irnnon

Geo. W, Hendsrson

Gift of
PROF. E. HERSHEY SNEATH
1925

(^i=  i>
...STUDIES...

UPON :

Important Themes In Religion

:AND:

Expositions of Difricult Passages of
Tlie Scriptures

BY-
Rev. Geo. W. Henderson, A.M., D.D.
Professor in Wilberforce University
\,„X^ PRKSS OP A. M. E. BOOK CONCERN, PHILADELPHIA ^.^

copyright
Rev. Geo. W, Henderson
ISI7

TO MY WIFE
MAMIE V. HENDERSON
TO WHOSE CONSTANT AND AFFECTIONATE
INTEREST THE PUBLICATION OF THIS
WORK IS LARGELY DUE
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED

Contents

Chapter Pase
I. THE AWAKENING OF A RACE (Sertoon) .... IS
ff. TttE DOCTRINE Ot SIN  40
%. The FaU.
2. The Two Trees.
3. Justice of the Divine Judgment.
4! the tree of Life.
5. Am I Kfy Brother's Keeper.
III. THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE  56
1. Repentence.
2.. Forgiveness.
IV. tikfe PROGRAM OF CHRISTIANITY  6S
1. the temptation in the Wilderness.
2: The Material Principle of R^enitpoin.
3. Salvation Tbrdui^i Righteousness.
4. Methods to Be Einliloyed in Redemption.
S.- Proper Wa?y to Attract Men and Gain a. Hear
ing.
V. DISCIPLESHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN  76
1. The Spirit of Discipleship.,
2. Spiritual Aspirations and Signs of Disciple-
ship.
3. Spiritual Vision— the Pure in Heart.
4. Children of God — Peacemakers.
5. The Doctrine of Christian Perfection.
6. The True Philosophy of Life.

6 Contents
Chapter Page
VL THE METHOD OF REDEMPTION  84
1. The Word Made Flesh.
2. The Reality of the Temptation of Jesus..
VII. GOD THE FATHER; HIS CHARACTER AND
ATTRIBUTES AS REVEALED IN JESUS... 100
1. God is Love.
2. The Manifestation of Divine Love. .
3. Manifestation of the Divine Love as Paternal
Care.
4. Manifestation of the Divine Love as Paternal
Discipline.
VIII. REDEMPTION— ILLUSTRATED AND AMPLI
FIED  .....108
1. The Prodigal Son — A Parable of Redemption.
2. Factors in Redemption.
3. Justification by Faith.
4. Christian Edification.
5. Reaction of the External Life Upon the In
ternal Disposition or Upon the Soul.
IX. ETERNAL LIFE  133
1. The Positive Side of Salvation.
2. What Constitutes Eternal Life.
3. Character of God as Revealed in Jesus.
X. THE LORD'S PRAYER  137
1.. Salvation Through Sonship.
2. The First Petition— Hallowed Be Thy Name. .
3. Second Petition — Thy Kingdom Come.
4.. On Earth as in Heaven.
5. Our Temporal Necessities — Our Daily Bread.
6. Forgiveness of Sins.
7. Lead Us Not Into Temptation.
8. The Spirit of Praj'er and Its Effects.

Contents Z
Chapter Pag*
XI. THE BARREN FIG TREE; OR, FAITH IN .
GOD THE DYJSTAMIC FORCE IN LIFE  147
1. Exposition of the Parable.
2. Application.
3. The Pharisees.
4. Have Faith in God.
XII. TAKE GOD INTO YOUR LIFE— A STUDY
BASED ON THE LIFE OF JACOB  .'  169
1. Two Epochs.
2. An Illustration from the Life of Joseph.
3. Jacob a Thorny Ground Hearer.
4. Other Scriptural Illustrations.
Xm. TAKE GOD INTO YOUR LIFE (Continued). . .179
1. Faith Defined.
2. Exposition.
3. The Biblical Conception of God Distinguished
from the Heathen.
4. Abraham's Conception of Life.
S. As Is God, So Are the Promises He Makes;
and the Hopes He Inspires.
XIV. THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY  190
1. Man the Crown and Lord of Creation.
2. Limitations on Man's Power and Liberty.
3. The Apostolic Test.
4. Individual Liberty and the Spirit in Which It
Should Be Exercised.
5. Voluntary Self-Renunciation and Its Reason.
6. The Doctrine of Self-Control.
7. The New Testament Conception of Religion.
8. Discussion of Methods. .

8 Contents
Chapter Pase
XV. THE HOLY SPIRIT— THE POWER WHOSE
OPERATION IS INVISIBLE  215
1. The Spirit of God.
2. The Spirit That Is In God.
3. Relation Between the Spirit of God and the
Spirit That Is In Man.
4. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament and
the Holy Ghost in the- New.
S. The Holy Spirit in Operation.

Preface

This work whitoh now goes to the public, con-
sits of a series of SttWiies contribtited to the Homi-
letic Department of the African Methodist Epis^
copal Church Review, The interest which has been
taken in them is the justification for their presenta
tion in the more permanent form of a^ book.
Primarily they were written for the ministry on
Siubiects with which they must dieal in their preach
ing and teaching. For one reason or another so
many ministers have not had the advantages of a
liberal training, and, besides, there is the danger
in most cases, that after a little experience they
will cease to be constant and diligent students.
Unfortunately the itineracy of the Methodist Epis
copal Church tends strongly to produce this result.
The hope and purpose of these studies is to aid
this class of preachers in particular, to stimulate
thought and investigation, and to guide them in
the pursuit of knowledge.
Our race is developing a passion for education,
and the movement seems to be growing ever
greater. The ministry must keep pace with this
9

10 Preface
intellectual ferment, must be qualified to com
mand the respect, and guide the moral and spiritual
life of the educated as well as the uneducated.
In truth, the minister ought to be the most power
ful factor in this upward 'progress.
But the scope of these studies is sufficiently
broad to be helpful to all intelligent students of
the Bible, Sunday school teachers, Y. M. C. A.
leaders, and laymen in general. Many of this
class have already expressed their interest. Nor
are they meant for any particular denomination,
but for all. Controversial and theological discus
sions have been avoided; the title indicates what
they are.
The subjects, for the most part, have an orderly
and somewhat logical relation, and, to that extent,
the presentation is systematic. The first chapter is
composed of a sermon delivered before the Ohio
Conference, and is included herewith because there
has been a constant demand for it.
These studies are mainly expositions of impor
tant and difficult texts. I am more and more con
vinced that the unfolding of scripture by stcripture,
together with a careful study of the context, in
an effort to interpret the meaning of the text, is
the most effective method of presenting truth from
the pulpit. Nothing so enriches a discourse and
furnishes such fresh and abundant matter. So
many ministers allow their cisterns to run dry,
and do not know how to replenish them. God

Preface 1 1
sends showers of blessings upon those who pro
foundly study His revealed Word.
Service is the watch-word of the Christian
Church today as perhaps never before. But ser
vice springs from character and in turn confirms
it. Those who may read these pages will there
fore find much prominence given to the edifying
work of the ministry. Nor can I forbear to call
attention to another oft recurring idea — the duty
of getting the children into the Sunday school,
and of keeping them there continuously till teach
ing has hardened into character, so that there will
be no blank in their lives for the sowing of wild
oats. I believe this period can be eliminated in
large measure. Take care of the young people
and the old people will present no problem.
It has long been my firm conviction that the
hope of the race — in fact of the whole family of
man — is in the Christian preacher and the Chris
tian teacher, a conviction which has grown out of
the fact that I have combined the two functions
in my life work.
That God will bless these unpretentious efforts
to advance the cause of the Christian religion, and
to hasten the new earth wherein dwelleth right
eousness, is the earnest prayer of the author.
GEO. W. HENDERSON.
Wilberforce, Ohio, Sept., 1917.

Introduction

When the request came to me to give a brief
introduction to this excellent work by Dr. George
W. Henderson, I hesitated to do so, on account
of the limited time at my command.
But, upon a "sober second thought," I concluded
that it might savor of selfishness to neglect to
give, if but a few words, upon a work that is cal
culated to so benefit those who may have the
privilege of reading it.
Dr. Henderson, in this work, shows himself a
master exegete, not only in the literary and his
torical handling of his subjects, but also in the
soundness of doctrinal conclusions.
The work will be especially beneficial to minis
ters. To young ministers to be sure, but also to
ministers of experience, and who, like the author,
have had the benefit of scholastic training.
One may spend a life time in the study of the
Scriptures, only to find that the "Sea of glass" is
deep and unfathomable, though transparent. And
yet there is a practical way of interpretation, that
makes the Bible a book easy to be understood. It
is this practical style by Dr. Henderson that gives
13

14 Introduction
his work especial value, and makes it a very valu
able asset to Biblical literature.
Christians in general, and Christian workers in
particular, such as Sunday-school teachers, class
leaders, and Endeavor workers, will find it most
profitable and helpful, to read and study the work.
If this simple and brief recommendation helps
in any way to place the book into the hands of
many readers, I am glad to share to that extent
with the author in benefiting the public.
L. J. COPPIN.

Studies and Expositions

THE AWAKENING OF A RACE— A SERMON
"Can any s^ood thing come out of Nazareth?
(John 1:46.)
Nathaniel in this passage voices an old prejudice
— too old for the memory of man.
A devout Israelite, with other devout Israelites,
he was in daily expectation that the Messiah would
come. And yet, when He is announced, he doubts.
Why? Because He is announced from Nazareth.
Here was a small, obscure place of bad repute.
For reasons not preserved in history, so far as it
was known at all, it stood in bad odor. Then there
was another reason not applicable to Nazareth
alone, but to the whole province of Galilee, of
which Nazareth was a part. The Galileans were a
mixed people. Some were pure blooded Jews, some
pure blooded Gentiles, or Assyrians who had come
in as colonists, after the deportation of the Ten
Tribes by the king of Nineveh; and some were
mixed bloods — ^part Jew, part Gentile. Nathaniel
was a pure blooded Jew and had no use for Gen-
15

16 Studies Upon Important Themes
tiles or for a cross between Gentile and Jew. Could
it be that the Messiah of prophecy, the hope of
Israel for deliverance and restoration, could come
from a city with so bad a reputation and from a
population so tainted with impure blood?
Jerusalem was the great city. There was the
Temple ; there Mount Zion, the former abode of the
kings from David down ; there was the home of the
high priest ; the centre of Israelite culture, the doc
tors and teachers of the law. Judah, the province
which included the city, was the great tribe out of
which came David; it was sacred, too, with the
memory of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Had Jesus
been announced from Jerusalem or from the tribe
of Judah, Nathaniel would have raised no question.
One is impressed with the good sense of Philip's
reply — Come and see. It is generally a vain thing to
argue against a deep-rooted prejudice, whether
founded on race or caste or something else that ac
cords with selfishness or flatters one's self-import
ance. Only facts themselves have any force and
even facts often fail to make an impression.
He might have said Jesus was not born in Naza
reth, but in Bethlehem of blessed memory ; that His
mother was a descendant of David, that she had no
mixed blood in her veins, but was a pure Jew, a
true daughter of Abraham and had never fore
sworn the faith of her fathers. But he said noth
ing of the kind. He simply challenged Nathaniel
to make a test. Come and see. And such is the

Expositions of The Scriptures 17
challenge of Christianity to every man. For Chris
tianity, conceived of as the power of God unto sal
vation, as the power that vitalizes the soul and
changes conduct and character, is a matter of per
sonal experience. It may be expounded as a matter
of doctrine, but it must enter into a man's soul as
food is transformed into blood, if the man is to be
delivered from bondage to sin and the fear of death
into the blessed assurance of immortality.
I am glad that Jesus came from Nazareth. It
was the home of His parents and of His forefathers
for how many generations no one knows. The peo
ple there were simple folk, earning their daily
bread by their daily toil, as the great multitude do
in every age and nation. No great men were there
or had been there. No learned men, no high of
ficials, no millionaires. There Jesus lived from
childhood to manhood, a boy among boys, a young
man among young men, growing in favor with God
and man. He toiled at the carpenter's trade. He
mingled in the simple society of the people, He
visited them in their homes, saw them in sickness,
knew their trials ; He stood with them at their
graves, where in sorrow and in weeping, they laid
their loved ones in their final resting place. And
now there is no place better known in all the world,
simply because a great personage lived there. Jesus
is not famous because He came from Nazareth, but
Nazareth is famous because it gave a home to
Jesus. 2

18 Studies Upon Important Themes
I am glad Nathaniel asked this question. That
question, which has come down through the ages
and is destined to go down through other ages,
sharply calls attention to the blindness and folly of
prejudice, whether founded on the pride of race
superiority, or in the notion that a man's character
and moral worth and usefulness in this world are
necessarily conditioned in the circumstances of his
outward life or the accidents of birth. There is a
strong — perhaps I may say — a strange veneration
paid to people born in palaces or of distinguished
ancestors, or clothed with high official authority.
And there is a strong tendency to treat with con
tempt any man who offers the world a message,
but who has no other credentials than the charac
ter he bears and the message he brings, or the serv
ice he shows himself capable of rendering.
When God wants a great man to accomplish His
purposes He does not seek him in the palaces of
kings, in the mansions of the rich, or in the high
places of power. Abraham, a humble citizen of the
Chaldees ; Moses, a gray-headed shepherd in the
wilderness ; Saul, Israel's first king, searching for
his father's lost asses; David, a shepherd lad, or
Luther, the peasant's son; Lincoln, born in a log
cabin and cradled in the wilderness of Illinois;
Douglass, slave-born, covered with a sack and eat
ing out of a trough with a dog; Daniel Payne, the
greatest man, ^^'hether white or colored, that ever
founded a great school of learning.

Expositions of The Scriptures 19
What is true of individuals is also true of races.
When in the fullness of time God decided to choose
a particular race to make them the organs of reve
lation and the messengers of salvation to the world,
He chose, not the Babylonians or Egyptians or
Greeks, but a race of Egyptian slaves, suffering a
bondage more cruel than American slavery — Sal
vation is of the Jews. I preach to you the salva
tion that came from a race of slaves. Abraham,
Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Paul — not
to mention others — are there any names in all his
tory that shine with such brightness as these or
that mean so much to the world ? And of this race,
came Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
Search history and you will find that the great
reformers, the great preachers of righteousness,
the martyrs of liberty and of truth, the champions
of justice and humanity, spring from obscure places
or families — the humblest conditions of life — with
rare exceptions, objects of the world's scorn, like
Jesus of Nazareth, when they made their first ap
pearance on the stage of action.
There is a persistent belief in the world that the
conditions into which a man is born in the world
determine and fix his station in society. If you
are born poor and among the humble, laboring
classes, you are expected to remain there. Any at
tempt to rise is opposed and resented. The world
does not expect great men out of huts or shacks, or
great things of a despised race with no history back

20 Studies Upon Important Themes
of it. Men have long debated whether circum
stances make. the man, or the man circumstances,
but the prevailing opinion is that circumstances
make the man or the race.
But I open my Testament and learn Jesus came
out of Nazareth. Circumstances didn't make Him.
I open the book of Judges and read how the Angel
of the Lord found Gideon threshing wheat, and
called him to deliver Israel. Circumstances didn't
make him. Threshing wheat is no training for a
great captain. I hear Jesus calling Matthew the
publican, and Peter and John, the fishermen, to be
come Apostles. Catching fish or collecting taxes
for the Roman Government were circumstances not
calculated to fit Matthew to write his Gospel, or
John and Peter to give to the world the Epistles
called by their names. But I need not call
the roll of all men or of all races who have
risen superior to their circumstances and chang
ed the course of human history. And do you
ask the reason? Abraham heard the voice of
God, in Ur of the Chaldees, the only soul
probably, in that heathen city, that had such
a personal experience. Moses heard His voice in
the burning bush ; Lincoln, in the wilderness of Illi
nois ; Douglass, in a slave hut. And the fact that
Jesus came out of Nazareth shows that God is no
respecter of places or of races, but accepts every
soul that opens itself to the truth of His righteous
ness; and passing from individuals to races, the

Expositions of The Scriptures 21
Israelites as a people, found God in that same wil
derness, wherein He had appeared to their great
leader in the burning bush.
No earthly conditions or power can keep a man
down or a race down when it has once found God.
Can you confine a stream or resist dynamite?
Steam will expand even though mountains be piled
above it. Steam is fire applied to water, and when
the soul of man has been touched by the divine
spirit there is a third something, a new creature
with power to turn the very circumstances which
have kept him down into stepping stones to higher
things. And now in the development of this line of
thought, I invite your attention to the significance
to the people of Israel of the forty years spent in
the wilderness. That was a long time to live on
the bounty of heaven, neither sowing nor reaping.
The old idea that it was simply a judgment upon
them for a lack of faith misses the deeper meaning.
Most of the people would hardly think it a hardship
to live on manna and quails. Nor was it simply to
allow the older people to die off, though that of
course was included in the larger purpose or plan.
In truth, there is no part of the Old Testament, no
single event in the world's history so instructive, in
considering the subject of race development.
Some think that the crossing of the Red Sea was
the critical moment in the Exodus from Egypt to
Palestine. A miracle like that, associated as it is

22 Studies Upon Important Themes
with the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night,
naturally impresses the imagination. But there
was another scene in which there were no miracles,
but which had a profounder significance and has
been more instructive to the world. The story of
how the people by successive stages marched to the
borders of Canaan and there awaited the return of
the spies sent to explore the land, deserves to be
studied with the greatest care.
There were two great facts stated in their report
— that the land did indeed flow with milk and honey
— but the people there were giants. Great moments
test men, test races, and the reception of this re
port showed of what stuff these Israelites were
made. The land was indeed an earthly paradise,
containing every condition of physical happiness,
but there was a price to be paid, there were dan
gers to meet and sacrifices to be made. What was
heaven itself to them if they had to face death to
gain it? All the glory of the country faded before
the perils to be encountered. Instead of fixing
their minds upon the former and bracing their
courage to meet the latter, seized with fear they
wept like children and expressed a willingness to
return to Egypt or die in the wilderness. Strange
choice ! Rather be slaves than pay the price of be
ing free; were willing even to die in the natural
course, but not willing to face the chance of death
in the battle for freedom.
, For the moment the life of their leader was in

Expositions of The Scriptures 23
danger. And yet I do not think Moses was much
concerned about his personal safety. When he ac
cepted his great commission from God in the burn
ing bush, he burnt his bridges behind him, for then
there arose before his mind, a vision, the most
splendid ever conceived by mortal man — the vision
of a people redeemed from bondage, and established
under a government of their own; free, happy,
prosperous, to whom should be given the oracles of
God, and from whom should go forth salvation
through righteousness to all the nations of the
world. But now in this crisis on the borders of the
Promised Land, its green hills and flowing streams
in plain view, it seemed as if all his prayers and
labors were doomed to utter failure, and that mag
nificent vision, possible only to great souls, and
which had braced and encouraged and inspired him
in the presence of Pharaoh and on the shores of the
Red Sea, and when his life had been imperiled by
the anger of the people on account of hunger and
thirst, now began to fade.
Put yourself in his place if you can. What would
you have done ? Lost all hope, all faith ? Reproach
ed them bitterly and said : "O you cowards, you are
no good ; go back to Egypt ; you are fit for nothing
except to be slaves ; I am through with you." Had
Moses taken this course possibly he would have
come down to us as a man of talent, but one who
undertook a task that was too great for him.
I am a student of history, but I know of no mo-

24 Studies Upon Important Themes
ment in all history comparable to this. The meth
od by which he met this situation stamps Moses,
beyond any other single event of his life, as a
statesman of profound insight and inspiration and
sets him in a class by himself. Had he failed at this
moment, imagine if you can, what would have been
the consequences, and how different would have
been, not only the history of his people, but of the
whole world. Great men are the pivots on which
the movements of human life swing. Caleb and
Joshua indeed had personal courage enough to go
forward, but no power to put courage into the
hearts of the people, and unless this were done the
task was hopeless. Now how to do this, how to fill
this people with the vision which filled his own soul
so that they would be willing to face any danger
and endure any trial — this was his task. He
thought he had already done this, ' but now he
learned that he had not known his people. But the
great leader despaired not. He communed with
God, and from that communion he rose with the
grandest and most comprehensive plan that ever
entered into the mind of man. By the blessing
of the Lord — so ran his thought — I will turn
this race of cowards into a brave people, I will
teach them it is better to die fighting, even giants,
for the sake of liberty and a national life, than to
grow fat on the leeks and onions of Egypt as the
bondsmen of Pharaoh. How? By a course of in
struction, moral, civil, social and religious, teaching

Expositions of The Scriptures 25
them the commandments, and judgments and stat
utes of the Lord.
Of course the Ten Commandments were the
centre of his instruction, but it also included the en
tire body of the Mosaic legislation found in the
different books of the Pentateuch, beginning with
the promise of God to Abraham. Read especially
Deut. 6 : 3-9, a comprehensive statement of this
plan. This answers the question what they were
doing during the long period. A new generation
had been born and grown to manhood; a race of
free men had taken the place of a race of freed
men, trained and educated under this system of
moral and religious instruction. How different the
children from the parents'! What a marvelous
transformation ! Moses found them slaves, he
made them free ; he found them cowards, he made
them brave ; he found them shrinking in craven
fear from danger and death, even when the prize
was liberty, he raised them above the fear of death ;
he found them even yearning for the past, he
turned their eyes towards the future and filled that
future with the vision of a free nation, the spirit
ual teachers of the world, honored above all other
peoples by the favor of Almighty God.
When Joshua gave the command — Forward
across the Jordan — there was no hesitation, no
childish weeping, no looking back. How different
the scene presented from that of forty years be
fore ! The work of Moses was done ; he was con
tent to die.

26 Studies Upon Important Themes
In this system of welding a mere mass of indi
viduals into a people, conscious of a great mission
in the world, imbued with a national feeling, you
will be struck with what was absent as well as with
what was present. In these days the doctrine has
been proclaimed that industrial training is the
prime factor in the development of a race just re
leased from bondage and taking its first lessons in
the school of a free life. But this was not the plan
of Moses. He said nothing about truck-gardening;
nothing about bank accounts — though possibly
there were no banks in those days — nothing about
making bricks, even with straw — they were al
ready expert in that business. Like all slave peo
ple, the people knevv^ how to raise food for the
physical life. Yet strange to say, they were re
lieved even of this necessity during the sojourn in
the wilderness. God fed them Himself that they
might give their time wholly to laying the founda
tions of their future in moral and religious instruc
tion. The first duty then as it is today was to
seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteous
ness. Now I do not wish to be understood as disparag
ing industrial education in itself, at all, I am point
ing out a significant fact of sacred history. Person
ally I believe in all kinds of education, each in its
place, but I would not put any kind of education
not founded on the Ten Commandments and the
Sermon on the Mount, at the top of any system de-

Expositions of The Scriptures 27
signed to develop a race. I have no apology to
make for taking my stand upon the policy of
Moses, a policy by virtue of which he took a race
fresh from slavery and made it the most remark
able among all the nations of the world in all the
essential elements of moral and spiritual strength.
The Jewish nation was born in the wilderness
when they found God there as Moses had before.
Up to that time their creed was simply the promises
to Abraham, which were dim and vague, living only
in tradition and not understood in either their
physical or spiritual meaning. Under Aaron and
the Levites, their religion for the first time took on
a definite, organic, institutional form.
I now raise another question : What was the cen
tral institution or factor in the development of the
nation and in preserving the race after the nation
had been destroyed? Certainly it was not the gov
ernment, for there was no central government dur
ing the long period of the Judges and very little
of any kind. It was only a loose kind of democ
racy in each tribe, the only principle of unity being
a common faith. It was not the Temple, for that
was first built by Soloirion. The monarchy and the
Temple as a common centre for all the tribes
did not come into being till four or five centuries
after the Exodus. And then in the course of time
the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans over
threw the government, destroyed the temple, de
ported the people and finally scattered them to the

28 Studies Upon Important Themes
four corners of the world. There is no temple today ;
no Jewish nation. In the place where it once lived
the stranger dwells with a strange tongue and a
strange religion. But there is still a Jewish race.
The Jew is found everywhere. Nineteen centuries
of proscription and outlawry and persecution have
failed to exterminate him. He not only lives, but
thrives. He has given us a Mendelssohn, a Rubin
stein in music; a Spinoza in philosophy; a Neander
in church history, a Beaconsfield among prime min
isters ; and a Rothschild, prince among the world's
great bankers. Not a single nation of Europe
would dare to go to war without consulting this
family of Jewish bankers. We sing their songs, we
read their literature, we accept their financial as
sistance ; we live and die in the faith that came
from their race, and at the same time we degrade
and persecute them. Yet they live. Why this mar
velous vitality? My answer is the Jewish Home;
the nation was destroyed centuries ago ; the family
has proved itself indestructible, and this goes back
to the law given on Sinai.
When we inquire why Babylon and Nineveh and
Greece and Rome perished, we find the cause was
the decay of religion in the family, and of those vir
tues which flourish around the domestic hearth. In
the Commandments there are three great names,
God, Father, Mother. Here we have God and the
family. The faith of Israel was a family faith.
Reverence for parents is associated with reverence

Expositions of The Scriptures 29
towards God, and the purity of the home is pro
tected by the prohibition of adultery.
One nation may overthrow another but no exter
nal power can destroy the religious home. A nation
dies when its government is overthrown ; a race
dies when marriage is neglected and religion in the
family decays. It was in the Wilderness where
Israel learned this lesson. (Deut. 8:2-3.)
I have chosen the one race in all history whose
experience and circumstances are much like ours,
and from whom we may learn lessons of wisdom
and encouragement. An American Negro is a sort
of modern Jew. Against us as against him, an
angel with a flaming sword guards the entrance to
American society. A legion of angels guards the
gateway to the political paradise, closing and lock
ing the doors with keys labeled grandfather clauses
and military service— a fate not yet decreed to the
Jew here, but to some degree in other lands. We
are here and cannot escape, for even Africa has
been pre-empted by the Caucasian. We cannot
lose our race identity except by intermarriage, and
here again laws are rapidly re-enforcing public
sentiment against lawful race inter-mixture. We
cannot change our race, therefore, we cannot
change our color as a whole. These are unchang
ing realities under present conditions at least. Nor
can we change our country for another except in
small groups. We must accept the facts as they
are, and seek a way of progress in the midst of

30 Studies Upon Important Themes
them. In the midst of our losses, I look around to
see what is left, and I find the same that is left the
Jews as a whole and which has been the means of
their preservation — the family founded on religious
faith and supported by religious sanctions. This faith
came of Abraham and was organized by Moses on
the Ten Commandments as the foundation. We
have the same commandments fulfilled by the Ser
mon on the Mount and the sacrifice on Calvary;
and for the maintenance of the family life we have
the school on the one hand, and the church on the
other. Nothing short of extermination can take
these from us and with them nothing but our own
folly can prevent our keeping pace with the
progress of civilization. Knowledge is power and
character is power. With schools we can increase the
power of knowledge and zvith churches, the power of
character and these rightly combined are irresistible. I
know of no greater proof of the race's indestruct
ible vitality than its capacity for knowledge and the
Christian religion. Had the Indian possessed more
of this capacity, his race would not have been so
near extinction. Religion leavening education —
this not only sweetens life but imparts an irresist
ible power for expansion and development. It was
the religion of our fathers that kept them from
despair in the house of bondage, and this same re
ligion working through the knowledge which the
race is acquiring in increasing numbers, will yet en
able us to take our place among the foremost races
of the world.

Expositions of The Scriptures 31
With these levers of power, endowed, as we are,
with the gift of song in which there is an element
of sweetness and melody all our own, we ^:an make
and are making a society, so wholesome, so attract
ive that those who now shut the social doors
against us will soon be knocking at our own.
Here is our seat of power, here are the factors
within our power which if rightly and wisely used,
will ultimately solve the problems of social, civil
and political life. The stars in their courses will
lend their aid. One people may indeed break the
shackles which bind another in slavery, but the
problem of free life must be worked out patiently
through years of travail by our own self discipline,
by the faith of our hearts and the labor of our own
hands, for the master force in life is character and char
acter cannot be imparted by another, but must be acquired
by ourselves.
I have spoken of education. I regard the school
as an adjunct to the home. Parents commit their
children to the care of teachers for mental train
ing because, as a rule, they cannot for one reason
or another, do it themselves. Education is not only
a condition of all progress in civilization, it is in
dispensable if we are to maintain our liberties in
America. It is the only thing that stands between
us and a fixed status of inferiority or serfdom in
American society. Every child according to consti
tutional law, is born a citizen, and the aim of his
education among other things should be to teach

32 Studies Upon Important Themes
him his duties and rights and how to maintain
them. Hence every parent is under the deepest ob
ligation to give his children the best education pos
sible, and to give his moral and financial support to
the cause of education, both public and private.
I have also spoken of the Church. The Church
is the sanctuary of religion, the seminary of spirit
ual learning in which the soul is guided in its search
for God, the place which supplies oil to the lamp of
faith. True, religion began in the home, when our
first parents uttered their first prayer and sang
their first hymn of praise, but without the Church,
it may grow feeble and degenerate into mere
superstition; besides, the Church is the only insti
tution that distinctly teaches and emphasizes the
doctrine of social obligations with the underlying
doctrine of human brotherhood — that no man liv-
eth to himself and that no man can be saved by
himself alone.
Home, Church, School, like the three graces.
Faith, Hope, Charity or Love. Home is the center
but it leans on the other two for support.
Little is left of our civil and political rights in
many states, and there is an evident tendency to
challenge them in all — still I believe we have a
fighting chance, though the battle is likely to be
long. Even our public schools are not free from
attack. Private institutions of learning are the only schools
that are or may be under our own control. Their support

Expositions of The Scriptures 33
we may guarantee, the character of their instructions we
may determine. Hence the problems of our free life
fall largely upon ourselves. As a race here in
America, we can never become a nation living
under our own government. We may group our
selves into separate communities more and more,
as at Mound Bayou, and Wilberforce or Gouldtown.
Such communities might become large enough to
send representatives to state legislatures, and even
members to Congress. Beyond these possibilities I
see no hope of political independence. The great
question for us is how to adjust ourselves to this
situation, how to maintain and develop our social
and religious life, and how to gain or regain our
civil and political rights. We need to take account
of stock to ascertain our available resources, and
with a definite program before us to work towards
a larger freedom, through the use of fundamental
factors, and not dissipate our strength and energy,
on non-essential details.
I do not wish to underrate other professions. We
need lawyers, doctors, dentists, men skilled in all
the professions — we need journalists, men for busi
ness, mechanics, farmers, men fitted for the sup
port of our professional and economic life, but
above all professions stands the ministry — next to
the minister stands the Christian teacher. These
two, locked arm in arm should walk the heavenly
streets together. Give us these, cultivated up to
the highest standards, and the race will be able to
3

34 Studies Upon Important Themes
give a good account of itself in the great day when
all human achievements shall be rated at their true
value. New England that has given to America its
conscience, liberty regulated law, its idealism, its
missionary zeal and moral enthusiasm, owes its
power to the minister and the school teacher. In
no place outside of Judaism has the clergy exer
cised such leadership. Subtract from American life
the contribution of this small section, and what
would America be ?
As the minister stands at the head of all profes
sions, so the Church stands above all other institu
tions. It is the soul which distinguishes man from
the animal, and the Church is the nursery of the
soul, the minister, the guide and teacher.
God — Father — Mother — These are the great
names in the Ten Commandments and under the
system of the instruction devised by Moses aided
by the priests, the fathers and mothers, with the
family in the center, the freedmen of Pharaoh were
turned into the free men of Palestine.
No race as a whole can be better than its homes,
than the character of the father and mother, and
the training of the children. Here is the origin of
life, and here it receives its bent and direction. We
all pity those born out of wedlock, and a race that
dishonors the family is doomed.
The legislation of Moses affecting the family and
its preservation is remarkable for its wisdom and
foresight. He was probably the wisest statesman

Expositions of The Scriptures 35
of the ancient world, if not of all time. He taught
the people to cherish a just family pride, that the
family was God's method for perpetuating the race
and that children were the glory of the home.
Provision was made for preserving the family
name. (Deut. 25 : 5-10.) The genealogical lists in
the Bible show how carefully the family tree was
cherished and how greatly the family name was
honored. Again, specific provisions were made for
the family's economic support. Each family was
to receive a certain portion of land — Homestead —
when they should enter Canaan. This was to be in
alienable. It might be mortgaged but could never
be sold outright.
A careful study of these regulations will show
that Moses anticipated some of the most serious
problems of modern times — that the land would by
degrees fall into the hands of a few, with the result
that there would be a small rich class, and a multi
tude of landless poor. The spirit of a Christian so
cialism breathes in these laws. That all men should
have families, that all families should own a por
tion of land for their economic support, that the
rich should not oppress the poor and that the num
ber of the poor should be reduced to the minimum
— such was the conception of this noble, humane,
inspired legislator. And so long as the people had
regard for the laws of Moses they were blessed
with prosperity and happiness, and when these
were set at naught, those conditions came to exist

36 Studies Upon Important Themes
which Moses foresaw and provided against, and
which account for those divisions among the tribes
that made their overthrow by Nineveh and Babylon
easy. Dr. Washington is right in teaching the duty of
acquiring property ; it is for the ministry to see that it
is honestly acquired and wisely used. When money is
my servant, it is a blessing; when it becomes my
master it leads me to ruin. Jesus places the King
dom of God first, but also places the means of
maintaining the physical life next to it. He does
not object to bread, but objects to our living on
bread alone.
"If the black man carries in his bosom an indis
pensable element of a new and coming civilization
— he will survive and play his part." So wrote R,
W. Emerson.
But some say — The Israelites were God's
chosen. True, but God today at least is no respect
er of persons or races, except when they serve Him
(Acts 10 : 34-36) and then they, too, become the
chosen people. Surely He has a purpose in differen
tiating the human species into different races — a
mission for each — Greece for Art, Rome for Gov
ernment, America for the fusion of all races to pro
duce a better. It is not presumptuous to say that
American civilization shall be strengthened in some
of its noblest elements by the contribution that we
are to make. The Negro has a genius for music
and a genius for religion. He sings with his soul.

