2.03.23. The dignity of man

XXIII. THE DIGNITY OF MAN.

“Honour all men.” — 1 Peter 2:17.

|HE first three precepts of this verse constitute an ascending series, and the series is complete. It begins on earth, and ends in heaven. The Spirit in this word specifies the kind of affection that is due respectively to three different objects, lying in three distinct spheres. The first and lowest of these objects is humanity, as it is, — all mankind; the next above it is the redeemed from among men who are still in the body; and the highest is God. One kind of regard is due to human beings as such, however low their state or bad their character; another kind of r ard is due to those who are born again, and have become sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty; and yet another kind of regard is due to the Creator of all, the Recreator of his own.

Instead of “ honour,” I shall employ the term “ value,” as equivalent to “ esteem,” which the translators have given in the margin, and which expresses more precisely the sense of the original I retain the term “ men,” as in the text although the noun is not expressed in the Greek, because in the circumstances the masculine adjective is equivalent.

Let US now place the emphasis successively on each of these three words, and the lessons will emerge in their natural order.

1. Value.

2. Value men.

3. Value all men.

1. Value. — The root on which the expression grows is “ a price.” This original- meaning adheres to it with more or less of strictness through all its forms and all its applications. It is the word which in Matthew 27:9 has been translated “ value,” — “ They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; “ and “ honour,” in Matthew 15:4, — “ Honour thy father and thy mother.” Honour, as it is usually understood, is only the external expression of the value which in your heart you may have set upon an object. You weigh the worth of a man, and honour him accordingly. The estimate fixed by the judgment determines the honour expressed by the lips.

Although the three precepts of this verse are separately presented to the mind, they are bound into one for the power to produce obedience. Where the two higher fail, the lower cannot succeed. If the fear of God and the love of the brotherhood be wanting or weak, the estimate of humanity will go far astray. And it is error in the estimate of man that practically distracts the world.

Some get too much honour, and others too little. These extremes throw the machinery of society out of gear.

Hence the adulation of the great; hence the oppression of the poor. The man who is godly and brotherly is also humane. He who sets a proper value on the higher things sets a proper value also on the lower. Look on men — the human race at large — in the light of the fear which you owe to God, and the love which you cherish towards the brethren: thus you will neither meanly flatter nor coldly neglect; you will count the meanest a man, and the mightiest no more.

2. Value Tnen, — Here God our Maker has left us an example that we should follow his steps. Both creation and redemption teem with evidences that God sets a high value on his creature man. All the relations and uses of minerals, plants, and animals have been arranged for man’s benefit; for no other creature is capable of observing or turning them to account. All the rich furniture of the world bears obvious marks of having been constructed for the convenience of its chief inhabitant. The house was arranged, and all its furnishings completed, and living creatures destined for servants provided, before men, the children of the family, were brought home. All that the Father did in constructing this earth and these heavens he did for our sakes. But the grandest evidence of the value which God sets on man appears in the mission, ministry, and sacrifice of Christ. So high in heaven was the estimate of even ruined man, that when no other price could buy the captive back, the Son of God gave himself, the just for the unjust. A jewel has dropped from the wearer’s neck into a deep and filthy pool. The owner, looking on it from aloft, loathes the fetid object, and loves it too, — so loves it, in spite of its loathsomeness, that rather than lose it, he plunges into the polluted deep, wades among its filth, and feels for his treasure. If he find it, he goes home rejoicing; and when the jewel has been burnished again, he rejoices more than ever to see it on his own breast, receiving bright glances from the sun, and throwing them back as bright. In some such way, making allowance for the difference between the finite and the infinite, did Christ set a high value on men, though they were fallen and polluted. In some such way does he now rejoice over those whom he has rescued from perdition and carried into rest.

Value highly immortal beings made in their Creator’s likeness, and capable yet of living to his praise. We act according to our estimates. Estimate humanity aright in the habit of your hearts, aild your conduct will fashion itself naturally accordant, as a river finds its way to the sea. Value the whole. man, and not merely a part. In particular, and for obvious practical purposes, value his soul as well as his body, and his body as well as his soul. So did Christ; and therefore so should we. The body’s suflferings did not occupy his attention to the neglect of the soul’s sins; the soul’s sins did not occupy his attention to the neglect of the body’s suflferings. As the legs of the lame are not equal, a one-sided philanthropy is abortive, whichever side it may be. You cannot do good to the poor by merely supplying his material wants. Unless you lift his spirit from despair into hope, and lead his spirit from darkness to light, your gifts go all into a bag with holes. You must be always giving, and yet he is never full. On the other side, the ordinary path to the soul lies through the body’s senses; and all your eflforts for spiritual good may prove abortive, if you 4o pot clear meiterial obstructions out of your way. Do good to the whole man as you have opportunity.

Neglect not to entertain those strangers that step about in human form upon the earth, for in so doing you entertain angels unawares, — fallen, indeed, but capable yet of a glorious immortality.