in the ways of religion that constitutes certain evidence of piety. Where piety is manifested through life, or where there is an untiring devotion to the cause of God, there the evidence is clear and undoubted.
But where there is at first great ardor, zeal, and confidence, which soon dies away, then it is clear that they never had any real attachment to him and his cause. It may be remarked here, that the “beginning of the confidence” of those who are deceived, and who know nothing about religion at heart, is often as bold as where there is true piety. The hypocrite makes up in ardor what he lacks in sincerity;
and he who is really deceived, is usually deceived under the influence of some strong and vivid emotion, which he mistakes for true religion. Often the sincere convert is calm, though decided, and sometimes is even timorous and doubting; while the self-deceiver is noisy in profession, and clamorous in his zeal, and much disposed to blame the lukewarmness of others.
Evidence of piety, therefore, should not be built on that early zeal; nor should it be concluded that because there is ardor, there is of necessity genuine religion. Ardor is valuable, and true religion is ardent; but there is other ardor than what the gospel inspires.
The evidence of genuine piety is to be found in what will bear us up under trials, and endure amidst persecution and opposition. The doctrine here is, that it is necessary to persevere if we would have the evidence of true piety. This doctrine is taught everywhere in the Scriptures.
Persevere in what? I answer, not: (1) Merely in a profession of religion. A man may do that and have no piety. (2) Not in zeal for party, or sect. The Pharisees had that to the end of their lives. (3) Not in mere honesty, and correctness of external deportment. A man may do that in the church, as well as out of it, and yet have no religion.
But we should persevere: (1) In the love of God and of Christ - in conscious, ardent, steady attachment to Him to whom our lives are professedly devoted. (2) In the secret duties of religion. In that watchfulness over the heart; that communion with God; that careful study of the Bible; that guardianship over the temper;
and in that habitual contact with God in secret prayer which is appropriate to a Christian, and which marks the Christian character. (3) In the performance of the public duties of religion; in leading a “Christian” life - as distinguished from a life of worldliness and vanity; a life of mere morality, and honesty; a life such as thousands lead who are out of the church.
There is something which distinguishes a Christian from one who is not a Christian; a religious from an irreligious man.
There is “something” in religion; “something” which serves to characterize a Christian, and unless that something is manifested, there can be no evidence of true piety. The Christian is to be distinguished in temper, feeling, deportment, aims, plans, from the people of this world - and unless those characteristics are shown in the life and deportment, there can be no well-founded evidence of religion.
Learn: (1) That it is not mere “feeling” that furnishes evidence of religion. (2) That it is not mere “excitement” that constitutes religion. (3) That it is not mere ardor. (4) That it is not mere zeal. All these may be temporary. Religion is something that lasts throughout life. It goes with a person everywhere. It is with him in trial.
It forms his plans; regulates his temper; suggests his words; prompts to his actions. It lives with him in all his external changes, and goes with him through the dark valley of death, and accompanies him up to the bar of God, and is with him forever.”
Still in the Book of Hebrews, our next “we are” stop is in Hebrews 10:10: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Matthew Henry writes, “From the errand and design upon which Christ came; and this was to do the will of God, not only as a prophet to reveal the will of God, not only as a king to give forth divine laws, but as a priest to satisfy the demands of justice, and to fulfil all righteousness. Christ came to do the will of God in two instances.
1. In taking away the first priesthood, which God had no pleasure in; not only taking away the curse of the covenant of works, and canceling the sentence denounced against us as sinners, but taking away the insufficient typical priesthood, and blotting out the hand-writing of ceremonial ordinances and nailing it to his cross.
2. In establishing the second, that is, his own priesthood and the everlasting gospel, the most pure and perfect dispensation of the covenant of grace; this is the great design upon which the heart of God was set from all eternity. The will of God centers and terminates in it; and it is not more agreeable to the will of God than it is advantageous to the souls of men; for it is by this will that we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Hebrews 10:10.
