01.07. Folly
THE QUESTION OF FOLLY ’ Are there few that be saved? ’
Luk 13:23 This question may no doubt be asked from different motives. Sometimes it has been forced upon men by the rigour of the theological systems in which they have been educated. ’By the decree of God/ says the Westminster Confession, ’ for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.’ ’These angels and men,’ it proceeds, ’thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.’ Calvinism is strong because, when necessity and chance are offered to it as the alternative explanations of the universe, and even of man’s destiny, it elects for necessity ; but a statement like this is not required by any religious interest, and it stimulates a curiosity which may become a pain and a torment, but can never obtain the kind of satisfaction it seeks. There is no list published of the citizens of heaven, as there is of those who possess the franchise here. Others, again, ask this question in the perplexity of love. They look at the world, perhaps at themselves, or their own family or friends, and cannot but have misgivings. They are not sure that those who are dearest to them are in the way of salvation, and they are certain that multitudes are not. May not the way, after all, be wider than they had supposed? May not God have, among the forces working for redemption, some that are unknown to them, and that only produce their effect in the world unseen .? Others may have the question prompted by the words of Jesus Himself. It seems to have been in some such way that it occurred, if not to the man who put it, then to the evangelist who records it. Luke has just set down the two parables which predict the extension of God’s kingdom : it is like a mustard seed which expands into a great tree ; like a piece of leaven which leavens a great mass of dough. The contrast between this glorious prospect and the actual fruit of Christ’s labours reminded him of this question, as it may have put it into the questioner’s own head at first. Nevertheless it is a foolish question. When it comes from the head it always is so; only when the heart lends it its tenderness and anxiety can it be profitably asked. And Jesus treats it as a foolish question: He does not respond to the speaker’s curiosity or speculative interest; turning away from him to the others who were present, He says: ’ Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I tell you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.’ It is the same word, no doubt, which we find in a fuller form in the Sermon on the Mount: ’Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way which leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’
Question and answer alike recognize, what is recognized by every unsophisticated conscience, that there is such a thing as salvation, and that it cannot be taken for granted. In other words, what is put before us in this life is an alternative. There are two gates, two ways, two goals, two sides of the throne, two kinds of foundation for the house we build: and we have to make our choice between them. We can go in at the strait gate, or at the wide gate, but not at both. We can travel in the broad way or the narrow way, but not in both. We can build on the rock or on the sand, but not on both. We shrink from making this decisively plain to ourselves, that the decisiveness of our action or inaction may also remain veiled; but it is implied even in this foolish question; it is emphasized in our Lord’s answer; and it is the one conviction without which thought on this subject is fruitless. The ideas we have formed of salvation and perdition, of life saved and life lost, of the bright banqueting - hall and the outer darkness, of heaven and hell, may be erroneous enough; but there can be no reason for thinking of such things at all, and as little profit in it, unless we feel that in the very nature of the case these are alternatives which for ever exclude each other. Christ’s answer bears directly on this, and is wholly plain and practical. ’Strive to enter in at the strait gate.’ The strait gate, as we see from the Sermon on the Mount, is so called in opposition to the wide gate, and the wide gate is not so hard to understand. A wide gate is one through which you can pass easily, carrying what you please, and no questions asked. That, Jesus tells us, is the kind of gate which opens on the way that leads to destruction. Anybody can go in and take what he likes along with him. You can go in with your money, your pride, your sloth, your appetites, your vices, whatever you please. Nothing is excluded, and there is no toll. The consequence is that many do go in. The wide gate is always busy; the broad way thronged with travelers. You can drift in with the stream, you can have the pleasant sense of being well supported, you can maintain a certain self-respect by pointing to the large numbers of people, of all possible capacities, tastes, and characters, who have taken that way. Nevertheless, it leads to destruction. Its very breadth and easiness prove this. Conscience is not only quite decided and unambiguous on the first point, that there is such a thing as salvation, and that it cannot be taken for granted; it is as decided and unambiguous on the further point, that while you may drift to perdition you cannot drift to eternal life. No matter how false our ideas may be as to the precise import of salvation or ruin, we have a witness in ourselves that Jesus speaks truth when He says that it is easy to be lost, and not easy to be saved; that you can be lost without an effort, but if you are to be saved, must summon up every atom of resolution.
