The More Excellent Way

The More Excellent Way

"THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY."
By W. D. CAMPBELL
This New Testament psalm on love, has been read in your hearing, beloved, as a basis for some remarks on "the more excellent way". The great apostle to the Gen­tiles closed the twelfth chapter of his epistle to the Chris­tians at Corinth with these words: "But covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way". There is something better than miracle working- power, or spiritual gifts; which the early church possessed; and we do not. 'This best of all things is shown in the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians, of which, Dr. Meyers has said: "'This praise of love almost a psalm on love, it might be called, is as rich in its contents, drawn from deep experience, as in rhetorical truth, fullness, and power, grace, and simplicity." The apostle Paul in the twelfth chapter sets forth the church under the figure of a human body, which has many members, and organs, but all parts of one body. Each member a part, each necessary; and each member set where God pleased, and all taken together make up the body. They are parts of a united whole, and work in perfect harmony in their several places: 'True, they are different in form and service. They do not look alike, but they work with each other; and never against each other: What a fitting figure of the body of Christ, the church of God: Now Paul said further; God hath set some in the church, first apostles, sec­ondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues". In this chapter, the apostle makes mention of nine spiritual gifts; and here we have the nine positions, in the primitive church filled by those gifts; that is, by men with miracle working powers, placed in the church by­God for a purpose—Did the miraculously endowed men of the apostolic age accomplish their work? If they did, then the miracle working powers have passed away. If not, we should still have men with supernatural gifts in the church. It is claimed that we should have apostles, and prophets, miracles, and gifts of healing now in the church, because God set them in the church. True, but for what purpose, and how long were miraculous powers to con­tinue? Paul said in answer to the first question: "And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evan­gelists, and some pastors, and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints; for the work of the ministry; for the edify­ing of the body of Christ: 'Till,'" mark the word, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ". (Ephesians 1:11-13) ("Unto a perfect man", a perfect body or organization). Until a perfect revelation had been made. This then was God's purpose in giving miracle working power to the early church. Remember that, the church was then in its childhood: The body of Christ growing into a perfect man or organization: These powers were then needed for the perfection of the body. To give the divine constitu­tion, and complete the organization. The extraordinary was needed to create only. The ordinary perpetuates. This we know is true in nature, and it is also true in grace, or revelation. These su])erriatural powers were necessary in establishing the church, and confirming the truth. Just as a scaffold is necessary in building a house, but when the house is completed, the scaffolding is no longer necessary. When the church was established, and the Christian system confirmed supernatural gifts ceased. They served their purpose, for truth once confirmed needs no further con­firmation. And further, my friends, the apostles, and pro­phets, with their supernatural powers are with us in their records, in the constitution of the church, but they have no successors: As Christ is still the head of the church, and in the church; in his word, his law, his government; al­though in person, he is in heaven, and not in the church, as he was among men. We have no more reason for men now to succeed the apostles, or the men of the New Testa­ment age, who exercised spiritual gifts, and miracle work­ing power, than we need a person to succeed the Christ. Christ finished his work; so did the apostles: Paul makes plain, that the extraordinary gifts would pass way. Hut that faith, hope, love; these three would abide permanently, and that as great principles, they are sufficient for the sal­vation of mankind.

It is my purpose to place before you, the spirit's leaching on the more excellent way; the. best of all things, which we all can possess: Faith, Hope, Love. I submit to you that each grace is a sublime theme in itself: Faith leans on Christ, and hope hangs by faith, and love leans on both faith and hope. Paul affirms that "Without faith it is impossible to please God". It should be the one supreme purpose of the human heart to please God, be­cause he first loved us; and we are wholly dependent upon him for all things; and further, the apostle teaches, that to please God, we must come to him in the way, in which he has appointed by faith: "For whatsoever is not of faith is sin". It is most important, that we have a clear cut idea of faith. What it is; how it comes; and what it does: "To the law and to the testimony, what saith the Scriptures"? The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is de­voted to the subject of faith. The apostle first tells us what faith is, and then shows what faith does. That is. he shows us what faith is, by showing what faith accom­plished in the lives of Old Testament characters. He has given in that chapter a number of examples of the power of faith. Christianity is a system of faith: "The just shall live by faith. We walk by faith". It follows that as faith has such an important bearing on our lives, we should clearly understand, just what it is, and what it does for us. There is more or less confusion in the religious world on the, subject. We want if possible to strip it of all the mysticism, that speculative teaching has thrown about it. and let the light of the inspired word shine upon it. and the darkness of error will be dispelled.