Observe, (1.) What is the fountain of all that Christ has done for his people - the sovereign will and grace of God. (2.) How we come to partake of what Christ has done for us - by being sanctified, converted, effectually called, wherein we are united to Christ, and so partake of the benefits of his redemption; and this sanctification is owing to the oblation he made of himself to God.”
Our next "we are" stop is found in 1 John 2:5: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.”
John Gills writes, “But whoso keepeth his word,.... Either the word of the Gospel, and the truths of it, who receives it in love, cordially embraces and retains it, and will by no means part with it, but holds it fast, and stands fast in it; or the precepts and ordinances of the word, who loves these, and esteems them above fine gold, and concerning all things to be right, and observes them as they should be:
in him verily is the love of God perfected: not the love wherewith God loves him, for that is perfect in himself, and admits of no degrees, and cannot be more or less in his heart, and is entirely independent of the obedience of men, or any works of theirs; it is true indeed the manifestations of this love to the saints are imperfect, and may be more and greater, and greater manifestations of love are promised to such that love Christ, and keep his commandments;
but here it is to be understood not actively, but passively, of the love wherewith God is loved by his people; and intends not the absolute perfection of it in them, in whom it often waxes cold, and is left, or the fervour of it abated, but the sincerity and reality of it; for by keeping the word of God, both his truths and his ordinances, it is clearly seen that their love to him is without dissimulation, and is not in tongue only, but in deed and in truth:,
now it is not the keeping of the word of God that causes this love, or makes it perfect or sincere, for it is a fruit of the Spirit, and is owing to the grace of God; but love, on the other hand, is the cause of keeping of the word; and the latter being a consequent and an effect of the former, is the evidence of it, of the truth and sincerity of it:
hereby know we that we are in him: in Christ, not merely nominally, or by profession, as all that name the name of Christ, and are in a Gospel church state, may be said to be; but really, first secretly, through the love of Christ, the election of God, and the covenant of grace, and then openly, in conversion and the effectual calling, through believing in Christ, when the saints appear to be in him as branches in the vine;
and which is known by their fruits, as here, by keeping the word, and doing the commandments of Christ, which do not put a man into Christ, but only show that he is there; for a man's being in Christ is owing to the grace of God; this is the first thing done in grace.”
Our next “we are” stop is in 1 John 3:19: “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”
The Sermon Bible tells us, “The Good and the Bad Conscience. There is many a text concerning which it may be said that, without an earnest study of the whole chapter, of the whole context, or of the whole Epistle to which it belongs, it would be impossible to get at its depth and fulness.
Just as the geologist may mark the beauty of the crystal without attempting to set forth all the marvellous and subtle lines of its formation, so, without any possibility of showing all which a text articulates, a preacher may yet be thankful if he be enabled to bring before you with it only one or two thoughts such as may serve to the building up of the Christian life. St. John is dealing in our text with tests of sonship.
He is telling us how we may decide the infinitely important question whether or not we are children of God. He is speaking to Christians, Christians, it may be, wavering, but still Christians, who shone as bright lights in that dark heathen world. However, the Apostle St. John makes love—that is to say, absolute unselfishness, a perfect and intense desire to devote our lives to the good of others—the one supreme test of spirituality.
"My little children," he says, "let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." And then he adds, "And hereby we recognise that we are of the truth, and that truth shall assure our hearts before Him." The word "truth" in St. John, as in many other places of Scripture, means reality. If we belong to the truth, the real and eternal world, then, having God as our hope and strength, we are safe, and the world cannot hurt us; no storms can wreck our inward happiness.
If we belong to a false world, our life is a failure, our death a terror. We are on the path that leads to destruction. There are in this world two paths: one a condition of fear and peril, wherein a man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain; but the other is the hope that maketh not ashamed. St. John refers to conscience as the supreme arbiter in this awful question.
Who does not know the use of the conscience? The Hebrews in the Old Testament use the word for truth and spirit to convey the same meaning. And the conscience of each one of us either condemns us or condemns us not.
I. Let us take the case of the absolving conscience: "Brethren, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." The Apostle defines wherein this confidence consists; it is boldness of access to God; it is a certainty that our filial prayers will, in their best and highest sense, be heard and answered.
