02.B02. The Light Come, Or The Brightness

CHAPTER II. THE LIGHT COME, OR THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE DIVINE RISING.

REFLECTING with unspeakable interest and delight upon "the promises," without having then fully apprehended their meaning or obtained them in their fulness, I returned to Oberlin. At a special meeting of the Faculty, it was agreed to hold special religious services on the evenings of the week, as long as the measure should be found expedient. The reason for this determination was the fact that so many of the students and young people in the community were impenitent, and the piety of the membership of the church was so manifestly low. Brother Finney agreed to conduct the meetings for inquiry, this being, in addition to his ordinary duties, about all that he was able to do. The responsibility of doing the preaching was thrown upon me. From the commencement of the meetings, the word of truth had a wonderfully searching power upon all classes. The impenitent, asking what they should do to be saved, and professing Christians pressing the question directly upon us whether there was any "deliverance from the body of this death" under which they were groaning, crowded the inquiry-room. The first Sabbath after the meetings commenced, I delivered a discourse on the text, "Israel is an empty vine: he bringeth forth fruit unto himself." In the discourse I pressed upon professing Christians the fact, that the reason why they were "bringing forth fruit unto themselves," and not unto God -- in other words, that the reason, and only reason, of the low state of piety among us -- was that individuals were not "aiming to do any better than they were doing," and that here was the ground of "the Lord’s controversy" with them. Brother Finney, perceiving the searching and convicting power of the truth, arose at the close of the discourse, and remarked, that if there were any self-deceived professors present, they would escape the pressure of the truth upon their consciences by falling back upon their good desires. "If we are not living as we should, we desire thus to live," they will say. He then showed that in mere desires, that did not induce the serious aim or intent to do what God requires -- that is, did not issue in real obedience -- there is no religion at all. "If there are any professors of religion present," he added, "who now see that their hopes are not well founded, let them signify it by rising." To our amazement, quite one-third of the professors present arose, and asked us to tell them "what they should do to be saved." The other portion of the church, with almost one voice, and that from all parts of the assembly, implored us to tell them how they might cease to live at their present "dying rate," and attain to the revealed "liberty of the sons of God."

Myself and associates were now in circumstances in which we had never been before. We had encouraged the people to make inquiries in respect to all the spiritual difficulties and perplexities which pressed upon them. Yet here were questions of fundamental interest put to us, questions which we had never resolved in our own minds, and revealed forms of experience inquired after of which we had no personal knowledge, and about the conditions of attaining which we were as ignorant as the inquirers themselves. The effect upon my mind was the deep impression that the time had come when I must know the secret after which I had been so long inquiring. "With strong crying and tears," I carried the subject to "the throne of grace," and entreated the Father of mercies, for Christ’s sake, to lead me out of darkness into the light after which I was seeking. On the afternoon of the next day, I arose from my knees in my study in my own house, and went into the room above, a room occupied by one of my associates in the Faculty, and thus addressed him: -- "I desire to tell you what I am now seeking after, and have been seeking after these years which are past. I desire to know the secret of the piety of Paul, and by that knowledge understand how to make myself the spiritual attainments that he did. His relations to Christ were essentially different from mine. When I attempt to act for Christ, I often find my affections and all the sensibilities of my nature almost cold and dead, and I am necessitated to gird myself up, and force myself forward by dint of my own resolution. The case was utterly different with Paul. At all times, and under all circumstances, as he informs us, ’the love of Christ constrained him,’ and was ’in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones,’ always impelling him onward, rendering him ’weary with forbearing’ to speak or act for Him ’that loved him, and gave Himself for him.’ "What is the reason," I asked, "why my love is ’so faint,’ and ’so cold,’ and so unimpulsive, while that of Paul was such an undying and all-constraining flame?" While thus speaking upon the subject, I suddenly rose from my seat with the joyful exclamation, "I have found it!" and without uttering another word, I returned to my study, and falling again upon my knees, returned most fervent thanksgiving to God, that He had at last clearly revealed to me the divine secret after which I had been so long inquiring. The reader may be interested and profited by being informed of the vision of divine truth, the vision which then opened upon my mind. As a means of attaining this end, I will cite Ephesians 3:14-19 : "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." While conversing with my associate, I began to realise, in experience, what the apostle here prays that all believers may receive and enjoy. In the depth of my inner being, I felt an instantaneous enlargement, expansion, and invigoration of my receptive capacities. There then opened upon my mind a direct apprehension, an open vision, as it were, of the infinite and ineffable love and glory of Christ, a love and glory which filled and occupied the entire compass of my being, and warmed, and quickened, and vitalised all the powers and activities of my mental nature. The rock of the heart was struck with the rod of love divine, and from the cleft thus made there issued forth "rivers of living water," which have ever since been "springing into everlasting life." As I arose from my knees in my study, I sat still in my chair, to "behold the glory of the Lord," to "comprehend the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," while "the fulness of God" seemed to enter in, and possess and occupy my whole inner being. There I sat, wondering with unutterable wonder that this vision of glory-infinite had never opened upon my mind before. "This," I exclaimed, "is ’life-eternal;’ this is ’the brightness of the divine rising;’ this is ’the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healings in His wings;’ here is ’the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness;’ and here is the ’enduement of power’ by which ’he that is feeble among us shall be as David, while the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before Him.’"

These were the thoughts which passed before my mind as I sat there in the center of that "everlasting light" which had risen upon my waiting spirit. I recognised myself at once, and that without a shadow of doubt, "as complete in Christ," and as able as Paul was to "do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." The secret of the piety of Paul was now unveiled, and I could, as he had been, be "crucified with Christ," be "crucified to the world, and the world to me," and have "Christ live in me" as He did in him. I understood why "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him," and might make me, "free from the law of sin and death," and why we are called upon to "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The presence of "the love of Christ," His love unveiled to our apprehension by "the Spirit of the Lord," resolves at once all the mysteries of "life and godliness."