What is faith? Paul said. "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen"—This translation or rendering leaves the idea rather obscure. Substance is an old English word, and means literally, that which stands under. Thus faith is that which stands under our hope, or sustains our hope. The emphatic Diaglott renders the verse as follow: "Faith is the basis, (or foun­dation) of things hoped for, a conviction of things unseen." Now to my mind, this rendering is as clear as the sunlight, with reference to things unseen, and that includes hope— For when we hope for anything, it is future: It is unseen to us. We do not hope in regard to the past—nor the present. The apostle said: "What a man seeth, why doth lie yet hope for"? Now with reference to things unseen, whether in the past, the present or future, faith is a con­viction, and that means, that when we have faith, concern­ing them, we are convinced in regard to them. We receive them as true. To receive a thing as true is faith. What more can you do? Faith then is the confidence, which we have of things, which we have not seen. I believe, that there is a place called "London", a great city twenty-five miles square; I believe, that there is a place called "heaven", a city that "lieth four square"—The former I have seen, but the latter I have not seen, but I have a firm persuasion, a conviction, that it exists, and my conviction is based on testimony.

Thus to have faith, we must have testimony, and testimony has to do with facts. The religion of Jesus is based on facts. The gospel is a revelation of facts. A fact is something done—this is why we sometimes say: "Facts are stubborn things". There is a difference between a fact, and a truth. That God is, that he exists is a truth, but not a fact. That God created the heaven and the earth is both a fact and a truth: That he did something. The gospel of Christ reveals facts, stupendous facts; God loved us; lie sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world; Jesus lived for us; loved us; died for our sins; broke the power of death and arose from the grave triumphant, in order to assure us, of a final justification. These facts appeal to us. They have been given to the world by infallible wit­nesses. To receive them as true is faith. Thus the order of revelation, as well as reason is facts, testimony, faith, feeling. Faith is the belief of testimony. No testimony. no faith. To believe without testimony is as impossible as to see without light. Where testimony stops, our faith stops, weak testimony, weak faith; strong testimony, strong faith; human testimony, human faith, divine testimony, divine faith, if we were shut up or confined to the testi­mony of Moses and the prophets, and even that of John the Baptist, no man in the world would have believed that Jesus died, spoiled death, and broke the sceptre of the tomb. Because there would be no testimony upon which to base such faith. And I might add here, that there is no difference between faith and belief. They are used interchangeably in the Sacred Text, first by Jesus, and then by Paul. And this effort to divide, and subdivide faith, and make a distinction between faith and belief—and all this talk about the nature of faith is learned or unlearned nonsense, I don't care which you call it. It only tends to confuse, and bewilder honest men and women. It only darkens counsel to divide and subdivide faith into historical faith, and evangelical, and saving faith, as is often clone. There is no faith worth anything, that is not historical either oral or written. And if you mean by historical faith, the faith that comes by hearing or reading the testi­mony given by the four inspired historians of Jesus; then of course, I believe in historical faith. But why use so many qualifying terms, which only tend to bewilder the common people—Paul said "there is one faith". Let us be satisfied with the divine testimony. The learned Pollock said:

"Faith was bewildered much by men who meant,
To make it clear so simple in itself. * * *
All faith was one, in object, not in kind,
The difference lay; the faith that saves a soul
And that, which in the common truth believed,
In essence were the same; hear, then, what faith,
True Christian faith, which brought salvation, w
as Belief in all that God revealed to men:
Observe—in all that God revealed to men,
In all he promised, threatened, commanded, said.
Without exception, and without a doubt". The Lord Jesus has made faith a means of our salvation. Its purpose is to purify the heart: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith", said Paul. To the same purpose Peter testified: "And put no difference between us. and them, (that is Jew and Gentile) purifying their hearts by faith." But it is not so much the act of believing that saves us. as what we believe. John wrote. "But these are written that ye might believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name." The R. V. Version, with other Versions, render the passage thus: "But these are written that we may believe." that ye may have life; what a man may believe, he may also not believe; what a man may have, he may also not have. The thought of the writer is simply this: that the evidence is sufficient to con­vince any honest mind, that Jesus is the Son of God. But if you will not to believe, you may not believe. You may act perfectly free in the matter. God compels no one to receive the testimony concerning his son. But if you do not believe, you bring yourselves under condemnation— But the faith that saves, is an active, living faith; a faith that is made perfect by obedience. The Apostle James, in his epistle propounded two questions in a most forceful manner: First, "What profit has faith without works?" What does a profession amount to if it does not do some­thing; even faith is of no value unless it actualizes itself by obedience, by works. And the second question is equally to the point: "Can faith (that is faith alone) save him"? The inspired apostle by his teaching, says no. A faith my friends, that has no power to bring one to obedience to Christ, and lead to a Christ-like life of service, is as worth­less, as good wishes, which end in words, rather than deeds. Faith cannot stand alone, and be of any avail. Faith and works must go hand in hand, God has so arranged it. Two little boys (brothers) went clown to see if the pond was frozen. They had been anxiously, waiting for the time for skating. They found it covered with ice. They first discussed the strength of the ice. They tried it out as boys do, by throwing rocks on it, to see if it would break, Jimmie said: " I believe that it will bear". "Try it then," said Johnnie, "go on it". "No!" said Jimmie. "Then you don't believe that it will bear" said his brother. And un­friends if your faith does not move you to venture on Christ, to confess his name, and submit to his authority, your faith will not save you.

I can only briefly place before you the Holy Spirit's teaching on Hope: "Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear, what we shall be, hut we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and every man that hath (his hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." "for we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it." "He hath begotten us again to a living hope by the resur­rection of Jesus Christ from the dead; to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled. and that fadeth not away re­served in heaven for you"—So testify three apostles of Jesus, John, Paul, and Peter. With this inspired teaching before us. we can safely conclude, that hope, Christian hope has to do with the future; it never looks backward, and does not even contemplate the present. It looks for­ward to future objects. Paul said, "What a man seeth why does he vet hope for it"; or as rendered by the learned McKnight: "Now hope that is attained is not hope, for who can hope for that, which he enjoys, but if we hope for that, which we do not enjoy, then with patience, we wait for it." This is plain. Hope then is made up of two elements, namely desire and expectation. We desire cer­tain things because they are desirable, and we expect to enjoy them, because they are promised. Hope then em­braces promises, that are desirable, and we expect to enjoy them because the great God, who can not lie promised them: Hence the foundation of our hope is our faith in God. and the foundation of our faith is the word of God: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie. his word of promise, confirmed by an oath: As men every where place so much confidence in an oath God therefore condescended to human weakness, and cus­tom in order to give to his children every possible ground of encouragement: He confirmed his promise with an oath, and because he could swear by no greater; he swore by himself—making his word, as it were, doubly sure—that we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us in the gospel: This is the very foundation of the Christian's hope; which the apostle says is as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that, which is within the vail: This hope, and by the way, there is but one hope, embraces so much: The things hoped for are beyond description: "Eye hath not seen, nor car heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things, which God hath prepared for them that love him." The resurrection of the dead: we desire it, we expect it; the new and glorified body. The new heaven and the new earth in which the redeemed shall dwell, and a reunion with loved ones in that sinless summer land. Truly it is a blessed hope; what would life be without the glorious hope of the gospel. Some one has written: "The inside of every cloud is bright and shining. I'll therefore turn my clouds about; and always wear them inside out, to show their lin­ing". Let us cherish the hope which the gospel gives. It is to the soul, what the anchor is to the ship. This is the only place in the Sacred Text where an anchor is used as a figure of hope, but it is a striking figure—the ship may be tossed on the waves, in a raging storm, but so long as the anchor holds, the ship rides in safety over the troubled waters; and so on the sea of life, the waves of trouble and trial, and misfortune may beat upon the Christian, and try his soul, but as long as his hope is sure and steadfast anchored in Christ; they beat in vain, for he is perfectly secure. The seaman casts the iron anchor downward into the sea, and when it takes hold in the bed of the ocean, the greater the storm, and the heavier the strain that comes on it, the deeper, and firmer grow its hold. The Christian throws the hope anchor upward into heaven, and beloved in the storms of life, its tempta­tions and trials instead of driving us away from our an­chorage; they only tend to fix our hope more firmly on the Rock of Ages. Do you enjoy this hope beloved? If not, why not? It is based on the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. To have this hope, you must be in Christ, and abide in him. To be in Christ you must come into Christ, and you come into him by believing what he says, and doing what he commands. And now in conclusion, a word of the greatest thing in the world, "Love". It glorifies faith, and hope, it beautifies life. It is the motive power of the gospel. It is the one great element in the Christian system that is divine. "God is love". "We love, him, because he first loved us". "The love of Christ constrains us". God com- mendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, in open rebellion, God loved us, he so loved us. that he gave that, which was nearest and dearest to him. His own precious Son, to be a sin offering for a sinful world. Jesus came and lived for us, loved us, and died, that he might win us back to his father. Love begets love, just like hatred begets hatred. Jesus says, I loved you, I gave my life for you, won't you love me? Your own heart says I ought to love a Saviour like Jesus of Nazareth. Do you know mv friends, that loving Christ is not a mere sentiment; just having a good feeling toward him. It is a most practical something; it can be meas­ured. Jesus said: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them he it is that loveth me." Love for Christ is determined at the point of whole hearted obedience to Him. In the chapter, which has been the basis of our leaching. Paul mentions seven things which love will do -and nine things which love will not do. Let us study the chapter, and cultivate this greatest of all graces; so that we may do the things, which love does—and not do the things, which love does not do, and thus partake of the divine nature and grow into the divine life and likeness. One of the things, that love will not do, is stated in these words: "love thinketh no evil". How apt we are to think evil one of another. To be suspicious, and often times misjudge. The love which God sheds abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, will lift us above this human weakness, and lead us to grow more and more Christ-like, and unselfish. The love of a good mother is the highest type of human love; like a golden cord, it binds youth to old age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or whitened his hair, who can yet recall the fond devotion, and the tender love, of the best human friend that God ever gave us—"Mother"'. She never thinks evil of her children; the boys may some­times do wrong, but mother puts the best construction upon their waywardness. The girls may go astray, but mother forgives. The story is told of a young man, the only son and support of a poor widow; who was charged with murder, tried, and condemned to death; his mother could not believe him guilty; she would not allow the thought a place in her heart. Day after day, she went to see her boy, to comfort him, determined to stand by him. One day she met a preacher of the gospel, whom she knew in the corridor of the prison. He had just had a heart to heart talk with her son. In that interview, the young man said: "I am guilty, the finding of the court is just. I committed the deed, when under the influence of liquor." He. said to the preacher: "I want von to warn the boys against the cup that ruins—I am deeply penitent,sir, and my only worry now is, that when mv precious mother realizes that I am a murderer, it will kill her". The poor woman said to the preacher: "I want to talk to you—everybody is down on my poor boy; everybody seems to condemn him; do you think he is guilty of this terrible crime?'' The preacher replied, "My dear woman, I would rather not talk about it". He could not bear to tell her what he knew. He just could not bear to crush her. She said but I want to talk, I cannot think of anything else. I have confidence in you. Finally the preacher said: "You poor mother, your son has just confessed to me that he is guilty, that he is deeply penitent." He tried to say something that might comfort her, but she did not seem to hear. The word guilty filled her whole soul with a great sorrow. Her body shook with emotion, her form bent forward and her tears fell on the stone floor at her feet. Finally she straightened up and looking into the preacher's face, she said, "Well, I. love him anyhow." My friends, if God did not love us anyhow, we would be lost beyond hope; when we were in sin and under con­demnation, the great God pitied us, he so loved us as to give the Son of his love to die, for us. Jesus came and opened up the new and living way, by which we can re­turn to God, and become sons and daughters by adoption.

Jesus invites you to come; his sweet voice speaks to you in his gospel, saying I loved you, I died for you—I invite you—Then come believing, come repenting, come confess­ing, come to obey the Prince of all the Kings of the earth,