Expositions of The Scriptures 37
he worships with his heart. His humor is mellow
and unique, his social instincts strong. By virtue
of his imagination and emotional nature he has al
ready reached the loftiest flights of oratory and en
riched American literature with works of superior
merit, and by virtue of his religious genius, when
the white man's heart shall have become cold and
dead and atheistic through mammon worship, he
will warm it into life again, with his religious fer
vor and open his mind anew to the truth and grace
of the living God.
Yes, the Negro has a mission in American life
and for America. God included him in His original
plan. He has a work for him to do worth the do
ing, and let him cheer up and take hope. For it
should be remembered that the civilization of the
present day is not the work of any single branch of
the human family; it is a compound of many ele
ments to which every nation or people since the be
ginning of history has contributed something of
worth and dignity, and the time is at hand when it
shall receive further enrichment by the contribu
tions of the people of color.
My aim has been set before you, fellow-Chris
tians and fellow-ministers, the Divine Ideal of the
Family — its fundamental place in society, the con
dition of all progress in civilization, and that re
ligion, including moral instruction, is the salt that
saves it. It has preserved the Jewish race during
these two thousand years since its dispersion as a

38 Studies Upon Important Themes
nation. It is indispensable to the preservation of
any race, locally intermingled with another occu
pying a position of social and political inferiority
through the operation of unjust laws and customs,
the offspring of unreasoning race prejudice. But
the fundamental things are still ours — the Home,
the School and the Church, and with these, if we
are true to one another and to ourselves, we are
surely justified in believing on the ground of the
achievements of these few years of freedom, that
we shall be able to remove every obstacle now
athwart the path of our progress, provided Chris
tianity shall continue to furnish the inspiration and
the ideals of American life. For if America con
tinues to be Christian, striving constantly towards
a more perfect conformity to its professed prin
ciples, she must ultimately become just to all her
citizens. American Christianity is on trial quite as
much as her people of color ; and she must make
good. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Jesus Christ came. Can any good thing come out
of the Negro race? Douglass came — Payne came —
Shaffer came — Coppin came — but I forbear to call
the roll of all the distinguished bishops, preachers,
teachers or those more numerous but less distin
guished, though not less worthy who are perform
ing their humble part in God's great plan of life,
and bringing honor to their race.
The Israelites found God in the Wilderness. Our

Expositions of The Scriptures 39
fathers found Him in the house of bondage, and
their children will not lose Him in freedom; the
temple of liberty without an altar to the Most
High would be but a pagan shrine.
The consciousness that God had a great mission
for them to fulfill in the world made the descend
ants of Abraham the most unique people in history.
The consciousness that we, too, have a mission to
fulfill in this world not less sacred, though in some
respects it may be different, will bring us together
as one people and inspire us with hope and confi
dence and make us glory in our task instead of be
moaning it as a burden.
Brethren, the past may belong to other races,
but by the grace of God, the future is ours. The
ability of our people to acquire property has been
abundantly demonstrated. In this matter there is
no reason for especial concern; our main concern
is and should be, to see that it be honestly acquired
and wisely used, for unless fidelity to principle and
the development of right character go hand in hand
with increasing material prosperity, wealth may
become a weapon for harm instead of for good.
And it is no disparagement of other professions to
say that in this new life the race is making, social,
moral, intellectual and religious, in impressing upon
the people the message that we are a branch of the
great human family, with a legitimate part in the
divine economy of the universe, the leadership nat
urally belongs to the ministry, and by its side
stands the profession of the teacher.

II.
THE DOCTRINE OF SIN
In this and subsequent studies, my purpose is to
present in a simple form the Biblical conception of
Sin, Repentance, Forgiveness and Redemption.
The relation of these is obvious. Only a cursory
treatment is possible ; for a full development vol
umes would be required.
I. The Fall (Gen. 3:1-4).
Probably few if any careful students of the .
Scriptures accept this story literally; in any case.
the spiritual interpretation is the main thing, Its
profound insight into man's original and normal
relation to his Creator bears the stamp of divine
truth. Excavations of the cities of ancient Chaldea —
Abraham's native country — are bringing to light a
well developed civilization and literature going
back nearly two thousand years beyond Abraham's
time, and containing much of the matter in the
book of Genesis in a more or less modified form.
But no doctrine of man's primitive relation to God
and of Sin, at once so lofty and so penetrating,
40

Expositions of The Scriptures 41
similar to the story of Eden, is found anywhere in
ancient or modern times.
The story of the Fall is consistent with the story
of Creation. According to this. Creation reaches
its highest perfection in man; he is its crown and
lord. His body is of the earth, his soul is the gift
of God, and a part of His own immortal essence —
the connecting link between earth and heaven. Di
vine in its nature, the soul is immortal, the body,
mortal. It is in consequence of this character of the soul
that man's communion and fellowship with God
was and is possible, without which there could
have been no sin and no Fall.
II. — The Two Trees.
Of all the trees in the garden, only two are
named — the Tree of Life and the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil. Like the fruit of
other trees, the Tree of Life was free ; only the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was for
bidden Let us drop the poetic garb in which this story
is clothed, and pass to the spiritual significance of
it. 1. The Tree of Life represents man's normal life
when he lives in constant obedience to God's known
commandments ; it is a state of spiritual fellowship,
an abiding and joyous consciousness of God's pres-

42 Studies Upon Important Themes
ence, beneficent, inspiring, uplifting. Physically
speaking, the Tree of Life represents perfect
health, the result of conformity to the laws of
health; spiritually speaking, it represents the state
of the soul in trusting, joyous communion with
its invisible Creator, and in conformity with all
the laws of its being.
2. On the other hand, the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil represents an act of conscious
disobedience, an act which breaks this communion;
shame, fear, guilt follow. Here is a new experi
ence, a new kind of knowledge, the knowledge of
evil. Of course there was a knowledge of good before
the Fall, but as no man who has always had un
broken health ever stops to estimate its worth, so
no one in a state of innocence even defines to him
self the meaning of good. Sickness arouses atten
tion to the value of health ; so sin brings to light
the beauty and the worth and nobility of the good.
The Fall, then, represents a profound internal
experience. It is the first act that arouses con
science, bringing shame and guilt, and the con
sciousness of unworthiness.
While we cannot follow this story literally, step
by step, there is, nevertheless, a close correspond
ence between the figurative and literal meaning.
3. The soul has no knowledge except that which
comes from the external world. All knowledge in
the raw, is of things or persons outside of us;

Expositions of The Scriptures 43
thoughts and imaginations are the product of the
mind working upon this raw experience. Hence, in
a sense, all life is a Tree of Knowledge.
But the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
represents a particular kind of knowledge — the re
sult of breaking the law of our spiritual being.
Breaking the laws of health brings physical pain;
breaking the laws of our spiritual being produces
spiritual pain. We term this pain remorse, or the
pricking of conscience. Siti is, therefore, spiritual
sickness. 4. What particular thing our first parents were
guilty of, no one knows beyond the fact that it
was disobedience to a heavenly commandment and
destructive of their spiritual happiness.
The explanation as given in Paradise Lost was,
at one time, quite generally believed; but it is
wholly contrary to the law of wedlock by virtue of
which the life of the race is preserved.
5. The world, too, has generally believed that
this first sin introduced physical death into the
world. Geology proves the existence of death prior
to man's creation, but the narrative itself shows
that physical death was not meant. "In the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
(Gen. 2:17). But Adam lived centuries after the
Fall. (Gen. 5 :3-5.) Spiritual death is both an ade
quate explanation and consistent with the state
ment as to Adam's long subsequent life.
It is to be remembered, 'too, that physical death

44 Studies Upon Important Themes
in the process of nature is not of itself an evil.
Granting immortality, it is not death that men fear,
but judgment — the apprehension of pain and suffering
in consequence of their broken communion with God.
III. The Justice of the Divine Judgment.
1. In the consideration of this subject, it is neces
sary to start with the assumption that God in
creating man had an ideal of perfection in mind, a
being linked to heaven by his soul and to the earth
by his body.
The body is hence the organ of the soul by means
of which the latter asserts its lordship over all the
forces and other living creatures upon the earth.
The soul — vital spark of the divine life — is the seat
of intelligence, and its power of dominion is a
spiritual quality, given directly of God and respon
sible to Him for its right use. For, though divine
in its essence, the soul is a created thing, is depen
dent upon its Creator. Ignoring its relationship
means death; faithful, constant recognition of it
means life, the command to subdue the earth and
rule its living creatures states the purpose of Cre
ation. 2. But man, in working out the problem of his
destiny, is not infallible — no created being can be ;
for infallibility is an attribute of Deity alone.
He is, then, liable to two kinds of mistakes — the
mistakes of ignorance and the- mistakes of dis
obedience in the face of actual knowledge.

Esi^positions of The Scriptures 45
The first kind involves no sense of guilt or
shame, and occasions no remorse, and receives no
other punishment than that which follows the vio
lation of natural law.
The second is spiritual ; produces the sense of
guilt and shame, and consciousness of unworthi
ness and of deserving punishment. This is remorse,
the result of an a^yakened conscience.
Remorse is to the soul what pain is to the body,
and follows a consciously wrong act as truly as
pain follows the taking of poison into the body.
Loss of health is the punishment for the latter;
loss of the consciousness of right relations with
God and with other spiritual beings, is the punish
ment of the former. Punishment is not vindictive;
is not an act of anger or revenge; it is the inevit
able result of breaking the laws of our spiritual be
ing. No injustice can therefore be charged against
God, unless we question the wisdom of having made us
as we are. To do this would be an idle and foolish
thing, since no one can prove to universal satisfac
tion that a created being, higher than the animals
and less than pure Deity, fitted for the task of sub
duing the world and dominating all other creatures,
could have been created gifted with greater poten
tial powers and faculties than man.
Of course, physical and moral punishment are
different in kind as the body differs from the soul.
The punishment of a disobedient child is, primar
ily, the displeasure of the parent; the punishment

46 Studies Upon Important Themes
of the wilful sinner is the displeasure of God, his
heavenly parent and of other spiritual beings. It
is true the father may emphasize his displeasure
by corporal punishment ; and God may inflict some
thing more than the frown of an offended coun
tenance. But this is no violation of the general
principle ; the function of all bodily pain is to teach
us to avoid the causes that impair health and hap
piness ; and the purpose of all spiritual punishment
is to teach us to shun the causes which impair
spiritual health and happiness.
In other words, punishment is intended to be
curative. Sin is a kind of spiritual sickness ; punishment, a
spiritual physic. Jesus likened himself to a physi
cian (Mark 2:17: Luke 5:31); and the German
word for Saviour means "healer."
In this statement as to the justice of punishment
for sin, I do not raise the question as to the con
tinuance of punishment after death, except to say
that so long as any soul continues to live out of
harmony with God and his fellow-beings of the
same order, punishment in the sense of pain and
suffering will continue. No man can be happy in
sin, just as no fish can be happy on the land, or
fowl in the water. No debauchee has a right to
complain of ill health, and no murderer has a right
to complain of sleepless nights and mental suffer
ing.

Expositions of The Scriptures 47
3. Relation of Punishment and Work.
It has already been stated that this story of the
Fall cannot be taken literally; it is the record of a
great spiritual experience related largely in figura
tive language. Nowhere does the Bible attempt a
full philosophy of life ; its language is that of prac
tical experience and makes no pretense of philo
sophical precision and exactness.
The narrative itself, however, shows that work
was not imposed upon man as a punishment. Prior
to his Fall he was commanded to dress and keep
the garden. (Gen. 2:15). Read in this connection,
man's mission in life, as stated at his creation (Gen.
1 :28), was to work.
Viewed in the light of experience, it may be said
truly that work is no curse, but a blessing to every
normal person living in right relations with God
and man; it is a curse only to those who do not
take it in the right spirit. Even prior to the Fall,
the division of work and rest was made in the time
occupied in creation. Creation was an act of work,
consisting of six consecutive periods of time, fol
lowed by a period of rest. God himself is the great
workman. Civilization is the product of work.
4. Sin is defined as the failure of man to reach
his ideal. In both the Hebrew and the Greek, the
word sin means to miss the mark. Originally it de
scribed the act of a hunter who shot at and missed
his game. In the spiritual sense, it describes the
act of a man who falls below or fails to attain the

48 Studies Upon Important Themes
ideal of his being. This ideal may be stated in the
words of our Saviour: To love God and our neigh
bor. (Matt. 22:38-39).
IV.— The Tree of Life. (Gen. 3:22)
1. A partial explanation has already been given
in a previous study. In a word, it means continu
ous, unbroken fellowship with God and with all
spiritual beings. This constitutes immortality in
the best sense. Only man's own act can break this
fellowship. The Fall was such an act, and exclu
sion from Eden is only another way of saying that
man's own sin drove him out. For Eden represents
man's state of happiness when he is in right rela
tions with God.
In the Gospel, therefore, the word "Life" means
the same as the phrase Tree of Life in the story of
the Garden of Eden, and both signify the same
thing. To the mind of Jesus there was no life ex
cept that which represented a state of filial relation
to God. No sinner, therefore, has life; he has only
existence. Eternal life and immortality are not synonymous
terms. The one means an unbroken state of spirit
ual happiness ; the other, merely a continuous state
of existence. Accordingly, all men are immortal.
The soul, spark of divine essence, is imperishable,
but only those who live "in the spirit" have eternal
life. There are theologians who hold the doctrine of

Expositions of The Scriptures 49
annihilation for the finally impenitent ; others cher
ish the hope of final salvation for all. I do not
wish to enter into a discussion of these theories; I
will only say that the latter theory is more in ac
cord with the story of man's creation.
Every man's sin, therefore, shuts him out from
the Tree of Life and closes the gates of Paradise
against him. Sin and happiness are exclusive
terms ; God so made us in the beginning that the
two cannot exist together. It is a law of man's
being. 2. Further light is thrown on this subject when
we consider the Hebrew conception of God's rela
tion to the world. Starting with the revelation of
Him as creator, all the forces of nature and all the
acts of man are directly referred to Him. The con
sciousness of a superior power upholding, sustain
ing and directing all life breathes in almost every
chapter of the Scriptures. The universe is His ves
ture; the light. His garment; the clouds. His
chariot; the winds, the wings upon which He
moves; the thunder. His voice. All living things
wait upon Him ; He sends forth His spirit, and they
are created; He takes away their breath, they die
and return to dust. God is said to have hardened
Pharoah's heart; he controlled the tongue of Ba
laam. So thoroughly has this conception of God's rela
tion to the world entered into Christian thought
that the personality of the inspired writers is sup-
4

50 Studies Upon Important Themes
posed to have been suspended when God spoke
through them, and that they are not to be judged
by the standards that are applicable to other men.
Place by the side of this the fact that nowhere does
the Bible exempt men from accountability for their
sins. Modern philosophy has reconciled this apparent
contradiction by developing the doctrine of free
will. The Apostle Paul states the subject with
great clearness. (Phil. 2: 12). God works through
man by man's free consent, but does not take away
his power of choice or overpower the free action of
his will. He does, indeed, in a thousand ways,
counteract or destroy the consequences of his
wrong choices and actions, but does not by His al
mighty power prevent either the one or the other.
The power of free choice is the foundation of all
character, and character is the glory of man. The
doctrine of the divine agency in relation to human
freedom assumes a more distinct form in the New
Testament than in the Old, and this is true also of
the latter books of the Old. Therefore, to say that
God drove man out of Eden and to say that man
by his own sin brought this result to pass, is the
same thing.
3. Man's sin, however, put up no irremovable bar
between him and heaven. The divine care con
tinued; judgment was tempered with mercy, and
the light of hope relieved the darkness of despair.
In place of the Paradise of innocence looms the

Expositions of The Scriptures 51
possibility of the Paradise of character, the glori
ous result of the human will freely conforming to
the will of heaven. For the doctrine of the New
Testament is the assurance that Paradise may be
regained; what Adam lost, Christ restores. The
Bible is the record of the process by which this is
accomplished. Yet the two Paradises are not quite the same.
Innocence, involving ignorance of sin, was the char
acteristic of the one ; consciousness of redemption
is the characteristic of the other.
V. Am 1 My Brother's Keeper? Or, The Doctrine
of Accountability to God for Our Conduct
Toward One Another. (Gen. 4:8-15.)
1. Sin against man is sin against God.
This is a corollary to the doctrine of creation.
God, as the Creator of all sentient beings is, of
necessity, the preserver and defender of all. Every
such being or creature is dependent upon Him for
life and for the means of supporting and preserv
ing it. It would have been cruel in the Creator if,
after creation, He had withdrawn His protecting
care. Hence God punishes the sin of the individual
to protect and preserve the race and make possible
its development and the realization of the ideal of
humanity. To sin against man is, therefore, to sin
against his Creator.
2. On the contrary, it may be said that sin

52 Studies Upon Important Themes
against God is also sin against man. Suppose a
child should be cast upon some lonely spot and
grow up, live and die without a knowledge of other
human beings, utterly deprived of the inheritance
of human experience, it is not easy to see how he
could be guilty of any sin in a moral or spiritual
sense. The beginning and the end of his life would
be an insoluble mystery. In the matter of charac
ter he would always be a child. Temptation, mor
ally speaking, would be unknown ; there would be
no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, nor
could there be any Tree of Life, if this depends
upon resisting the temptation to partake of the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Hence,
3. Sin is primarily social; that is, it is an act
which harms another, and by its reaction harms
the sinner. No man liveth to himself, and for this
reason no man can sin against himself without
harming some one else, so all-embracing and vital
are the ties that bind man to his fellow-men, or to
society. 4. It follows that every man is his brother's
keeper. Some have questioned whether the Bible
teaches the doctrine of human brotherhood. They
claim that Cain's question applied only to Abel,
who was the son of the same parents, a blood re
lationship, with no reference to others.
They further claim that the New Testament
teaches the doctrine of Christian brotherhood, and
not of human brotherhood.

Expositions of The Scriptures 53
It is true, there is no explicit unfolding of God as
father in the Old Testament. But fatherhood is im
plied in creation. Every father is a creator. See Job
38:28; Isa. 63:16 and 64:8; also Deut. 32:6.
It is also true that Christianity, especially the
Gospels, lays especial stress on spiritual brother
hood. But the Apostles Paul and John teach the
doctrine of human brotherhood in no uncertain
tones. (See Acts 17 : 26.) The references are easy
to find. Yet the Gospels leave us in no doubt on
this question. Christ clearly enough teaches the
universal fatherhood of God. See especially Matt.
5:22, 23, 24; 7:4-5 and 18:15. He makes no dis
tinction between spiritual and human brother
hood. But, after all, the spiritual brotherhood is the es
sential thing. All souls are kin and he who denies
his obligation to his fellow-men becornes a divisive
and destructive force in the economy of social life ;
he becomes an enemy to society. God has created
us our brother's keeper, or neighbor's, if you
choose, and the recognition of this truth is the con
dition of all culture, of all development, and of all
true happiness.
Accountability is the law of our being. Society,
government, even the family are impossible with
out it.
Self-protection on the part of society is the jus
tification of all punishment.

54 Studies Upon Important Themes
5. The workings of Conscience consequent upon
the consciousness of sin and guilt.
Remorse follows sin with the same certainty
that pain follows sickness. Cain's sin shut out from
him the vision of God, breaking the bond of com
munion; it made him feel that he was an outcast
from society and that every man was his enemy.
The punishment was so great that it seemed un
bearable, (vs. 13-14.) Sin outlaws the sinner; unre-
pented of, it puts the sinner beyond the pale of so
cial sympathy and protection.
Yet even in Cain's case judgment was tempered
with mercy, (v. 15.) God would sanction no lynch
law. While no sane man questions the fact or the
right of punishment, many call in question the prin
ciple of capital punishment, the requiring of life
for life. Philanthropists today are earnestly seek
ing some method of punishment, both curative and
adequate, without taking life itself. This is con
sonant with the spirit of Christianity as well as
with the treatment of this first murderer.
Under the action of conscience, Cain supposed
that the stain of guilt upon his soul was a visible
thing, which would be seen and known by every
one whom he met. So Lady Macbeth, suffering re
morse, supposed the stain upon her soul was a spot
upon her garment.
Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, is a

Expositions of The Scriptures 55
great treatise upon the action of a guilty con
science — a study in psychology.
Cain's punishment was two-fold.
(a) The displeasure of God. His sin shut out the
vision of God, breaking the bond of communion
with him.
(b) He had forfeited the confidence of his fellow-
men and made him feel that every man was his
enemy, (verses 13-14.)

III.
THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE
I. Repentance
(Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15.)
1. The capacity to distinguish between right and
wrong is inborn — a part of the soul's constitution.
(Rom. 2: 14-15.) The standards of right and wrong
are furnished by society. All laws are supposed to
embody these standards in all important transac
tions between man and man. But every commun
ity has a code of unwritten laws — called customs.
On a higher plane are those principles regulative of
conduct furnished by the Christian church. Now,
sin in practice involves a conscious departure from
some one or more of these standards.
Repentance grows out of this consciousness. The
sinner perceives that his act has put him into
wrong relations to his fellow-men, individually and
in their collective social capacity; that he has for
feited their confidence.
Secondly, h& becomes aware of having broken
communion with God, that God's face is hidden
56

Expositions of The Scriptures 57
from him. God, being the judge of all, the sense
of accountability to Him for our conduct toward
our fellow-men is the deepest motive for repent
ance. Much may be hidden from man, but nothing
from God. Earthly judgment may be escaped, but
not the divine. Nowhere outside of the Bible is
there such a clear doctrine of sin and of account
ability for it, or such high standards of moral con
duct, of social justice and individual righteousness.
Men may differ on the question of eternal punish
ment, but no sane thinker doubts that so long as
the sinner persists in sin, punishment, as the con
sequence of sin, in some form, will continue in this
life and in the next.
2. Repentance defined.
Literally it means a change of mind; but it is
more than an intellectual act — it is a moral
movement. It means a change of the spirit of one's
life and a corresponding change of conduct. It
means giving up the old spirit of selfishness, of
self-will, of self-indulgence, as destructive to one's
true happiness, and bringing the whole life into an
attitude of obedience and reverence toward God
and of sympathy and good will toward man. The
change is, first of all, an inward operation ; change
of conduct is the result.
3. Emotion as an element of repentance.

58 Studies Upon Important Themes
The Doctrine of Repentance (Matt. 4:17; Mark
1:15).
1. Conversion or repentance viewed on its posi
tive side.
Repentance usually denotes the consciousness of
some particular sin, or a sinful life, and of guilt as
a consequence ; conversion, the definite turning
away from the old way of living, and the accept
ance of a new and better.
The Christian is called a new creature. (II. Cor.
5 : 17.) This is the larger meaning, though the
terms apply to a Christian who falls and rises
again. 2. The motive of Christian repentance.
The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. According to
Matthew and Mark, the theme of Jesus from the
beginning was a call to repentance, because the
kingdom of heaven was at hand. This, too, was the
theme of John the Baptist (Matt. 3:2). This
marks a new era in religious life, a new motive is
presented. Nothing so grand, so attractive, so full
of promise was ever known before. All the light
that had been gradually dawning for the world
through the general experience of mankind and
through the successive revelations in the Bible is
now gathered up in a single person, and of
fered to all the world. A new spirit has now en-

Expositions of The Scriptures 59
tered the world ; new standards of life are present
ed. A new universal religion — one that rises above
all race barriers, taking the place of the particular
religions then existing, and making possible the
spiritual unity of all the world in the bonds of a
universal brotherhood.
The kingdom of heaven is an invitation to give
up the selfish life, which is exclusive, and enter into
the spiritual life, which is inclusive.
3. Hence conversion means not only turning
from the old way, but into a new way. Repentance
is as old as our first parents in Eden; conversion,
under the motive of a new life, continuous through
this world into the next and forming a bond of
good will and sympathy with all men on earth and
with the spiritual hosts of heaven, is the peculiar
glory of Christianity.
No religion except Christianity ever presented
God in the character of a father, or lOve as the uni
versal bond, linking man with man and all men to
the throne of heaven.
Regeneration is the term often applied to this
change into a new life. It embodies the thought of
Jesus in the interview with Nicodemus-. (John 3:
1-16.) There is a repentance without hope; conversion
is repentance with hope — the hope of something
better in the place of the old. The kingdom of
heaven is a universal spiritual brotherhood, based

60 Studies Upon Important Themes
upon the universal divine fatherhood, and is offered
as the motive for Christian repentance.
II. Forgiveness, or The Doctrine of Moral
Bankruptcy (Matt. 6:12.)
1. In the Lord's Prayer sin is called "debt."
Duty and debt are from the same Latin word.
Duty is something due ; an unperformed duty be
comes a debt. As social beings, we owe something
of service and good will to one another ; failure be
comes a debt; all such debts are sins.
Failure to meet a pecuniary obligation is not
necessarily a sin. If avoidable, it becomes a sin ; if
unavoidable, it does not. The intention determines
the quality of the thing. A sinner is a moral debt
or who is unable to pay his debts. He is a moral
bankrupt. (a) Civil bankruptcy. The state provides a
method whereby a man who has honestly failed in
business and is unable to pay his debts may become
relieved of all legal obligation for them. Without
this law, he would be deprived of all opportunity
to enter into business again, and be condemned to
some menial employment, quite beneath his abili
ties, for the rest of his life, weighed down by a
grievous burden which he could not throw off and
unable to give his family a becoming support.
Taking advantage of this law, many men have

Expositions of The Scriptures 61
built a princely fortune and, of their own will, paid
off all former obligations. Sir Walter Scott and
Mark Twain are conspicuous examples.
(b) Moral bankruptcy. All conscious failure in
duty is a moral debt for which we are accountable.
Unlike pecuniary debts, there is no possibility of
meeting them. No man can undo his sin ; no mur
derer can bring his victim back to life ; no one can
restore his innocence when his soul has once been
stained with impurity.
When a man acknowledges his sin, he is assured
of God's forgiveness whereby he is relieved of the
obligation which he could not meet and his con
science is unburdened of its heavy weight. Sin for
feits the confidence of man and the favor of
heaven; forgiveness makes it possible to regain
both. A man may thus build up a new life on the
ruins of the old. How long a time may be required
for this depends largely upon how bad the past has
been. But forgiveness does not imply forgetting.
The former is an act of will ; we trust where we
once distrusted. The latter is a mental act. No man
can forget a thing simply by an act of will. Many
things fade from memory through our inattention
to them, but may be revived at any moment with
out either effort or intention on our part. But for
giveness means that we trust the penitent in the
promise of a new life and cease to hold him re
sponsible for the past. God restores us to the joy
of his salvation. (Ps. 51 : 12.)

62 Studies Upon Important Themes
Sin under any view of it is a serious handicap ;
long indulged in, it requires years to overcome the
social disadvantages which always attend it, and
form a part of its penalty, and often we never over
come the blunted sensibilities or the physical weak
nesses which it entails.
Yet what a relief the sense of forgiveness brings ;
what a burden it lifts from us ! It brings back not
the Paradise of Innocence, but the Paradise of
Character, the joint effect of Divine Grace co-oper
ating with the human will — the consciousness of
manhood. 2. Forgiveness may mean passing over some par
ticular sin, or deliverance from the spirit which
leads us to sin ; the latter is the general meaning
and marks the change from the old life to the new.
Forgiveness, in the New Testament, means send
ing away our sin, separating us from its power. It
is an emancipation, passing from bondage to lib
erty. Spiritually speaking, the free man is he who
has passed from the life of sin into the life of right
eousness. 3. Emotion as an Element in Conversion.
There are three sources of emotion in conver
sion: (a) Sorrow and regret for wrong-doing, (b) The
joy of deliverance, (c) Appreciation of the new life
and its possibilities.
These emotions vary in different individuals.
Only those who have sinned deeply have occasion

Expositions of The Scriptures 63
for great sorrow and shame. Jacob at Peniel,
agonizing the live-long night; David, rebuked by
Nathan, the prophet, and Paul, smitten with con
viction on the way to Damascus, felt deeply be
cause they realized that they had sinned deeply.
For the same reason the joy of deliverance was
great. But such experiences are not to be expected of
those whose lives have not been stained by great
' sins. This applies both to those who live uprightly
and honorably, and to the young people who enter
the church prior to any great experience of life's
temptations. These are mainly attracted by the
presentation of the Christian life as one of glorious
service, as the pursuit of whatsoever is just and
honorable and pure and lovely and of good repute.
To the young, with consciences unstained by any
great sin and with all faculties in normal condition,
the invitations of the gospel and the beauty and
glory of a life of righteousness are irresistibly at
tractive. Temperament is also an influential factor in one's
religious experience. Some have vivid imagina
tions and vivacious dispositions ; the great majority
of people are not so endowed. Religion is to such
a round of duties, a matter of morals, more or less.
The invisible, spiritual world is seldom or never a
matter of vivid personal experience. Hence there
can be no fast and hard test in conversion.
Some Churches insist on special evidence of sor-

64 Studies Upon Important Themes
row and grief for sin; others require that one
should have a vision of hell and its horrors and of
heaven and its glories. But these ignore the con
siderations stated above ; ignore the facts of ex
perience and of human nature itself. All men are
not made alike, and do not have, cannot have the
same experiences. The Scriptures set up no such
tests; of the multitude recorded as having turned
from sin unto righteousness, nothing is said about
their particular experiences, except a few extraor
dinary cases. And the attempt to apply the same
test to all shuts out not a few from the kingdom
of heaven, on the one hand, and leads to much in
sincerity and hypocrisy, on the other.
The use of fear as a motive in conversion often
leads to the same unfortunate results.
On these questions the attitude of the Church,
speaking generally, is changing; we are passing
through a period of readjustment. But the change
does not affect the essential things ; the seriousness
of a sinful life or the obligations to accept Christian
salvation are not minimized in the least.
Let the people come in their own way; the true
test is in the life they live and in the spirit they
manifest.