It is the consciousness of a life which leans on the arm of Christ, and keeping His commandments, is so transformed by the spirit of Divine life as to be conscious it is one with God. Yet there is such a thing as a spurious conscience. But when the oracle of conscience has been so tried, it can neither stand John’s test nor give us peace.
When our conscience acquits us, malediction becomes of none effect. It is simply impossible for any good and great man to go through the world, whether on the lighted stage of a public career, or in the office, or in the workshop, or in the back street, without the chance of suffering from unkindness and misconception, without not only his real errors, which all men do commit, being exaggerated, but his honest intentions, his most blessed and most intense actions, being depreciated.
Yet he will all the while remember this was the case of the Master, Christ. However much reviled, He calmly and humbly committed Himself to Him who judgeth righteously. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God."
II. Now turn to the other case—the case of the condemning conscience: "Brethren, if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." What do these words mean? Are they merely a contemplation? Do they mean to warn us? Do they mean that we stand self-condemned in that silent court of justice which we ever bear about within ourselves, ourselves the judge and jury and ourselves the prisoner at the bar?
If we stand thus self-condemned by the incorruptible judge within us, in spite of all our ingenious pleadings and infinite excuses for ourselves, how much more searching, more awful, more true, must be the judgment of Him who is "greater than our heart, and who knoweth all things." Or, on the other hand, is it a word of hope?
Is it the cry, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee"? Is it the affirmation that if we be but sincere we may appeal to God and not be condemned? I believe this latter is the meaning. The Christian’s heart may turn to a gracious, pardoning Omniscience, and be comforted by the thought that his conscience is but a water-pot, whereas God’s love is a deep sea of compassion. He will look upon us with larger and other eyes than ours, and make allowance for us all.
II. God knoweth all things, while our heart is ignorant and blind. Whatever light or power of discernment conscience has, it receives from God. Not a few Christians live habitually in a state of self-accusation. They live in anticipation of Divine judgment. Life is one continuous arraignment at the bar of conscience, spite of all their prayer, and striving, and study of the word.
Is it the appropriate daily occupation of a child of God to be a mere bookkeeper, writing down bitter things against himself? And then, once more, it is true that many Christians do not carry up their case from the bar of the heart. It is at this mistake that the Apostle’s words are aimed.
The whole text carries a protest and an antidote against that kind of piety which is too contemplative and self-scrutinising; which is always studying self for the evidences of a right spiritual relation and condition; which tests growth in grace by the tension of feeling; which limits God’s presence by the sense of His presence;
which reckons the spiritual latitude and longitude by the temperature of emotion, as if a sailor should take his reckoning by the thermometer. Feeling, religious sensibility, have their place in the Christian economy, and a high and sacred place it is; but its place is not the judgment-seat.
M. R. Vincent, The Covenant of Peace, p. 160. References: 1Jn_3:20.—J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, pp. 123, 137, 151. 1Jn_3:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1855; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 260. 1Jn_3:22-24.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1103. 1Jn_3:23.—Ibid., vol. ix., No. 531; Mackarness, Church of England Pulpit, vol. x., p. 313. 1Jn_3:23, 1Jn_3:24.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 316.”
Our next “we are” declaration is found in 1 John 4. I have included verses 4, 5 and 6 for greater continuity: “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. 6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”
Of this Matthew Henry writes, “In these verses the apostle encourages the disciples against the fear and danger of this seducing antichristian spirit, and that by such methods as these: - 1. He assures them of a more divine principle in them: “You are of God, little children. You are God's little children. We are of God. We are born of God, taught of God, anointed of God, and so secured against infectious fatal delusions.
God has his chosen, who shall not be mortally seduced.” 2. He gives them hope of victory: “And have overcome them. You have hitherto overcome these deceivers and their temptations, and there is good ground of hope that you will do so still, and that upon these two accounts:” -
(1.) “There is a strong preserver within you: Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. The Spirit of God dwells in you, and that Spirit is more mighty than men or devils.” It is a great happiness to be under the influence of the Holy Ghost.
