“What Is A Christian?” Part 6” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
We are continuing, tonight, our current Series, "What Is A Christian?” Last week, we discussed the characteristic of agape` love in answer to the question posed by our Series title, “What Is A Christian?” In the opening of our Discussion two weeks ago, I quoted Jesus' clear statement, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35).
In his Commentary that we saw at that time, Albert Barnes had a series of cross-references, directing us to the admonitions and instructions that presented to the believer about expressing that love ~ agape` love. Tonight, we are going to continue to look at and examine each of those cross-references in their Biblical order, and one at a time:
Tonight, we start with Galatians 6:2-3: “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.”
Of this, Matthew Henry tells us, “We are here directed to bear one another's burdens, Galatians 6:2. This may be considered either as referring to what goes before, and so may teach us to exercise forbearance and compassion towards one another, in the case of those weaknesses, and follies, and infirmities, which too often attend us - that, though we should not wholly connive at them, yet we should not be severe against one another on account of them;
or, as a more general precept, and so it directs us to sympathize with one another under the various trials and troubles that we may meet with, and to be ready to afford each other the comfort and counsel, the help and assistance, which our circumstances may require. To excite us hereunto, the apostle adds, by way of motive, that so we shall fulfil the law of Christ.
This is to act agreeably to the law of his precept, which is the law of love, and obliges us to a mutual forbearance and forgiveness, to sympathy with and compassion towards each other; and it would also be agreeable to his pattern and example, which have the force of a law to us. He bears with us under our weaknesses and follies, he is touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities;
and therefore there is good reason why we should maintain the same temper towards one another. Note, Though as Christians we are freed from the law of Moses, yet we are under the law of Christ; and therefore, instead of laying unnecessary burdens upon others (as those who urged the observance of Moses's law did), it much more becomes us to fulfil the law of Christ by bearing one another's burdens.
The apostle being aware how great a hindrance pride would be to the mutual condescension and sympathy which he had been recommending, and that a conceit of ourselves would dispose us to censure and contemn our brethren, instead of bearing with their infirmities and endeavouring to restore them when overtaken with a fault, he therefore (Galatians 6:3) takes care to caution us against this;
he supposes it as a very possible thing (and it would be well if it were not too common) for a man to think himself to be something - to entertain a fond opinion of his own sufficiency, to look upon himself as wiser and better than other men, and as fit to dictate and prescribe to them - when in truth he is nothing, has nothing of substance or solidity in him, or that can be a ground of the confidence and superiority which he assumes.
To dissuade us from giving way to this temper he tells us that such a one does but deceive himself; while he imposes upon others, by pretending to what he has not, he puts the greatest cheat upon himself, and sooner or later will find the sad effects of it. This will never gain him that esteem, either with God or good men, which he is ready to expect;
he is neither the freer from mistakes nor will he be the more secure against temptations for the good opinion he has of his own sufficiency, but rather the more liable to fall into them, and to be overcome by them; for he that thinks he stands has need to take heed lest he fall.
Instead therefore of indulging such a vain-glorious humour, which is both destructive of the love and kindness we owe to our fellow-christians and also injurious to ourselves, it would much better become us to accept the apostle's exhortation (Philppians_2:3), Do nothing through strife nor vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Note, Self-conceit is but self-deceit: as it is inconsistent with that charity we owe to others (for charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 1 Corinthians 13:4), so it is a cheat upon ourselves; and there is not a more dangerous cheat in the world than self-deceit.”
The Preacher's Homiletical has provides us with multi-faceted insights to these verses: “Bear One Another’s Burdens.—The law of Christ was lovingkindness. His business was benevolence. If we would resemble Him,—1. We must raise up the fallen.—This was hardly ever attempted till Christ set the pattern.
People went wrong, and the world let them go; they broke the laws, and the magistrate punished; they became a scandal, and society cast them out—out of the synagogue, out of the city, out of the world. But with a moral tone infinitely higher Christ taught a more excellent way.
2. We must bear the infirmities of the weak.—Very tiresome is a continual touchiness in a neighbour, or the perpetual recurrence of the same faults in a pupil or child. But if by self-restraint and right treatment God should enable you to cure those faults, from how much shame and sorrow do you rescue them, from how much suffering yourself.