IV.
THE PROGRAM OF CHRISTIANITY
The studies that follow deal for the most part
with fundamental Christian truths. They attempt
to indicate, as far as possible, the specific mission
on earth, the essential and controlling conceptions
in the Gospel message. They embrace two general
divisions — ^The Program of Christianity and The
Method of Redemption.
I. The Temptation in the Wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11;
Mark 1: 12-13; Luke 4: 1-13).
PRELIMINARY NOTE— I wish to say a few
words before outlining this great event against
possible misunderstanding. My approach to this
subject is largely from the human standpoint.
Jesus Christ was the God-man, the incarnate Son
of God. He represents the vital union of the divine
and the human. He shows that there is no essen
tial incompatibility between the two. In truth, sal
vation itself is the bringing of the human into vital
touch with the divine. Paul calls the Christian a
new creature. (II. Cor. 5:17.) But just what is the
relation between the divine and human in Christ
is a metaphysical question, a mystery quite beyond
65 S

66 Studies Upon Important Themes
the penetration of the human intellect. The New
Testament clearly enough affirms the fact, but
gives no explanation. The greatest and earliest
controversies in the Church grew out of an attempt
to settle this question. Modern unitarianism is a
renewal of these old controversies which began
with Nestorius and resulted finally in a permanent
schism in the Church.
The tendency of orthodox theology has been
toward obscuring the humanity of Jesus in the fear
lest his divinity should suffer. Besides, truth is a
thing of many aspects, and the tendency in all ages
is to magnify some one aspect to the neglect of the
others. Fifty years ago theology lacked the human
element. In trying to avoid unitarianism, it lost
sight of the humanity of Christ. Today a reaction
has set in. The emphasis now, in the religious
sphere and out of it, is social service, showing a
deeper insight into the human element in the Gos
pel. Human beings can be effectually reached only
through their humanity, and to lose sight of this
aspect of the character of Jesus, is not only to neg
lect a fundamental truth, but to throw away a
lever of great practical power. If we realize that
in the Temptation and throughout His life Jesus
approached these problems of life which we have
to deal with from the human standpoint. His life
at once becomes a practical example for us.
The older view belittled man's capacity to be

Expositions of The Scriptures 67
transformed into the divine ; the modern view mag
nifies this capacity. It assigns to man a larger part
in his own salvation.
Whoever reads only the literal text of Scripture
really loses the profounder meanings. He who
would know the truth must read between the lines.
(Matt. 13 :52.) It is reasonable, therefore, to sup
pose that Jesus did something more than fast dur
ing those forty days, and then the three tempta
tions did not occur in rapid succession. Let us sup
pose that He spent this long period of time in pro
found consideration of the subject. How to sav&
the world, how to bring men to God and deliver them
from their sins and the consequent suffering into a
state of spiritual peace and happiness.
In this study I follow the order as given in the
Gospel of Luke (4: 11-12), where the order in Mat
thew — of the second and third temptations — is re
versed. On this basis the whole subject may be di
vided as follows:
1. The consideration of the mateirial principle of
redemption. (Matt. 4:4, and Luke 4:4.)
2. The method and means to be employed in
achieving this redemption. (Matt. 4:8-11, and
Luke 4:5-9.)
3. The question how to obtain followers or dis
ciples.

68 Studies Upon Important Themes
II. The Material Principle of Redemption
1. Observe how Jesus bases His answer to the
Tempter on the Old Testament. (Deut. 8:3.) He
thus distinctly connects His mission with the divine
revelation in the ancient Scriptures. He builds up
on the foundations of Moses and the Prophets.
The Old Testament was taught systematically in
the synagogues, where Jesus Himself had often
officiated. (Luke 4:16-20.)
Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets.
(Matt. 5:17.) It is a mistake to read the New
Testament into the Old, but it is right to study
the Old in the light of the New. The Sermon on
the Mount is a clear and remarkable exposition of
the principles and laws laid down in the Old Testa
ment. In this Jesus spiritualizes the letter of the
law and corrects false interpretations and wrong
practices founded thereon. See particularly what
he says on murder, adultery, profane swearing, and
loving one's enemies.
2. The principle of righteousness or redemption.
The answer of Jesus may be considered under
the following sub-heads :
(a) Jesus came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister and to give His life a ransom for many.
(Matt. 20 :28.) This mission was not one of ser
vice to self, but service to humanity.
It may be truly said that Jesus never used His
power to suspend the ordinary laws of nature

Expositions of The Scriptures 69
through divine power to satisfy mere personal
needs. As a man He submitted to the same limi
tations as other men ; He did not, for personal
reasons, take Himself out of the category of hu
manity. He was a genuine man, with the same
sensibilities, passions and appetites as other men.
(Heb. 4:15.) His hunger was real, and he found
a human way to satisfy it. This whole temptation
was not a mere dramatic spectacle; not a form
without the reality. We are not here dealing with
theological questions, but with clearly stated facts.
We may, indeed, assume that there was no prob
ability that Jesus could yield, but what was pos
sible, theoretically considered, is another question.
In what did the temptation really consist ? Sure
ly in appearance there could be nothing more
innocent than this suggestion; but it involved the
use of a power, conferred for public and universal
service, for mere personal and private purposes, quite
capable of being fulfilled by material means. So today
men often use their official positions to which they
have been appointed or elected for private gain.
Yielding on the part of Jesus would have vitiated
his whole public mission.
(b) Another truth is made clear in the course
Jesus took on this occasion; a truth that has a
bearing on the doctrine of prayer. We are not
to expect of God or ask Him to give us by miracle
those things which we can obtain by natural means
and human agency. There was no necessity that

70 Studies Upon Important Themes
Jesus should turn stones into bread; it would have
been both an unnecessary as well as an improper
use of divine power. God's grace does not mean
miracles ; it rather means inspiration, courage, con
fidence through faith, that lead us to lay hold of
the natural means by which our wants and needs
may be supplied. The divine provision is in the
forces of the natural world. Miracles even in the
mission of Jesus, exceptional as it was, were not
of the essence of salvation — salvation is not through
miracle in the ordinary sense of the word, but
through faith working by love. (Gal. 5 :6.)
III. Salvation Through Righteousness
1. There is a larger, grander and more compre
hensive truth disclosed in the answer of Jesus —
a truth clearly implied, though not directly stated;
namely, that the primary need of the world was
not bread, but righteousness through faith in God and
His providence, that men need to seek, first, the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness. This
great truth is especially developed in the Sermon
on the Mount. (Matt. 5 :24-34.)
The world could not be saved by turning stones
into bread. We may conceive of Jesus as having
the whole problem of society as then existing be
fore his mind. The most universal, the most dis
tressing fact was poverty. The poor were every
where. The effect of poverty is not simply nor

Expositions of The Scriptures 71
wholly physical; it also has a moral effect upon
character. Then, as now, there were three funda
mental causes. First, injustice and oppression by
the government. Bad and oppressive government
not only robs people of their earnings, but para
lyzes industry. People will not work industriously
and try to accumulate property unless protected
in life and goods by a just government.
2. The lack of character among the people.
Vicious habits, indolence, imprudence, intemper
ance — these are among the most fruitful sources
of poverty. Feeding people gratuitously, whether
by miracle or otherwise, would indeed afford tem
porary relief, but effect no permanent cure. At that
very time Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, was
feeding the populace by the tens of thousands;
the result was that the number increased rapidly
year by year, so that a law imposing restrictive
conditions had to be passed.
3. The oppression of the poor by the rich. Now
take away the injustice of bad government, sinful
habits in the common people, and the oppression
and insolence of the rich and powerful; the result
would be a state of society in which the happiness
of heaven would prevail — the Kingdom of God on
earth. The only remaining source of pain would
be physical disease, but the effect of this would
be greatly reduced by right character, right living,
on the one hand, and the application of progressive
hygienic and medical science, on the other.

72 Studies Upon Important Themes
The answer of Jesus to the. Tempter, therefore,
covers the whole problem of human salvation as
a means of deliverance from present evils and also
as the ground of hope for the life hereafter. (I. Tim.
4:8.) IV. The Method and Means to be Employed in
Effecting Redemption. (Matt. 4:8-11;
Luke 4:5-9.)
Foiled in his first effort, the Tempter now tried
an ingenious flank attack — unable to induce Jesus
to misapply His miraculous power to personal and
private ends, and turn Him away from the principle
of salvation through righteousness, he now seeks
to nullify the Lord's mission on earth by appealing
to ambition.
1. The question now before the mind of Jesus
was not one of principle or purpose, but of method.
The force and adroitness of the temptation lay
in the suggestion to attempt to save the world by
means of government. I. Consider how powerful
this appeal was: (1) The expectation of the Jews
was that the Messiah, when He came, would be
a political ruler, would re-establish the independ
ence of Israel and bring the rest of the world un
der His dominion. (Acts 1 :6-7. See also Isaiah
9:6-7.) (2) Consider how strong is the desire of
every man, conscious of extraordinary gifts, to
seek positions of power and authority over men.

Expositions of The Scriptures 73
To be ruler or king is in itself a worthy ambition,
and at that time, even more than now, it was
supposed to be the means of the greatest influence
and usefulness. (3) Then, as now, men looked
to government and to good laws for deliverance
from all wrong and trouble, and the evils to which
flesh is heir.
2. The answer of Jesus implies the following
points: (1) The Tempter held before Him, not the
well being and happiness of the world, but the ap
plause and the glory which always accompany suc
cess. (2) Good government, though a great blessing,
cannot make bad people, people enslaved by vicious
habits, or in moral darkness, happy and contented.
The world's fundamental trouble was sin, and sin
originates within the soul — an act of will — and the
remedy must be some influence or power that can
reach the soul directly, that can work from with
in. Political power can only work from without.
No bad man could be happy even in heaven. Jesus
came to establish a spiritual and not a political
kingdom. As a political ruler, he could, indeed,
have relieved the world of those evils which were
due to bad government, but could not have delivered
men from bondage to sin. (John 18:37; 8:32. Luke
17:20-21.) 3. Hence neither government nor laws can make
men good, and no reform that fails to change the
characters of men and lift them to a higher plane
of living can be permanent. The fundamental thing

74 Studies Upon Important Themes
is reconstruction of character; other things may
help but cannot cure.
V. The Proper Way to Attract Men and Gain a
Hearing (Matt. 4:5-7; Luke 9-12)
1. It must be borne in mind that at this time
Jesus was an obscure, private individual, utterly
unknown to the world. He was not even of the
priestly tribe of Levi, which would have been of
some advantage to Him as a religious teacher.
There was a strong popular prejudice against His
home (John 1 :46), which operated to His disad
vantage. It was, therefore, a serious question how
to command a hearing and gain disciples. The
suggestion of the Tempter had the same funda
mental vice as the other temptations. The first
was to feed men's bodies rather than their souls,
the second to use political power for a work curable
only by spiritual influences, and the third, to at
tract men by appealing to their curiosity and love
of the marvelous — in all three cases runs the idea
of touching the surface of men's lives and not
their deeper instincts and spiritual possibilities, and
to present Himself as a wizard, or magician.
2. How well adapted was the suggestion to the
end in view! People congregated in great num
bers at the foot of the temple at certain hours of
the day. A miracle of the kind suggested would
produce an immense sensation, and without further

Expositions of The Scriptures 75
delay, men would flock to see and hear Jesus in
great numbers.
Followers gained by miracle could only be re
tained by miracle. When miracles ceased, they
would surely fall away. (John 6:66; Matt. 16:1-4.)
3. Consider the unwisdom of attracting people
by merely sensational methods. When the test
comes they fall away. Nothing so surely vitiates
the spiritual life of the Church as the presence of
large numbers, always changing, who are con
scious of no spiritual hunger, and are proof against
spiritual appeal, but have come out of mere curi
osity, attracted by extraordinary and unusual cere
monies, or other sensations. They bring the world
with them and leave its flavor behind when they
depart. What Jesus wanted was not mere followers
— any smart man can obtain such — but disciples,
men who would accept His teachings and enter into
the spirit of His own self-sacrificing life. Judas
was a follower, John a disciple. Of such is the
kingdom of heaven.

DISCIPLESHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN
The studies that follow are a development in
part of the principles stated in the foregoing studies
on the Temptation. They are based on the Ser
mon on the Mount. This is the great Sermon. A
careful study of it will disclose how fully it ac
cords with the answers of Jesus to the Tempter.
I. — ^The Spirit of Discipleship (Matt. 5:3-5)
As the Sermon on the Mount is in the main an
exposition of the truths enumerated in the wilder
ness, so are the Beatitudes, which include Vs. 3-10,
a statement of the principles expounded in the Ser
mon. I have grouped these into three divisions.
In the first division are included the first three,
which indicate the spirit of discipleship.
1. Verse 3. The Spirit of Humility. Distinguish
between the poor in spirit and poverty of spirit.
The same distinction exists between humility and
humbleness. The former is consistent with self-respect and
manliness ; the latter with cowardice and servility.
2. This spirit is the opposite of ambitious self-
76

Expositions of The Scriptures 77
seeking. John and James aspired to high political
positions, not for the good they might do, but for
personal honor and distinction ; not to serve, but
to be served. (Matt. 20 :20-28.)
3. Humility of spirit is opposed to the proud and
haughty. The Psalms, especially, abound with con
demnations of this spirit. (Ps. 101 :5.) It is a
spirit of division ; it lacks sympathy ; it separates
man from his fellows ; prevents neighborly love.
4. Humility of spirit includes a childlike sim
plicity. The world then, even more than now, said:
"Blessed are the proud in spirit." Jesus reverses
the teaching of the world. (Matt. 19:14.)
Remark — ^Verses 4 and 5 are different aspects
of the same spirit. The first Beatitude is the es
sence of them all. Not one of them is possible
without the first, and each is founded on those that
precede. The mourner and the meek have true
humility of spirit. In the study of this subject one
should read "The Manliness of Christ," by Thos.
Hughes, and the character of Uriah Heep in "David
Copperfield," by Dickens.
II. — Spiritual Aspiration, a Sign of Discipleship
(Matt. 5:6)
1. As already intimated, the righteous are those
who live, not on bread alone, but on every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.
(Matt. 4:4.) Those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness are those who yearn for the truth

78 Studies Upon Important Themes
as revealed in the Scriptures ; they long to be like
God; to have fellowship with Him through Jesus
Christ. (I. John 1 :3.) They pant for the living
God, in the language of the Psalmist. (Ps. 42:
1-2.) They feel after Him according to the Apostle
Paul. (Acts 17:27.) Righteousness is the char
acter of the second; it is therefore a state of sal
vation. 2. How obtained. It is the result of faith. (Rom.
1:17.) (1) God is Himself righteous, both in char
acter and in action. His acts are righteous because
they proceed from a righteous character. (2) The
redeemed are those who have faith in Jesus, who
reveals the Father (Rom. 1 :16), who come into
fellowship with God and take on His character.
They become the children of God. (Rom. 8:15-47.)
It is not a momentary feeling, but grows with what
it feeds on.
This may be regarded as the pivotal Beatitude.
Perhaps no word occurs more frequently in the
Bible, except the word "God." (See Matt. 5:20
and 6:33.)
III. — Spiritual Vision — the Pure in Heart
(Matt. 5:8)
1. One might at first thought suppose that the
pure in heart are those who have never sinned.
Such a supposition would exclude the human race
from the promised blessing. On the contrary, the

Expositions of The Scriptures 79
pure in heart are those whose hearts have been purified
by the divine spirit. (I. John 1 :7 ; Rev. 7 :14.)
2. All sin is spiritually blinding ; all sin originates
in the intention or will. In Scriptures the heart
is regarded as the seat and fountain of thought
and action, and includes the will. Study carefully
Ch. 5:21-38. This whole section is an explanation
and development of this 8th Beatitude. (1) Purify
the heart from causeless anger. In this originates
murder. Righteous or self-controlled anger is not
wrong; it is causeless anger, breaking down self-
command, that is sin. One who allows it cannot
see God. (2) Purify the heart from lust. This
does not mean that one can bar all improper thoughts
from the mind, but the refusal of consent. No thought
is sin till the will has consented to it. No one can
absolutely prevent the entrance of improper
thoughts in the mind, because they arise often from
external suggestions. They become sin when we
harbor and cherish them. Whatever thought of
this kind one would put into action, were there
opportunity, is sin. Hence, turn out of the mind
all such impure intruders. (Mark 7:15; Prov. 4:23.)
Section 27-37 of the Sermon on the Mount is an
exposition of this Beatitude. Of course, sexual
liist is meant. Irreverence, mentioned in Verses
33-37, may be included under this head.
3. The heart is the spiritual eye. (Ch. 6 :22-22.)
The more fully one cleanses his heart from all
evil thoughts and affections, the more clearly will
he see God.

80 Studies Upon Important Themes
IV.— Children of God— Peacemakers (Matt. 5:9)
This seventh Beatitude is the fruit and flower
of the six preceding. Only as one has passed
through the experience of the others will he come
into the possession of this and its promised bless
ing. It indicates ripened Christian character, and
approximation to moral and spiritual perfection.
The strong and hopeful movement for universal
peace rests upon this Beatitude as a practical pos
sibility, and shows the marvelous progress of Chris
tianity and its most spiritual ideals in the world.
1. The yearning for peace finds frequent and
noble expression in the Old Testament. (Is. 11 :9,
also 2:2-4.) This peace was to come through
righteousness and justice, the only possible basis
for universal and permanent peace. Jesus Himself
said He came not to send peace, but a sword ; that
is, justice and righteousness, as the world is con
stituted, could prevail only through conflict. Uni
versal peace means the conquest of the evil by
the good.
2. How to attain this Beatitude is shown in part
in this same chapter. (Vs. 38-45.) Both the old
doctrine of retaliation (Vs. 38-39) and the spirit
of strife over minor points of dispute are condemned
(Vs. 40-41), and the spirit of neighborly accom
modation encouraged. In Verse 44 is prescribed
the sovereign remedy for all strife and division
and misunderstanding. Of course, the spirit of

Expositions of The Scriptures 81
peace must first be manifested in social intercourse
before it can become an international policy. Love
is the condition, it worketh no ill to his neighbor;
it is therefore the fulfillment of the law. (Rom.
13:10.) 3. The doctrine of forgiving one another and of
reconciliation with our estranged fellowmen are
essential in promoting this spirit. (5:23-25; also
18:21.)
v.— Doctrine of Christian Perfection (Matt. 5:48)
Young people, especially, find a difficulty in this
text. They understand perfection to mean sin-
lessness. Not so. Completeness is a better word.
This whole chapter leads up to this verse. Let us
observe the successive steps :
1. The Beatitudes. They show that the true
disciple is humble in spirit; aspires to spiritual
excellence; attains spiritual vision, and finally
rounds out into the character of peacemaker — the
true child of God.
2. In Verses 21-42, Jesus condemns causeless
anger, the cherishing of lustful passion, of irrev
erence, the spirit of revenge and strife, but en
courages the spirit of accommodation.
3. The sovereign prescription is love, not of one's
neighbor simply, but of mankind. Of course, this
includes one's enemies. This love does not mean
the affection which is the essential elemeht in
6

82 Studies Upon Important Themes
friendship, but a spiritual quality, which distin
guishes the sinner from his sin, and prevents the
commission of any act of injustice or of revenge.
4. Hence, this injunction means obedience to all
the commandments and all the precepts of the
Lord. No one can be a Christian who consciously lives
in disobedience to a single commandment, although he
may keep all the others. In a true Christian life
there may be shortcomings and sins, but these will
be incidents, momentary deviations from the way
of life, but not an abandonment of it. Just as any
one may be a good son or a good daughter, so any
one can be a good child of our Heavenly Father,
with an unchangeable purpose to keep all his com
mandments, however imperfect his performance
may be at particular times.
VI.— The True Philosophy of Life (Matt. 6:33)
Every one needs some philosophy of life; needs
to know what things are first in importance, and
what secondary; needs some clear, definite idea
of the good he is to strive towards, and how so
to order his life that he may attain it. Such a
philosophy systematizes effort, inspires confidence,
promotes growth and development in all excel
lence, and minimizes anxiety. The Sermon on the
Mount, as a whole, is a philosophy of life, and the
text of this study is the final statement. All that
precedes leads up to this climax. But it is also a

Expositions of The Scriptures 83
special conclusion to the section beginning with
Verse 24.
1. Avoid the mistake of supposing that God has
no concern with the means of maintaining the
physical life with its earthly wants. (V. 32, second
clause ; also V. 29.)
2. Such a supposition leads to a divided life, to
a kind of Sunday religion. The word "thought,"
in the original, means divided in mind, that is,
anxious. Out of this grows worry, anxiety, solici
tude. There is no prohibition of forethought, but
of anxiety about matters that lie beyond human
management. 3. On the contrary, as God provides for the fowls
of the air and the flowers of the field, much more
will He care for us. Man is greater than bird or
flower; if He cares for the less. He will care for
the greater.
4. God made this world for His earthly children
and arranged it for their good. Rightly used, it
meets all purposes. When we have done our part,
we may trust in His Providence for the rest, as
sured, whether in life or death, we "Cannot drift
beyond His love and care." (V. 34.)

VL
THE METHOD OF REDEMPTION
I. The Word Made Flesh (John 1:1 and 14)
It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion
of the metaphysical problems which the Prologue
to the Gospel of John has given rise to. The con
troversies in the early Church showed that they
cannot be intellectually solved. The only good
accomplished was to demonstrate the limits of the
human mind in this mysterious realm, on which
revelation sheds no direct light. My hope is to
make an intelligible exposition, consistent, with the
facts and the teachings of the New Testament.
Not much can be done within the limits imposed
by the nature of these studies.
1. Characteristics of the Gospel according to
John. A great preacher has called this the revelation
of the innermost heart of God. John was the be
loved disciple. Something in his nature and char
acter gave him unusual spiritual insight. He had
the tender affections and the penetrating sympathy
of a woman. His disposition was gentle and lov
able. He was, therefore, peculiarly fitted to appre-

Expositions of The Scriptures 85
ciate and to apprehend certain aspects of our Lord's
character, and certain implications in His teaching
which failed to impress themselves so deeply upon
the other evangelists. Inspiration is always limit
ed by the capacity of the writer ; the Holy Spirit
can only make use of the gifts a man possesses
by nature, but cannot give him any new faculties.
The profound spiritual nature of the Apostle John
is particularly manifested in his doctrine of the
functions of the Holy Spirit in the 14th chapter.
2. God the Father.
The Fatherhood of God is the central revelation
of the New Testament. There are dim intimations
of this truth in the Old Testament. It was seen,
so to speak, through a glass darkly (Is. 63:16, Ps.
103: 13). The figure of a shepherd was the nearest
approach to a true conception of the divine Father
hood. 3. God, the Shepherd of the Old Testam^t, the
Father in the New.
The most important passages in the Old Testa
ment in which God is presented as a shepherd are
found in Ps. 23 and 80:1, Is. 40:11, Ezek. 34:12-19.
A shepherd in ancient times had all the essential
qualities of a father. (Note carefully the passages
referred to.) (1) A Provider, "He leadeth me into
green pastures and besides the still waters." (2)
He was a Protector against harm and danger.
"Though I walk through the valley and shadow of

86 Studies Upon Important Themes
death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me."
(3) He will seek that which has been lost. (Ezek.
34:12 and 16.) (4) He will even endanger his own
life in defense of the flock. Read I. Sam. 17:34-36.
Compare John 10, where Jesus puts himself in the
place of a shepherd, and let it be remembered that
Jesus reveals the Father. In interpreting the
twenty-third Psalm it should be remembered that
David himself had been a shepherd and had risked
his life for the sheep.
4. Fatherhood — Sonship — Brotherhood.
Around these great ideas the Gospel of John and
the Epistles by him revolve. Jesus is the Son, the
connecting link between God and humanity. He
reveals God as Father on the one hand and the
brotherhood of man on the other; all sons of God
(see I. John 3:1-2). The human race is conceived
of as a single family and God is the All-Father.
The recognition of this truth in all the depth of
its meaning will usher in the new heavens and the
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. It is
the far-off divine goal toward which all life is tend
ing, slowly — perceptible, perhaps, only after cen
turies ; but, nevertheless, certainly.
5. God the Father Revealed in the Son. (John
1:18.) The "Word." This term originally meant "word"
or "speech," but came to mean "wisdom" or "doc-

Expositions of The Scriptures 87
trine." Here it is the name applied to the pre
existing Christ; Jesus is the word become flesh;
that is, the incarnated Son of God — the union of
the divine and the human. Jesus before the incarna
tion was the ideal of a perfect son in the mind of God;
Jesus after the incarnation is this same ideal in human
form, and subject to human conditions and limitations.
6. The Significance of the Incarnation as thus
explained. The clear implication is that the universe, as a
whole, existed first in the divine mind as thoughts
or ideals, and that these formed the plan of crea
tion. Creation is, therefore, the thoughts of God
manifested in time and space, or the ideals of God
made visible and real.
Furthermore, creation and redemption are not
two separate things ; they are integral and vital parts
of one comprehensive system or scheme. In the coun
sels of eternity, the plan of a universe to be created
not only included man as its crown, but also his
development into moral and spiritual perfection,
through which he was to assert his sovereignty
over the world. And this is really the essential
truth in redemption ; this conception carries us
back to Genesis 1 :27-28. The whole Bible is an
expansion of the idea in these verses ; the story of
how the race under God has been coming to a great
er and clearer consciousness of its divine origin,
and, through self-mastery, asserting its mastery

88 Studies Upon Important Themes
over the forces of nature and the animal kingdom.
God is Creator because He is a Father.
7. The Son Reveals the Father. (John 1 :18.)
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
(John 14:9). The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks
of Him as being the effulgence of His (God's) glory
and the very image of His substance (1:33). "In
Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,"
says the Apostle Paul (Col. 2 :9) ; so, also, Phil.
2:6. Christ is said to have been in the form of
God, but gave up His equality to take the form of
a servant. (See also John 6:46, 10:30 and 38, 17:3
and Luke 10:22.)
Other passages may be. found in agreement with
those already referred to, emphasizing the fact that
Christ, the Son, reveals the Father, that he came
to do his Father's will and that he reveals the
Father's character in his own life and character.
He shows, further, that it is possible for man to
reproduce this character in his own life. Every
true son has the characteristics of his immediate
parents or remote ancestors, and this law of hu
man life applies to the "Word made Flesh."
8. The Incarnation, the Only Possible Method of
Establishing the Fatherhood of God.
(1) The Fatherhood of God is the central truth
of the Christian revelation ; it is the heart and soul
of the gospel. Without it, there would be no Chris
tian religion. Christ presents himself as a Son of

Expositions of The Scriptures 89
the Father, and in this capacity to save the world.
The problem of evil in the world was so great that
men could not see how it could be the work of a
Creator and Governor who was, above all, a Father.
Great prophets and seers might get twilight
glimpses of this truth in moods of special exalta
tion, but could not make it comprehensible by the
multitude. Even today, with all the light of the New Testa
ment, the existence of pain and suffering is still
a sore trial to the faith of many thoughtful souls.
As a rule, however, with the clear revelation of
God as Father, in the personal life of Jesus, men
are willing to trust where they cannot understand.
Beholding Jesus the Son one gets a true idea
of God the Father; Jesus the Son in human form,
living before the world, sensitive, like us, to all
its trials and temptations, a life of perfect com
munion with the Father, shows what is possible to
all men; and furthermore, shows that this fellow
ship, which is a filial relation, constitutes salvation.
Men believed in a God before Jesus came ; nowhere
did they conceive of Him as a Father with whom
it was possible to hold direct filial communion, and
to find in this communion hope and comfort and
redemption. There were many religions in the world before
the advent of Christianity; instead of being bonds
of union among men, they were divisive factors
with no points of contact; the conception of God

90 Studies Upon Important Themes
differed in each in almost all essential points. What
the world needed was a religion which should be
universally acceptable.
(2) The Essential Kinship of the Divine and the
Human Revealed in the Incarnation; or. The Hu
manity of the Divine and the Divinity of the
Human. This postulate seems necessary to understand
how the Word could become flesh. There must
be an affinity between the two. It is not easy to
define what divinity is, and what Humanity is in
their essence, and, of course, no clear line of divi
sion can be drawn ; there is a twilight region where
one gradually fades into the other. But the whole
doctrine of revelation rests upon an essential kin
ship between the two; all Scripture teaches that
there is a meeting point between man and his
Creator. The union of the divine and human in Jesus
implied no degradation to the divinity in Him.
It goes without saying that we are here on the
borderland of mystery ; in truth, the spiritual world
is itself a mystery. We reason from known facts
to conclusions; the conclusions, however, are not
facts, but may be inherently probable and helpful
to intellectual clarity.
(3) The Humanity of Jesus a Genuine Reality.
(a) This is revealed in the daily life of Jesus.
The tears He wept at the grave of Lazarus (John
11:35) were human tears; the spontaneous mani-

Expositions of The Scriptures 91
festation of genuine human sympathy. The com
passion he felt for the common people, who were
like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34); His
love of John, called the beloved disciple, and His
friendship with Martha and Mary sprang from
human affection. And this human sympathy shines
out upon almost every page of the gospel ; in
stances of its manifestation are too numerous to
mention, and easily found if sought for.
(b) The fact that Jesus so constantly called Him
self the "Son of Man" is not without deep signi
ficance. Let the student take the concordance and
count the number of times this designation is
found. The purpose is not directly stated, but it
is not difficult to find a reason. The impression
which the life and power of Jesus made upon His
generation was so great that they were prone to
regard Him as belonging to another and superior
order of beings. Not to speak of His miracles,
even His personal manner had an extraordinary
magnetism and power (John 7:45-47, 18:6).
The multitude was in no danger of not being
impressed by His divinity; they were in danger
of failing to perceive the significance of His hu
manity. Of course, the multitude which was fed
with the five loaves and two fishes could not but
perceive that Jesus had sympathy as well as power ;
but the former quality was nothing unusual, while
the latter was not only unusual, but quite beyond
the scope of human ability to comprehend. Hence,

92 Studies Upon Important Themes
Jesus constantly reminded them that he was the
Son of Man.
(c) Jesus habitually spoke of God as Father,
rarely as God; first of Himself, then of all men.
This was His mission to the world. He taught us to
pray, "Our Father" (Matt. 6:9). To Mary He said,
"Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto
my Father and your Father, and to my God and
your God" (John 20:17). That there was a dif
ference between Jesus and his disciples in their
relations to God the Father is not now the ques
tion; the point is this: Jesus Himself draws no
particular line of distinction, but leaves us plainly
to understand that as there was a vital relation
between the human and divine in Him, which in no
way interferred with His oneness with God the
Father, so the same vital relationship is possible
between us and our Father in heaven.
(4) Touched with a Feeling of our Infirmity.
Tempted in all points like as we are, yet without
sin. (Heb. 4:15.)
Outside of the Gospels, no passage is found in
the New Testament which states with more ex-
plicitness and clearness the twofold nature of Jesus
— and that, too, in the same connection — and His
genuine humanity. It is but fair to face some of
the difficulties in the premises.
Men have found difficulty in understanding how
the divinity that was in Jesus could unite itself in
its purity with human nature as we know it. This

Expositions of The Scriptures 93
difficulty resulted from the teaching of the older
theology, that human nature was corrupted in the
transgression of our first parents ; that the effects
of their sins inhere in the human constitution, and
will be felt by every child that is born. A distinc
tion was made between race sin and individual sin.
To explain the twofold nature of Jesus consist
ently with the view of natural human depravity,
theologians in the early Church conceived various
theories. Some supposed that the humanity of
Jesus was not a reality, but a mere appearance;
others that there were two separate and distinct
principles of life in the one body, the human soul
and the divine soul, existing side by side. But
none of these explanations satisfied the conscious
ness of the great body of Christians, and conse
quently they obtained no firm foothold in the
Church. On the other hand, the doctrine of original hu
man depravity retained its position in theology
down to quite recent times. But today it is no
longer prominent ; theoretically, it may still be
found in the teaching of some sects ; practically it
seems to have disappeared. There has been no
deliberate abandonment of it, perhaps, by any de
nomination ; it has gradually dropped into the back
ground. A theory that may still be held in favor by some
theological thinkers is that the human nature of
Jesus was by a miracle, or some divine act of

94 Studies Upon Important Themes
power exempted from this original vitiation which
attaches to all humanity by virtue of Adam's sin.
But it may be remarked that any theory that con
ceives of the human nature of Jesus as differing,
in its essence, from ours takes Him out of the cate
gory of humanity, and accordingly makes the state
ment of the Epistle to the Hebrews — that He was
tempted in all points like as we are — meaningless,
and puts Jesus Himself in the position of requiring
the impossible when He tells us that we should be
perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. (Matt.
5 :48.) II. The Temptation of Jesus — Its Significance
(Heb. 4:15)
1. Temptation Distinguished from Sin.
There are two obstacles to the right understand
ing of Jesus ; first, the doctrine of original sin, as
already explained, and a wrong idea of temptation.
(1) The experience of temptation is not in itself
sinful. Temptation is primarily a sensation pro
duced by external causes ; that is, by something
that appeals to some appetite, desire or passion
within us. The sight of liquor excites a desire for
it ; the opportunity to take what belongs to another
excites the thought to do so; the opportunity to
obtain a position in society tempts to the use of
means to attain it without regard to their char-

Expositions of The Scriptures 95
acter. In short, all temptation is an impulse to
gratify some appetite, passion or desire that springs
originally from the powers and faculties given us
of God in our creation, or from their perversion.
The instinct for sexual intercourse, the instinct for
possession of property, the instinct for food and
drink are sacred and divinely given faculties. Mur
der grows out of the instinct of self-defense ; in
dulgence in pleasure is a perversion of the natural
desire for food arid drink; false witness grows out
of the instinct of self-defense ; covetousness is a
perversion of the desire to possess, and this, too,
is a form of self-preservation. In a certain sense,
sin is the excess of a proper thing, or the gratifica
tion of a desire or passion, right in itself, contrary
to the laws and customs of society. All immo
rality arising from the relation of the sexes comes
under this definition.
Marriage is a divine institution, ordained of God
as a condition of purity as well as the perpetuation
of the race. Society hedges it about with laws
and customs for its own protection ; to claim its
privileges without assuming its responsibilities and
duties defeats the purpose of its original institution
and endangers the interests of society.
But the sexual passion is a sacred thing; so are
all our natural faculties, all of which may be ex
cited under certain circumstances and in the pres
ence of certain external causes, but this excitement
is not sin; it may be wholly involuntary. On the

96 Studies Upon Important Themes
contrary, no temptation is sinful unless the will con
sents ; the thought of a thing and the determination
to do it, if circumstances permit, are quite distinct.
The first is innocent and involuntary; the second
is sinful, because it will seize the first opportunity
to translate itself into some outward act. A sinful
act is the child of a sinful thought ; all such thoughts
are themselves sinful, whether the act follows or
not. A thought that comes unbidden into the mind,
but receives no sanction from the will, and there
fore never ripens into a purpose, leaves no more
stain upon the soul than the summer cloud that
passes over the landscape ; but if the will accepts
and harbors it a distinct impression is made, as
when a storm of hail strikes a field of grain.
Applying the foregoing principle to the state
ment of the Epistle to the Hebrews — that Jesus
was tempted in all points like as we are, yet with
out sin — it is easy to see how the humanity of
Jesus was genuine and altogether like ours. Gen
uinely human, Jesus can be and is touched with
a feeling of our infirmity ; feeling the force of temp
tation, yet never yielding, never sanctioning an
improper thought. He is able to enter sympathetic
ally into our inner experiences and help us in our
times of need. He set us an example which we
may follow, an ideal which we may approximate
more and more, though we may not absolutely at
tain it in this life.

