14.02d. The NATURE of the precepts (conclusion)
The NATURE of the precepts (concluded) In our last section, we attempted to point out a few of those prominent features of the spirit of the precept which distinguish it from the letter, and elevate obedience to the revealed will and word of God into a spiritual service. From the letter of the precept we learn "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2.) But though we thus learn from the precept what is the acceptable will of God, we have no power in ourselves to perform it acceptably; for a mere letter obedience to the precepts of the gospel, however strict and conformable, is no more acceptable to God, than an obedience to the ten commandments. To make our obedience acceptable two things are absolutely necessary—
1. That it be presented through Jesus Christ; for as our persons, so our offerings are only "accepted in the Beloved."
2. That it be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle speaks—"That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:16.) The Apostle Peter beautifully brings together these two points, and shows us in a small compass who are the acceptable worshipers, and what is the nature of their acceptable worship—"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious. You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5.) The acceptable worshipers are the "living stones" who come to Jesus, and are built up in him as "a spiritual house," constituting them "a holy priesthood;" the sacrifices which they offer are "spiritual sacrifices," as sanctified by the Holy Spirit; and these sacrifices are "acceptable to God by Jesus Christ," as offered by faith in him and ascending up to heaven perfumed by his intercession within the veil.
Thus no mere ’letter obedience’ to the precept, were such a thing possible, for the precepts of the gospel being spiritual, based upon spiritual motives and addressed to spiritual people, are out of the reach of natural obedience; no such mere obedience, were it possible, could or would be acceptable to God. It would be "another gospel," as many have preached and made it, and thus brought themselves under the curse according to that fearful denunciation of Paul—"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8-9.) Perversion is perversion, whether men pervert the doctrines of the gospel, the promises of the gospel, or the precepts of the gospel—and for perverting the gospel of Christ they will not be held innocent.
We have already pointed out that the chief blessedness and glory of the New Covenant dispensation is, that it is the ministration of the Spirit; and that, therefore, the blessed Spirit must animate the precept as well as the promise with heavenly life, that we may believe the one and perform the other. You know what it is to believe a promise when it comes with power; so you must know how to perform a precept when it comes with power. The power is the same; for it is the power of the Spirit acting through the word. A promise comes. I believe it, for I feel the power of it. A precept comes. I believe it, for I feel the power of it. Where, then, is the difference? Wholly in this, that by the promise I believe that it is the will of God that I should be saved; and by the precept that it is the will of God that I should forgive my brother. A letter obedience, therefore, is of no more worth or value than a letter faith; and to forgive my brother in the letter is no more real forgiveness than to believe in Christ in the letter is real faith. The precept, therefore, needs life breathed into it, that, as a word of and from Christ, it may be spirit and life to our soul. (John 6:63.)
If, then, there were no life thus put into the precept, it would be like a dead branch in a living tree—or a paralyzed limb in our natural body; an unsightly object instead of an ornament, an incumbrance rather than a help—a withered, useless appurtenance, cut off from all life and movement, and a drag upon the gospel as a poor paralytic drags after him a leg, on which he can neither stand nor walk. Compare this poor withered limb—with a strong, healthy leg, and you may see the difference between the dragging obedience of a servant in the letter, and the gracious obedience of a son in the spirit.
Life, then, and that as breathed into it by the blessed Spirit, is one main feature of the spirit of the precept. But this life has two blessed adjuncts, Liberty and Love; for these are two special fruits of the Holy Spirit, and move together in holy concert and gracious harmony to help forward the obedience of faith.
Liberty we have already considered. Her sweet, tender, and affectionate companion we have now to present to view; and who that has seen her lovely face and heard the accents of her melodious voice, will not welcome her as she comes forth for our contemplation? Her name is "Love." And do observe how the blessed Spirit holds, as it were, Liberty with the one hand and Love with the other. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2 Corinthians 3:17.) "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit." (Romans 5:5.) And that life is his gift, is plain from the same inspired testimony—"The Spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6.) Death, bondage, and enmity, then, those evil fruits of the flesh, and the men who walk in them, have neither part nor lot in the glorious gospel of the grace of God, where life, liberty, and love animate every truth, every promise, every privilege, and every precept. As, then, we have endeavored to unfold the connection of Liberty with the spirit of the precept, so will we now attempt to show that part which is fulfilled by Love.
4. The last distinctive mark of the gospel, is that it is the ministration of LOVE. "God is love." That is his name, that is his nature; and what a proof, what a manifestation has he given of this love! "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10.) The gift of his only-begotten Son, and that for these two special purposes, 1. that he might be the propitiation for our sins; 2. that we might live through him, is at once the proof and the measure of this love. To proclaim this love is to preach the gospel; to believe in this love is to believe the gospel; to taste, handle, and enjoy this love is to know and enjoy the power of the gospel; and to obey the precept under the constraints of this love is to obey the gospel.