3. We must bear one another’s trials.—With one is the burden of poverty; with another it is pain or failing strength, the extinction of a great hope, or the loss of some precious faculty. A little thing will sometimes ease the pressure.
In a country road you have seen the weary beast with foaming flank straining onward with the overladen cart and ready to give in, when the kindly waggoner called a halt, and propping up the shaft with a slim rod or stake from the hedgerow, he patted and praised the willing creature, till after a little rest they were ready to resume the rough track together. Many a time a small prop is quite sufficient.
4. By thus bearing others’ burdens you will lighten your own.—Rogers the poet has preserved a story told him by a Piedmontese nobleman. “I was weary of life, and after a melancholy day was hurrying along the street to the river, when I felt a sudden check. I turned, and beheld a little boy who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice.
His look and manner were irresistible. Not less so was the lesson I learnt. ‘There are six of us, and we are dying for want of food.’ ‘Why should I not,’ said I to myself, ‘relieve this wretched family? I have the means, and it will not delay me many minutes.’
The scene of misery he conducted me to I cannot describe. I threw them my purse, and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyes; it went as a cordial to my heart. ‘I will call again to-morrow,’ I cried. Fool that I was to think of leaving a world where such pleasure was to be had, and so cheaply.”
There is many a load which only grows less by giving a lift to another. A dim gospel makes a cold Christian; a distant Saviour makes a halting, hesitating disciple.—Dr. James Hamilton.
Bearing One Another’s Burdens.—The metaphor is taken from travellers who used to ease one another by carrying one another’s burdens, wholly or in part, so that they may more cheerfully and speedily go on in their journey. As in architecture all stones are not fit to be laid in every place of the building, but some below and others above the wall, so that the whole building may be firm and compact in itself; so in the Church those who are strong must support the weak.
The Italians have a proverb—Hard with hard never makes a good wall, by which is signified that stones cobbled up one upon another without mortar to combine them make but a tottering wall that may be easily shaken; but if there be mortar betwixt them yielding to the hardness of the stones, it makes the whole like a solid continued body, strong and stable, able to endure the shock of the ram or the shot of the cannon.
So that society, where all are as stiff as stones which will not yield a hair one to another, cannot be firm and durable. But where men are of a yielding nature society is compact, because one bears the infirmities of another. Therefore the strong are to support the weak, and the weak the strong;
as in the arch of a building one stone bears mutually, though not equally, the burden of the rest; or as harts swimming over a great water do ease one another in laying their heads one upon the back of another—the foremost, having none to support him, changing his place and resting his head upon the hindermost.
Thus in God’s providence Luther and Melancthon were happily joined together. Melancthon tempered the heat and zeal of Luther with his mildness, being as oil to his vinegar; and Luther, on the other side, did warm his coldness, being as fire to his frozenness.—Ralph Cudworth.
1. This plan of bearing one another’s burdens is not only good in benefit clubs—it is good in families, in parishes, in nations, in the Church of God. What is there bearing on this matter of prudence that makes one of the greatest differences between a man and a brute beast?
Many beasts have forethought: the sleep-mouse hoards up acorns against the winter, the fox will hide the game he cannot eat. The difference between man and beast is, that the beast has forethought only for himself, but the man has forethought for others also.
2. Just the same with nations. If the king and nobles give their whole minds to making good laws, and seeing justice done to all, and workmen fairly paid, and if the poor in their turn are loyal and ready to fight and work for their king and their nobles, then will not that country be a happy and a great country? 3. Just the same way with Christ’s Church, the company of true Christian men.
If the people love and help each other, and obey their ministers and pray for them, and if the ministers labour earnestly after the souls and bodies of their people, and Christ in heaven helps both minister and people with His Spirit and His providence and protection, if all in the whole Church bear each other’s burdens, then Christ’s Church will stand, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.— Charles Kingsley.”
Let's go on to our next cross-reference, found in 1 Peter 1:22: “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:”
Alexander MacLaren has something to say about this verse: “1 Peter 1:22: PURIFYING THE SOUL: Note these three subsidiary clauses introduced respectively by ‘in,’ ‘through,’ ‘unto.’ They give the means, the Bestower, and the issue of the purity of soul. The Revised Version, following good authorities, omits the clause, ‘through the Spirit.’
