11. Chapter 11: Concluding Thoughts
Chapter XI.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS In closing these simple pages, let me put before my friend and reader a few remarks, somewhat detached in form. i. First, an earnest caution against an overdrawnintrospection. It may be thought that this book itself looks another way, often suggesting and encouraging a close inward examination. I do indeed seek to press, on myself first, the duty of self-examination, a scrutiny within that shall not stop short of motive, purpose, inmost state of affection and will. Many Christian lives, I am sure, greatly lose in depth, consistency, and chastened soberness, by failure to examine within; and the habit and practice of such examination, not without a certain system, is a duty of Christian life. For most of us it would be well to make this exercise a regular element, say, in secret evening devotion.
Nevertheless, introspection is a secondary, not primary, duty of the life of grace; a subsidiary, not direct, means of holiness and strength. “Ten looks at Christ for one at self” is after all the primary rule. “Look unto Jesus” gives us, as has been well said, the Gospel in three words (Heb 12:2). Introspection ceases to do good and begins to do harm the moment it terminates in itself, the moment it fails to be our reminder of our need of the simplest gaze, every hour, upon the Son of God, “who is made unto us of God wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1Co 1:30). Christ is “the Secret of God,” in the literal rendering of the best attested reading ofCol 2:2. And Christ is not ourselves. Dwelling in the heart of him who is “strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man” (Eph 3:16), He is not the inner man, nor the heart. And, asthe Object of adoring contemplation and humble faith, we must view Him not as He is in us but as He is in Himself; incarnate, sacrificed, glorified. “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, as by the Lord the Spirit” (2Co 3:18). ii. As one part of this general subject, I lay it upon myself and my reader, as we seek to live day by day in the strength of the risen Jesus Christ, all the more to lean ourexperiencebefore God wholly, solely, upon the finished Work of our redeeming Sacrifice, “the Lord our Righteousness” (Jer 23:6). The holy thirst and hunger to please God is a radically different thing from the anxious effort to reconcile God. Blessed be His name, that work is done, is completed, for us, by the obedience of One. In the deep words of the Second Article, “Christ, very God and very man, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of men. ”And in the words of the Eleventh, never to be separated from those others, “We are accounted righteous before God,onlyfor the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith (per fidem). ”Such words, technical as they may sound, speak a truth inexpressibly restful to the fully awakened conscience. Do you see the depth of the demand of God’s law?Do you believe what His Word says, speaking, remember, in the person of an inspired saint, “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified”?Do you see the sin (to speak of nothing else) of the least inadequacy in your love to God, in your love to others?Then, in true proportion to the spiritual reality and fulness of such insight, you will prize, you will adore, you will submit yourself to, you will learn yourself upon, the finished Satisfaction, the imputed Merit, of your Redeemer. In the words of a departed saint, to whose soul the truth of saving love in this aspect was singularly real and sweet, you will rejoice to feel that “the bed is large enough to lie down upon, the covering ample enough to wrap around” the awakened soul. iii. In the practice of daily life, in the derivation from the risen Lord of the power of “new obedience,” let me and my reader recollect steadily, and weave into one cord - a cord that at once binds and knits - two sacred facts of our state as believers. First, we BELONG to the Lord; secondly, we are JOINED to Him.
“Whether we live, we live unto the Master; whether we die, we die unto the Master” (Rom 14:8). Let the words “I BELONG” be written, in redeeming blood, across your whole life. Wake up with that fact in recollection; not that feeling but that fact. Carry it into morning, noon, and night. Lie down upon your bed with it. We have dwelt on this side of truth already, elsewhere.
“I love, I love my Master; I will not go out free; For He is my Redeemer; He paid the price for me. ”
Happy, happy, the human will that is bound with this chain. It is free indeed. Make proof, on the Master’s warrant, and “thou shalt know. ” But again, we are “JOINED to the Lord,” So says the Spirit. The passage and context are full of the essence of the new Life and its exercise. We gather there, that the believer belongs to Christ not merely as a man’s watch, for instance, but as his hand, belongs to him. And observe that this is true for every “limb” of the blessed Head; not for the highly developed member only, but for the member; yes, as the whole passage shows, even for the member struggling with the force of the crudest and basest temptation. For the disheartened, aye, for the falling Christian, this word is written: “you are joined to the Lord” now; you are “one Spirit” now. It is not reward of obedience, but gift of God. The word is not “you ought,” but “you possess. ” It is not “you feel it,” but “thus it is. ” What have you, thus united, to do with sin? What need temptation do against you, thus united? The man who recollects his belongingness to Jesus Christ, his irrevocable lot and state of bond service to Him, and who recollects along with it his living union with Him, is the man who may humbly, calmly, and with restful expectation say with St. Paul, “I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me” (Php 4:13). “Nothing shall in any wise hurt him” (Luk 10:19). Shall we take our place, in the name of the Lord Jesus, among these people, and go forward in this blessed double recollection, not into some imagined path of duty and patience, but into our own?