Expositions of The Scriptures 97
2. Some of the Consequences of This View of
the Humanity of Jesus.
(1) It gives us a higher conception of the dignity
of human nature. The statement previously made
in these studies that there is a kinship between the
human and the divine now becomes conceivable.
Man is not the unclean thing which some theolo
gians have supposed. Divinity lies imbedded in his
humanity as fire in the flint, or as the germ of a
new plant in the seed. Plant the seed, let the dew
of heaven and the sunshine fall upon it, and be
hold the old, yet ever new, miracle of a new life,
yet essentially like the old. And let the spirit of
the living God touch the human soul, and behold
a new creature, bringing forth new virtues, indeed ;
the germs of which, however, lay undeveloped in
the old. A redeemed humanity does not mean the
miraculous imparting of new faculties, but the
vitalizing of the old. The fruits of the spirit grow
upon the same tree as the fruits of the flesh. I
once knew an old apple tree whose apples were
sour and knotty and worthless ; it was grafted,
and behold an apple sweet and beautiful, a joy to
see and to eat. It was one of God's wonderful
ways of doing things. But the product of the graft
was still an apple, and the new apple was produced
by the sap that coursed through the trunk of the
old. Place the old apple and the new apple side
by side ; how different, yet, in essence, both apples.
There was a power in the graft which transforni-
7

98 Studies Upon Important Themes
ed the sap into a new and beautiful variety, but
this was possible only because of the essential kin
ship between the two. When the divine spirit
touches our humanity, the contact is between two
things essentially akin.
The redeemed man is not the one whose inborn
appetites, desires and passions have been destroyed
or extirpated, but have been brought under the
control of reason and conscience, and are gratified
within the limits of moderation and according to
the laws of God, and the customs and regulations
of society.
Some may raise the question whether this view
of humanity may not lead to the conclusion that a
mere man may live without sin. As to this no
one can positively say on the ground of human
experience as recorded in history. Of course, the
common opinion is that this is impossible. What
has been or what can be in this mysterious realm
of human experience, only God can possibly know.
This is true, however, on the ground of the genuine
human life of Jesus, that every human being may
attain unto the felloivship of God. The perfection
necessary to salvation is therefore possible.
The tendency of modern life has been to exalt
the dignity and worth of man. Universal suffrage
rests upon this idea; so in the best systems of re
formatory and penal institutions. Indefinite sen
tences and the substitution of life imprisonment
for capital punishment, with the possibility of par-

Expositions of The Scriptures 99
don, rest upon the theory that the germs of an
upright manhood are native to every human being.
True, the difference between the highest character
and the lowest may be great ; and the borderland
between the lowest human beings and the beasts
may be narrow ; and yet the conception of the Gos
pel, that the lowest may be saved and through
proper training his offspring may evolve into high
er moral and spiritual excellence, has been abund
antly confirmed in the history of every age since
Christianity was first proclaimed.
There is a dynamic force in the spirit of God,
brought into touch with human souls, of power to
save even unto the uttermost, as irresistible as
the flash that rends the oak or the current that
impels our motorcars. Jesus reveals the condition
under which this force may operate.

VIL
GOD THE FATHER, HIS CHARACTER AND
ATTRIBUTES AS REVEALED IN THE SON
I. God is Love. (I. John 4:16.)
In this statement revelation reaches its utmost
limit. It took long centuries of struggling toward
the light to prepare the human mind for the con
ception of this great truth, to feel that love is the
only word adequate to describe the nature and
character of the Creator, and that the stamp of
love is upon all His works. And even today this
truth can be grasped only by the insight of faith.
It is an intuition of the heart, and, as such, superior
to logic and beyond its scope. It was a discovery
of a Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, that the uni
verse is a cosmos — a beautiful arrangement, per
fect in its laws and modes. But only through Jesus
Christ was it possible to learn that love is at the
heart of the universe, that human life is not only
the creation of a supreme intelligence, but also of
a supreme love.
In a previous study it was stated that creation
is the work of a father, and love is the essence
of fatherhood. One feels the poverty of language
in treating such a subject ; we lack a term that
100

Expositions of The Scriptures 101
includes mother-love as well as father-love. The
former is generally held as the type of self-sacri
fice. But both of these terms are included in the
idea of Divine Fatherhood.
The Apostle John was the beloved disciple; this
implied no blind partiality. He entered into the
inner life of Jesus as no one else ; hence, the Gospel
and the Epistles that carry his name present us
God as Father whose character is love, as no one
else. It is not to be denied that the difficulty of recon
ciling this conception of God with the phenomena
of human life, with its injustices, its crimes and its
tragedies, is no easy problem. And yet, while the
human intellect cannot grasp all life's details, in
their relation one to another, the Apostle John
solved the problem, and every- one who enters into
the inner meaning of the life of Jesus Christ can
do the same. The insight of faith inspired by love
is greater than the insight of the mind. What
John did all may do.
That the universe is marvelously beautiful in the
perfection of its arrangement is a truth, though
sufficiently confirmed by science, yet is not intel
ligible to every mind even today. But the truth
that God is love is an appeal to the heart rather
than to the intellect. Men may differ greatly in
mental ability; in the capacity of the heart to per
ceive moral and spiritual truth the difference is
not so great, and in every normal being is sufficient

102 Studies Upon Important Themes
for the purposes of salvation. The universe itself
is the creation of a Father; the motive force was
paternal love.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God." (Matt. 5:8.) "I had heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth
thee." (Job 42:5, revised version.) "That they
should seek God, if happily they might feel after
Him and find Him, though He is not far off from
each one of us." (Acts 17:27.) Hence, little chil
dren can grasp the idea that God is a Father whose
character is love as easily as they can understand
the love of their earthly parents. The heart is the
spiritual eye ; it may see God as directly as the
physical eye can see the shining sun.
II. The Manifestation of Divine Love.
The attitude of the Divine Love toward human
life is beautifully described in the thirteenth chap
ter of I. Corinthians. It is a lyric of love. The
Apostle Paul is here really describing the character
of Jesus. You put "Jesus" in the place of "Love"
(Revised Version), and you get at the Apostle's
meaning. Jesus reveals the Father.
(1) Love is Long-suffering and Kind.
"There's a wideness in God's mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There's kindness in His justice.
Which is more than liberty."

Expositions of The Scriptures 103
(2) Seeketh Not Its Own.
It is unselfish and self-sacrificing, Jesus came
to seek and to save that which was lost. There is
joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. God
is not willing that even the wicked should perish.
(Ez. 18:23.)
(3) Rejoiceth in the Truth.
The truth makes free. (John 8:36.) Jesus
said he was king in the kingdom of truth. John
18:37.) (4) Beareth All Things.
That is, makes due allowance for human infir
mities and mistakes. So many of our mistakes are
momentary deviations from the right path and not
a deliberate abandonment of it. The original Greek
means, to pass over a thing in silence. It is the na
ture of love to penetrate beneath the surface and
to read the deeper, the abiding aspirations of the
heart and its inexhaustible possibilities.
(5) Is the Greatest of All Things.
It is the central thing in the universe ; it is
eternal with God; is, in fact, the essence of his be
ing. We believe in God, in the realities of the
spiritual world, in the sureness of the divine prom
ise; upon these we build large expectations. There
may come a time when faith will turn to sight, and
hope to reality. And then we shall behold for our
selves, and not upon the words of another, love in
its perfection and beauty. We shall behold the

104 Studies Upon Important Themes
King in His beauty, and the King shall be our
Father. Now, take these characteristics, combine them in
one person and write the name — Our Father in
Heaven. III. The Manifestation of the Divine Love as
Paternal Caure
We study the constitution of the United States to
learn the nature and principles of its government;
we go to the Sermon on the Mount to learn the
spirit and the principles of the Kingdom of heaven
on earth. It is constitutional law in the Kingdom
of grace. All the parables and other discourses are,
for the most part, fuller expositions of the truths
briefly stated in this, the greatest of all sermons.
The Divine Fatherhood is the breath of it ; it rep
resents to us a form of government whose ruler is
a Father and a conception of life consistent with
this fundamental truth. The truth is flashed upon
the mind in the simplest way ; the evidence is found
in the ordinary phenomena of life. Heaven is called
a kingdom, but the King is a Father. It appears in
the Beatitudes : "Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called the children of God ;" it appears
in the requirement to let the light of heaven shine
through our daily lives, and in this way reveal to
men the glory of our Father in heaven ; it appears
in the command to love our enemies in accordance

Expositions of The Scriptures 105
with the example of our Father above who sends
rain and sunshine upon the bad, as well as the
.good ; it appears in the requirement to seek His ap
proval in all our deeds of righteousness ; it appears
in teaching us how to address Him in prayer, and
in joining duties to Him with duties to our fellow
"men ; in exhorting us to trust His providence for
food and raiment, assuring us as He provides for
the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, much
more does he care for man, who is the highest or
der of created life ; in directing us to ask with more
•confidence than we ask of earthly fathers, on the
ground of the greater perfection of our heavenly
Father. I have said that heaven is here presented as
a kingdom ruled by a Father, hence the precepts
and rules are those of a household in which the re
lations of its members are the relations of brothers
and sisters. And these conceptions of Fatherhood
and Brotherhood are vital in all our Lord's dis
courses, wherein the relation of men to God and to
one another are directly touched upon; they are
the framework of His thoughts. (See also Matt.
10:29; Luke 12:6.)
And so throughout the Gospels, as well as in
other New Testament Scriptures, the predominat
ing, the overwhelming impression is that this world
is the work of a Father ; that all life is His care and
that life reaches its highest manifestations in man
in whom God beholds a reflection of Himself.

106 Studies Upon Important Themes
IV. The ManifesUtion of Divine Love as Patenial
Discipline.
In the Old Testament God is regarded as a judge ;
in the New Testament the office of a judge is
merged into that of a father, and the term "disci
pline" takes the place of "judgment." The ideal
judge is he who weighs out exact and impartial
judgment; the ideal father is he who tempers judg
ment with mercy; the ideal judge punishes to pro
tect society from the lawlessness of the individual;
the ideal father punishes to reform and save the in
dividual from the consequences of his own wrong
doing, and to protect society by turning him into a
law-abiding citizen. Such is the difference between
judgment and discipline.
Society is slowly learning that a man's sin does
not forfeit his right to life, but only its rights and
privileges till he shall learn how to use and not
abuse them, that it is better to reform a man and
send him back into society to do his share of the
world's work than to send him into the next world
to take its unknown chances unprepared. Hence
the ideal of Christianity is to correct the erring, to
strengthen the forces that make character and
make all men fit to live ; dying, then, takes care of
itself. The tendency of the world today referred
to in a previous study, to regard humanity as a
more sacred thing, of more inherent worth and
dignity endowed with unfathomable possibilities is

Expositions of The Scriptures 107
working hopefully in the direction of this Christian
ideal. All movements for penal reform, such as the sub
stitution of imprisonment for capital punishment,
of work for idleness, the indefinite sentence,
the premium put upon good behavior, are founded
upon and inspired by this Christian ideal. That
mercy is an integral element in the divine govern
ment is distinctly stated by Jesus. "I desire mercy
and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the right
eous but sinners to repentance." (Matt. 9 : 13.)
Even in the Old Testament this truth now and then
broke through the veiling darkness. (Micah 6:8.)
The Epistle to the Hebrews touches upon one
aspect of this subject. Trials are corrective ; God
dealeth with us as with sons ; the purpose and aim
— our establishment in righteousness. (Heb. 12:5-
12.) This is the spirit in which we are to endure
life's hardships. The treatment of the problem of
evil in the world requires separate study.
Thus Jesus reveals God to us ; Love is the essence
of His character ; this love is a father's, manifesting
itself in the twofold forms of paternal care and pa
ternal discipline.

VIIL
REDEMPTION— ILLUSTRATED AND
AMPLIFIED
I. The Prodigal Son — A Parable, of Redemption
(Luke 15:11-32)
1. The Occasion. The Pharisees and Scribes
complained that Jesus received publicans and sin
ners and ate with them. Among the Jews these
two classes were social outcasts. The publican was
a Jew who had accepted the office of tax-collector
for the Roman Government. Accordingly, hating
the Roman yoke as a foreign power, the Jews re
garded all who accepted office under it as traitors
to their race. As a consequence, only men of bold
and reckless character, indifferent to public opinion,
were willing to undertake the duties of the office,
in the discharge of which, as there was no one to
hold them to a strict account, they were often cruel
and unjust. The sinners, on the other hand, were
those who had lost all social respectability by the
immorality of their lives. They were the lowest
social stratum.
Eating with people is regarded even today as an
act of social recognition. Among the Jews Jesus
108

Expositions of The Scriptures 109
was regarded as guilty of a serious social offense
as it would be for the different races to dine to
gether today in the South. In answering their
complaint Jesus spoke the three beautiful parables
of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Prodigal
Son. The last named is the subject of the present
study. 2. These parables differ in details but agree in
essentials. All three illustrate the relation of owner
ship — the lost sheep belongs to the shepherd; the
lost coin to the woman; the wandering son to the
father. They illustrate the further truth that the
true life of each consists in the maintenance of this
relationship. The proper life of the sheep is in
the fold under the shepherd's care — outside of it,
it is liable to perish; the proper place of a stamped
coin is in the hands of its owner — outside, it is of
no use; the proper life of the son is in the relation
of love and obedience to his father — outside of this
the strongest tie for good is broken and he becomes
like a ship that has slipped its anchor, at the mercy
of the waves and the winds.
3. Yet the parable of the Wandering Son differs
in some important details from the other two.
(1) The sheep is an irrational creature; and the
coin has no life at all. They are, therefore, incap
able of sin and undeserving of censure. The son is
a rational being; his act is a deliberate choice, for
this he is accountable.
(2) There is, therefore, a difference in the prin-

110 Studies Upon Important Themes
ciple of ownership. The tie between the shepherd
and the sheep, and the woman and the coin is com
mercial and legal, the ownership is absolute ; the
parties owned have no choice in the matter, prac
tically no rights. But the tie between the father
and son is spiritual and moral, resting, primarily,
on a physical basis. That is, there is first a blood
relationship and, secondly, a relation of love. The
former is indeed sustained by law till the son shall
have reached his majority, when the law ceases to
operate ; the latter is independent of all law, and
is free and voluntary, but in its nature indestruct
ible by any force operating from without.
(3) There is also a difference in the methods em
ployed to restore the broken relationship. The
shepherd seeks his sheep, and the woman her coin;
but no one seeks the son. The methods differ be
cause the parties differ. The shepherd had the
rights of ownership and could compel the sheep to
return, the father had only the right of love, and
love draws, but does not compel, the force is moral,
not physical or legal. As the son left of his own
free will, so must his return be his own act.
It is worthy of note that this parable, so beauti
ful and so perfect in other respects, takes no ac
count of the mission of Jesus, who came to seek
and to save that which was lost, but which is plain
ly illustrated in the other two. But this difference
between them points out the real purpose of the
third. The lost sheep had lost the v/ay and could

Expositions of The Scriptures 111
not return ; the wandering son knew the way and
could return. No force could bring him back ex
cept the attraction of a father's love and this love
still lingered in his own heart. He knew the way
and knew the love that awaited his return. All the
necessary conditions of his salvation were known to him,
and these are the only conditions of salvation to any om.
But the publicans and sinners whom Jesus re
ceived had no true knowledge of the way and knew
nothing of the divine love. Jesus brought them a
knowledge of this way and of this love. He said:
"I am the way, the truth and the life, no one
Cometh to the Father except by me" (John 14:6).
When Jesus had made known the truth He came to
reveal, these publicans and sinners came to occupy
the position of the prodigal son ; they knew the
way and knew the Father's love ; the act of aris
ing and returning must be their own.
Hence the parables of the lost sheep and the lost
coin illustrate the mission of Jesus to the world
to make known the conditions of salvation; the
parable of the prodigal son makes known the nature of
God's love as our Father and the reception each returning
sinner is assured of receiving. The three taken to
gether illustrate very important factors in the pro
gram of redemption.
4. The Perfect Love of a Perfect Father. Its
purpose is attained when the wanderer has re
turned and begun a new life. It covers the past
with a veil of silence.

112 Studies Upon Important Themes
(1) The reception of the returning son is a pic
ture one loves to dwell upon ; its mingling of ten
derness and joy is suffused with a celestial light.
Nothing outside of the Scriptures, in all the litera
ture of the world, furnishes a parallel. There is no
upbraiding for the past, no penalty exacted for
neglected duties. The glory of the new life covers
the darkness of the past, with its splendor; the
robe which is given him is a robe of righteousness,
symbolic of a new character. Yet there is no mini
mizing of sin; the young man had already learned
how serious are its consequences.
(2) How perfectly is this illustrated by God's at
titude toward the human race. The joy of the
earthly father is a type of the joy which fills the
heart of the heavenly Father over the salvation of
every child of the race. It is also a revelation of
the human side of the divine character. The joy of
the heavenly Father differs in nothing from the joy
of the earthly father except in degree. It is this
which Jesus reveals in His own perfect humanity.
(3) The Saving Power of Love.
It was the recollection of his father's love and
the contrast of his life when under its sheltering
care with his condition in the far, strange country
of sin, that wrought the salvation of this young
man. The place of a servant even was better than
the best his life of sin could afford. The Psalmist
said it was better to be a doorkeeper in the house

Expositions of The Scriptures 113
of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of the
wicked; that is, in their palaces (Ps. 84:10). No
man is saved who does not feel the redeeming and
transforming power of God's paternal love. The
formal acceptance of a creed is not salvation.
(4) The Mission of the Christian Ministry.
It was the mission of Jesus to make known the
love of God as Father and to magnify the glory of
the redeemed life. When this has been proclaimed
in all legitimate ways, men are then put into the
condition of the prodigal; they know the way and
the truth, the decision to accept must be their own.
The divine spirit may influence but it never com
pels. Men cannot be frightened or driven into the
Kingdom of heaven. God desires children, not slaves
nor servants. Nor must we despair of even the
lowest. There are no classes of people lower in
the social scale than the publicans and sinners
whom Jesus received.
The preacher has a message that can never grow
old, can never lose its freshness and power ; it rests
upon the fatherly love of God, than which there is
no stronger tie or influence in the universe ; in fact,
there is nothing to compare with it. We are God's
by the strongest kind of bonds, and the salvation
offered through His love is the deepest want of our
natures; it feeds the hunger of the soul as bread
feeds the hunger of the body. If we fail to get
hearers, the fault lies in our presentation ; possibly
we are preaching ourselves rather than Jesus
Christ. 8

114 Studies Upon Important Themes
II. The Factors in Redemption.
Man's part in his own salvation, or Individual
Salvation, the joint Product of the Divine Will Co
operating with the Human Will (Phil. 2: 12,13).
1. In the former series of studies attention is
called to the modern conception, now more or less
potent among the ruling ideas of society, of the in
herent worth and dignity of our common humanity.
The old theory that Adam's sin transmitted its cor
rupting effects to all his posterity led to the doc
trine of human inability, on the one hand, and to
the doctrine of free grace on the other, in such a
way as to discredit human effort and paralyze hu
man activity. Much of this theology is embodied in
many of our popular hymns, such as "Jesus Paid it
All," the effect of which is to lead men to think there
is nothing for them to do, that they are simply pas
sengers aboard a ship, assured of a safe voyage, in
whose management they have no part and need
have no concern.
Such hymns, especially "Rock of Ages," have a
power of truth that makes them invaluable, yet like
all attempts to express theological doctrines in
rhyme, they emphasize only a certain aspect of the
truth, and need to be supplemented by other teach
ing. 2. The conception that man has an essential part
in his own salvation is fundamental to the doctrine
of human accountability and human character.

Expositions of The Scriptures 115
Back of it all is the doctrine of human freedom.
Every human being has the power of choice. He
may choose the right or the wrong, the noble or
the ignoble, the honorable or the dishonorable. The
distinction between these he learns in society, in
books and in the school of life. Working through
society, through the teachers of the world, through
His Providence and, above all, through divine reve
lation and the divine spirit, God furnishes motives
to choose' the right, with all its noble satisfactions
and consequences, warnings-against choosing the
wrong, with all its deplorable results.
Whichever man chooses is his own act, for which
he is accountable. Character is the result of choice,
it is man's own product; yet it is not a single act;
it is the result of the total acts of a man's life.
There are two kinds of choice. (1) The Supreme
Choice. This means the deliberate acceptance of a
life of goodness or its contrary. (2) Subordinate
Choice. Every deliberate act of life involves choice,
but as a rule, what these shall be is determined by
the Supreme Choice. He who has determined to
live a life of rectitude will direct his daily conduct
accordingly. The edifice of his character will be
determined by his supreme choice, the abiding and
controlling convictions of his life; the parts of the
edifice will be composed of individual acts. Just as
every brick in a building may not be sound, so
every individual act may not be in accord with a
man's supreme purpose*; yet the edifice may be a

116 Studies Upon Important Themes
good building, and the character, that of a good
man. The general tendency and direction of a
man's life rather than individual acts determine his
ultimate destiny.
3. God's Service Is a Free Service. God compels
no one to love Him, for no one loves by compulsion.
Love is a free act, a voluntary choice. Our Father
above desires not slaves but children, to whom
service is a choice and a joy. Every true son ren
ders service to his father but it is the service of
love and not of fear (II. Tim. 1 :7), the act of a free
man, and not that of a slave. The moving force is
love, which persuades but does not coerce; furn
ishes motives for choice and for action, but never
overrides the will. That which a man does of neces
sity never makes character, only that which a man
does of his own free will. Heaven is not peopled
with slaves, but with free men, free as only sons
and daughters are free in the home of their par
ents. No one enters the Kingdom of God except by
his own free choice, and no one remains there ex
cept by his own free choice.
Practically a man may reach a degree of moral
perfection in which he may never sin, but, theo
retically, the possibility of sin remains as long as he is
a free being.
4. The principles stated above are illustrated in
the Parable of the Prodigal Son previously studied.
His return was his own free act. He acted under
the influence of two motives — dissatisfactibn with

Expositions of The Scriptures 117
the life he had been living and the recollection of
the father's love and of the home of which love
was the atmosphere and the life. Even the condi
tion of a servant in that home he regarded as pref
erable to the life he had been leading.
The prodigal represents the sinner after he has
heard the Gospel and learned of the Father's love.
That is God's part, the rest was his. Yet that was
not all; it was not impossible for him to wander
again ; all depended upon whether he conformed his
conduct to the law of the household and took his
part in its work. Such a life was not to be one of
idleness ; the parable presents the elder son and
brother as a model of industry and fidelity.
IIL Justification by Faith (Rom 3:28), or the
Doctrine of Free Grace (Rom. 5: 1,
Jas. 1:22-25; 2:4-17).
1. In the third chapter of the Epistles to the Ro
mans the Apostle Paul sets forth the relation of
faith, which is the ground of righteousness, to the
law of Moses, especially the Ten Commandments.
In other words, he expounds the doctrine of free
grace as opposed to salvation by works, a doctrine
which has frequently been misunderstood since, in
theory and practice. It is not possible in the limits
to be observed in these studies, to develop the
Apostle's argument in full; only the underlying
principles, and the tendencies to which a miscon-

118 Studies Upon Important Themes
ception of the doctrine has given rise can be
studied. Among these tendencies the following may be
mentioned: (1) Once in grace, always in grace. The
result of this idea too often leads to the conviction
that a man once converted can never be lost
whether he lives a good life or bad. Universalism
grew out of the orthodox theory of an universal
atonement providing for an universal salvation, in
which the obligations of duty and the development
of character, according to Christian ideals, lost
their force.
(2) The need of preparation before accepting the
Christian life. Pastors often meet with this objec
tion from both young and old. They are not yet
ready to become Christians. Sometimes they say
they are not good enough ; sometimes it is because
they wish to enjoy certain pleasures forbidden by
the churches.
(3) The doctrine of doing penance for past sins
on the part of church members who have broken
some commandment or rule of the church.
(4) Most serious of all, perhaps, is the idea that
repentance and confession any moment before
death insures entrance into the kingdom of heaven
above. A simple exposition of the doctrine of justi-
fiacation by faith will show the error underlying
each of these four positions.
2. The Faith That Saves Defined. (1) The orig
inal act of faith is simply the choice of the Chris-

Expositions of The Scriptures 119
tian life revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus
the Christ. In accordance with the principles laid
down in a previous study, it becomes man's su
preme choice — the choice of the kind of life he de
sires and determines to live. He relies upon the
divine promises; he takes God at His word; he
cherishes Christian ideals as the inspiration of his
life ; he conforms that life to the life of Jesus as set
forth in the Gospels, and finds it his meat and drink
to do the Father's will. Such a faith puts a man in
right relations with God and with his fellow-men.
(2) Such a life means service.
"I am in the midst of you as one that serveth"
(Luke 22:27). "The Son of man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life
a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28). "He went
about doing good" is the testimony of the Apostle
Peter (Acts 10:38). "He doeth all things well"
was the spontaneous verdict of the people who
were personal witnesses of His deeds (Mark 7: 37).
Service flowing forth from an inward fountain of
goodness is the pivot upon which our eternal des
tiny turns (Matt. 25: 34-40). It is needless to mul
tiply quotations on this point. Everywhere by
precept and example Jesus links faith with serv
ice, faith being the fountain and service the
stream (Matt. 6:1-6; 7:16-18).
3. Relation of Faith to Works. A striking illus
tration of this truth is seen in the cursing of the
barren fig tree (Matt. 21 : 18-20).