It may possibly be originally a marginal gloss of some scribe who was nervous about Peter’s orthodoxy, which finally found its way into the text. But I think we shall be inclined to retain it if we notice that, throughout this epistle, the writer is fond of sentences on the model of the present one, and of surrounding a principal clause with subsidiary ones introduced by a similar sequence of prepositions.
For instance, in this very chapter, to pass over other examples, we read, ‘Kept by’ (or in) ‘the power of God through faith unto salvation.’ So, for my present purpose, I take the doubtful words as part of the original text. They unquestionably convey a true idea, whether they are genuine here or no.
One more introductory remark—’Ye have purified your souls’—a bold statement to make about the vast multitude of the ‘dispersed’ throughout all the provinces of Asia Minor whom the Apostle was addressing. The form of the words in the original shows that this purifying is a process which began at some definite point in the past and is being continued throughout all the time of Christian life.
The hall-mark of all Christians is a relative purity, not of actions, but of soul. They will vary, one from another; the conception of what is purity of soul will change and grow, but, if a man is a Christian, there was a moment in his past at which he potentially, and in ideal, purified his spirit, and that was the moment when he bowed down in obedience to the truth. There are suggestions for volumes about the true conception of soul-purity in these words of my text.
But I deal with them in the simplest possible fashion, following the guidance of these significant little words which introduce the subordinate clauses. First of all, then, we have here the great thought that I. Soul purity is in, or by, obedience. Now, of course, ‘the truth’—truth with the definite article—is the sum of the contents of the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ, His life, His death, His Glory. For to Peter, as to us He should be, Jesus Christ was Truth Incarnate.
‘In Him were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ The first thought that is suggested to me from this expression—obedience to the truth—is that the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is, as its ultimate intention, meant to be obeyed. There are plenty of truths which have no influence on life and conduct, for which all is done that they can demand when they are accepted. |
But the truth is no inert substance like the element which recent chemical discoveries have found, which is named ‘argon,’ the do-nothing: the truth is, as physiologists say, a ferment. It is intended to come into life, and into character, and into the inmost spirit of a man, and grip them, and mould them, and transform them, and animate them, and impel them. The truth is to be ‘obeyed.’
Now that altogether throws over two card-castles which imperfect Christians are very apt to build. One which haunted the thoughts of an earlier generation of Christians more than it does the present, is that we have done all that ‘the truth’ asks of us when we have intellectually endorsed it.
And so you get churches which build their membership upon acceptance of a creed and excommunicate heretics, whilst they keep do-nothing and uncleansed Christians within their pale. But God does not tell us anything that we may know. He tells us in order that, knowing, we may be and do. And right actions, or rather a character which produces such, is the last aim of all knowledge, and especially of all moral and religious truth.
So ‘the truth’ is not ‘argon’, it is a ferment. And if men, steeped to the eyebrows in orthodoxy, think that they have done enough when they have set their hands to a confession of faith, and that they are Christians because they can say, ‘all this I steadfastly believe,’ they need to remember that religious truth which does not mould and transform character and conduct is a king dethroned;
and for dethroned kings there is a short step between the throne from which they have descended and the scaffold on which they die. But there is another—what I venture to call a card-castle, which more of us build in these days of indifference as to creed —
and that is that a great many of us are too much disposed to believe that ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’ has received from us all which it expects when we trust to it for what we call our ‘salvation,’ meaning thereby forgiveness of sins and immunity from punishment.
These are elements of salvation unquestionably, but they are only part of it. And the very truths on which Christian people rest for this initial salvation, which is forgiveness and acceptance, are meant to be the guides of our lives and the patterns for our imitation.
Why, in this very letter, in reference to the very parts of Christ’s work, on which faith is wont to rest for salvation,—the death on the Cross to which we say that we trust, and which we are so accustomed to exalt as a unique and inimitable work that cannot be reproduced and needs no repetition, world without end—
Peter has no hesitation in saying that Christ was our ‘Pattern,’ and that, even when He went to the Cross, He died ‘leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.’ So, brethren, the truth needs to be known and believed: the truth needs not only to be believed but to be trusted in; the truth needs not only to be believed and to be trusted in, but to be obeyed.