Liberty and love must needs go together; for where there is bondage there is fear, and where there is fear there is torment, and where there is torment there cannot be love, at least not perfect love, for perfect love casts it out. (1 John 4:18.) Love, then, is the crowning feature of the spirit of the precept, and one of its most distinctive points of difference from the letter, for the strictest obedience to the letter of the precept without love is but legal bondage—the task-work of a servant, not the compliance of a son. You may set the precepts of the gospel before your eyes, and try your utmost to observe them. You may admire the holiness which they inculcate; see the separation from the world and the devotedness to God which they enforce, and what is more than seeing it, you may try to act upon it; you may walk in the ordinances which they hold forth, and strive by diligent attention to rules and regulations, carefully framed, to regulate your own conduct and that of your family, to attain to that inward and outward holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. All this you may do for years, and be at the end what you were in the beginning—a poor self-righteous Pharisee, shut up in bondage, lip-service, and bodily exercise, as far from the spirit and love of the gospel, as much in your sins, unwashed, unjustified, unsanctified, as a monk in his cell; or a parish priest intoning the Litany to a few old women and children in his medieval church. All this strictness, indeed, sharpens your eyes to see the defects and infirmities of others, who do not pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, nor tie themselves to your rules. But what are you yourself, as weighed in the balances of the gospel? What is all your strictness without life, liberty, and love? Are you stricter in lip and life than Paul was when, "touching the righteousness which is in the law," (that is, its external righteousness,) he was "blameless?" If you turn obedience to the letter of the precept into a legal service, which you must do if destitute of life, liberty, and love—you are not a son but a servant, a child of the bondwoman; and could you read your inmost heart, you would see it full of prejudice and enmity against, and ready to persecute the children of promise, by condemning their liberty as Antinomian security, and suspecting their standing if not their state.
How different from this miserable state of bondage in which many are held, miserable in itself and miserable to all with whom it comes in contact—is that favored soul which moves in the path of obedience under the sweet constraints of love; for love is not only the fulfilling of the law but of the gospel too. Such power and influence has love in the obedience of the gospel that we may boldly say that with love every precept can be obeyed—without love not one can be rightly obeyed. How plainly does our Lord speak on this point. "If you love me, keep my commandments." "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me." "If a man loves me, he will keep my words." "He who loves me not, keeps not my words." (John 14:1-31.) Similar is the testimony of the beloved disciple—"For this is the love of God—that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5:2-3.) We thus see that the keeping of Christ’s commandments, in other words, obedience to the precepts of the gospel, is not only the test and proof but the fruit of love. No more, when this obedience is the obedience of love, it opens a blessed door for the manifestations of Christ and the indwelling of God, according to those wondrous words of the Lord himself—"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves me, he will keep my words—and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23.)
How careful, then, should we be to distinguish between obedience in the letter, which is mere lip service or legal bondage—and obedience in the spirit, which springs from love and furthers its enjoyment.
Taking a broad view of the precepts, of the gospel, and the obedience inculcated by them, we may reduce them to two leading heads—
1. What we owe unto God.
2. What we owe to the people of God.
1. What we owe unto GOD. The first will comprehend all that spiritual worship, all that devotedness of heart and life, all that submission to the will of God, all that glorifying him in our body and spirit which are his, which the precept so continually and forcibly inculcates; the second will comprehend the whole of our walk and conduct to our brethren in the Lord, whereby we manifest the power of his grace. As instances of the first we may mention such precepts as bid us "present our bodies a living sacrifice;" "to abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good;" "to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation; to continue instant in prayer;" to "walk honestly as in the day;" to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lust thereof." These, and similar precepts with which the Epistles abound, direct us how to walk before God as dear children. They address us, therefore, not as servants, bidding us perform a stipulated task, but enjoin us as sons to yield the obedience of reverent affection to our heavenly Father. They speak to us as one with Christ by mystical union, and this as "chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."
As, therefore, dead with him, buried with him, risen with him, and blessed with all spiritual blessings, and freely justified by his grace—as reconciled to God, brought near to him, and accepted in the Beloved—the precepts of the gospel call upon us to live to his praise, and walk before him in all devotedness of heart and life, to his honor and glory. But how can this be done without love? What holy, heavenly pleasure can there be even in such common, daily acts as reading his word, and calling upon his name; in meeting with his people in the house of prayer, and in Christian conversation; in separation from the world and the spirit of it; in living a life of faith and prayer; in watching our words and actions; in seeking a growing conformity to the image of Christ, and carrying out in a practical manner our Christian profession? We say not only what real pleasure can we have in this daily walk, without attending to which we shall be but barren, worthless professors all our days—but even what habitual attention can we pay to these things if not moved to them by love? Who will read the word, at least, as it should be read, with a believing and understanding heart, but he who loves it? Who will continually resort to a throne of grace, but he who loves there to pour out his heart before God? And who will day by day seek to walk before God in the light of his countenance, but he who has known and felt something of the power of his love? If the service of God be ever burdensome to us; if ever the word be neglected, prayer restrained, the company of God’s people shunned, the new man put off, and the old man put on—it is when love has grown cold. The sacrifice may be laid upon the altar; the incense put upon the censor; but if the fire of love be not under both, there is neither flame nor fragrance.