120 Studies Upon Important Themes
(1) The heart which represents the seat of faith
is the foundation of life (Matt. 12:34, 35). There
can be no fountain without a stream; it is the na
ture of water to flow ; it is equally the nature of a
stream to scatter blessings as it flows. Vegetation
flourishes upon its banks and living creatures slake
their thirst from its waters. The sight of it is
cheering; the music of it, as it goes singing on its
way, dispels gloom and sadness, and awakens hope
and confidence. It seems to be happy in its mission
and to rejoice in its opportunities to do good. It
works, and yet its work is its joy. On the contrary,
a fountain that does not flow becomes a stagnant
pool, breathing miasma and fever, a source of dan
ger to life and health. The fountain that flows rep
resents the normal Christian, a heart filled with the
faith that works by love, a life that finds its devel
opment and joy in the service it renders to the
world; the fountain that stagnates represents a
professed faith that is centered upon itself — think
ing only of personal safety and indifferent to the
claims of society. "By their fruits ye shall know
them" (Matt. 7:20).
(2) The distinction between a Good Deed and a
Good Man.
By a good deed, I mean something that brings
help or confers a favor upon one in need or gives
to charitable and religious institutions. But this
may be the act of a bad man. Many a man has
lived a life of selfishness and yet left his estate to

Expositions of The Scriptures 121
the Church. People who live in red-light districts
or profit from its results often swell the collection
plates of a church. But the gift, however much
good it may do, cannot save the giver.
Sometime ago much was said about the churches
accepting tainted money — that is, money represent
ing ill-gotten gains, inspired by selfish motives, in
volving an element of commercial calculation. Of
course, a loaf of bread tastes as good given by a
bad man as if given by a good man. The recipient
may be blessed, but not the giver, yet, even so,
such a blessing may be only physical; but the gift
of a good man blesses both the giver and the recipi
ent. "That is no true alms which the hand can
give." Such a gift, spiritual in its quality, besides
physical, carries a spiritual benediction.
Hence Jesus always and eveywhere emphasizes
not good deeds primarily, but a good life; if the
fountain is pure, the stream is sure to be. No One
can be saved by good deeds alone, and yet no one can
be saved without good deeds, as there can be no
fire that does not burn, no stream that does not
flow. 4. The Relation of Character to Salvation.
(1) Character, in a good sense, rests upon merit,
and merit itself is the result of human effort — the
exertion of the human will under the inspiration of
high ideals. God, working through all spiritual
agencies and influences, stimulates, encourages, vi-

122 Studies Upon Important Themes
talizes every good desire, every noble aspiration,
but never suspends the human will or man's power
of free choice. Nor does God fail to recognize hu
man merit (Matt. 6: 1-4). Every good deed, how
ever humble, springing from an unselfish motive,
the unbought grace of a heart right with God, is
sure of its reward (Mark 14:9; Matt. 10:42).
Will — the power to choose for oneself in the
moral and spiritual sphere — is at once the power
that makes man a man and his glory. Rightly exer
cised, it means character, manliness, honor, integ
rity — redemption; wrongly used, it means vice,
folly, dishonor — wickedness. Now God works in us
both to will and to do, but, though He m.ay, in a
thousand ways, counteract the effects of our con
duct when wrong. He never supersedes the free ac
tion of the will. No man is or can be saved against
his will ; for love, without which there can be no salva
tion, is the spontaneous outpouring of the heart.
(2) The foregoing exposition may seem to con
flict with the doctrine, so generally held, that we are
saved by no merit of our own. But this is more
seeming than real.
(a) Forgiveness, which is promised on condition
of repentance, is, indeed, a free gift. This assur
ance comes through Christ. God as Father is ever
ready to forgive the penitent. This is an unbought
grace. No one can earn forgiveness. Confession is
necessary. The only way by which you can become
reconciled to one whom you have wronged is to

Expositions of The Scriptures 123
ask his pardon. What men want is not your gifts,
but your good will. You can not buy forgiveness;
it is a spiritual act; it is granted only when you
give assurance that the ill-will which prompted the
wrong act has been replaced by good will. "God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,
not reckoning unto them their respasses, II. Cor.
5:19.) (b) But forgiveness only opens the door to con
version. It is the beginning of the Christian life.
Even its acceptance implies an act of will; it is not
a favor thrust upon us against our will.
(c) Redemption, according to the Apostle Paul,
is a process, a growth or development (I Cor. 1 :
30). If we leave out the case of death-bed repent
ance, no man's salvation can be considered com
plete at the moment of conversion. Many a seed
has shriveled and perished after it has sprouted;
many a flower has died in the bud. Behold the apple
tree in full bloom, a thing of beauty, of hope and
joy; yet, in a few days, of its ten thousand blos
soms, all but a few have fallen to the ground. How
great the difference between the multitude of its
blossoms and the actual yield of fruit!
The law that governs vegetable life is, to some
degree, applicable to the spiritual life. In our case,
the crown is promised only to those who continue
steadfast to the end. The Gospel and the Epistles
abound in warnings against indifference. "Watch"
is the word Jesus repeats in parable and in dis-

124 Studies Upon Important Themes
course (Matt. 24:42; 25:13; 26:41). Grow in
knowledge, is the earnest exhortation of the Apostle
Peter (IL Peter 1:6; 3:18. See also I. Cor. 9:27).
Now, of course, this implies human activity; it is
literally working out our own salvation.
(d) The doctrine of Predestination, called by
some, "the Perseverance of the Saints," or, in pop
ular phrase, "Once in grace, always in grace," as
generally understood, is only a half truth. That God
perfects the work which He begins is true but this
perfection depends upon our free co-operation. There is
a part for us to perform ; that He has never prom
ised to do. The Perseverance of the Saints depends
as much upon the fidelity of the saints as upon the
fidelity of God. He will do His part if we do ours.
Hence the doctrine of falling from grace is both
logically and psychologically true. It is both a
statement of fact and a recognition of the human
element in salvation. Nor does it discredit conver
sion ; for conversion is not salvation. Conversion
is simply turning into the right path or way ; the
journey lies ahead and may be abandoned at any
time before it is completed Temptations and trials
lie thick along the way ; the fault may not be in our
Guide, but in ourselves ; we fail to heed His warn
ings. Yet a single deviation may not be a complete
abandonment, only a temporary suspension of our
supreme and abiding choice, which may, at any
time, re-asserts itself. There may be a danger-line.

Expositions of The Scriptures 125
beyond which reclamation is impossible. Yet only
God can know when this has been passed. Practi
cally one may act as if this can never happen; we
are not to abandon hope in any case.
IV. Christian Edification, or the Growth and De
velopment of Character Under the Guidance
and Instruction of the Church.
1. The office of the pastor has two distinct func
tions : (a) Conversion, and (b) edification. Both
are Scripture terms. The ideal pastor can do both.
As a rule, however, the former is now attended to
by evangelists, who may not be pastors at all, and
not even ordained ministers. The pastor is the
stronger if he can do both, and most pastors can.
Conversion, edification — the one is the turning of
-the soul into the right way; the other guides it to
the final goal. The first is a single act; the latter
is the work of all life's remaining years.
2. Edification, as noun or verb, is of frequent oc
currence in the Epistles of Paul. Originally it
means the construction of a building — often a
temple. Figuratively, it represents the growth and
development of Christian Character conceived of
as a temple, a sacred thing.. All through the writ
ings of the Apostle Paul, the great expounder of
Christian doctrine and practice, this work of form
ing habits of thought and action under the inspira
tion of Christian ideals and motives, and in the

126 Studies Upon Important Themes
light of Christian instruction, is deemed of para
mount importance. (1) It is the duty which the in
dividual Christian owes to his fellow-Christian (I.
Thess. 5:11; Rom. 14:19. Also Rom. 15:2; L Cor.
14:17). (2) It is the standard by which love is dis
tinguished from mere knowledge (I. Cor. 8:1). (3)
It is the standard by which we are to judge things,
not in themselves right or wrong, by their tenden
cies (I. Cor. 10:23). (4) It is the duty and function
of the Church as a whole (I. Cor. 14:5, 12; Ephe-
sians 4:12, 5:16). (5) It is the chief work and test
of the pastorate (II. Cor. 10:8; 12:19; 13:10. Read
also II. Peter 1:5-6; 3:18).
3. Christian character is, hence, an effect — the
result of working out our own salvation. Any seri
ous intermission of this task is like checking your
voyage in mid-ocean. The intermission may be
temporary or permanent. For, if you start with
Jesus in the boat and forget His presence, you are
at the mercy of the winds and the waves as truly
as if you had no pilot on board. Your reaching the
port in safety depends upon whether you remem
ber in season the presence of the pilot, who may be
only asleep in the boat. So backsliding may be tem
porary or permanent; but, even if temporary, the
loss is serious.
4. When Does Character Reach a Degree of Per
fection which makes redemption complete as a
process ? First of all, heaven is a condition as well
as a place. It is the condition of a soul reconciled

Expositions of The Scriptures 127
to God. The Apostle Paul has given two important
tests : Whatsoever things are true, honorable, just,
pure, lovely, of good report (Phil. 4:8). When a
man comes to think on these as his spiritual food
he has passed from death unto life. The fruit of
the spirit follows (Gal. 5:22-23). The time required
will differ in different individuals. Much depends
on what a man's life has been before his conver
sion, or at what age he begins the Christian race.
5. The Relation of Worship to Service. Worship
is only a means to an end. Christianity primarily
is not worship but service ; the former is a prepara
tion for the latter. Worship is an opportunity to
arouse the indifferent, clarify spiritual vision and
create spiritual emotions and aspirations, for in
struction in godliness and in the practical duties.
But individual and organized action is the end to
which it should lead.
Mere emotion, unless translated into action, be
comes a selfish luxury; it contributes nothing val
uable and permanent to character unless it finds an
outlet in active, altruistic service. Hence, worship
cultivates the emotional sensibility; service turns
it into character. The wise pastor keeps his church
busy, teaching the great social lesson — the value
of co-operative effort for the common good.

128 Studies Upon Important Themes
V. Reaction of the External Life Upon the Inter*
nal Disposition or Upon the Soul.
1. A Pertinent Question for every pastor is. Shall
the unconverted be employed in church work? As
a rule, what a man does re-acts upon his own soul,
for good or evil. Few men are so bad but that a
good deed leaves a wholesome effect upon their
souls. Many a saint has been led into the Chris
tian life by being employed in some Christian work.
It must be remembered, too, that, though conver
sion may be the work of a moment, some sort of
preparation, either in service or instruction, must
precede, if it is to mean anything more than a tem
porary excitement.
On the contrary, notoriously bad people should
not be made Sunday-school teachers or church of
ficers ; only those of respectability, susceptible to
other than merely ambitious or selfish motives.
2. Arouse the Will. Every individual church
member should be made to feel a personal respon
sibility in establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth. Without some such consciousness backslid
ing becomes easy. The church is not a ship that
offers free passage, but only the privilege of working
your way through. The passage is free only in not
requiring money for a ticket; it does require serv
ice, which is possible to all and necessary to the
happiness of all.
3. Finally, let every possible effort be made to

Expositions of The Scriptures 129
convert the young (Eccles. 12:1-2). One of the
great churches of New York City was built up out
of its Sunday School. It was a downtown church
whose original constituency had moved away and
was surrounded by an alien population. A man of
vision saw the opportunity, gathered the children
into the Sunday School and, in ten years, had
achieved such success as to attract the attention of
Christian workers the country over. The Sunday
School is the nursery of the church. There is no
strong, safe character that is not formed upon a
knowledge of Scriptures. Examine the membership
of every really strong church, and it will be found
that the best members are from the Sunday School.
4. Using the Bible in Church Service. There are
pastors whose evening service is a Bible study. A
chapter or portion of it is read by the people in
concert, and the pastor explains and comments.
The interest aroused in some cases has been extra
ordinary. The great English preacher, Spurgeon,
always devoted the first half hour to the exposition
of the Scripture lesson.
Results: (1) People come to know the Scriptures.
(2) It induces them to buy Bibles and to study them
at home. (3) Makes more attentive and intelligent
listeners to the preaching. (4) It stimulates interest
in the Sunday School and makes the Sunday-school
scholars more willing to attend church services.
(5) It leads the pastor himself to become a more
thorough student of the Word.

130 Studies Upon Important Themes
5. The Danger of Procrastination. (1) The im
portance attached to Christian service and to char
acter as a result of such service in the New Testa
ment cannot be too strongly emphasized. We may
not be saved by service, yet, in the light of the
teaching of Scripture, it is not easy to see what
hope of salvation a man can have who appears be
fore the judgment seat of heaven empty handed, on
the ground of a deathbed repentance, after having
lived a selfish and sinful life within the hearing of
the Gospel. Plainly, whoever procrastinates in ac
cepting the obligations and duties of the Christian
life does so at his own peril. The sin of the man
of one talent was that he did not use it. "Now is
the accepted time" is the constant refrain of the
New Testament.
(2) The New Testament conception of salvation
is not simply or solely to save us from punishment
for our sins in the world to come, but from a sin
ful life in this world and to set before us the task of
making earth the abode of righteousness and hap
piness, with the assurance that the task is a possible
one. We fit ourselves for heaven by trying to make
earth like heaven.
(3) Time as an element in Christian Service. To
this question a definite answer cannot be given.
Those who entered the vineyard at the eleventh
hour received the same as those who entered at the
sixth (Matt. 20: 1-16). Character as the result of
Christian service is not quantitative but qualitative.

Expositions of The Scriptures 131
Its saving power lies in the disposition of the heart.
Is the heart right? Does it control the outward
life? Has the old selfishness been replaced by an
altruistic spirit? Has the old tendencies to dishon
esty, to sensual indulgence, to moral impurity been
checked, and an appreciation of moral purity and
truth developed? Is the set of the soul heaven
ward? The time required for such a change may
be long or short, according to the manner of the
previous life. It will be short in the case of the
young. But let it not be supposed that it is the
work of a moment. It is not God's way of doing
things in the moral any more than in the physical
world. Let everyone be impressed with the truth
that there is a work to do, a life to live in this
world before he can be sure of the rewards of the
next 6. The Relation of the Old and New Testaments
in Homiletic Use. The New Testament is the stand
ard and the test of the Old. Christ is the Sun;
Moses and the prophets are but stars shining with
a true light, indeed, modifying the darkness but un
able to expel it. Or to change the figure, the Old
Testament is the twilight before dawn ; the New
Testament is the full-orbed day.
The Old Testament is the history of a particular
people struggling under the discipline of divine
Providence from primitive beginnings toward the
light, gaining slowly in clearness of ethical distinc
tions and in the apprehension of spiritual truth and

132 Studies Upon Important Themes
in a truer conception of the character of God. In
the Sermon on the Mount Christ himself corrects
current interpretations of the law, and teaches that
religion is not simply an outward conformity to
law, but the spontaneous allegiance of the heart to
the truth in the love of God and man.
The Apostle Paul calls the law our tutor (Re
vised Edition), not schoolmaster, as in the Old Ver
sion, but one who led the boys to the school and to
the schoolmaster. Christ is the teacher (Gal. 3 :
24). It is not necessary, therefore, to justify every
thing in the Old Testament. To do this would be
ignoring the law of progress. This does not mean
that one should read Christ into the Old Testament
for theological or doctrinal purposes; it does mean
that the ultimate standard of ethics is in the New
and not in the Old.

IX.
THREE STUDIES UPON FUNDAMENTAL
THEMES IN THE SCRIPTURES
I. Eternal Life, Or the Positive Side of Salvation,
(John 17:3).
The purpose of this series of studies that follow
is a study of salvation from its positive side. The
word itself, in the original languages of both the
Old and New Testaments, means deliverance from
peril or evil of some kind. In the popular mind,
possibly during the whole history of the Church, it
has meant escape from the divine wrath, i. e., from
punishment in the future world on account of sin.
Of course, fear plays a legitimate part in arousing
sinners to a sense of their danger. But I wish to
call attention to the positive side of the doctrine as
presented in the text. A study of the Gospel will
show that Jesus almost never uses the word "sal
vation," but the word "life," quite generally -quali
fied by the epithet "eternal," though not always.
Fear may move us to repentance ; only the expec
tation of some positive, higher good can build up
character and make us strong against temptation
133

134 Studies Upon Important Themes
and to rejoice in service. For the making of strong
characters, the hope of heaven, which assures a
better life, is greater than the fear of hell. The sub
ject embraces the first four studies.
1. The universal desire of all men in their nor
mal condition is for life. Life is the one thing that
gives value to everything else. The aspiration after
immortality springs from this instinct. No man
wishes to die, either because he fears the extinc
tion of life or judgment on account of sin.
2. The promise of eternal life removes, first, the
fear of extinction, and, secondly, that of punish
ment of sin through forgiveness. The epithet
"eternal" not only means indefinite duration, but a
state of well-being, of happiness. The second and
third verses of the Twenty-third Psalm, and the
parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10), present
this idea in a beautiful way. How happy the con
dition of a flock of sheep in a green pasture
through which run clear, cool streams of water !
Not a single element is lacking to perfect happi
ness, for their safety against all danger is assured
by the presence of the shepherd. Such is salvation
positively viewed. It means energy, strength,
health, capacity to do and enjoy; it means internal
peace. It is a present reality through whose power
we overcome death (I. Cor. 15:55-57).

Expositions of The Scriptures 135
II. Knowledge of God Constitutes Eternal Life.
1. How obtained. The Son reveals the Father
(John 14: 6 and 9; also 10: 20).
The idea of God as revealed by Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, the human embodiment of the Heav
enly Father under earthly conditions (John 1 :1 and
14). God's character and the principles according
to which He both judges and redeems the world are
made known to us in the words, deeds and the life
of Jesus (John 5:19-20; 10: 15 and 30. Luke 10:
22). 2. The kind of knowledge which constitutes sal
vation or eternal life. Not merely intellectual, like
the knowledge of science or mathematics; not
mere belief; most people believe there is a God,
but heed not his commandments. The devils be
lieve and tremble (Jas. 2: 19). It is a personal ex
perience — ^heart knowledge, to use a popular phrase.
He satisfies the hunger of the heart, as food the
hunger of the body. It is a kind of knowledge
which has power to transform character ; it is a life
principle. Feeling or emotion is an inseparable
element (Acts 17 : 27) . One who knows God seeks
to become like him.
III. The Character of God as Revealed by Jesns
Christ.
1. A correct idea of God's character essential to
right Christian character. We become largely what

136 Studies Upon Important Themes
our conception of God makes us. Among the
heathen, acts of cruelty and immorality were asso
ciated with their religion. Men enthroned their
human passions in heaven. Human sacrifices were
common. Notwithstanding the divine condemna
tion of this practice when Abraham attempted to
offer Isaac, the Jews occasionally lapsed into this
cruel practice.
2. Compare the Old Testament conception of God
with the New. In the former He is presented, first,
as Creator, then as Jehovah, the Covenant God —
later as Judge. A nearer relation is indicated in
the term Shepherd (Ps. 23).
In the New Testament He is for the first time
clearly revealed as Father, though the word is not
unknown to the Old Testament. Jesus, in this one
word, not only includes all the aspects of the divine
character revealed by the prophets, but brings out,
as never before, love as the central element, for
love is the central quality in fatherhood.

X.
SEVEN STUDIES ON THE LORD'S PRAYER
I. Salvation Through Worship.
Text: Our Father Which art in Heaven (Matt.
6:9); The Lord's Prayer.
The purpose of this study is not only to give an
exposition of the Lord's Prayer, but also to call at
tention to the revelation of the Divine Fatherhood.
Of course. Brotherhood follows Fatherhood. As
God is our Father in heaven, so are we his children
on earth. This is the supreme revelation of the
Gospel, the first clear enunciation of this truth.
Of course, the relationship is spiritual, but spiritual
ties are deeper and stronger than physical. The
bond is love, which is often absent from blood re
lationships. A man's best friend may be outside his
own family. The visible Church represents this
spiritual Brotherhood.
Observe that the term "our" is plural. Jesus in
dicates thus that we must include others in prayer
as well as ourselves. It is a mistake, certainly, to
use the first person singular in public prayer; and
even in private prayer, such is our relation to
others, that we can hardly leave others out and
• 137

138 Studies Upon Important Themes
claim a blessing wholly separate from them. No
man liveth to himself (Rom. 14:7). Mere selfish
ness — the seeking of anything inconsistent with
the good of others — is unchristian.
II. First Petition in the Lord's Prayer — Hallowed
Be Thy Name (Matt. 6: 9).
1. Reverence for God's name is the natural ef
fect of recognizing Him as Father. Reverence for
great things and great personalities is evidence of
intelligent appreciation. Life is a deep and noble
thing, the perception of which produces reverence.
Without it there can be no true character, no moral
grandeur, no true self-respect. The reverence felt
towards God leads to an appreciation of all of the
works of His hand. Nothing is so morally weaken
ing as a general spirit of levity. This attitude of
the soul towards all life is one of the finest traits
of character. Observe how this spirit appears in all
great literature and especially in poetry.
2. The practical effect of cultivating this spirit is
greater regard for our earthly parents, who are the
visible representatives of the Father above.
This spirit should be shown between husband and
wife, and especially inculca,ted in children (see
Exodus 20:7; Matt. 5:33-37).
Respect for old people and officers of law should
be cultivated in the old and young (Rom. 13: 1-3).
It is the foundation of true self-respect.

Expositions of The Scriptures 139
III. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done
(MatL 6: 10).
These are separate petitions, but they are, in
reality, complemental. A kingdom embraces those
who do the will of the King.
1. The King in God's kingdom is our Father in
heaven. The government is paternal, the original
of all governments. Love is the essence of father
hood. God's subjects are His children, and love is
the law of His household. Where love rules free
dom prevails. In such a household there are no
servants, except the service which love renders to
equals. 2. Thy will be done. God's will is not arbitrary;
not the will of an irresponsible ruler or tyrant. He
wills only what His love prompts and His wisdom
approves. He wills only what is reasonable ; only
what is for the good of His earthly children. Men
do unreasonable, irrational things ; God never does.
Even His omnipotence is subject to His reason.
He cannot do wrong; cannot do what love does not
prompt and reason approve. When we do God's
will, we do that which is for our own good. He
wills our good. His reason gives the law; His will
executes. This petition tends to unify the whole human
race and introduce perpetual peace ; promotes and
preserves peace in society, in the Church and in the
home ; it furnishes a universal standard of life.

140 Studies Upon Important Themes
IV. In Earth, as It is in Heaven (Matt. 6: 10).
This text is not really a separate petition, but is
a part of the third. But it is worthy of separate
treatment. The phrase is probably passed over by
most people without serious consideration, or is re
garded as impossible. But no thoughtful student
will deliberately say that Jesus Christ has directed
us to pray for the impossible or the improbable.
1. The phrase is to be taken literally. It is a dis
tinct prophecy of the time when there shall be a
new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness (II. Pet.
3: 13). It implies that national, social and domestic
life can be adjusted to the Golden Rule and the law
of love ; that diseases shall be banished through the
discoveries and application of scientific knowledge ;
that accidents shall become, in large part, elimi
nated; that suffering, through neglect and poverty,
shall cease ; that physical and mental health shall
be universal; wars shall cease, and death, the re
sult of old age only.
2. The Church is the organized institution for the
realization of these results. Salvation is not simply
a personal affair ; it is a light to shine and not to be
hidden. Missionary activity is an essential duty
without which this petition cannot be realized.
The gospel of Jesus Christ contemplates the re
generation of the whole human race and the re
construction of human society.
The conception is so large that we too often fail

Expositions of The Scriptures 141
to grasp it ; but God takes His own time to accom
plish His purpose, and whoever studies history and
realizes how much has been done will have no
doubt as to the future.
Every age makes some advance towards the
sublime divine ideal. Let no one think that this is
an idle petition, and every Christian in his own
sphere of life may contribute something toward its
realization. The conception exalts the work of the
ministry.V. Our Temporal Necessities — Our Daily Bread.
The Lord's Prayer up to this point includes, first,
the recognition of His common Fatherhood; then
three petitions — rdue reverence for His name, a de
sire for the acknowledgment of His sovereignty
upon earth in virtue of His fatherhood. These are
duties toward God. What follows refers specifically
to our own needs and relations towards our fellow-
men. There isa similar division in the Ten Com
mandments. 1. The word "bread" stands for life's necessities,
not its luxuries. It implies confidence in God's
Providential care, who has made provisions in the
soil of the earth, in seeds and plants, in sunshine
and rain, and air for all our physical needs. (See
Matt. 5:25-32; Ps. 104:27-30). These are the
fundamental and unchanging and unchangeable
facts and forces of the physical universe.. Not pru-

142 Studies Upon Important Themes
dent forethought, but anxious care is forbidden.
Work is the normal order of life. The birds work,
but do not worry.
2. Another way in which this petition is answered
is the influence of the Divine Spirit upon human
hearts by which those who have are led to share
with those who have not. For, take the world over,
seed time and harvest time never fail; there is al
ways enough for all, the only question is one of
kindness and of distribution. Famine is never uni
versal. It is God's spirit, acting upon human hearts,
that prompts one man to feed the hunger of his un
fortunate fellow-man, or one nation that of an
other. VI. Forgiveness of Sins (Matt. 6: 12).
Observe that the word "debts" is used in this
petition and not "trespasses." The latter word, so
often heard in repeating this prayer, probably
crept in from v. 14. The two words substantially
mean the same thing, though strictly speaking,
debts means failure in duty ; trespasses, some posi
tive act of wrong doing in the face of a known
commandment. The former are sometimes called
sins of omission; the latter, sins of commission.
1. Sin against God is also a sin against man. As
others have sinned against us, it is implied that we
also have sinned against them. Except the pride
of self-sufficiency, possibly, all sin is, in the first

Expositions of The Scriptures 143
place, against man. To sin against your brother
is to sin against the common Father who lays down
the rules of the household. To injure your brother
or sister is disobedience to him, and only as we for
give one another can we expect forgiveness.
2. As we forgive others.
A distinction is made between forgiving and for
getting. Remembering is a mental and not a moral
act, and not under the control of the will as for
giveness is. You can cultivate a feeling of good
will towards one who has wronged you, but you
cannot forget the fact, just as you may come to
trust a man who has been through bankruptcy. A
man who asks forgiveness disavows his sin and is
anxious to heal the wound he has inflicted, thus
showing that his act was not in harmony with his
true character.
Observe that we must forgive others as a condi
tion of God's forgiving us. It bars out hate
(I. John 4:20; see also Matt. 18:22).
VII. Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver
Us From Evil (Matt. 6: 13).
1. The word temptation in this petition does not
mean, as is often understood, solicitation to evil —
God never solicits to evil (Jas. 1 :13) — but trial, in
the sense of testing. Of course, all testing, in a
moral sense, implies the possibility of sin, but not
its necessity, for all failure of duty in the presence

144 Studies Upon Important Themes
of opportunity is sin— debts incurred. But our self-
confidence often leads us into places, full of evil in
fluences, where there is no call of duty — ^places of
public dancing, card playing and drinking; into low
and vulgar company, given to impure conversation
and profanity. The antidote to these is religious
meetings with social features, such as young peo
ple's meetings, Y. M. C. A., etc. Hence, the petition
is a prayer for deliverance from this self-confi
dent spirit.
2. All character is developed by trial, just as
bodily vigor is developed by physical exercise.
Trial, therefore, is a part of the divine plan, for,
morally speaking, no one can be good or bad with
out character. But there is no fixed measure of the
amount of trial. That depends largely upon the
amount of self-will and self-confidence. The mo
ment we recognize our dependence upon God, to
that extent the necessity for trial passes away; and
characters may become so fixed that what was
once trial ceases to be such. This is deliverance.
3. Observe the example and method of Jesus in
meeting temptation. Contrast with it the conduct
of Peter (Matt. 14:28-30; 26: 69-75). (See also
also Matt. 4:3-10.)

Expositions of The Scriptures 145
VIII. Touching the Spirit of Prayer and its Effects
1. The Transforming Power of the Conception
of God as Father Upon the Human Character
(Rom. 1:16-17).
The old doctrine that God imputed righteousness
to man on the ground of Christ's sacrifice is com
pleted by the more modern teaching that God im
parts righteousness to us through Jesus. The two
statements recognize the human will in active co
operation with the divine will. Man has a part in
his own salvation (Phil. 2: 12).
(1) God imparts His own character, viewed as
righteousness, through faith. To become like God
in character, one needs to become like Christ, the
first born. Children, through obedience, become
like the Father. The Gospel is the Power of Sal
vation, so far as it molds us into the moral likeness
of God through Jesus Christ (see I. John 3:2). He
who is Christlike is also Godlike.
(2) This leads us to a study of the gospel as a
revelation of God's character, or righteousness.
This requires a study of the teaching, the life and
the Spirit of Christ. What Christ was, God is (see
Matt. 5 : 48. This sums up what has preceeded in
the same chapter).
2. The Spirit of Prayer (Matt. 7:7-11).
(1) We are children making requests of our
Father. V. 11 shows this. We are to ask in the
10

146 Studies Upon Important Themes
spirit of children, obedient and truthful. Observe
the successive steps — asking, seeking, knocking,
implying activity and perserverance on our part.
(2) The limitation unto prayer.
The word "bread," or loaf, in v. 9 seems to imply
that we are to ask only for the things we need, as
in the Lord's Prayer. Of course, no parent will
deny such requests. On the other hand, the form of
the answer, as well as the time, rests with the par
ent. Then, again, our petitions must not involve
anything harmful to others, as shown by v. 12.
We may not always ask wisely; we must not ask
selfishly. The very perfection of God's character
makes selfish prayer improper. Within these limits
we may ask freely and in perfect confidence.
(3) Physical necessities are not the only things
to be sought. We have spiritual needs. (See Luke
R. 1 1 : 13 ; also Matt. 6 : 33 ; Prov. 2 : 2-4).

XI.
THE BARREN FIG TREE
L Have Faith in God (Mark 11:22), Or Faith in
God the Dynamic Force in Life and the
Ground of Its Fruitfulness.
The subject derives its particular force and
meaning from the cursing of the barren fig tree.
The circumstances of. this act are somewhat dif
ficult of explanation.
Why did Jesus seek figs when it was not- yet the
season of figs, and why pronounce so serious a
doom upon a thing that had no self-conscious life
and no moral responsibility?
It is an interesting fact that scientists have re
cently put forth the statement that plants and
flowers have intelligence ; that they can hear and
understand and show that they are conscious of
our presence. If this is true, it would apparently
justify the inference that they have some control
of their own life and destiny.
Science has made so many marvelous discoveries
in recent years that one hesitates to deny its claims
till they shall have been thoroughly tested; and
147

148 Studies Upon Important Themes
should this particular claim be established, it would
be a new proof of the divine power and insight of
Jesus Christ.
Laying aside, however, the recent claims of
science, not yet fully established, I venture to at
tempt an explanation of this most instructive event
that will make it available for homiletic purposes.
1. The Words of Our Lord Do Not Necessarily
Imply a Curse. It was Peter who used the word
"curse," and not the Lord. True, it shows the
strong impression made upon Peter's mind, but it
was not an unusual thing for Peter to misunder-_
stand the Master.
On the other hand, the words of Jesus may have
been simply a prophecy, and not a judgment, fore
telling what was sure to happen under the opera
tion of natural causes. The tree was evidently dis
eased; either the tap root had been destroyed or
the heart decayed; the withering of the leaves was
only a question of time.
It may be said that the words of our Lord has
tened the process of decay. That is not so evident.
The narrative of Matthew does indeed lend color to
this view; not so that of Mark, wherein it is cer
tain that one day at least intervened, and possibly
more, before the withering (Read Mark 11 : 19-20),
in which case there is no difficulty in supposing the
withering was due to the laws which obtain in all
plant life.
2. Again, It May Be Claimed that the Disciples

Expositions of The Scriptures 149
Understood This Act to be a Miracle, and that the
remarks of our Lord accord with this view (v. 23).
But much depends upon what the word "mir
acle" means. In the orginial languages two words
are used — power and sign.
The word "miracle" is a Latin translation, but not
an altogether happy one, since it is not quite
equivalent to the original, for it unduly emphasizes
the element of wonder, while the fundamental idea
in the original Hebrew and Greek is a manifesta
tion of divine power.
The supposition that it was an event contrary to
the laws of nature was perfectly natural at a time
when little was known concerning natural law.
But if Jesus perceived beforehand the fate in
store for this tree according to the laws of its own
life, and was thus able to foretell what would hap
pen before the event, this insight would itself be the
manifestation of an intellectual power that was truly
divine. It would certainly more perfectly accord
with our modern conception of God as the Supreme
Reason, to suppose he accomplishes all his purposes,
not by the suspension of natural laws, but in ac
cordance with them since these laws are His own
creation Today we can telegraph without wires across the
Atlantic Ocean, not by suspending natural laws but by
using them. Should the Apostle Peter visit the earth
today he would call it a miracle. Hence the world
is more and more coming to a conception of miracle

150 Studies Upon Important Themes
in harmony with the demonstrated conclusions of
science, and to a theology that makes God's way of
doing things more intelligible to human reason.
It is our fault and not God's if we suppose His
power is something quite independent of law and
reason. On the contrary, God's power is rational; it
is always and only exercised in accordance with
reason; in other words, His power is the servant
of His reason. Any other conception makes Him a
blind and arbitrary force, something to be feared
and dreaded. Science itself is man's successful at
tempt by long and patient investigation in discov
ering God's way of doing things, some of which
would in former ages have been called miracles.
If, therefore, we regard the words of Jesus con
cerning the fig tree, not as a curse that hastened
the tree's decay, but as a prophecy of its foredoom
ed fate, the criticism often made that He displayed
ignorance in seeking fruit when there was none to
be found, and that He cursed a lifeless thing in
anger over His disappointment, loses all its force.
II. Application of the Fate of the Fig Tree
1. The Fate of the Fig Tree is Supposed to be a
Parable of the Fate of the Jewish Nation ; or Fruit-
fulness, a Sign of Life ; Fruitlessness, a Sign of De
cay and Death.
The explanation given above makes the applica
tion of the incident of the fig tree to the condition

Expositions of The Scriptures 151
of the Jews at the time, pertinent and intelligible.
Compare Matt. 21 : 33-43 ; also Mark 12 : 2 ; Luke
13 : 6. Decayed at heart, presenting an appearance
of life without the reality, and no longer capable of
fruitfulness, the barren fig tree represents the
moral and religious condition of the Jews as a na
tion at that time, and the fate that befell the tree
was a prophecy of the doom toward which the
Jewish nation was rapidly hastening. Not quite
forty years thereafter the Roman army captured
Jerusalem and scattered the people to the four cor
ners of the Roman world. There has been no Jew
ish nation since.
2. The State of the Religion of the Jews in the
Time of Our Lord, Its Chief Elements and the
Criticism of Jesus.
The temple at Jerusalem was supposed to be the
center of the nation's religion. Except the annual
celebration of the Feast of the Passover, when the
people came together from all parts of the country,
the temple service was rarely attended except by
those living in Jerusalem and its immediate neigh
borhood. The real church of the people was not the temple
but the synagogue, which was found in every com
munity and in every large center of the Roman
Empire, for the Jews, led by their keen business in
stinct, had gone everywhere. The service consisted
in reading the Old Testament Scriptures in course.
This was done by some rabbi or prophet, usually

152 Studies Upon Important Themes
followed by comments and exhortations (Luke
6:6). But the practical articles of religion were
three: 1, Almsgiving; 2, Prayer; 3, Fasting (Matt.
6:1-18). Now our Lord had nothing to say against
any one of these practices ; His criticism was of the
spirit in which they were observed. A reputation
for piety was a passport to popular favor and re
spectable society, then and now.
How thoroughly the soul had departed from
practical religion is seen in these criticisms. Even
prayer was observed not to seek communion with
God, but to gain favor with the people. "When
faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead;"
and when the consciousness of God's presence in
the soul, inspiring, directing, elevating, is lost, re
ligion is dead — a body without a soul. Jesus came
in the fullness of time at a crisis in the spiritual life,
both of the Jews and of the human race.
As to almsgiving: The legislation of Moses
sought to prevent poverty by assigning a certain
portion of land to each family as a homestead with
an inalienable title. But, like all wise laws, imper
fect execution greatly hindered the realization of
his purpose.
From the beginning of the national life, regard
for the poor, the orphan and the widow was con
stantly inculcated. "Blessed is he that considereth
the poor," is a sentiment that pervades the entire
Old Testament.
But the nation had swung far away from the

Expositions of The Scriptures 153
instruction of its better days. At this time poverty
was everywhere. Bad laws, excessive taxation and
lack of protection bore hard upon the common peo
ple, and not only hindered the accumulation of
property, but even discouraged industry. One needs
to realize how serious was the condition of the
poor in order to understand the subtlety and force
of the first temptation in the wilderness or the
meaning of Jessus when he said, "The Gospel is
preached to the poor." (Matt. 11:5.)
But now, though alms were given, it was not out
of consideration for the poor, but for the giver
whose motive was not altruistic, but selfish. Under
the influence of such a mind the giver might himself be
the cause of the very poverty he pretended to re
lieve. Even today men often acquire wealth
through cheating others and then contribute to
charitable and missionary causes. Poverty is re
lieved and the heathen converted with the wages of
iniquity. Jesus taught, on the contrary, that there
could be no cure for poverty on the one hand, and
no acceptable almsgiving on the other, unless the
giver endeavored to be righteous in his dealings
with others and sought to make his life acceptable
to God.
A similar spirit — self-righteous, always calculat
ing the effect of a reputation for piety upon public
opinion — vitiated prayer and fasting. (Compare
Matt. 6:5-18 with Luke 18:9-14.)