Still further, another thought following upon and to some extent modifying the preceding one, is suggested here, and that is that the faith, which I have just been saying is sometimes mistakenly regarded as being all that truth calls for from us, is itself obedience.
As I have said, the language in the original here implies that there was a given definite moment in the past when these dispersed strangers obeyed, and, by obeying the truth, purified their souls. What was that moment? Some people would say the moment when the rite of baptism was administered.
I would say the moment when they bowed themselves in joyful acceptance of the great Word and put out a firm hand of faith to grasp Jesus Christ. That is obedience. For, in the very act of thus trusting, there is self-surrender, is there not? Does not a man depart from himself and bow himself humbly before his Saviour when he puts his trust in Him?
Is not the very essence of obedience, not the mere external act, but the melting of the will to flow in such directions as His master-impulse may guide it? Thus, faith in its depth is obedience; and the moment when a man believes, in the deepest sense of the word, that moment, in the deepest realities of his spirit, he becomes obedient to the will and to the love of his Saviour Lord, Who is the Truth as He is the Way and the Life.
We find, not only in this Epistle, but throughout the Epistles, that the two words ‘disobedience’ and ‘unbelief,’ are used as equivalents. We read, for instance, of those that ‘stumble at the word, being disobedient,’ and the like. So, then, faith is obedience in its depth, and, if our faith has any vitality in it, it carries in it the essence of all submission.
But then, further, my text implies that the faith which is, in its depth, obedience, in its practical issues will produce the practical obedience which the text enjoins. It is no mere piece of theological legerdemain which counts that faith is righteousness. But, just as all sin comes from selfishness, so, and therefore, all righteousness will flow from giving up self, from decentralising, as it were, our souls from their old centre, self, and taking a new centre, God in Christ.
Thus the germ of all practical obedience lies in vital faith. It is, if I might so say, the mother-tincture which, variously combined, coloured, and perfumed, makes all the precious things, the virtues and graces of humanity, which the believing soul pours out as a libation before its God.
It is the productive energy of all practical goodness. It is the bottom heat in the greenhouse which makes all the plants grow and flourish. Faith is obedience, and faith produces obedience. Does my faith produce obedience? If it does not, it is not faith.
Then, with regard to this first part of my subject, comes the final thought that practical obedience works inwards as well as outwards, and purifies the soul which renders it. People generally turn that round the other way, and, instead of saying that to do right helps to make a man right within, they say ‘make the tree good, and its fruit good’—first the pure soul, and then the practical obedience.
Both statements are true. For every act that a man does reacts upon the doer, just as, whether the shot hits the target or not, the gun kicks back on the shoulder of the man that fired it. Conduct comes from character, but conduct works back upon character, and character is largely the deposit from the vanished seas of actions.
So, then, whilst the deepest thought is, be good and you will do good, it is not to be forgotten that the other side is true—do good, and it will tend to make you good. Obedience purifies the soul, while, on the other hand, a man that lives ill comes to think as he lives, and to become tenfold more a child of evil. ‘The dyer’s hand is subdued to what it works in.’ ‘Ye have purified your souls,’ ideally, in the act of faith, and continuously, in the measure in which you practically obey the truth.
We have here II. Purifying through the Spirit. I have already said that these words are possibly no part of the original text, but that they convey a true Christian idea, whether the words are here genuine or no. I need not enlarge upon this part of my subject at any length. Let me just remind you how the other verse in this chapter, to which I have already referred as cast in the same mould as our text, covers, from a different point of view, the same ground exactly as our text.
Here there is put first the human element: ‘Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth,’ and secondly the Divine element; ‘through the Spirit.’ The human part is put in the foreground, and God’s part comes in, I was going to say, subordinately, as a condition.
The reverse is the case in the other text, which runs: ‘Kept in the power of God through faith’—where the Divine element is in the foreground, as being the true cause, and the human dwindles to being merely a condition—’Kept by’ (or in) ‘the power of God through faith.’
Both views are true; you may take the vase by either handle. When the purpose is to stimulate to action, man’s part is put in the foreground and God’s part secondarily. When the purpose is to stimulate to confidence, God’s part is put in the foreground and the man’s is secondary. The two interlock, and neither is sufficient without the other.