Very real, very great, is the power and preciousness of the holy Supper of the Lord, in the light of this combination of truths. Our redemption to be the property of our beloved Saviour, and our mystical Union with Him as our Head, are there, in the same divine act, "visibly signed and sealed” by HIMSELF, the true Master of the Table, to each true disciple. What certainties of assurance, what warrants of strength and peace, lie in that fact! iv. And one remark let me make here on the study of the Scriptures, which are the Word of God (2Ti 3:15; 2Ti 4:2). On the duty, privilege, and method, I am not going to enlarge. It is in special connexion with the life of Christian Holiness, the life of new Obedience, that I speak of Scripture study; and specially in view of the fact that Scripture is the one articulate account, by the Lord Himself, of His “will in Jesus Christ concerning us. ” For you, believing friend, who long to know and to do His will, as at once your rest and your goal, let the Bible bear this aspect of sacredness very specially, that it is the one definite and articulate utterance of that Will by our Master Himself. From this point of view how singular is the value of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm! It has been beautifully said that the essence of the thought of that Psalm is, the sacredness and sweetness of God’s Will, to be known and done by His bondservant; so that we may reverently read, as it were, the word “will” into it, as a synonym of ”law,” “stautues,” “jugments,” “precepts,” &c. Try this holy gloss, and see how the verses shine with the glory of a loving surrender to the will of God. But then, on the other hand, beyond all question, the Psalm in its direct purpose is one long strain of prayer, and praise, and self-consecration, over the Bible. The saintly soul’s thirst after the will of God leads it not to the mirage, but to the water-spring of the Word. With every access of love and longing, with every step in conscience and obedience, he feels new need of the Book, he bends over it, he bows to it. So be it with you and with me. v. Lastly, and let this reflection touch and attune every other, let us “walk in love, for love is of God” (Eph 5:2; 1Jn 4:7). Even the few pages of this little book, dealing with topics of the inner life, have led me to definite statements of conviction on many points of truth and doctrine. My whole soul is sure of the importance of clearness and firmness in such things. Nevertheless, there is no region of Christian life in which the need is more constant and more strong to remember how to walk in love, than the doctrinal region. It is easy, very easy, as we have observed more than once already, to disguise to ourselves a jealousy for our own views as such under an aspect of jealousy for the revealed truth of God. There lies the danger; there lies the need. And the remedy, the supply, lies above all things in a deepening personal acquaintance with “the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20). In the divine serenity of His presence we can, so far as our personality and sensibility go, read in peace the page from which we differ, perhaps the page which takes ourselves severely to task, and can ask in peace and candour where lies the truth. Walking by the side of Jesus Christ, we can with joy and love see His image reflected in the life and labour of the Christian man with whom, perhaps on no unimportant point, we are at issue. “In the covert of His wings” (Psa 61:4) we can love, as well as watch. Ambitious and jealous not for ourselves but for Him whose property we are, we shall find more attraction in the least sign of genuine loyalty to Him than we can find repulsion in almost anything else. For this also His grace is sufficient. Our series of thoughts is over. To that Master of Whom we have just spoken - absolute, merciful, beloved - I now humbly commit the things written. Whatever among them are indeed "the things of Christ," He can bless, forgiving the rest. And for us, writer and reader, "the next thing" shall be to step forward into the realities of to-day, putting thought into practice, seeing in circumstances God’s will, receiving amidst them His Spirit, living through them upon Jesus Christ, who is our Life. To Him be glory, now and always. Amen.
“Certainly, the more the Christian is acquainted with himself, the more will he go out of himself for his perfecting and establishing. . . . Never shall we find heart peace, sweet peace, and progress in holiness, till we be driven from natural independency, to make Christ all our strength; till we be brought to do nothing, to attempt nothing, to hope or expect nothing, but in Him; and then shall we indeed find His fulness and all-sufficiency, and ’be more than conquerors through Him who hath loved us. ’” — Archbishop Leighton, on 1Pe 5:10.