(2.) “You are not of the same temper with these deceivers. The Spirit of God hath framed your mind for God and heaven; but they are of the world. The spirit that prevails in them leads them to this world; their heart is addicted thereto; they study the pomp, the pleasure, and interest of the world: and therefore speak they of the world; they profess a worldly messiah and saviour; they project a worldly kingdom and dominion;
the possessions and treasures of the world would they engross to themselves, forgetting that the true Redeemer's kingdom is not of this world. This worldly design procures them proselytes: The world heareth them. They are followed by such as themselves: the world will love its own, and its own will love it. But those are in a fair way to conquer pernicious seductions who have conquered the love of this seducing world.”
Then, 3. He represents to them that though their company might be the smaller, yet it was the better; they had more divine and holy knowledge: “He that knoweth God heareth us. He who knows the purity and holiness of God, the love and grace of God, the truth and faithfulness of God, the ancient word and prophecies of God, the signals and testimonials of God, must know that he is with us;
and he who knows this will attend to us, and abide with us.” He that is well furnished with natural religion will the more faithfully cleave to Christianity. He that knoweth God (in his natural and moral excellences, revelations, and works) heareth us.
As, on the contrary, “He that is not of God heareth not us. He who knows not God regards not us. He that is not born of God (walking according to his natural disposition) walks not with us. The further any are from God (as appears in all ages) the further they are from Christ and his faithful servants; and the more addicted persons are to this world the more remote they are from the spirit of Christianity.
Thus you have a distinction between us and others: Hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. This doctrine concerning the Saviour's person leading you from the world to God is a signature of the Spirit of truth, in opposition to the spirit of error. The more pure and holy any doctrine is the more likely is it to be of God.”
Our final “we are” declaration, tonight, and for the Series is found in 1 John 5:19: “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”
Of this, Alexander MacClaren writes, “‘We know that we are of God.’ Where did John get that form of expression, which crops up over and over again in his letter? He got it where he got most of his terminology, from the lips of the Master. For, if you remember, our Lord Himself speaks more than once of men being ‘of God.’ As, for instance, when He says, ‘He that is of God heareth God’s words. Ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God.’
‘Ye are of God,’ kindred with Him and developing a life which, in its measure, being derived and dependent, is cognate with, and assimilated to, His own. This is the prerogative of every Christian soul. And now, before I go further, one word. It is a shame, and a laming and a weakening of any Christian life, that this triumphant confidence should not be clear in it. ‘We know that we are of God.’ Can you and I echo that with calm confidence?
‘I sometimes half hope that I am.’ ‘I am almost afraid to say it.’ ‘I do not know whether I am or not.’ ‘I trust I may be.’ That is the kind of creeping attitude in which hosts of Christian people are contented to live; and they stare at a man as if he was presumptuous, and soaring up into a region that they do not know anything about, when he humbly echoes the Apostle, and says, ‘We know that we are God’s.’
Why should our skies be as grey and sunless as those of a northern winter’s day when all the while, away down on the sunny seas, to which we may voyage if we will, there are unbroken sunshine, ethereal blue, and a perpetual blaze of light? Christian men and women it concerns the power of your lives, their progress in holiness, and their possession of peace, that you should be far more able than, alas! Many of us are, to say, and that without presumption, ‘ We know that we are of God.’
III. Lastly, consider the consequent Christian duty. Let me put two or three plain exhortations. I beseech you, Christian people; cultivate the sense of belonging to a higher order than that in which you dwell. A man in a heathen land loses his sense of home, and of its ways;
and it needs a perpetual effort in order that we should not forget our true affinities... But unless we are ever and anon seeking to renew that consciousness, it will fade and become dim, and we shall forget the imperial palace whence we came, and be content to live in the barren fields of the citizens of that country, and even to feed upon the husks that are in the swine’s trough. So I say, cultivate the sense of belonging to God.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Barabbas, Part 12.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on June 29th, 2022.
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