The true Agent of all purifying is that Divine Spirit. I have said that the moment of true trust is the moment of initial obedience, and of the beginning of purity. And it is so because, in that moment of initial faith, there enters into the heart the communicated Divine life of the Spirit, which thenceforward is lodged there, except it be quenched by the man’s negligence or sin.
Thence, from that germ implanted in the moment of faith, the germ of a new life, there issue forth to ultimate dominion in the spirit, the powers of that Divine Spirit which make for righteousness and transform the character. Thus, the true cause and origin of all Christian nobility and purity of character and conduct lies in that which enters the heart at the moment that the heart is opened for the coming of the Lord.
But, on the other hand, this Divine Spirit, the Source of all purity, will not purify the soul without the man’s efforts. ‘Ye have purified your souls.’ You need the Spirit indeed. But you are not mere passive recipients. You are to be active co-operators. In this region, too, we are ‘labourers together with God.’
We cannot of ourselves do the work, for the very powers with which we do it, or try to do it, are themselves in need of cleansing. And for a man to try to purify the soul by his own effort alone is to play the part of the sluttish house-wife who would seek to wipe a dish clean with a dirty cloth. You need the Divine Spirit to work in you, and you need to use, by your own effort, the Divine Spirit that does work in you.
He is as a ‘rushing, mighty wind’; but, unless the sails are set and the helm gripped, the wind will pass the boat and leave it motionless. He is Divine fire that burns up the dross and foulness; but, unless we ‘guard the holy fire’ and feed it, it dies down into grey cold ashes.
He is the water of life; but, unless we dig and take heed to keep clear the channels, no refreshing will permeate to the roots of the wilting flowers, and there will be dryness, thirst, and barrenness, even on the river’s banks. So, brethren, neither God alone nor man alone can purify the soul. We need Him, else we shall labour in vain. He needs us, else He will bestow His gift, and we shall receive ‘the grace of God in vain.’
Lastly, we have here III. Purifying ... unto ... love. The Apostle was speaking to men of very diverse nationalities who had been rent asunder by deep gulfs of mutual suspicion and conflicting interests and warring creeds, and a great mysterious, and, as it would seem to the world then, utterly inexplicable bond of unity had been evolved amongst them, and Greek and barbarian, bond and free, male and female, had come together in amity.
The ‘love of the brethren’ was the creation of Christianity, and was the outstanding fact which, more than any other, amazed the beholders in these early days. God be thanked! there are signs in our generation of a closer drawing together of Christian people than many past ages, alas, have seen.
But my text suggests solemn and great thoughts with regard to Christian love and unity. The road to unity lies through purity, and the road to purity lies through obedience. Yes; what keeps Christian people apart is their impurities. It is not their creeds. It is not any of the differences that appear to separate them.
It is because they are not better men and women. Globules of quicksilver will run together and make one mass; but not if you dust them over. And it is the impurities on the quicksilver that keep us from coalescing. So then we have to school ourselves into greater conformity to the likeness of our Master, to conquer selfishness, and to purify our souls, or else all this talk about Christian unity is no better than sounding brass, and more discordant than tinkling cymbals.
Let us learn the lesson. ‘The unfeigned love of the brethren’ is not such an easy thing as some people fancy, and it is not to be attained at all on the road by which some people would seek it. Cleanse yourselves, and you will flow together. Here, then, we have Peter’s conception of a pure soul and a pure life. It is a stately building, based deep on the broad foundation of the truth as it is in Jesus;
its walls rising, but not without our effort, being builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, and having as the shining apex of its heaven-pointing spire ‘unfeigned love to the brethren.’ The measure of our obedience is the measure of our purity. The measure of our purity is the measure of our brotherly love.
But that love, though it is the very aim and natural issue of purity, still will not be realised without effort on our part. Therefore my text, after its exhibition of the process and issues of the purifying which began with faith, glides into the exhortation: ‘See that ye love one another with a pure heart’—a heart purified by obedience—and that ‘fervently.’”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “What Is A Christian? Part 6”
This Discussion was presented “live” on January 31st, 2024.
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