What, then, is meant by the strait gate which opens on the path of life? It is a gate, as the name suggests, which excludes much. You can carry a thousand things to hell which you must lay down before you can take the first step on the way which leads to heaven. In one sense it is wide enough it can admit any man; it can let the whole human race pass through, if they come one by one, and strip at the outside; but it is not wide enough for anything else. The question has sometimes been asked, ’ What, in one word, is the strait gate?’ and various answers have been given. It has been called Repentance, Faith, Christ, and what not. Even if these answers are in some respects true, as they are, they are misleading; they divert the mind from the very point which Jesus wishes to emphasize. His purpose is to make us feel that the entrance to the path of life is an entrance in front of which man becomes suddenly, profoundly, perhaps startlingly conscious, that if he is ever to pass through there he must leave much behind him. If there is one word which expresses this, it is Renunciation. The strait gate is the gate of renunciation, and it is left for every man to say what in his case must be renounced before he can enter. No sin can go through: the strait gate calls for repentance, and renunciation of evil. No sham can go through: it demands renunciation of acted insincerity, and a humble resolve to walk in the truth. No compromising relations with evil can go through, no tenderness for old associations which ignore God, no disposition to fret or pity ourselves; and hence for some there is no entrance unless they pluck out a right eye, cut off a right hand or a right foot, and enter halt or maimed or blind rather than stay outside. To come to the strait gate is to feel that what lies beyond is the one thing needful, and that it is a good bargain, for the sake of it, to renounce all that has ever been dear to us.
Jesus takes it for granted that every one has something to part with. The gate is a strait gate for all who go up to it. There is not a man on earth who can be saved as he is: he has something to renounce before he can enter into life. This is one of the indirect ways in which Jesus assumes the natural sinfulness of the human heart. The heart may have the capacity of heroism, and of making the great renunciation which is required; but no heart is spared renunciation; no man enters the Kingdom without the sense of sacrifice and constraint. And it is because the renunciation is painful and requires a great effort, that Jesus says with such solemnity and urgency: ’Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.’
Strive to enter in; is this what everybody does, whom God in His grace brings up to the strait gate? Unhappily not. Some, when they come face to face with it, and understand in the depth of their hearts the renunciation it requires of them, simply withdraw. They will not think of entering at such a cost. Others hesitate, and stand hesitating for years, perhaps for a lifetime. They are in two minds about going in till their dying day. The blessings of the heavenly kingdom, the company of Jesus, and the new life, are very real to them, and very dear; they so crave the enjoyment of them; but the things they must renounce are also very real and very dear; and they cannot win from themselves the irrevocable sacrifice, and go in. Others, again, to an ordinary observer, are even more promising. They admire the life beyond the strait gate; they extol those who have paid the price and forced their way in; they take themselves a hasty timid step, now and again, in the direction of the door; but they remain outside. All such persons are in view when Jesus says, ’Many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.’ At first this seems a hard saying, and terribly unlike what we mean by ’the gospel.’ The gospel is all grace and generosity: its characteristic word is, ’ Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.’ Why are there some, why are there many, unable to enter in, though they seek to do so?
Partly, no doubt, as Jesus goes on to explain, because they do not seek entrance till it is too late. How ominous is that double ’begin’ in Luk 13:25; Luk 13:26! What a time to begin to think of entering — when the Master of the house has risen and shut the door! Is a man to keep God and the universe in everlasting suspense? Is the world to wait for ever to see whether I will make up my mind? If not, there is the possibility of beginning too late: of refusing to be serious till the door is shut, and seriousness no longer avails. ’ To-day, if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’
Delay becomes fatal, because it begets irresolution, and nothing more easily than irresolution becomes chronic, incurable, irreparable. Decent people probably lose more by it than by all the sins they confess put together. They lose eternal life by it when it makes them, as it eventually does, incapable of the grand decisive renunciation by which alone we can pass the strait gate.