2. And so it is with the second branch of the precept, which directs and regulates our walk with and before our believing BRETHREN. In that as in the service of God, "Love supplies all defects."
Without a loving, affectionate spirit, it is impossible to perform those precepts which inculcate mutual forgiveness and forbearance, "kindness, tenderness of heart, mercy, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long-suffering." (Ephesians 4:2; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:12-13.) To do all this from the heart, and not merely in lip, we must "walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us." Without this love we may have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; we may bestow all our goods to feed the poor, and give our body to be burned—and yet be nothing and have nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2-3.) But if blessed and favored with this love, we shall obey those precepts which direct our walk with our brethren unto God and from the heart. Who that has seen much of Christian churches does not know the difference between the hard, cold, contentious, unforgiving spirit of some—and the tender, loving, affectionate spirit of others? Who that has a feeling heart has not been cut, wounded, and grieved by the pride, obstinacy, selfishness, hardness and unkindness of the one—and been softened, melted, and blessed by the tenderness, meekness, humility, loving and affectionate spirit of the other? Love is so the spirit of the gospel, and therefore of the precept as a part of the gospel, that we may unhesitatingly say that few more break the precept than some of the very people who most contend for what is called practice. Practice is excellent, admirable, indispensable—and the lack of it grievous, lamentable, disgraceful. But let us be clear in our views as to what practice is and what it means. If it be the mere doing of what are called good works, as alms-giving, visiting the sick, strictness of life, dress, deportment, accompanied with unblemished conduct—a ’sister of mercy’ will outshine us all, and father Ignatius be a pattern of holiness.
It is plain, therefore, that something more is needful for acceptable obedience than external practice, and that this something is love—love to the Lord and to his people. Nor is it less evident that this love must be made manifest by our general spirit as well as our conduct; for love is not a mere occasional spurt, a now and then warming up, like a hot fit of the fever; or the slow, relenting gripe of a miser over a charity plate—but a living principle, ever discovering itself in words and acts of kindness, forbearance, self-denial, self-restraint, consideration of the feelings of others, meekness, gentleness, and a humble, affectionate, conciliating manner and bearing. You may be outwardly very consistent—but if you are harsh, censorious, self-willed, obstinate, unforgiving—if you would sooner see the church torn to pieces with strife than give way on some point which involves neither truth nor conscience, but merely some concession of opinion, you are breaking the precept as much by your disobedience to its spirit—as others by their disobedience to its letter. God, who searches the heart and reads our inmost thoughts, feelings, and motives, observes with unerring eye our spirit as well as our conduct; and if; indeed, we see light in his light, we shall read our own heart too, and distinguish between the proud, obstinate, self-willed, contentious spirit of the old man—and the humble, forgiving, affectionate spirit of the new man.
As, then, love must animate every precept that teaches us what we owe unto the Lord for all his goodness and mercy to us—so must love equally animate every precept that guides and regulates what we owe to our believing brethren. Look at the following precepts and see if love be not the ruling, animating spirit of them all—"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." (Ephesians 4:1-3) What but love can enable us to walk "worthy of the calling with which we are called?" Are we not called according to God’s purpose, that we may love him? (Romans 8:28.) And called also to walk in love with his people?
How plain too, are the words—"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (Ephesians 4:31-32, Ephesians 5:1-2) In a similar spirit writes the same "Apostle of Jesus Christ" to the Colossians. "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (Colossians 3:12-14)
O that this compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness more animated our spirits and guided our words and actions. There would then be no stormy church meetings, no broken friendships, no shy looks, no harsh words, no resentful memories, no magnifying and dwelling on infirmities and defects, no raking up of buried injuries, no malicious insinuations, or slanderous reportings. Having had so much forgiven us, we should freely forgive our offending brethren—and feeling ourselves to be the chief of sinners and less than the least of all saints, we should rather wonder at their forbearance of us, and admire their kindness to us, than cherish a resentful, unforgiving spirit, even against those at whose hands we may have suffered real or imaginary wrong.
We are approaching the harbor. Land was in sight in our last section, and now all that we need is a gentle yet favorable breeze to waft us on until we drop anchor, and bless God for giving us a pleasant and, we hope, not unprofitable voyage.
Two points remain for consideration, to dwell on which at any length, even at as great a length as they deserve, would set us again out to sea, and perhaps a stormy sea too; for one of them involves a subject not only of much difficulty, but of considerable strife and debate. These two points are–
1. The place which the precept occupies in the word.
2. Its place in the heart and life.