THE KING’S BUSINESS
792
epistle to the Romans in which my text is found. The earlier stages of the great epistle a're devoted to a massive and state ly presentation of the doctrines of redemp tion. But when I turn over the pages where the majestic argument is concluded, I find the doctrine persisting in a diffused and rarefied form, and appearing as the determining factor in the solution of prac tical problems. If he is dealing with the question of the “eating of meats,” and great doctrine reappears and interposes its sol emn and yet elevating principle : “destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.” If he is called upon to administer rebuke to thè passionate asnd unclean, the shadow of the cross rests upon his judg ment. “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.” If he is portraying the ideal relationship of husband and wife, he sets it in the light of redemptive glory: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it,” If he is seeking to cultivate the grace of liberality, he brings the heavenly air round about the spirit. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.” It interweaves itself with all his salutations. It exhales in all his benedictions like a hallowing fragrance. You cannot get away from it. In the light of the glory of redemption all relationships are assorted and arranged. Redemption was not degraded into a fine abstract argu ment, to which the apostle had appended his own approval, and then, with sober satisfaction, had laid it aside, as a practical irrelevancy, in the stout chests of ortho doxy, It became the very spirit of his life. It was, if I may be allowed the yiolent figure, the warm blood in all his judgment. ■It filled the veins of all his thinking. It beat like a pulse in all his purposes. It determined and vitalized his decisions in the crisis, as well as in the lesser trifles of the common day. His conception of re demption was regulative of all his thought. AMAZING THOUGHT But it is not only the immediacy of
steady light òf my optimistic text. I say it is not the buoyancy of ignorance. It is ¿lot the flippant, light-hearted expectancy of man who knows nothing about the secret places of the night. The counselor is a man who has steadily gazed at light at its worst, who has digged through the outer walls of convention and respectability, who has pushed his way into the secret chambers and closets of life, who has dragged out the slimy sins which were lurking in their holes, and named them after their kind— it is this man who when he has surveyed the dimensions of evil and misery and con tempt, merges his dark indictment in a cheery and expansive dawn, in an optimis tic evangel, in which he counsels his fel- ' low-disciples to maintain the confident atti tude of a rejoicing hope. SEEKING THE CLUE Now, what are the secrets of this cour ageous and energetic optimism? Perhaps, if we explore thè life of this great apostle, and seek to discover its springs, we may find the clue to his abounding hope. Roam- _ ing then through the entire records of his life and teachings, do we discover any significant emphasis ? Pre-eminent above all other suggestions, I am impressed with his vivid sense of the reality of the redemp tive work of Christ. Turn where I will, the redemptive work of the Christ evidences itself as the base and groundwork Of his life. It is not only that here and there are solid statements of doctrine, wherein some massive argument is constructed for the partial unveiling of redemptive glory. Even in those parts of his epistles where formal argument has ceased, and where solid doctrine is absent, the doctrine flows as a fluid element into the practical con victions of life, and determines the shape and quality of the judgments. Nay, one might legitimately use the figure of a finer medium still, and say that in all the spa cious reaches of the apostle’s life the redemptive work of his Master is present as an atmosphere in which all his thoughts and purposes and labors find their sustaining and enriching breath. Take this
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker