14
January 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
The Cleansing Blood o f Christ ( F rom The Life o f Faith, L ondon ).
be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo crites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which in deed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also out wardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Now, here we have one of the worst blemishes in the thought and outlook of modern society. Modern society demands that the outside shall be clean, but does not trouble about the. inside. As long as men and women are out wardly respectable and moral, and as long as their external lives conform to a; certain standard of behavior, society leaves them alone. Society’s greatest terror is the prospect of being found out. But God looks upon the heart, and seeks to cleanse the secret springs of motive, and thought, and desire. This means, in practice, that God’s way and man’s way suggest the difference between spiritual regeneration and moral reform. We have a feeling that the modern mind is growingly hostile to the doctrine of the new birth. It is a subject that is not universally preached from Chris tian pulpits. But, however this may be, for our own part we are more than ever convinced of the necessity of the new birth. We believe that the deepest need of sinful men and women is spiritual regeneration, which is a defi nite, gracious act of the Holy Spirit. We believe this is a necessity for very simple reasons. We remember that it is the heart which needs changing; it is the will which needs renewing; it is the affection which needs purifying. But, as we have said, the modern mind is more concerned with the outward. The modern idea, even at its best, is struggle; but the spiritual conception is surrender. The modern emphasis is to improve and do your best; the spir itual emphasis is to trust in Christ and leave the rest. The popular idea is struggle to attain; the Evangelical ideal is believe to obtain. .The tragedy is that a man may waste all his lifetime trying to reform himself, when, through simple surrender to Christ, he may be cleansed in a moment. What we fail to achieve in a lifetime, God, for Christ’s sake, will achieve in the twinkling of an eye. We may spend all our strength in feverish struggle, but in one trustful act of surrender we may make the greatest discovery, of a lifetime. Society may whitewash a man in the hour of his death, but Christ can wash him white in the hour of his life. S el f -S alvation I mpossible Finally, the difference between God’s way and man’s way is the difference between depending upon Christ and relying upon self. Now, as every student of Emerson is aware, there is something very fascinating about the thought of self-reli ance. Few things are more attractive to a strong man. We know what self-reliance can accomplish. We know how helpless we are in a competitive world without it. But we know also that self-reliance in the wrong place can be a deadly menace. The trouble is that so many modern preachers seem to assume that it is possible to acquire sal vation through self-reliance. Were this not so, there would
E stand on very sacred ground when we speak and think of the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. But it has been remarked that a strange silence is evident in the modern pulpit concerning this subject. We are among those who acknowledge, humbly and
gratefully, that the blood of Jesus Christ alone can cleanse a sinner from his guilt, and make him pure and holy in the sight of God. Accordingly, we could wish noth ing better for modern preaching than that there should be a welcome return to this essentially Evangelical aspect of Christian truth. Hebrew writers, it will be recalled, invariably thought of religious ideas in terms of pictures; and when they thought of sin, they did not think of a mere theological abstraction, which could be brushed aside as something of no importance; but, as a heavy burden of which men needed to be relieved, as a crooked way from which they needed to be delivered, and as a foul stain from which they needed to be cleansed. This accounts for the fact that so many times over is there to be found in. the Old Testa ment the urgent prayer for washing and cleansing, and the oft-renewed promise of redeeming grace. We find one man, for example, making use of such fragments of prayer as these: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” And we find, too, as though in answer to the cry of burdened sinners, our Covenant keeping God inviting such needy ones to confer with Him and hear what He will do for them: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lo rd : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Now, this is all so gracious and wonderful that it is not surprising to find that there are other things which look the same. Perhaps in no other region of truth do we so need to bear in mind the divine distinction: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways.” It is because man’s thoughts and ways are so different from God’s thoughts and ways that he shrinks from proclaiming the necessity and all-sufficiency of the precious blood of Christ. G od ’ s W ay V ersus M an ’ s W ay The difference between God’s ways and man’« ways relates to the sphere of operation. God is concerned with the inward parts, but man is interested in the outward appearance. God looks upon the heart. He cleanses and renews the inward man. Man judges by appearances, and is concerned with the outer self. This is clearly proved by a reference to one of the most searching denunciations of the Pharisees ever uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Woe unto you, scribes and Phari sees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may
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