06 - John 5:25

’Verily, verily I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.’ -John 5:25. A REFEEENCE to the verse preceding, dwelt upon in our last, shows that it is the spiritually dead who are here spoken of; the life to be communicated by the voice of the Son of God is life in the true sense, the high sense, everlasting life, life corresponding to his own. Unforgiven sin is death; for it is alienation from God, in whom alone is life. Against this "verily, verily" -- that man is dead in trespasses and sins, and necessarily and naturally incapable of conquering life for himself, -- the armies of the present day are arrayed under the leadership of many. This may be said to be the great issue between the Bible and Modern Thought. All other differences will easily be composed, when this fundamental question of man’s condition is settled. Unhappily, modern society does not seem to be making much progress in the direction of a solution. For the world is daily making many intellectual conquests; solving many scientific problems; dissipating many mysteries; vastly enlarging the area of human knowledge; changing the face of the earth; and has only so much time to spare from its labours as is needed for the work of self glorification. If it was a hard matter for the Laodicean Christians to learn that they were poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked, when they thought themselves rich and increased in goods and needing nothing, how vastly more difficult must it be for this wisest of generations to receive the testimony of Christ that it is spiritually dead and helplessly alienated from God!

Men who have daily experience of the power of well applied thought to master, in every other department of knowledge, new and important truths, and to discover, in heaven and on earth, in the stellar worlds and in a drop of water, wonders that had been hidden from the foundation of the world, are at a loss to understand why they should not be competent to determine of themselves what pure and undefiled religion is, to sit in judgment upon the Bible, and to create a theology which their forefathers knew not. How is it that they can improve on everything else that has come down from antiquity, and cannot improve upon Christianity? Why should the superior acumen that enables us to pronounce decisively as to the plans and errors of other ancient works, fail us when we turn to the writings of the apostles and prophets? We receive the wise thoughts of former days as seeds into our minds, and lo, they germinate abundantly; what should hinder that we should in like manner carry to a higher development the thoughts of God, of salvation, of the life to come, that were formerly propounded? To these questions men are impatient of any but one answer, and that is one that concedes to them the power of ascertaining religious truth for themselves.

They are deceived by a false analogy. There is a difference between religious truth and other truth; other truth does not come to them for the purpose of spoiling them of what they hold most dear; it does not come to humble them and to shame them. In all their scientific attainments they have self complacency. The discoveries they make in geology, astronomy, ethnology or natural philosophy, do not make known to them any moral delinquencies or any painful duties. It is a fact of which they willingly are ignorant, that the conscience stubbornly resists all enlightenment that is calculated to rob it of its peace, and substitute self condemnation for self complacency. If the analysis of the solar spectrum should begin to show a man that he was some thousands of pounds in debt, or that he had committed some state prison offence, that analysis would quickly be looked at with suspicion, and very different results be soon obtained; violet would become yellow, and black lines would disappear.

Before a man can receive the life that the Son of God has to offer he must receive the assurance of the Bible that sin is death, and its chains as binding on the soul as those of physical death are on the exanimate body. "After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." The Gospel is reputed foolishness because it makes nothing of man’s wisdom, and declares that the Babel of science can never reach heaven. The wisest and the meanest of mankind must sit on the same bench to be taught the way of salvation. Except we become as little children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. See this whole subject thoroughly treated in the first three chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The hour cometh. It now is. Even when our Lord was on the earth, the word spoken by him was not without a life giving power. Some took up their cross and followed him, sacrificing their reputation for wisdom, and becoming fools in the estimation of men that they might have the wisdom from above which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, without partiality and without hypocrisy, full of mercy and good fruits. And now too we are not without examples of this power of the Spirit driven word to convince of sin and reveal the righteousness of Christ. And the redeemed of these eighteen centuries, how great a cloud of witnesses they are, testifying from realms of everlasting blessedness that the word of Christ maketh wise unto salvation. Yes, no man need wait for the hour to come, that he may experience the saving power of Christ’s word. This very hour of thy sin and need is the hour when salvation is knocking at the door of thy heart, by the word of the Son of God. Wait not for that word to gather strength; it is the very word that caused light to shine out of darkness; that upholdeth all things; that broke the proud heart of Saul of Tarsus, of John Newton, and of thousands like them; it will never be diviner than it now is. But the seed may not show its strength till it is embraced by the soil; it is only in the lungs that air will be life to thee; take unto thee in faith the word of Christ, and thou shalt have experience that this is no other than the word of the Son of God, no other than the Word that was with God and is God.