Many, again, are unable to enter, because instead of accepting the conditions which the strait gate imposes, they try to get these conditions modified. They spend infinite time and pains trying to transact, to negotiate, to compromise with Christ. The gospel abounds in unqualified statements and in peremptory demands; such and such things, Christ tells us, are impossible; such and such others are necessary — they simply must be. Many waste life, like incompetent men of business, trying to evade the inevitable, to achieve the impossible; they exhaust their talent in attempts to qualify our Lord’s inexorable words; they seek, so to speak, to widen the strait gate, before they make any push to enter. They would fain justify their retention of something upon which the door closes, and in sophisticating conscience, and arguing against Christ’s ultimatum — the end comes and the door is shut. But above all, many are unable to enter because they will not make the effort they could if they were wholly in earnest. Many shall seek, Jesus says; but His commandment is not seek, but strive. ’Strive ’ is much the stronger word; it is the word appropriate to a contest in which all the force of man is exerted against an adversary. Well-meaning people, as we say, will seek to enter in; but eternal life, our Lord tells us here, is the prize not of the well - meaning but of the desperate. Put all your strength into it when you come to pass the strait gate: it will need it all. ’The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.’
Such is the answer of Jesus to the idle, or at least in this case the idly put question : ’Are there few that be saved? ’ It is hard to be saved, it is easy to be lost, as experience shows. Jesus does not answer as knowing some divine decree which fixes men’s destiny irrespective of their will; He answers out of His own sad observation of men’s deliberate and voluntary conduct. He saw with His eyes many entering in at the wide gate, and traveling at their leisure, or at reckless speed, down the broad way; He found few who had it in their hearts to make the needful renunciation and to follow Him. It is throughout simple, stern, unquestionable fact in which He deals. No doubt many, when this question rises before them, look away from the present disheartening world, and speculate on the possibilities of salvation in the unseen; some can even assert roundly that sooner or later all shall be admitted to the light and joy of heaven, and can be indignant and almost contemptuous to those who do not share their confidence. But can we help feeling that to enter on this line is to ignore not only the testimony of experience, but the testimony of Jesus; and that conclusions which require us to treat the words of our Lord and the facts of life as things that must somehow or other, we cannot tell how, be got over, are not conclusions on which one dare venture much either for this life or for that which is to come? Jesus refuses to look at the question of salvation except in connection with man’s responsibility and action. Many, He sees with pain, yet cannot help seeing, enter on the way that leads to destruction; many also, He sees with pain as keen, refuse to make the effort which is needed to enter into life. These are facts which consist with God’s character, and no appeal to God’s character can alter them. If a man is on the wrong side of the strait gate, it is not because God has shut it in his face, but because he is keeping something which can never go through. The severity of our Lord’s words about the strait gate is indeed mitigated in two ways. There is nothing Scripture teaches more plainly than the truth, which the heathen also had discovered, that though it is hard to become good, it is easy to be good. The initial difficulty in Christianity is the supreme one. Everything is unexacting compared with the entrance on the way. Christ’s commandments are not grievous. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. ’A life of self-renouncing love is a life of liberty.’ Even from outside the gate we can see this ; it is the joy set before us to enable us to make the hard renunciation. And the second lightening of the prospect is found in our Lord’s express teaching, in this very connection, that hard as it is to enter into life, many will be found there whom men in general did not think to see. ’They shall come from the East and the West and the North and the South, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God.’ The true Church, if these words are true, must be to a great extent invisible: "the Lord knoweth them that are His," and in every nation He has those, unknown to us, who have counted the cost and passed the strait gate into the everlasting Kingdom. THE END