154 Studies Upon Important Themes
III. The Pharisees
1. The Sect embraced the great body of the
people and represented the prevailing type of the
Jewish religion. It was against them that our Lord
directed His severest criticisms. It was they who
strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel ; who
cleansed the outside of the cup and not the inside ;
who were like white sepulchres, beautiful without,
but full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness
within ; who tithed mint and cummin and anise, and
neglected the weightier matters of the law — judg
ment and faith ; who compassed sea and land to
make one proselyte and then made him twofold
more the child of hell than themselves. (Read
Matt. 23 :13-36.)
Jesus, coupling the Scribes with the Pharisees,
calls them hypocrites. These words burn with fiery
indignation ; they are terrible ; language cannot ex
press a greater condemnation. They appear the
more significant in comparison with the sympathy
and consideration Jesus ever manifested toward
sinners. Some commentators, not without reason,
think the spirit of Phariseeism was the unpardon
able sin. (Matt. 12:21-32.)
Hence a study of these passages justifies the con
clusion that in the mind of Jesus Christ hypocrisy in re
ligion is the greatest sin a human being can be guilty of,
and that there is no salvation for a man unless his re-

Expositions of The Scriptures 155
ligion springs from his heart and is the power that vivi
fies, purifies, directs and illuminates his whole life.
When thus viewed one is not surprised at the de
nunciations Jesus uttered against the Pharisees. It
is to be remembered, however, that it was the re
ligious leaders, and not the people as a whole
against whom our Lord pronounced his awful con
demnation, and so long as they had influence, the
Kingdom of God, with its profound spirituality and
its altruism, could make no progress.
2. Phariseeism: The Sin Towards which There
Has Been a Tendency in All Ages.
God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24.)
Spirit is omnipresent; it is not subject to space and
time. When religion ceases to be spiritual, when
the motive is the favor of men and not the approval
of God, its essence is gone, its soul is dead; the
church becomes Pharisaic and a Pharisaic church
easily becornes a persecuting church.
But Phariseeism, whose essence is insincerity,
pride, self-seeking, ambition and covetousness was
the sin of the religious leaders rather than of the
common people ; it was the chief priests and scribes
and elders, constituting the great religious council
of the Jews — called the Sanhedrim — who were re
sponsible for our Lord's crucifixion. (Matt. 26:
57 and 37 : 20.) There is no fellowship between
Phariseeism and Christianity .
The great religious reformations have been

156 Studies Upon Important Themes
against those high in authority. It was said of the
Pope against whom Luther directed his attack that
he would have made a perfect Pope if he had had
some knowledge of religion, and this was a mild im
peachment compared with the deliberate covetous
ness and graft and worldliness of his immediate
predecessors. The people, then as always when such men ap
pear, heard Luther gladly, whose trumpet call to
purity and righteousness and salvation by faith
was recognized as from heaven.
And when Wesley called for a more spiritual re
ligion in the midst of the worldliness of the higher
ecclesiastical authorities who were drawing their
salaries and spending them at fashionable resorts
far from their flocks, and wlien the high offices of
the church were sought and obtained for unworthy
men for the sake of a living, the response of the
people was beyond his wildest dreams.
Also the ordinary clergy for the most part must
be excepted with the common people, who, like the
latter, need only worthy leadership. And it must
also be said that leadership is indispensable not
only to progress, but to human society. Without it
the people are as helpless as sheep without a shep
herd. So Jesus found them in His time. Left to
themselves, they would have followed Him as the
long expected Messiah. Mark 6:34.)
The lesson of all this is, that no minister of the
gospel need have .the least fear of not receiving a

ExpG.j...ms of The Scriptures 157
hearty response to his message, provided he lives the doc
trine he preaches; for the people are hungry for the
truth as it is in Jesus, and especially when that truth is
exemplified in the daily life of the preacher. There is no
class of men so sure of a following, for religion is the
deepest need of the soul.
IV. Have Faith in God (Mark 11:22)
Such were the words of Jesus when Peter called
His attention to the withering of the fig tree.
The interpretation of this incident suggested
in the first study of this series that Jesus did not
curse the fig tree, which is the prevailing view, but
simoly foretold the fate toward which it was has
tening, affords a simple explanation of the theme
of this study.
When our Lord assures His disciples that if they
have faith they could remove mountains and cast
them into the sea. He surely can hardly be taken
literally. He Himself performed no such miracle,
and none such has been performed since It is to
be borne in mind that the great commandments of
Scripture and the great injunctions of our Lord
look to results rather than to methods. It was enough
for Him to tell us what to do and not how to do it; the
discovery of the method is our task. And in this case
His purpose was to point to the source of all real
power. Hence ;
1. Faith in God, the Primary Source of All
Knowledge.

158 Studies Upon Important Themes
God is the explanation of the universe. Without
Him individual life is a mere point of light between
two realms of darkness — a short day between two
nights, impenetrable and mysterious. We come
into the world out of darkness, and when we leave
it we pass into darkness — a night with no promised
dawn. Life is a troubled voyage over a rough sea,
whose waters are lashed into fury by winds from
every quarter of the heavens, with no port to sail
for and no stars to guide. But the moment we dis
cern or feel that there is a God and that in Him we
live and move and have our being, light dawns and
the darkness disappears.
It is impossible to conceive what the world
would be, or would have been, without faith in God.
The first recorded history reveals the consciousness
of His presence. Religion begins with the creation
of man. The literature and the traditions of all
tribes and nations witness to the fact that the hu
man race has always and everywhere felt the pres
ence of God. This faith, in some or in all, may have
been more or less dim, the forms of its manifesta
tions varied and manifold; He may have been con
ceived of as one or many; yet belief in His exist
ence and His power over the world and a sense of
obligation to Him has been a fundamenatal force in
all human history.
He who reads God's thoughts in the physical
world is a scientist ; he who reads them in the
moral world — the sphere of human relationshios —

Expositions of The Scriptures 159
is a moralist ; he who reads them in the spiritual
world is a prophet or seer.
The prophet and the moralist wrote the Bible.
But the scientist and the moralist and the prophet
are all interpreters of God from different points of
view, representing Him in the threefold relations
of Creator, Preserver and Redeemer — the Alpha
and Omega of all things. And this conception is the
controlling force in the world today In God the
universe finds its unity.
2. God a Source of Knowledge to the Scientist.
When Kepler made his great astronomical dis
coveries, in the ecstasy of his joy, he exclaimed,
"O God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee." And
this is what the scientist does in the physical uni
verse. Watt, who gave us the steam engine ; Franklin,
who brought lightning from the heavens; Harvey,.
who discovered the circulation of the blood ; Morse,
who gave us the electric telegraph; Marconi, who
gave us wireless telegraphy, with its application to
the telephone ; Bell, who gave us the telephone ;
Lavoisier, who gave us chemistry; Wright, who
gave lis the aeroplane, and Bacon, the towering fig
ure who stands as the teacher and inspirer of all
modern science — these men discovered God's
thoughts — the laws and principles according to
which He made and maintains the physical universe.
Think of all the wonders achieved through elec-

160 Studies Upon Important Themes
tricity, of the triumphs of chemistry; of the prog
ress in medicine ; of the ten thousand practical ap
plications of steam and the practical inventions
which make this age a new world !
Science proceeds on the assumption of a Creative
Intelligence who, in making the world, applies the
laws and principles of reason, which never change
and are never broken, and which are, therefore,
perfectly reliable and trustworthy under all cir
cumstances and conditions. Out of this conception
of God the scientist hesitates or refuses to believe
in miracles when these are supposed to suspend the
laws of nature. But the tendency of knowledge to
day seems to promise a solution of this difficulty.
Many men of science are most devout Christians.
They may hesitate to subscribe to creeds and yet
yield a beautiful loyalty to the practical principles
of Christianity. But probably there is no great
scientist today who does not fully believe in God
the Supreme Reason, and regard Him as the pri
mary source of all true knowledge. And this trust
in the laws and principles of nature as invariable
and unchangeable rests upon the veracity of God, the
same yesterday, today and forever — from everlast
ing to everlasting.
And because of this veracity, because God is the
Preserver of all things through the operation of the
laws and principles of which He is the author, be
cause His power is sufficient and adequate and His
word of promise immutable and unbreakable, we

Expositions of The Scriptures 161
are sure that seed time and harvest time will never
fail; that a seed of corn will always and every
where produce corn and not wheat, an apple seed
an apple tree and not a pear tree ; that food will
satisfy hunger and water thirst; that the sun will
rise tomorrow and will continue to rise in the fu
ture as it has always done in the past. This truth
of the dependence of all life upon God is beautifully
expressed in Ps. 104 (see especially VV. 27-30..)
3. God a Source of Knowledge to the Prophet.
Too generally, the prophet is thought to be one
who foretels future events. In truth, this is the
least of his functions. His real business is to inter
pret the mind of God toward man and the relations
which obtain between them.
God is a spirit, man is a spirit; the relation be
tween them is, therefore, spiritual. But God is
also the father of spirits ; man is, therefore. His
child. God's will as the father of spirits is the law
of man's true life.
The most illuminating statement of the Old Tes
tament is that man is made in the image of God;
the supreme revelation of the New is that God is
our Father in Heaven.
This latter differentiates God's relation to man
from His relation to the rest of the created uni
verse. Religion, involving the sense of a Supernatural
Power, is found in all races ; that this Power is one
11

162 Studies Upon Important Themes
and not many, and that His character is paternal
and that His omnipresent spirit is constantly brood
ing over human life, with elevating and redeeming
influences, seeking to bind men together in a com
mon brotherhood; this is what we call Christian
religion. In the sphere of the spiritual world the Bible is
the supreme text book, and in this sphere the
prophet is the interpreter and teacher Hence every
true preacher is a prophet. He interprets the mind of
God to man, revealing to man his high origin and
his immortal destiny. He links heaven with earth,
the life of man with the life of God.
4. God a Source of Knowledge to the Moralist.
The scientist investigates the laws of God in the
physical sphere ; the prophet in the spiritual ; the
moralist, the laws governing man's relation to his
fellow-man. This includes man as a social being.
If there were no society there would be no moral-
ity. The spheres of the moralist and the prophet are
so nearly allied that it is not easy to distinguish
them. The moral world and the spiritual are vit
ally connected. The true prophet is a moralist, and
the true moralist is a prophet.
The deepest, the most fundamental law of mor
ality is brotherhood. But brotherhood at bottom is
a spiritual truth. Not the blood that pulses in
our veins, but the souls which animate our bodies

Expositions of The Scriptures 163
make us brothers ; physically we are the product of
different parents ; spiritually we are the product of
one common Heavenly Parent.
The law of the household regulating the relations
of children to one another emanates from our par
ents ; the law of society regulating man in his rela
tion to his fellowman emanates from God. Only as
we realize the truth of His common Fatherhood do
we understand our proper relation to one another.
5. Faith in God the Source of Power and Cour
age. All knowledge is power. Considered merely in it
self, it is only potential power, like a sword in its
scabbord. That which gives it dynamic force is
faith. True faith is, therefore, power in action, the
principle by which we transmute our knowledge
into character and into achievement.
In the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 it was said
that it was the German schoolmaster who con
quered France. France took the lesson to heart,
and the battle of the Marne showed how well she
had learned the lesson.
Let man conceive his mission in life as given him
of God to become lord of creation, then he comes
into possession of the power referred to in the
text. It was no vain boast of one of Shakespeare's
characters that he would strive with impossibilities
and get the better of them.
Faith in man, faith in the laws of nature whose

164 Studies Upon Important Themes
certainty and reliability rest upon the power and
character of the Universal Creator, faith in one's
self — all this flows from faith in God and becomes
the power that has and can do something even
greater than removing mountains.
Two thousand years ago Jesus ascended to
heaven, leaving the task to a chosen band of twelve
disciples to teach all nations and make disciples of
them. Within seven centuries paganism had been
overcome and all the known world had accepted
Christianity. What is removing mountains compared with this
stupendous achievement? Think, too, of the won
ders accomplished by science !
Jesus required no impossible task when he bade
them have that faith in God, which would become a
source of transcendant power.
6. Faith in God, a Source of Courage.
Courage is to be distinguished from bravery.
Courage is a quality of character; bravery may be
a momentary impulse, due largely to externally ex
citing causes or circumstances. Courage rests upon
patience and fortitude ; in other words, upon faith.
The man of courage foresees the end from the be
ginning, and is prepared for a long campaign if
necessary. Believing in God, conscious of a defin
ite mission in life and confident of the ultimate tri
umph of good over evil, he is steadfast and faith
ful in every duty, leaving the final issue with God.

Expositions of The Scriptures 165
Bravery may be physical largely — the boldness
due to overflowing physical energy; courage rests
upon a spiritual foundation. Life is every day wit
nessing to the truth that the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, certainly not in
a physical sense ; rather to him who has faith in
God. 7. Faith in God, the Condition of Fruitfulness.
Knowledge — Power — Courage. The first the
source of the third. These all flow from faith in
God. Without faith in God knowledge is superficial,
power is limited and inadequate, courage backs the
prime element of patience ; faith alone is the source
of the power that overcomes the world. (I. John
5:4.) Now there is the fourth element in this ascend
ing series of qualities, namely, Fruitfulness.
It is worthy of especial note, that Jesus' concep
tion of life included just this relation of man to
God which is expressed by the word faith. "I am
come that they may have life." (John 10: 10). And
the test of this faith is Fruitfulness — "By their
fruits we shall kno-w them." (Matt. 7:20.)
And this is the great lesson of the barren fig tree.
It was barren because its real life had departed. A
fruitless fig tree has no excuse for being. No one
cultivates any fruit tree for its leaves or even for its
wood. Its mission in life is to bear fruit.
Applying this truth to the spiritual life, the Jews

166 Studies Upon Important Themes
as a nation had ceased to bring forth the fruits of
faith. Hence its special mission in life had ceased.
No curse was formally pronounced upon it. In the
moral and spiritual world, as in the physical, some
laws are self-executing; we cannot reap if we do
not sow, and we reap as we sow.
The doom that befel the fig tree and the doom
that overtook the Jews were in accordance with
self-executing laws. The nation was barren be
cause the soul had departed from its religion. They
were hypocrites.
Hence faith in God is a source of energy — pro
ductive energy. (James 2: 17.)
Today, when religion is more and more mani
festing itself in social service, the Church empha
sizes the works of faith more than at any time
since the early days of Christianity. There is more
danger that the man's spiritual life — the abiding
communion and consciousness of God's presence,
without which religion becomes hypocrisy — will be
neglected. The Jews were not lacking in works or in alms,
were not lacking as to the outward forms of re
ligion — but they neglected the weightier matters
of the law — judgment, mercy, faith. (Matt. 23 :
23.) As faith without works is dead, so works with
out faith give no satisfaction to heaven, and has
no power to save the soul. (Is. 1 : 13-15 and 16-17.)
Hence faith in the Gospels and the Epistles is

Expositions of The Scriptures 167
conceived of as a seed that grows by an inner prin
ciple of life and brings forth fruit after its kind as
naturally as an apple seed brings apples, or a
grapevine, grapes.
Some pastors emphasize the spiritual life — others
excel in raising money and erecting costly edifices.
To the first class belongs the Apostle Paul. To him
the work of the ministry was primarily edification.
A human soul transformed into the likeness and
character of Jesus Christ was itself the finest of
all edifices
The Kingdom of God in reality is not meat nor
drink, nor even fine buildings, but righteousness
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. 14:
17.) And yet if church buildings are not erected with
the wages of sin, but reflect in their simplicity and
beauty the inner spiritual sincerity and aspirations
of the members,, they become a means of grace.
And the cost will not be beyond the resources of the
people Happy the people whose pastor's chief joy is the
salvation of souls and the development of Christian
character, and who so directs and teaches them
that the activities of their outer life will be a true
reflection of the inner ! Against such a church the
gates of hell cannot prevail. And only such a
church can escape the fate of the barren fig tree.
And what is true of the church is true of the na
tion. Even prosperous America cannot escape this

168 Studies Upon Important Themes
divine test. She must solve all her social and ra
cial problems by the power of that faith which
looks to God for the standard of conduct, or else
face the doom that overtook all the nations of an
tiquity — of Babylon, of Persia, of Egypt, of Greece,
and Rome, and Israel.

XIL
TAKING GOD INTO YOUR LIFE— ESPE-
ESPECIALLY COMMENDED
TO THE YOUNG
Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.
(Gen. 28: 16.) I have seen God face
to face. (Gen. 32:30.)
I. Two Epochs in the Spiritual Life of Jacob
(1) The Vision at Bethel.
To him, footsore and weary, after a day's jour
ney, more than all, heartsore, because of his sep
aration, and therefore homesick, a fugitive on ac
count of his own wrong-doing, and therefore
troubled in conscience, there came a beautiful
vision of heaven as he slept with a stone for a pil
low. The sense of being alone in the world op
pressed him. God to him had hitherto been only a
name heard from his mother's lips. His religion
was only an external thing, wholly unappropriated
by any internal experience. The open heavens,
God above, angels descending and ascending, mes
sengers of divine love and mercy and of providen-
169

170 Studies Upon Important Themes
tial care, this was a revelation. So he awoke with
this new experience in his heart: "Surely the
Lord is in this place and I knew it not." He had
lain down supposing he had left God behind him in
the house of his parents ; he awoke in the realiza
tion of a new truth — God is present everywhere to
those who need Him and whose hearts yearn for
Him. (Acts 27:27.- "Bethel," house of God— this
was the first article in his religious creed.
But he was yet to pass through another and
deeper experience which he embodied in another
word — Peniel, "Face to face with God."
Between these two experiences stretched the
years from youth to mature manhood.
In the beginning a single man, now a father with
a growing family, conscious of great responsibili
ties, rich through a varied personal experience.
These, too, were testing years. Something had
been done to sift the chaff from the wheat. There
had been mistakes and sins ; sharp practices in
dealing with his father-in-law had alienated him
from his wife's home as the same had driven him
from his father's house. His chief sin was covet
ousness, property, loved not wisely, but too well,
and out of this grew a tendency to deceive and take
advantage of another's ignorance or necessities.
Under these circumstances when through his Own
faults he had become a wanderer, no welcome
awaited him anywhere, conscience reproached him
with all the sins of his life. Necessity compelled

Expositions of The Scriptures 171
him to take the chance of reconciliation with his
justly offended brother, trusting to the softening
influence of time. The experience at Peniel was the
final preparation for this meeting.
(2) The interval in Jacob's life between Bethel
and Peniel represents the Danger Period in every
Christian Life.
Jacob left his mother's God behind in Canaan;
he left his own behind him at Bethel. Yet not
wholly; the memory of that vision doubtless re
curred to. him from time to time and was the basis
of the faith that triumphed at Peniel.
Too often in our conversion we get a momentary
vision of God, of the open heavens and of angels of
mercy, with messages from God; then the vision
fades. As with Jacob God is afar off — His home is
in Heaven and we are on the earth. The possibility
that He may be taken into our lives as an abiding
presence, a fountain of holy inspiration, a safe
guard against temptation, is felt later, if at all.
Prior to the advent of Christ, the conception of
God as Spirit, unconfined in space, had not yet got
ten into the universal consciousness. In the ex
pression of this truth, the 139th Psalm is supreme
above all the revelations of the Old Testament.
Yet in some respects, the statement in Isaiah 9:
14 is an advance even upon this.
"Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son
and shall call His name Immanuel — God with us."
And this name is applied to Jesus in the New Tes-

172 Studies Upon Important Themes
tament (Matthew 1 :23). It perfectly embodies our
conception of the nature of Christ — The God-Man,
Deity incarnated.
As in Christ, the divine had taken on the human,
so in man the human may take on the divine. The
kinship is spiritual. The contact or union of the
divine and human produces a new creature — the
Christian. The original relation of God to man is the rela
tion of Creator to Creature ; the new relation
through Jesus Christ is that of Father to Son.
Rarely, if ever, does a full realization of this
truth come into our consciousness at the moment
of conversion ; only, after some experience more or
less prolonged, according to individual tempera
ment, does the possibility of the indwelling God so
interwoven into the texture of our life and charac
ter as to become a part of us, dawn upon us. (See
Galatians 2 : 20.) Bethel precedes Peniel ; in the
first place, earth is only the gateway to heaven; in
the second, heaven has come to earth.
II. An Illustration from the Life of Joseph
The story of Joseph reads like a romance. In
truth, no literary genius has ever conceived any
thing so fine and yet so true to life.
The Old Testament, above everything else,
teaches by example. It presents persons whose
characters were molded by faith in God.
Joseph early took God into his life. There was

Expositions of The Scriptures 173
no long interval between his Bethel and his Peniel.
There was no long period marked by serious back
sliding; his was a steady progress from first prin
ciples toward full growth, toward perfection. (He
brew 6:1, 2.)
He represents Jacob at his best, without Jacob's
faults. With Jacob the vision at Bethel faded;
with Joseph it remained till it had passed into the
deeper experience of Peniel. And because he had
had his Peniel early, because he had taken God into
his life in his youth, God was with him at Poti-
phar's house; God was with him in jail; God was
with him in the presence of Pharaoh, and God was
with him when he was invested with authority
second only to the King — with him in adversity,
with him in prosperity, preserving him against dis
couragement and sin in the one case, and against
vanity and arrogance and injustice in the other.
When he left home he carried his religion with him.
Potiphar's house was his Bethel, the jail was his
Bethel; the court of Pharaoh was his Bethel; fin
ally all Egypt was his Bethel, all because he had
had his Peniel.
III. Jacob Represents the Possibilities of the
Thorny Ground Hearers (Matt. 13:7-22)
Jacob was one to whom life on its material side
made a strong appeal. Endowed with a strong
natural business instinct, the things of the world

174 Studies Upon Important Themes
and the deceitfulness of riches in the heydey of his
life were almost irresistibly attractive.
At the same time there was a great potential,
spiritual element in him, first manifesting' itself at
Bethel, dormant through the years spent at Har-
ran, and finally triumphing at Peniel.
The struggle between this double nature is what
the Apostle Paul describes with such profound
psychological insight in Romans 7: 15-23.
It is probably true that a majority of church
members belong to this class. Only as we grasp
this conception clearly do we understand the em
phasis the Apostle puts upon the edifying work of
the ministry. The churches have few Josephs, they
have many Jacobs. The interval between Bethel
and Peniel is strewn with blacksliders, most of
them thorny ground hearers. To save these, to
conduct them from Bethel to Peniel — from the
first experience of divine grace at conversion, affected so
often under the stress of great emotion, till they reach an
abiding spiritual mood — this is the church's great task.
IV. Other Scriptural Illustrations
The study of the great characters of the Scrip
tures is both interesting and instructive. In most
cases it is not possible to trace the successive
stages in their spiritual development. It is easier
to point out those deeper experiences which con
stitute their Peniel than those which represent
their Bethel.

Expositions of The Scriptures 175
There was, of course, a beginning — a time when
religion became a personal experience in distinc
tion from maternal instruction, and then a later
period which proved the high-water mark of their
spiritual attainment and, in the interval between
these, many lapses, mistakes, and sins, more or less
serious. For no one becomes a saint, as we under
stand the term, till he has had his Peniel — till he
has truly and fully taken God into his life — that
moment of substantial self-mastery, when he can
say with the Apostle Paul: "No longer I live, but
Christ liveth in me."
Many thoughtful students have been troubled
over the contrasts between certain periods of
David's life and his Psalms. His liaison with Bath-
sheba and his treatment of Uriah, her husband, are
painful to contemplate, and in marked contrast to
the fine feeling and noble sentiments in so many of
his Psalms. A careful study of the Psalms sup
posed to be his, would probably show a significant
difference between those composed in his early
manhood and those composed at a later date. In
tracing the spiritual life of David, three well-
marked divisions are possible.
(1) This would include the time from his anoint
ing by Samuel to the conquest of Jerusalem and
the selection of that city for his capital. It was
then that he was first acknowledged as King over
all Israel.
(2) This period marks his middle manhood and

176 Studies Upon Important Themes
extends down to the time of his great moral lapse
and the treatment of Uriah and his family.
(3) This embraces the remainder of his life.
There are reasons for believing that the middle
period was a time of moral and spiritual barren
ness. Consider this significant statement : "And
David took more concubines and wives out of Jeru
salem after he was come from Hebron." (II. Samuel
5 : 13.) It was a time of ease and senuous indul
gence. The strenuous period was over; the com
mand of the army in foreign lands was entrusted
to Joab; the great sin against the home of Uriah
marks the lowest step in the downward descent. It
was probably at this point that the first attempt to
bring the ark to Jerusalem was made. In the light
of this, one should read II. Samuel 6. It is said that
David was displeased at the fate of Uzzah (II. Sam
uel 6 : 7 and 8) and afraid of the Lord, and returned
to Jerusalem without the ark. This was the fear
of a conscience not void of offense. "Conscience
makes cowards of us all." No one at peace with the
Lord fears Him and runs away from the ark.
How much time really elapsed before the second
attempt to bring up the ark may be a matter of un
certainty. The narrative says three months. But
strict accuracy in the chronology is not of the es
sence of the narrative; the essential thing is the
change that took place in the spiritual life of this
sweet singer of Israel. Three Psalms mark this

Expositions of The Scriptures 177
change, the fifteenth and twenty-fourth, and one
found in I. Chronicles 16:8-36.
The twenty-fourth will reward careful study. It
was chanted by two sets of singers with instru
mental accompaniment — one outside of the gates
of the city and one inside — one answering the
other, as the ark with its great procession, headed
by the king, stood outside waiting for entrance.
It is the grand processional; the arrangement
may be understood partly by reading I. Chronicles
15: 16-29. The first choir sang: "Who shall ascend
unto the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in
His Holy place?"
The second choir — the one inside the gate, re
plied : "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart ;
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully."
If now we group Psalms 32 and 23, as well as
Psalms 14 with Psalms 24, and place them in the
last period of David's poetic activity and compare
them with such Psalms as 7, 18, 29, 49, 52, 66, fine as
these are, or some of them in poetic vigor, we shall
find that the first group marks the highest standard
of spiritual excellence and inspiration.
Probably Psalm 51 indicates the turning point in
his life, when Bethel had been swallowed up in
Peniel. In the first group God is an external Power, the
God of war, a force working outside of man, and
fighting his battles for him, teaching his hands to
12

178 Studies Upon Important Themes
war and overcoming his epemies, whose anger
could only be appeased and whose power concili
ated by the sacrifice of bullocks and sheep.
In the second group God desires not sacrifices,
does not delight in burnt offerings, but a broken
and contrite heart and truth in the inward parts
(Psalm 51 ; 16, 17, 6), and only he who hath clean
hands and a pure heart shall stand in His presence
(Psalm 24:4; Psalm 15:2).
And yet you will find in the early Psalms
glimpses now and then, momentary flashes of the
supreme truth, which shine out a clear and steady
light in the latter, just as Bethel was the forerun
ner of Peniel.

XIIL
CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT OF THE
PREVIOUS STUDY— TAKE GOD INTO
YOUR LIFE (HEBREW XI).
The Dynamic Power of Faith in God was par
tially expounded in a former series of studies. This
study is a further exposition of the same subject.
The Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the He
brews both defines Faith and illustrates it in a
striking manner. In truth, here is the only specific
definition of it in the Scriptures. Faith in God is
meant of course, for it may have other objects
besides. In essence Faith is the inherent power of the soul
by which it lays hold upon God, and the invisible
spiritual world. I. The Definition Unfolded
"Now Faith is the giving substance to things
hoped for, the testing of things not seen." (Ameri
can Revision, Hebrew 11:1.)
1. The first thing worthy of attention in this
definition is not what it says, but what it implies.
God is assumed. The Scriptures nowhere attempt
to account for Him. The Bible opens with God; it
179

180 Studies Upon Important Themes
makes no attempt to go back of Him; it gives an
account of the Creation but not of the Creator.
The consciousness of God as Creator, as one in
communion with man, holding Him accountable for
the conduct of life, inspiring hope and confidence,
whose approval was joy and whose frown was
pain, appears with the first man. The first man
awoke into consciousness with the image of God
upon his soul, and as a part of his consciousness.
And the Bible accounts for this by the simple yet
illuminating statement, "So God created man in his
own image."
And this consciousness of God is to the suul'what
the air is to the body — its breath, necessary, v^tal,
unescapable. We can no more escape God.than we
can get away from our shadow, or account for Him
than we can account for our heart-beats.
"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or
whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
"If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there; if
I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there.
"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy
hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me."
—Psalm 139:7-10.
2. Again, It is Important to Distinguish the Bibli
cal Conception of God From the Heathen Concep
tion. The character of a people not only reveals their

Expositions of The Scriptures 181
conception of God in general, but also those par
ticular attributes of the divine character which
most deeply impress them.
To the heathen God was indeed the supreme
power, but not always a beneficent power; in their
minds He was a kind of magnificent man endowed
with unlimited power ; in Him they enthroned their
own passions — anger, jealousy, revenge. Such was
His anger when offended, that nothing short of the
sacrifice of a human life could appease it. Under
the influence of this idea Abraham proceeded to
offer Isaac upon Mount Moriah, whereon subse
quently the temple was built ; the revelation of that
experience was the crisis in his spiritual life, eman
cipating him from the religious conceptions which
he had inherited in Shinar. The great merit of Ab
raham, among other things, was that he purified
the faith that had come down from Adam to Noah
and which had become degraded and beclouded
during the long centuries that had elapsed since
Noah's time. II. Abraham's Conception of God
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews derived
his conception of God from Abraham.
The one word that characterizes Abraham's idea
of God is, "righteous." In his pleading for Sodom
and Gomorrah, he asked this pregnant question;
"Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" —
Genesis 18:25. And he never confounded the right-

182 Studies Upon Important Themes
eous with the wicked. This righteousness of God
became Abraham's through faith. (Genesis 15:6.)
And this idea of righteousness is the central at
tribute of the divine character, which condemns sin
and rewards right conduct, first manifested in the
treatment of Abel and Cain, appears again in
Noah, by virtue of which Noah was saved and the
rest of the world destroyed. (Genesis 4:1-7; and
6:7, 8; and 7:1.)
Going back still further, two ideas — the germs of
our religion today and the ground of our confidence
— appear in the first chapter of the Bible.
(1) So God created man in His own image.
(2) "And God saw everything that he had made,
and behold it was very good." (Genesis 1:27-31.)
Here was Abraham's creed: (a) Man created in
the image of God; (b) Goodness — the God who was
good made a good world; (c) Righteousness — the
Judge of all the earth is just ; His attributes were
goodness and righteousness.
In Abraham's conception, goodness included the
quality of mercy; the avenue to his favor is not
through the sacrifice of human life, but repentance
and forgiveness.
One looks in vain outside of the Bible, in the
time when Abraham appears in history, for such an
exalted idea of God.
The heathen gods were national deities favoring
and protecting one people against all others ; the
God of Abraham was Judge of all the earth, and He

Expositions of The Scriptures 183
called Abraham, that in him all nations should ht
blessed. It is true that the Jews narrowed this concep
tion in emphasizing their own election as a chosen
people; they tended to forget the magnificent con
ception of Abraham, and looked upon God as Jeho
vah — One in covenant relations with them for their
own particular good and not for the human race.
Yet the larger and nobler faith emerges again and
again in the great prophets and Psalms.
III. As Is God, So Are the Promises He Makes
and the Hopes He Inspires
"God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him" A God of righteousness, goodness, mercy. His re
wards are determined by his character.
As already intimated, the writer of this Epistle
to the Hebrews moves almost wholly within the
sphere of the Abrahamic conception of faith and of
its object. Let us now more particularly unfold the
contents of the definition.
(1) "The evidence or the proving of things not
seen." That is, faith is taking God's word for
things that have been or may be.
This means, first the creation of the world. That
it was the work of God and that it took on its pres
ent form under His molding and all-powerful hand,
— for the truth of this, we are dependent upon the
Word of God alone. His character, as we conceive

184 Studies Upon Important Themes
it, is our proof and only proof — for we conceive Him
both all-powerful and righteous — His power al
ways obedient to His reason. We take His word
for things yet to be, the knowledge of which rests
upon His promises.
We cannot conceive of a self-existing world;
least of all can we conceive of a multitude of self-
existing worlds, for the universe as we know it,
consists of many worlds, so great in number as to
be not only beyond our present knowledge, but be
yond our power to conjecture. The stars are worlds
in magnitude ; our earth is one of the least. When
knowledge fails, faith comes to our aid. A self-
existing God, the first cause of all things, from
whom all the worlds proceeded, as well as the
energy that preserves and directs them and in
whom all things find their unity — such is the assur
ance of faith. Back of this we cannot go; starting
with this, all knowledge is possible; the universe
ceases to be an enigma, and becomes intelligible.
In the second place we take God's word for the
things that are to be.
One idea pervades all Scripture — ^that it is well
with the righteous. He who hath lost communion
with God cannot be happy, no matter what his
earthly possessions, honors or distinctions. To a
man helplessly alienated from God, mere life is no
blessing. This is the explanation of the flood. It also ex
plains why Noah survived the catastrophe (v. 7.)

Expositions of The Scriptures 185
Noah's faith piercing the darkness of the flood,
looked forward to a righteous world. Such, too,
was the vision of Abraham in the midst of the
darkness of Shinar, in which he saw not only the
possibility of a new world of righteousness, but
heard the call to a special mission in the realizing
of it, and to a strange land wherein this mission
could be accomplished. Abraham was a dreamer
all his life ; in his mind was formed the most mag
nificent conception that was ever born in the soul
of man — ^that in him, all the families of the earth
should be blessed. (Genesis 12 : 3.) If we could
place ourselves in his age of the world, amidst his
circumstances, we would, without doubt, declare
that he was an idle dreamer, cherishing an utter
impossibility, yet in the light of the subsequent
marvelous fulfillment, was not his faith of the kind
that removes mountains?
The world is yet to appreciate the greatness of
Abraham. He lived in the assurance of faith, of
the things that were yet to come. And how far-
reaching that faith ! The promise of a numerous
offspring and of a land that should be their earthly
home, were not the chief articles — they were only
means to an end — the end was universal righteous
ness. And yet how great was the length of time
before the realization of even these steps in that
magnificent program! There were from seven to
eight centuries at least before Joshua led his de
scendants across the Jordan and established them

186 Studies Upon Important Themes
in the Promised Land. So Abraham "died in faith,
not having received the promises but having seen
them and greeted them from afar." (v. 13.)
It is of importance to emphasize the nature or
character of the Promises to Abraham, the record
of whose fulfillment constitutes our Bible. Primar
ily they were spiritual. Abraham was to be the
father of a numerous offspring; there was to be a
land for their home wherein they might develop an
organized society and a national life. It was to be
a land that flowed with milk and honey.
But these were only the earthly conditions of a
spiritual mission, universal in its beneficence. To
the Jews were given the oracles of God, the duty of
fulfillment of the Promises (Romans 3 : 2), which
embraced the whole world of mankind.
In the study of the Bible, and especially of the
Old Testament, there was no such fast and hard
distinction between heaven and earth as we find in
much of modern theology. There was no clear
boundary separating one from the other. One
faded imperceptibly into the other.
Earth was patterned after heaven ; God was the
universal soul, animating, inspiring, sustaining, di
recting, controlling all things, yet retaining His dis
tinct personality. Some students try to develop a
doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament. Tak
ing the different books and comparing them, they
seem to contradict one another.
Yet there is a perfect consistency on one subject:

Expositions of The Scriptures 187
"It is always well with the righteous." It is not so
clear what was supposed to be the ultimate fate of
the wicked. Destruction is often said to be their
lot ; whether this meant, as some think, absolute
annihilation, or an existence separated from God,
under conditions of misery, is not so clear. No Old
Testament writer probably contemplates the abso
lute destruction of the righteous.
"Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory."
"For, lo, they that are far from thee shall per
ish." "But it is good for me to draw near to God."
(Psalm 7Z : 24, 27, 28.)
These quotations from the remarkable Seventy-
third Psalm, express, with extraordinary clearness,
the teaching of all the great inspired passages of
the Old Testament on this doctrine of life, here
and hereafter.
Hence with the Jews, earth was the. symbol of
heaven; the happiness possible here was an imper
fect indication of the more perfect happiness there.
So the physical was the symbol of the spiritual ; the
Promised Land, physically speaking, meant the
narrow strip of land on the eastern border of the
Mediterranean Sea; spiritually speaking, it meant
the happiness of the soul in conscious communion
with God, and so long as this communion continued
there was no limit set to the soul's life in time or
in eternity. The New Testament confirms the Old.

188 Studies Upon Important Themes
Jesus Christ fulfills the mission of Abraham ;
through the Gospel He gave the world, all the na
tions of the earth have been or are in process of be
coming blessed.
The resurrection was a visible and concrete con
firmation of the fundamental faith of the prophets.
In the discourses of Jesus, the word "life" means
the redeemed life — the life formed and molded
under the influence of faith in God, to which no
limit of time is fixed — the continuity of life, of the
spiritual life, of the redeemed life in the body and
out of it, subject to no law of decay, indefinite, end
less — such is the teaching of the Bible from Gene
sis to Revelation.
Implicit everywhere, it is more and more explicit
in the Great Prophets and the Great Psalms, and
reaches its full development in the Resurrection of
Jesus. The things not seen, the things hoped for: That
God created the world; that He is a God of right
eousness and justice whose justice is tempered
with mercy and who does not confound the right
eous with the wicked; that the preservation and
salvation of the world which he had made was a
part of his original plan; that the call of Abraham
and the promises made to him were designed to
realize this plan or purpose ; that the Promised
Land was given Abraham's descendants not pri
marily for their own particular good, but that
through them the divine purpose of universal sal-

Expositions of The Scriptures 189
vation might be realized ; that this land with all the
conditions of the most perfect physical happiness
was the emblem of the perfect happiness of the
soul that was in right relation with God — the sym
bol of heaven on earth — that this spiritual life was
continuous, unbroken, unaffected by earthly
changes — such seems to be the meaning, expressed
or implied, in this definition of faith.
One is struck with the forward look of the Bible,
Old and New. All the civilized nations of the past
had a legend of a "Golden Age ;" the Jews called it
"The Garden of Eden." All other nations sighed
for its return ; there is no yearning for Eden in the
Bible; there is a forward look to a "new heaven
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteous." This
new earth implied progress toward moral perfec
tion to be achieved by the operation of the Gospel
upon the universal life of mankind.

XIV.
THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY
I. Cor. 6:12. See Also 8:13; 10:23.
Rom. 14. GaL 5:1.
The law of Christian Liberty and the manifold
questions arising within its sphere, have been the
source of discussions and controversies in the
churches since the time of the Apostle Paul.
What is Christian Liberty ? What are its limits ?
What principles should guide Christians in the use
of its privileges and opportunities?
In life there is a large border-land, a kind of twi
light region between what is clearly right and
clearly wrong. All Christian nations, practically
all nations and tribes, accept the Ten Command
ments handed down from Moses, without question.
Reverence to God, honor to parents are clearly
right; false witness, adultery, theft, covetousness,
murder are clearly wrong. On these subjects there
has been universal agreement among all nations
and in all ages. To this rule there is only one ex
ception — the Sabbath. Outside of the Hebrew
Commonwealth we have no record of its observ
ance; today, among Christian nations, Sunday
takes its place ; just when the change was made is
190

Expositions of The Scriptures 191
not certain; the process by which is was brought
about is seen in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.
The principle is preserved, but the time has been
changed. The first debatable question which agitated the
Christian Church was circumcision. Should the
Gentiles who accepted Christ become circumcised?
The first Church Council was called to settle this
question. (Acts 15:1-29.) Next arose a difficulty
in the eating of meats offered to idols. The prac
tice of the Gentile world at that time was to offer
for sale in the market, meats at first sacrificed to
idols, accompanied with a libation of wine. Jewish
Christians said it was not right to eat such meats
or drink such wine.
The question of circumcision is touched upon
with more or less fullness in nearly all of the Paul
ine Epistles; that of meat and wine is treated espe
cially in the passages referred to at the head of this
study. At a later period ascetism arose ; people held it a
virtue to deny themselves the most innocent pleas
ures of life. Later came Puritanism. The Puritan
regarded images and music in the churches, art
and literature, as morally debasing. Although the
world long ago changed front on these Puritan
conceptions, another but similar class of subjects is
still unsettled, such as card-playing, dancing and
theatre-going. Nor are these all. No one age is
just like another. New forms of human activity in

192 Studies Upon Important Themes
civil, commercial and social life are constantly ap
pearing. Much of the legislation of the last forty
years or more has been caused or influenced by the
controversies between capital and labor.
What the employer owes the empolyee, what the
employee owes the employer — this is a question of
daily discussion and agitation. The matter of right
and wrong is vague and nebulous ; there is no clear
dividing line.
The wisdom of the Gospel, which so profoundly
impressed the Apostle Paul, is seen among other
things, that it is not a system of minute rules for
every particular situation in life, but a spirit of
good-will, of love. The one great rule is the Golden
Rule, but this is to be applied in a spirit of love and
according to individual judgment.
The Church's task in all ages is edification, instruct
ing the individual judgment and developing the in
dividual conscience with reference to all this vast
multitude of questions arising between individual
men and classes of men now in every age, for
which there is no clear unchangeable standard.
And this is no easy task. Solved in one way, it
means progress ; solved in another, it means strife,
loss, trouble.
The purpose of the present study is to endeavor
to set forth in a clear and simple manner the teach
ing of the Apostle Paul on this class of subjects.
I. Man the Crown and Lord of Creation; his task
is to assert his Lordship, subject only to his Great-

Expositions of The Scriptures 193
or. Starting with Genesis, 1-28, this thought, in
one form or another, runs through all Scriptures.
"All things are yours," says the Apostle Paul. (I.
Cor. 3 : 22-23.) Hence "all things are lawful, but I
will not be brought under the power of any, for all
things are not expedient or advantageous." (I. Cor.
6:12.) II. Limitations of Man's Power and Liberty.
All things are man's to use and not abuse. The original
meaning of abuse means not to use to the full. Vice
is sometimes defined as going to excess in the use
of things proper in themselves. Such a definition
would, indeed, cover a multitude of life's mistakes
and sins. Gluttony is excess in eating; drunkken-
ness, of drinking. Almost all forms of self-indulg
ence lie within the sphere of this definition ; so of
the sins that grow out of social intercourse; they
begin in the proper use of innocent pleasures and
end in abuse.
Life was originally conceived of as a Garden and
man as its keeper. He was given a large liberty.
In every age the story of Eden is repeated. Here
is the air, the warm sunshine, the starlit heavens;
here is the fertile earth with power to produce
every form of food to satisfy the appetite and de
sire, here are the beautiful flowers and trees and
plants, and thousands of other beautiful forms and
things to please the eye and evoke pleasing emo
tions within us ; here is human society, a world of
13

194 Studies Upon Important Themes
men and women, mysterious and wonderful, with
measureless possibilities of love, friendship and afr
fection. Over all these things God has written — "Use, but
do not abuse." Our liberty is large, yet there is a
limit. Nor has He left us without guidance ; every
where are His mystic signs whose meanings be
come clear in the light of experience. You pass a
schoolhouse, temple of learning; its sign is easily
interpreted — "Use." You go a little further and a
different kind of institution appears — a saloon and
the abode of the strange woman. The sign is
equally clear — "Don't use." — for in these men and
women are abusing the powers and the liberty
which God gives to all. Or you pass a hospital, an
infirmary, and you behold the place where science,
directed by human skill and sympathy and kind
ness, is trying to repair the hapless beings whose
bodies have been wrecked in the saloon or in the
low dive, or in other places where they have abused
the liberty which was their noble birthright. Or,
you hear the bells breaking the stillness of the day
of rest, a summons whose meaning all understand.
Like the schoolroom, the church is an appointed
place where the light upon life's deep things — its
uses and abuses — is given, where the key to the
mystic signs is found. Now, between these ex
tremes, the school and the church on the one hand,
and the places of evil resort on the other, is a large
sphere where the signs are not so clear — the

Expositions of The Scriptures 195
theater, the dance, the promiscuous picnics and ex
cursions, and houses of pleasure under no especial
moral supervision.
III. For All These the Apostle Furnishes One
Single Test. Are they expedient ? Are they mor
ally advantageous? Do they edify? In matters of
this kind light must be sought from experience.
There are two methods of meeting the evils in
cident to these forms of pleasure: (1) Abstain from
them absolutely; or, (2) So supervise and regulate
them as to remove or minimize their incidental
evils. All denominations probably, not only allow pic
nics and excursions, but encourage them both for
pleasure, as in the case of the Sunday school, or
for financial reasons, as in the case of excursions.
Theater-going was at one time quite strongly dis
approved, but little or nothing is said about it to
day. As to dancing, some denominations leave it
wholly to the individual conscience ; others allow it
under regulations ; still others forbid it altogether.
The same may be said of card-playing. Of course,
all churches disapprove of gambling; some disap
prove of all card-playing, others have no rule on the
subject at all.
In the first place, the Apostle speaks to the indi
vidual and not to the Church in its collective and
legislative capacity. In fact, he positively objects
to any church rule or legislation on this whole class

196 Studies Upon Important Themes
of subjects that are not essentially wrong — such as
circumcision, feast days, new-moons. Sabbath days,
eating meats or drinking wine offered to idols. (I.
Cor. 7:17-19; Col. 2:16.)
A word of explanation seems necessary at this
point. The churches founded by the Apostle Paul
were composed in large part of Gentiles, but there
was a small Jewish element in many, if not in all.
The question arose early what was the relation of
the Hebrew religion to Christianity? Should Gen
tile Christians become circumcised? Should they
keep the Passover and Pentecost and the other
Jewish feast days? And, especially, should they ob
serve the seventh day of rest? The Jews attempted
to put the new wine of Christianity into the old
bottles of Judaism. The Epistle to the Galatians
was a protest against this attempt, and the echo of
it is heard in all the Apostle's great Epistles.
The first Apostolic Council advised against cir
cumcision. (Acts 15:1-29.) It was only a Jewish
rite — a sign that set the Jews apart from the rest
of mankind for a special mission. But when Christ
came, that mission was fulfilled. Judaism was the
religion of the Jews, Christianity was the gift of
God to the whole human race. Circumcision was a
sign of separation — separating one people from an
other. Then Jews were God's chosen people ; now,
all peoples who accept Christ are His chosen people.
For circumcision was a mere physical sign or sym
bol, the thing signified was an inward and spiritual

Expositions of The Scriptures 197
truth; as the shell encloses the egg which contains
a new life and when this life becomes developed, the
shell ceases to be of use. In like measure the same
is true of the Passover. That was a Jewish me
morial — a great epoch in the life of a particular
people. It had no meaning for the Gentile any
more than the Fourth of July has for a German or
Italian. On the same principle the Apostle treated the
seventh day. There is no doubt he objected to the
Jewish attempt to compel the Gentiles to follow
their example in keeping this particular day. The
Sabbath was made for man and not man for the
Sabbath, was his position. It was right for the
Jewish Christians to keep it, for with them it was
a matter of conscience and of previous training; it
was not right to insist that the Gentile Christians
should keep it, because they accepted Christianity
and not the religion of the Jews. To them there
was an obligation to observe the first day of the
week and partake of the Lord's Supper, because it
was this day on which the Lord arose from the
dead, whose resurrection was the supreme revela
tion of Christianity. Hence, the first day of the
week was at once their rest day and their feast day,
full of significance to them while the Jewish Sab
bath had no meaning at all. Christianity was a
spirit of life, requiring a body of its own. It was
right — so runs the Apostolic line of thought — for
the Jews to keep the seventh day, since it is a mat-

198 Studies Upon Important Themes
ter of faith with them ; it is not right to impose its
observance upon the Gentile Christians, for it is
not a matter of faith with them. The Apostle does
not specifically name the first day of the week as
the Christian day of rest, but it is evident that he
taught the churches established by him to meet on
that day, and partake of the Lord's Supper. It was
right for the Jewish Christians to abstain from
meat offered to idols, for it was a matter of faith
with them ; it was not right to insist that Gentile
Christians should abstain, for it was not a matter
of faith with them. Faith sanctifies ; there is no
merit in abstaining where there is no faith ; there
is sin in partaking if it offends faith. As both Jews
and Gentiles were members of the same churches,
especially those at Corinth and Rome and in Gala-
tia, in the Epistles in which he discusses these mat
ters quite fully, it was wrong for the churches to
attempt to legislate, laying down fixed rules and
requiring uniformity in practice. "Stand fast in
the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free"
is the strong exhortation addressed to the Gala
tians. (Gal. 5 : 1.) And the meaning of this liberty
is made clear in Gal. 4: 10-11. (See also Col. 2: 16.)
IV. Individual Liberty and the Spirit in Which it
Should Be Exercised.
A simple statement of the points herein involved
will conduce to clarity. (1) Every man standeth or
falleth to his own master. (Romans 14:4.) (2)

Expositions of The Scriptures 199
Hence, in the exercise of this liberty, he is account
able to God and not to man, therefore no one shall
judge another. (Romans 14:8-12.) Yet, in the exer
cise of our liberty, we should have regard for our
weaker brother, not because this is required by
the law of right, but by the spirit of love. (Rom
ans 13:10.)
Now it must be clearly understood that there is
a distinction between the law of right and the law
of love. In a moral sense, the contrary of right is
wrong, and in a matter of this kind men are gen
erally agreed; in the sphere of love there is no
clear boundary, much is left to the individual judg
ment and large-mindedness. He who in the exer
cise of his Christian liberty knows his example is
a stumbling block to his neighbor is not said to be
wrong, but to walk uncharitably. (Romans 14: 15.)
Whenever, therefore, we limit ourselves to the
exercise of our Christian liberty for the sake of
others, it is purely a voluntary act. When, where
and how far this restriction should go is left to our
own Christian generosity and judgment. No one is
to judge another simply because his standard
might be higher, or broader or narrower than an
other. No one can claim this of us, and no one has
a right to demand that we should take his narrow
er point of view. For the man who would live on
a vegetable diet rather than eat meat that has been
offered to idols the Apostle calls weak in faith
(Romans 14:1-2); and although he said if meat

200 Studies Upon Important Themes
made his brother to offend, he would eat no more
meat forever, we have no record that he ever be
came himself a vegetarian. The reason is obvious ;
it was his duty to enlighten the uninstructed and
to strengthen those who were weak in faith, and
raise them up into his own larger liberty. Hence,
V. He Would of His Own Free Will fore
go the full exercise of his own Christian liberty
under the inspiration of brotherly love till the faith
of the weaker brother should become strong. The
Apostle wrote to the Corinthians that, in his
preaching, he had purposely confined himself to the
most elementary doctrines, because, spiritually
speaking, they were but babes. (I. Cor. 3 :l-2.) Yet
he would not allow any one to question his liberty.
He allowed circumcision as a voluntary act, but
objected when an attempt was made to require it.
(Compare Acts 16:3 and Galatians 2:3.)
How' readily the Apostle adapted himself to the
peculiar moral and spiritual state of different races
and classes of men by voluntarily restricting him
self in the use of his Christian liberty, he himself
has stated so strongly that he has sometimes been
misunderstood. (See I. Cor. 9:19-23.) This adapt
ability involved no sacrifice or compromise of right
or of principle ; he is referring only to that class
of subjects lying within the sphere of what is ex
pedient or profitable. He respected the scruples of
the Jews in observing feast days and circumcision

Expositions of The Scriptures 201
when among the Jews ; he respected the scruples
of the Gentiles, for whom these Jewish rites and
practices had no meaning. But his course was
wholly voluntary; he again and again absolutely
refused to admit that these things were necessary
to salvation in Christ, and he would never comply
with them under compulsion.
VI. The Doctrine of Self-Control. Specially as
Related to the Exercise of Christian Liberty. This
subject in Christian literature and preaching
is more generally presented in the form of self-
denial. But this is not the scriptural term. The
nearest approach is the command of Jesus. (Mat
thew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23.) Here the
references are not to any particular act, but to a
change of life.
For self-denial, as ordinarily used, is not neces
sarily a Christian virtue. Russell Sage, to the last
day of his long life, refused to take a vacation ; he
was too busy making money. Yet from his door,
although he was worth millions, the poor and the
agents of great charitable and religious causes
were turned away empty handed. Place by his
side the conduct of Sir Philip Sidney, who, ly
ing dangerously wounded on the battlefield, gave
a dying fellow-soldier the cup of water brought to
quench his own burning thirst, saying, "Thy need
is greater than mine."
The conduct of Russell Sage was governed by

202 Studies Upon Important Themes
selfish prudence; the conduct of Sir Philip Sidney
was an act of Christian altruism. The motive gives
character to the act. The world is full of people
who restrict themselves in the enjoyment of life's
comforts and innocent pleasures, in the interest
of merely selfish ambition. Such self-denial may
be an act of prudent calculation and may be called
a self regarding virtue, but not a Christian virtue.
It may indeed gain entrance to an earthly Paradise,
but not to the Kingdom of Heaven.
On the other hand, the New Testament doctrine
on this subject is expressed in the term self-con
trol or temperance. The authorized version uses
the latter, the revised the former, in the footnotes.
Sometimes as a verb it is translated by "contain"
or "continency." (Acts 24:25; Gal. 5:23; II. Peter
1:6; Titus 1:8; I. Cor. 7:9 and 9:25.)
The difference between the two words is signifi
cant. Self-denial implies the giving up of some
comfort or pleasure greatly desired, involving
more or less of pain or trial. It is a negative idea.
Self-control, on the contrary, implies that the
mind is so fixed upon things that are essential and
is so imbued with an altruistic spirit that it turns
away without painful effort from any pleasure or
enjoyment when it is perceived to be a stumbling
block to others, or in conflict with Christian ideals
and standards. Complete self-mastery under the
inspiration of Christian ideals is the perfection of
character, and, as Christ sets the standard in the

Expositions of The Scriptures 203
measure of manhood, self-mastery means subjec
tion to Him. The burden of the New Testament
everywhere is the glory of the Christ life, the ex
hortation to altruistic service and the supreme sat
isfaction of its rewards. There is little need of the
shepherd's vigilance to keep his sheep from stray
ing into places of briars and weeds and dense for
ests, the haunts of wild beasts, when they have
once tasted the grass of green pastures, fresh with
the morning dew through which run streams of
cool water. Christian progress means new experi
ence, new and keen appreciation of the things that
are just and true, and honorable and pure — of
things eternal and divine ; and in proportion to this
progress, temptations lose their power, self-control
increases, and the easier it becomes to restrict our
Christian liberty, either for the sake of our own
greater improvement or for the good of those
weaker in faith.
In the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Ro
mans, the Apostle, in a profound psychological
analysis, presents the conflict between the physical
and the spiritual, of which every man becomes
aware upon the awakening of conscience ; the
proper relation between the body and the soul is
that the former shall be subject to the latter and
the soul subject to Christ, and that this relation
may be established through the grace of God in
Jesus Christ.
Self-respect, the essence of all true manhood.

204 Studies Upon Important Themes
makes abstinence from strong drink easy, if mod
erate indulgence either impairs a man's influence
for good or threatens his self-control; it makes it
easy to abstain from any indulgence, however in
nocent in itself, the moment a tendency develops
to go beyond the bounds of moderation. Hence,
the more one preaches heaven, the less he needs
to preach hell ; the more one appreciates the life of
righteousness, the less satisfaction does he find in
a life of sin. When the Spirit of Christ fills the soul
there is no place for the evil spirit. No man is so
free as he who has attained to a degree of Chris
tian self-control. This is the freedom wherewith
Christ makes us free. (John 8:36.) Men are not
made strong so much by the fear of punishment as
by the hope of happiness.
It was a mistake of Puritanism that the Chris
tian religion is a serious, solemn affair, that the
pleasures having their seat in our physical nature
are vanities, or worse, and that self-denial in re
gard to them is a virtue. There could hardly be a
greater mistake. True, there are passages in Paul's
Epistles that suggest some such idea, due, how
ever, only to the Apostle's subjective state. In his
earlier Epistles the expectation of the Lord's sec
ond coming to judge the world, prominent in many
passages, tinged his tone. In the latter, such as
Philippians, there is a cheerful tone — "Rejoice in
the Lord," is his hearty exhortation. All recrea
tions and amusements and pleasures, not wrong in

Expositions of The Scriptures 205
themselves, produce happiness and promote health ;
and the perfect Christian is he who has a sound
mind in a sound body.
VII. The New Testament Conception of Religion.
The Christian Religion may be defined thus:
Man's Consciousness of relation to God, to man
and to nature.
The first is filial ; the second, fraternal ; the third,
lordly. In other words, man is the child of God,
the brother of his fellow-man and the lord of na
ture. To understand this three-fold relationship of life
and to adjust himself to it is the supreme busi
ness of life.
(1) Those Who Have Followed the Series of
Studies beginning with those on "Sin and Redemp
tion" will the more readily understand this defini
tion. The accepted definition of religion in general
is : Man's consciousness of relation to a Supernat
ural Being, manifesting itself in spontaneous be
lief and feeling to whom he owes acceptable serv
ice. It will be perceived that the distinctive Christian
element is not found in this definition. It was
Christ who revealed that this Supernatural Being
was Father, and that man's relation was filial ; that
human brotherhood was a corollary, and that the
universal bond, binding man to man and the whole
human race to God, was love.
In addition to this, man is affirmed to be lord of

206 Studies Upon Important Themes
the natural world over which he is to exercise do
minion. The Apostle Paul's doctrine of self-control
is founded upon this assumption. The soul is sov
ereign over the body and over all nature, of which
the body is a part ; only as man realizes his proper
relation to God and his fellow-man can he exert
this sovereignty to the fullest extent. It is Jesus
Christ who makes known these relations.
The Apostle frequently calls himself the servant
of Jesus Christ. The original word means bond
servant, or slave. Jesus Christ reveals the truth — •
the truth concerning man's three-fold relationship — ¦
the Christian freeman is he who accepts this revela
tion and the obligation it involves. Hence we call
Christ "Master," the meaning of which, in the New
Testament, generally speaking, is teacher, or lead
er. Christ teaches us the truth as above defined
and leads us into the truth. His mastership is not
that of a slave-owner, but of one who is the author
and leader of the faith that constitutes salvation.
(See John 14:6; Heb. 12:2.) With the Apostle to
be master of himself was to be the bond-servant of
Jesus Christ. (See I. Cor. 9:27.) To reverse the
order and allow the impulses and appetites of the
body to have full sway meant spiritual slavery.
We are now in a position to understand the pas-
age — I. Cor. 6:12 — referred to at the head of these
studies : All things are lawful unto me, but I will
not be brought under the power of any.

Expositions of The Scriptures 207
(2) The Pauline Conception of the Christian Life.
The Apostle regards the natural, or non-Chris
tian, life, and the Christian life as mutually ex
clusive. The Christian is a new creature. He
has passed through a death and a resurrec
tion. He now lives the life of the spirit.
The source of his life is hid with Christ in God.
Men do not expect grapes from thorns nor figs
from thistles. The kind of tree determines the kind
of fruit. The fig-tree may be barren, but it will
never bear thistles; the Christian may not always
be fruitful in good works, but he is not expected
to produce the works of darkness. The opponents
of the Apostle objected to his doctrine of free grace
as opposed to salvation by the deeds of the law, be
cause, apparently, it discredited good works and
made it a matter of indifference whether a man did
good or evil. Chapters VI to VIII of the Epistle to
the Romans deal with this objection in full. The
Apostle points out that the doctrine of free grace
was misunderstood. The Christian life is a thing
of energy, a vital thing, a productive principle,
bringing forth fruit after its kind as naturally as a
seed grows into a tree and brings forth fruit after
its kind. Yet the Apostle was a man of practical
judgment; he understood how far apart the ideal
and the actual are generally found to be in prac
tical life. He did not himself claim to have attained
perfection ; he was still pressing forward towards

208 Studies Upon Important Themes
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3: 14.) He not only knew
some would fall, but that many had. (Gal. 6:1). He
did not regard single acts of sin as inconsistent
with Christian profession. The fact that a man
stumbles sometimes is no proof of his inability to
walk. The backslider was not held to be in the
same class with those who had never made a con
fession of faith. The philosophic principle under
lying this apparent inconsistency was stated under
the subject, "Method of Redemption," Chapter VL,
pages 84-99.
(3) Practical Application of the Principles of
Christian Liberty.
(a) In Discussing the Actual Life of individual
Christians or church members we too often make
the mistake of judging them by a standard of per
fection, more or less subjective, and condemning
all who fall below it. We forget, at such times, but
the Apostle Paul never forgot, the difference be
tween the actual and the ideal. With him there
were degrees of Christian excellence ; the charac
ters and achievements of some were like hay or
stubble; of others, like gold or silver or precious
stones. Yet he did not exclude the first class from
the Kingdom of Heaven; they might be saved, so
as by fire. (I. Cor. 3:11:15.) In the parable of the
sower, Jesus himself has made a classification.
Leaving out the wayside hearers who never re-

Expositions of The Scriptures 209
ceived the seed, there are three classes who may be
considered as the representatives of the general
church membership — the stony ground, the thorny
ground and the good ground hearers. (Matthew 13:
18-23.) All of these receive the seed of life; all
were truly converted. The third class in every
church are relatively small ; they are the salt that
saves, the light that shines: they constitute the
glory of the church, making it a power against
which not even the gates of hell can prevail. The
stony ground and thorny ground bearers furnish
every church with its most serious problem. They
constitute the recruiting ground of backsliders, the
chief cases of discipline, the cause of constant
anxiety and vigilance. The first class is weak
rather than wicked; they have no courage with
which to withstand opposition; in times of trial
they need perpetual heartening. The thorny ground
hearers are both the more serious to deal with and
the more hopeful and interesting. It includes many
subdivisions ; some are ambitious, some pleasure-
loving, some self-seeking — all seething with rest
less energy which must have an outlet. They are a
kingdom divided against itself, in whom the spirit
has not yet obtained the mastery over the flesh;
the struggle is still going on ; spiritual self-control
has not yet been attained ; they are still in the sev
enth chapter of Romans and have not reached the
spiritual elevation of the eighth.
(b) Now the Pressing Question with the church
14

210 Studies Upon Important Themes
in every generation is, how to deal with this class
— not on the broad ground of right and wrong,
where the lines are clear and the methods are set
tled — such as murder, adultery, false witness and
the like — but in regard to that large class of ques
tions lying within the sphere of Christian Liberty
and which in themselves have no ethical quality. In
the Apostle's time, as already stated, this class of
questions, included eating meat and drinking wine
offered to idols, observing feast days and sabbath
days, and new moons, and all practices that had
gathered around the Jewish religious system hav
ing their roots in Jewish history and racial peculiar
ities. These have long since been settled, yet not
wholly, for the Puritan religion is more Jewish than
Christian, the Old Testament being their text-book
more than the New. On its authority some of its
theologians even justify slavery. Today the difficul
ty lies within the sphere of social life. Dancing was
not questioned in the Apostle's time, gambling was
condemned, but not card-playing; so was drunk
enness, but total abstinence was not advised. To
these questions whose evils were the excess of
things not wrong in themselves he applied his doc
trine of self-control. Or, in other words, live in
the spirit and there will be no drunkenness and no
gambling. Take this modern class of questions or things
morally indifferent, and there are three methods
that may be employed in their treatment. (1) Abso-

Expositions of The Scriptures 211
lute prohibition. (2) Supervision. (3) Leave the
whole to the power of self-control, or to the individ
ual conscience under the faithful instruction of the
church. The last method is the Apostle's ; the sec
ond is simply a modification of the last, and hence
rests upon the same principle; the first is an ex
treme position to which the church sBmetimes
swings when confronted by Unusual social condi
tions and animated by the passion of reform. It
hardly needs to be said that the apostBlic method is
the ideal, or that it is thoroughly sanctioned by the
teaching and example of Jesus Christ, who mingled
so freely in the social life of His time that He be
came a subject of reproach by His enemies. (Mat
thew 11:18; Luke 15:1-2.)
Taking the second and third methods as practi
cally one, the churches of today may be roughly
divided into classes corresponding to these meth
ods. The various Methodist bodies and the Baptist
follow the first, at least theoretically; other de
nominations, the other.
VIII. Discussion of Methods.
The third method — that of individual self-con
trol under the inspiration of altruistic and self-
respecting motives, is not only scriptural in
its principle, but rests upon sound philosophic
principles of character. The series of studies
under "The Method of Redemption" in the
July Review develops these principles with some

212 Studies Upon Important Themes
degree of fullness. Character is made, in the
actual contact of life, the result of the individ
ual will overcoming obstacles and temptations. The
strong man is he who has fought and conquered.
The crown of life is to him who overcomes. Asceticism
is not Christian; the Christian is the soldier on the
battle line ; the ascetic is he who is hiding from the
battle. Now, when the church by legislative action re
stricts the liberty of individual members in matters
that are morally indifferent, it applies the principle
of asceticism, with this difference, that the act is
not voluntary, but imposed by an external author
ity. It puts its members into the nursery and
treats them as children. Such restraint is not nor
mal, is not according to nature. It is carrying the
repression of normal faculties and instincts to a
degree that either makes them moral weaklings oi
tempts them to break over the church rule. And
it is certainly a case of straining at a gnat and
swallowing a camel when churches forbid dancing
and impose no restrictions upon the use of strong
drink and tobacco.
And yet the problem is not without difficulties.
These difficulties grow largely out of the differ
ences in the moral and intellectual attainments of
men and women of different individual churches.
There are churches in remote country districts
whose members are more or less illiterate and whose
moral status is quite primitive ; there are others in

Expositions of The Scriptures 213
the large places of population whose members, for
the most part, have had the advantages of a good
education. The number of these is growing rapid
ly every year. Church legislation for the former
should naturally be more restrictive than for the
latter. The evil incidents to promiscuous public
dancing might be rather serious in the one case and
not sufficiently so in the other to justify authorita
tive interference.
Besides, it is simply impossible to convince educated
young people that dancing is a sin in itself ; hence the
rule forbidding it is a dead letter in many, if not
most of the churches that hold on to it. No wise
legislator will maintain that it is wise to allow
any law to become a dead letter. Disrespect for
one law tends to breed disrespect for all laWs.
Again, it is questionable whether the church
should make any rule or law which it cannot jus
tify to the conscience and intelligence of its mem
bers. In truth, absolute prohibition of things mor
ally indifferent can be justified only when the church or
churches are confronted with unusual social conditions
and when the intellectual and moral status of the mem
bers and the community at large is of a low grade, and
should be only temporary, looking forward and preparing
for the time when the necessity shall pass away. Chris
tian faith is a seed of life, of energy ; growth is its
first law; Christian character is, hence, a develop
ment and demands larger and larger liberty as it
unfolds.

214 Studies Upon Important Themes
The great temperance movement is instructive
on this point, because it has tried the two methods
herein discussed — the method of absolute prohi
bition and the method of local option, the latter
appealing to the conscience and self-respect of the
individual and seeking to strengthen the internal
forces of character and the power of self-control.
No prohibition avails in any community unless
the moral sentiment of the community as a whole
is arrayed on its side. Character may be aided but
never made by law. The work of education, of
moral instruction, must precede all prohibition if it
would be effective.
And this is equally true in the matter of social
amusements. There is a plane of character where
a man may walk in the midst of heaps of gold un-
watched, without one backward glance.

XV.

THE HOLY SPIRIT— THE POWER WHOSE
OPERATION IS INVISIBLE
Genesis 1:2; Psalms 139: 7-12, 104: 30; John 16:
7-11 and 13-14.
The subject of this study I am undertaking to
treat at the request of a fellow-minister; the treat
ment will be scriptural and psychological; it is not
in mind to deal with the doctrine of the Trinity at
all. My task is not to prove a doctrine, but to state
and interpret spiritual phenomena, so far as pos
sible. My justification will be in the experience of
devout souls and not in the convincing power of
logical reasoning. In fact, the deepest spiritual
truths and realities clear to the soul in its pro-
foundest experiences transcend the power of lan
guage to express. Possibly this is the key to those
who spoke in tongues referred to in I. Corinthians,
twelfth chapter. For this reason the right of the
ology to be called a science has been challenged by
those who demand exact statement and logical
proof. For the same reason psychology might be
challenged. The soul is invisible; it acts upon the
215

216 Studies Upon Important Themes
visible world through the body, its organ, its in
strument, and is known only by its results. The
body is not the life ; the body remains after life has
flown. No one can prove conversion; yet to those
who have been born again nothing is more real; no
one can see God with the bodily eye ; yet to the de
vout soul objects of physical sight are not to be
compared to the consciousness of the reality of His
existence. Now, religion is primarily spiritual; it has, of
course, its practical aspects, but the most of it is
in faith in God, the invisible and in its conscious
ness of obligation to Him. Here arises the ques
tion : How can God, the invisible and infinite, com
municate with man, the finite? We may arrange
the answer to this question under the following
divisions :
1. The Spirit of God.
2. The Spirit that is in man.
3. Their relations to one another. -^
4. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament and
the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost in the New.
Of course I realize the difficulty of treating ana
lytically a subject that is so much a matter of per
sonal experience. No one can know God through a
definition, so no one can understand what the Holy
Spirit is except through personal experience. Even
in the physical sphere, experience is often the only
convincing teacher; no one who has never smelt a
rose or tasted an orange can understand the fra-

Expositions of The Scriptures 217
grance of the one or the sweetness of the other.
Hence at best I can only hope to contribute some
thing to clear thinking on a subject especially im
portant and interesting to every teacher of re
ligion. I. The Spirit of God.
With the exception of the word "God," no other
word is found so often in the Scriptures as the term
"Spirit." Its applications are numerous and vari
ous. It is not necessary, in this connection, to dis
cuss them all. This study is concerned only with
the meaning clearly indicated in the texts referred
to at the beginning.
(1) First of all the Spirit represents God in His
creative activity. The term "Spirit of God"
(Genesis 1 : 2) and "God" are probably interchange
able words in this first chapter of Genesis. Through
the Spirit, God acts upon matter, the visible uni
verse, bringing order out of chaos, light out of
darkness, organic life out of inorganic matter,
higher forms of life out of lower. The Spirit of
God represents the divine activity in space and in
time. By the action of the Spirit the visible uni
verse assumed its present form, and sentient life
became developed. Science says the process was
or is evolutionary, but whatever the method — for
evolution is only the statement of a method — God,
through His Spirit creates, develops, directs and
maintains the physical universe and all the forms

218 Studies Upon Important Themes
of life upon it. Thus through the Spirit the divine
energy is diffused throughout the universe.
(2) Through His Spirit God is present everywhere.
This is the doctrine of divine omnipresence, which
is most impressively stated in Psalms 139:7-12.
Also, the first six verses of this sublime Psalm af
firms the divine omniscience.
God knows everything because through His
Spirit He is everywhere present. Time is no hind
rance and space is no obstacle! The future is clear
to Him as the past; in fact, past and future are all
present to His mind.
(3) And God is greater than the world. Logically
the Creator must be greater than the creature. The
doctrine of Pantheism is that God is only the in
visible Power within the world, sustaining and di
recting. The doctrine of Christian theology is that
God is not only in the world, but also above it —
He is both the Power immanent in the visible crea
tion and also the Power that transcends it.
He is a Person above the world, but in it through
His Spirit, sustaining and preserving its life. He is
our Father, the fountain of love, and desiring and
appreciating the love of His earthly children. He
is an object of love and praise and adoration ; He is
in control of the world which He made and through
space and time is working out, in His own mysteri
ous way, some beneficent purpose for the good of
His creatures.
(4) But the action of God's spirit upon the spirit

Expositions of The Scriptures 219
of man is not the same as upon the physical world.
God's action upon matter is compelling and irre
sistible. Throw a stone into the air and gravity,
with irresistible force, brings it to the earth; plant
a flower seed under proper conditions and a rose
or a heliotrope is sure to come forth, each obeying
a law which it has no power to resist, according to
which we cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs
from thistles.
With man the case is different. God, in creating
him, endowed him with reason and free will —
power of choice — and by their exercise becomes
possible the glory of manhood. By virtue of this
endowment he may be informed, persuaded, in
fluenced, but not forced. Compulsion applies to mat
ter and not to the human soul.
Outwardly a man may be forced by some super
ior power ; inwardly he cannot be. A master may
force his slave to do his bidding, but not to love
him. In the heart or soul love and hate are always
possible even to slaves. Even God cannot compel a
man to love Him ; if He could He would cease to be
the God of the Scriptures and man, losing his
power of choice, would cease to be an accountable
being. Hence, God, by His Spirit, acts upon matter,
molding it into manifold forms and thereby accom
plishing His great and beneficent purposes with a
power that is irresistible ; by the same Spirit He
acts upon man, not by power nor by might, but in-

220 Studies Upon Important Themes
fluence, which appeals, inspires, persuades, vivifies
and elevates, but never compels. The Spirit's mode
of operation accords with the nature of the objects
acted upon. II. The Spirit That Is In Man.
Man. considered as being capable of feeling,
thinking and willing, belongs to the world of
spirits. He is, in this sense, a spiritual being; he is
of the same order with the angels, who, among
others, constitute the population of Heaven. "In
the image of God created He him," is the first great
revelation touching man. This image is spiritual ;
the soul is of the same essence as its Creator.
"There is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the
Almighty giveth him understanding." (Job 32 : 8.)
Starting with this revelation as a premise, the
possibility of God's communicating with man is
perfectly intelligible. "God is a Spirit and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth." (John 4:24.) The doctrine that it is pos
sible to communicate with the departed is not so
irrational from the point of view either of the
Scriptures or of philosophy. The main difficulty
lies in the strong bond uniting the soul with the
body ; the weakening of this bond without breaking
it might, possibly, make communication with the
world of spirits a matter of no great difficulty. All
revelation depends upon the kinship of the Divine
Spirit and the human spirit.

Expositions of The Scriptures 221
Yet, though the soul and the body are separate
things, there is no essential antagonism between
them. There is something in the human form that
has justly been styled "divine." The fact that
Christ assumed a human body gives it dignity and
the deepest significance; the human form is not an
unworthy habitation for divinity itself.
It is well to bear in mind that the Scriptures, in
speaking of man, sometimes regard him as having
a two-fold nature, and at others as having a three
fold nature. The word "soul" in both the Old and
New Testaments generally includes the physical or
bodily life. The Gospels do not draw a definite line
between the physical and the spiritual ; in fact, this
is true of the Bible as a whole. The Apostle Paul,
however, generally follows the three-fold division
of body, soul and spirit ; the soul meaning the life
of this world, the spirit, the immortal part which
survives dissolution and distinctly allies man with
the spiritual world.
III. The Mutual Relations Between the Spirit of
God and the Spirit That Is In Man.
The characteristics of spirit is the capacity to
think, to feel, to will. This constitutes a person.
Sometimes the word "rationality" is used to indi
cate this union. Spirit is rational. Man is ration
al. This is true of the divine Spirit as of the hu
man spirit. It is the quality which separates men

222 Studies Upon Important Themes
from the animal creation. There is no essential dif
ference between the Spirit of God and the angels
on the one hand and the spirit of man on the other ;
communication between them is as consistent as
communication of one man with another.
Of course, the method is different. The physical
organs of sight and hearing play no part. God re
veals Himself to the heart. "Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God."
Love is a term applied to two separate affec
tions ; there is a love which unites a man and wom
an in wedlock — it has a sexual basis ; and there is
the love which is the basis of friendship. Yet there
may be a spiritual element in the first, as well as
in the second, for the love which originates in
merely physical attractions is of a transient nature.
When this is the only bond of matrimony, there
can be no lasting happiness and the end is a sep
aration and a divorce. But the love that is the
basis of a true friendship is not founded upon
physical attractions ; it is the attraction which one
soul has for another of kindred aspirations and
ideals untainted by considerations of personal in
terests and advantages. History records not a few
friendships of this noble type. One of the most
beautiful was the friendship of David and Jonathan.
Jesus called his disciples friends. Jesus is Himself
the perfect friend. He sealed His friendship with
His life (John 5: 13-15). The love which Jesus en
tertains for His disciples is the same as His dis-

Expositions of The Scriptures 223
ciples have for Him. There is no difference in the
quality of the t"vvo. God is love ; the same love
which He has for His earthly children, they may
have for Him. Jesus embodies and manifests in
human form the love of the Father.
It is worthy of especial attention that the word
"friend," which Jesus used, originally meant one
beloved, and the English word has the same origin.
The French use the same word to designate hus
band and wife. Hence all true love is spiritual and
is the same in kind on earth and in heaven. It is
eternal in its nature. The relation between the
Spirit of God and the spirit that is in man is that
of spirit to spirit.
"Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and
Spirit with Spirit can meet —
Closer is He than breathing, and
Nearer than hands and feet."
The doctrine of inspiration rests upon the possi
bility that the human spirit may communicate with
the Divine Spirit — man with God. In this power,
or gift, men differ as in other gifts. The differ
ence, however, is one of degree and not of kind.
All men can speak, but only a few are Orators ; all
men may sing but the great singers are few. It is
a matter of development. "Howbeit that is not
¦ first which is spiritual, but that which is natural,
then that which is spiritual." (I. Corinthians 15:
46.) Those rare souls in whom this capacity

224 Studies Upon Important Themes
reaches its maximum became the prophets and
seers of the race. In the Bible the list begins with
Abraham; it includes Moses, Samuel, Jeremiah,
Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel, John and Paul as the fore
most. Next to these stand the great preachers, as
Chrysostom, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Calvin,
Spurgeon, Beecher, Finney, Brooks, and below
these stand the preachers and the great Christian
philosophers and teachers. The great teacher is a
seer; he sees God and the realities of the spiritual
world, with the inner eye, as clearly as he sees the
objects of the visible universe with the physical
eye. The average preacher either sees through a
glass darkly or else relies upon the testimony of
others ; but no one can be a preacher of real power
who does not see sights and hear voices beyond the
reach of the physical senses.
We may differ in the statement of the doctrine
of inspiration, but he who denies its possibility is
spiritually blind. Columbus tried long and vain to
persuade the powers of Europe that there was a
western world ; he could see, but they were blind.
The prophet is too often thought of as one who
foretels future events ; but this is not his primary
function or message. His chief concern is to read
the mind of God through the Divine Spirit toward
man in his relations to himself and his fellowmen,
and read the method of personal salvation, but in
receiving the divine law and the method of its
operation among men, he may be able to foretel the

Expositions of The Scriptures 225
consequences of its observance or of its violation.
In fact, every man of real, moral insight is, to
some degree, a foreteller, for it as true in the
moral sphere as in the physical that we shall reap
as we sow, but it is not in the power of even the
great prophets to fix the year and month in which
this moral harvesting shall take place.
As already stated, the true preacher sees God;
hence his message is not a logical argument by the
method of proof, but an authoritative statement.
No one can prove God as one demonstrates a propo
sition in geometry; God reveals Himself to the
pure in heart, and only those who seek this purity
can understand His revelations. Most of us hear
of God or about Him; only those who listen to the
promptings of the heart see Him. People go to
church to hear about God ; only a few catch a vision
of Him, and no one who ever catches this vision
will ever doubt the message (Job 42:5).
Job argued much about God, but the moment
came when the darkness disappeared and the light
burst upon him in its fullness, and he exclaimed : "I
had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but
now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor my
self and repent in dust and ashes."
IV. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament and
the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost of the New.
Of course it is understood that the word "ghost"
is the old English term for "spirit."
15

226 Studies Upon Important Themes
The Spirit of God in the Old Testament and the
Holy Spirit of the New are the same Divine Power ;
in both cases God is thus represented in acting
upon the visible world and the forms of life there
in ; in the Old Testament the Spirit creates and pre
serves ; He operates upon or rather within the ma
terial world, controlling with an irresistible might,
and upon the human soul, not by physical compulsion,
but by influence.
But the Nezv Testament is concerned mainly with the
question of universal salvation, for salvation is the
message of the Gospel. Jesus came to seek and
to save that which was lost. Therefore we find in
the Old Testament the story of the creation and
preservation of the world; in the New the story of
man's redemption; in the latter case the agency of
the Spirit is the same only it has a new, a larger, a
more definite message ; the Old Testament accounts
for the presence of sin among men, the New pro
vides the sovereign remedy. In truth the whole
Bible is, first of all, the history of redemption, the
Old Testament accounting for the necessity of this
redemption and introducing to the New, and the
method by which the process is completed. What
is said about creation, the preservation of the race
from the flood, the call of Abraham and the history
of the Israelites, is not the main thing, but only in
cidental — the philosophic explanation of the neces
sity of redemption on the one hand and the histori
cal settin,<3: of the divine drama on the other. And

Expositions of The Scriptures 227
it is this which gives the Bible its unique signifi
cance. There is no other book or combination of
books in all the world that deals with a subject of
so vital interest to mankind, and in a manner so
comprehensive and so adequate. Other ancient na
tions have preserved the story of the flood and the
preservation of the race; nowhere outside of the
Jewish scriptures is there a reason given for it or
that the family so preserved were chosen for their
righteousness and that this righteousness, founded
upon a profound faith in God, should later become
embodied in some great character and was destined
to be the source of the world's salvation.
V. The Holy Spirit in Operation (John 16:8-11).
1. Jesus, in John 15 and 16, designates the Holy
Spirit as the Comforter, or the Spirit of Truth.
Another translation of "comforter" is "advocate."
The Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent of
Father to carry forward the work which Jesus had
begun. Jesus Himself defined His work as a wit
ness unto the truth (John 18 : 17) ; He sends the
Spirit of Truth to continue His work ; hence the
Spirit represents Jesus in this special service of
salvation. For the sake of clearness it is well to
consider what He means by truth. In a word, it is
the Gospel; its chief articles — God, the Father of
all, Jesus as Son revealing this Fatherhood, and
showing in v/ord and in deed and in the life He

228 Studies Upon Important Themes
Himself lived, how we may come into the knowl
edge and consciousness of God as Father and our
selves as His children partaking of His life and re
producing His character. He calls Himself the way,
the truth and the life. Jesus is Himself the Inter
preter of God and the Spirit is the Interpreter of
Jesus. 2. The work of the Spirit in the New Testament
as distinguished from the Old, is especially defined
under three heads: (1) He shall convict the world
of sin; (2) Of righteousness; (3) Of judgment.
Let us consider these points in their order:
1. Of Sin. — The reason given is that the world
has not believed on Jesus. The conception of sin
here is that the sinner is one who lives in a false
condition; that he is not rightly adjusted toward
God and his fellow-men; that he is as much out of
his proper element as a fish on land or an eagle in
water. His proper relations, or normal condition,
is an attitude of filial reverence toward God and
fraternal good-will toward man. The former con
dition is ruinous to health and peace and happiness,
the latter constitutes his salvation. This is the
truth which Jesus reveals and this is the truth
which the spirit brings home to the hearts of men.
He enables us to realize our condition and points
the way to deliverance.
2. Of Righteousness. — "Because I go to the
Father." Redemption comprises two distinct ar-

Expositions of The Scriptures 229
tides ; first, conversion, as a result of the convic
tion of sin; and, secondly, the building up of a
character founded on faith. The standard of the
Christian character is God's character, and this is
righteous, and the Gospel itself is a revelation of
this righteousness. The redeemed man is a right
eous man according to the standard of the divine
righteousness (Romans 1 : 17). This revelation was
not complete until Jesus had finished his work, the
crowning acts of which were the crucifixion and
the resurrection. Only after Jesus had risen from
the dead and ascended on high could the world
understand the full significance of the message of
redeeming love which He came to deliver. Jesus
had said he was the way, and by this word the Gos
pel itself was, at first, designated (Acts 9 :26 and 19 :
9, 23). The power to raise from the dead is the
Father's, and the work of redemption was not com
plete till the risen life was revealed (Ephesians 1 :
20). Hence, since the time when, on that unforget-
able morn, the angel announced to heartbroken
Mary that Jesus had risen and 40 days later He
parted with his disciples and returned to the
Father, the whole world had a full and perfect defi
nition of righteousnes. With the Greeks righteous
ness meant mainly the observance of a rule of con
duct founded not upon a clear conception of God's
character, but upon the ways and customs of so
ciety and Greek society in particular, and accord
ingly varied as these differed in different communi-

230 Studies Upon Important Themes
ties. In the Old Testament, as in the New, how
ever, it represents the character of God which by
faith becomes ours — the rule and law of life ; only
in the New the revelation is fuller and broader and
includes the assurance of a life to whose continu
ance no one can affix an end. The noble word
"Godly," once in vogue, is almost never heard to
day ; but in truth a true Christian is godly ; how
ever imperfect, his character is modeled upon the
divine character ; his life is hid with Christ in God.
A low estimate of human worth and human pos
sibilities leads us to shrink from the use of terms
common in the New Testament, and from the prac
ticability of ideals which it constantly exalts. The
doctrine of Christian perfection is, undoubtedly,
often abused, but it contains a New Testament ideal
which may be and should be the goal of all our
striving and the inspiration of all our living; with
out it all progress in the establishment of the
Kingdom of God on earth would be impossible. The
difficulty of it should be no hindrance to effort, for
every age witnesses the accomplishment of impos
sibilities. For all physical inventions and discov
eries are triumphs of spirit over matter. The mind
of Marconi gave us wireless, of Bell the telephone,
of Edison the phonograph — such is the character of
moral progress. When the body, which is matter,
becomes the obedient servant of the soul that is in
fellowship with God through Christ, christian per
fection, in substance, has been attained. Jesus, in

Expositions of The Scriptures 231
His own life represented this spiritual mastery;
Paul and John followed close after Him ; and every
age since has produced its saints not unworthy to
associate with the spirits of just men made perfect.
For let it be remembered that saints are not made
out of those who never sinned, but of those who
have been delivered from sin ; the pure in heart are
those who have been purified in heart.
Spiritual mastery is self-mastery. We call Jesus
"Master," truly first of all, because He represents
perfect self-mastery, and secondly because He
makes available the grace of God by which it is
possible for us to attain the same.
What is self-mastery? When the body has be
come the servant of the soul, when your hand, in
stead of smiting your fellows, holds forth gifts of
kindness and of happiness ; when your feet take
you to fields of honorable toil instead of to places
of idleness and dissipation, or to the house of God
instead of to the saloon or the brothel; when your
tongue speaks words of cheer, of truth, and love
instead of doubt and discouragement, of falsehood
and slander; when your thoughts habitually dwell
on whatsoever things are true, honorable, just;
pure and lovely — this is self-mastery ; this is the es
sence of Christian perfection.
Is there anything impossible in this? And are
there not multitudes today conforming their lives to
.this standard and still greater multitudes striving
toward its attainment?

232 Studies Upon Important Themes
It is probably true that we are prone to confound
perfection with infallibility. On the contrary, saints
make mistakes but do not live a life of sin and sel
fishness. Everything depends upon the spirit of our
lives. "Not failure but lozu aim is crime. Too many
people believing perfection unattainable, excuse them
selves for not trying. It is of the greatest import
ance, therefore, that the doctrine be presented in
its proper light. No wise man would wilfully dis
regard the laws of health because now and then in
spite of attention to them he suffers from a cold
or headache; and no wise man should become
discouraged in his efforts to attain self-mastery,
because now and then he loses his self-control in
some moment of impulse and haste, and becomes
guilty of some act below the dignity xjf his noble
ideal. 3. Of Judgment, Because the Prince of This
World is Judged.
The progress of the world in knowledge since
the Christian era began has effected many import
ant changes in religious conceptions and terms of
expression. Ideas current and unquestioned at the
time have either been abandoned or greatly modi
fied. It was a satisfactory explanation in the time
of Moses to say God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it
would not be generally accepted today to say God
hardened the German Emperor's heart when He
sanctioned the invasion of Belgium and the en
slavement of its people now going on. And yet the

Expositions of The Scriptures 233
question involves a difficulty which even modern
science or philosophy has not fully cleared up.
On the doctrine that man is free to choose good
or evil, we hold him responsible for his own deeds,
and yet we hold the doctrine of divine sovereignty
and of an overruling Providence which ultimately
determines the tendency and goal of all things in
the spiritual not less than in the physical sphere.
In the time of Jesus the belief was prevalent that
there was a world of evil spirits whereof Satan was
the chief, and that these spirits exerted a powerful
influence over human life. Jesus spoke to his age
in a language which they understood, and yet what
He said is as true in substance for one age as for
another. Today no one doubts that there are evil
forces at work in the world of human kind, and it
makes little or no difference so far as the text is
concerned whether these forces reside in the souls
of men or have an existence apart from them. If
we accept the doctrine that there is a world of
spirits, there can be no theoretical objection to the
existence of evil spirits, more or less under the con
trol of a single head, for leadership among all the
higher forms of created life is a famiUar phenome
non. There is, therefore, no inherent difficulty in
accepting the doctrine of a personal devil ; just how
far his power extends and to what degree he is re
sponsible for the evil in the world, is another ques
tion. What is meant by "judgment" in the text. It

234 Studies Upon Important Themes
means a trial in which the accused is condemned.
The point at issue is whether the teachings of Satan
or the teachings of the Gospel are true. The func
tion of the Holy Spirit is to prove that the latter is
true and the former false. And now the ques
tion arises, what were the specific teachings of the
Prince of the world, for these two names. Prince
and Devil, represent the same person.
(1) The teachings of Satan are presented most
forcibly in the book of Job.
For brevity's sake, I refer the studious reader to
chapter 1 : 6-12, and chapter 2 : 1-6.
Job was put to two different tests — first, the loss
of property and children ; second, the loss of health.
When his faith staggered not at the first, Satan
tried the second, and still it held true.
The philosophy of this teaching is that religion
is a mere bargain between God and man, God fur
nishing the opportunities to acquire property and
perhaps riches and to provide for our physical ne
cessities, and the possession of health; man paying
him off in sacrifices and in offerings, giving a cer
tain proportion of his gains or harvests, and in acts
of thanksgiving and worship, and that whenever
God ceases or fails to keep His part of the bargain
the contract is broken and man losing the motive is
released from his obligations. The life of Mrs. Job
represents this philosophy. She would curse God
and die. This same philosophy underlies the temp
tations on the Mount ; the proposition Satan made

Expositions of The Scriptures 235
to Jesus was to use His miraculous power to min
ister to the physical wants of men — to proclaim a
bread and butter Gospel. This philosophy utterly
ignores the souls of men and puts them practically
on a level with the beasts of the field ; the principle
of love with its spirit of unselfish service is left
out; life becomes a mere self-seeking, each one for
himself; all virtue is discounted, all aspirations for
moral perfection and for the continuance of life be
yond the present world are stifled.
Job and Mrs. Job — they represent the two differ
ent philosophies of life — the question with which he
had to grapple was how could a just God allow a
righteous man to suffer. In the end Job's faith tri
umphed in spite of the difficulty ; Mrs. Job found an
easy answer by denying that God was just.
There are many Mrs. Jobs today — in the church
and out. Their conception of religion is a sort of
bargain for physical needs. It is older than Mrs.
Job; this was the first stage in the development of
Jacob's religious life, "If God will be with me, and
will keep me in the way that I shall go, and will
give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that
I come again to my father's house in peace, then
shall the Lord be my God, ***** and of all that
thou shalt give me I will give the tenth unto thee."
(Gen. 28:20-22.)
But the experience at Peniel was the final tri
umph of Jacob's philosophy.
So this class represeritcii by Mrs. Job deny that

236 Studies Upon Important Themes
women may be chaste, that men may be virtuous.
and that the service of one to another may be un
selfish. They claim that all kindness and benevo
lence and generosity are tainted with the spirit of
self-interest and selfish calculation.
(2) The philosophy of life which finally broke
through the darkness which at first tried the iaith
of Job, and brought him into the light, finds its full
vindication in the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus states the whole matter in one solemn
question : "For what is a man profited if he shall
gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
(Matt. 16:26.) Mrs. Job had staked her all upon
the possessions of the world and when these were
swept away, she was ready to curse God and die ;
she had nothing' left. Job had ; the difference was im
mense. Job had gained much of the world and its
goods, but had not lost his soul ; his faith survived
the loss of his worldly goods ; his wife's failed in
the test. "So is he — and she — that layeth up treas
ure for himself, and is not rich toward God." (Luke
12:21.) And it is the mission of the Prince of the
world to teach the philosophy of Mrs. Job, that all
kindness and generosity is tainted with the spirit
of self, that all virtue is a sham, and all religion
hypocrisy, that the disappointments and misfor
tunes and sufferings of life, whether originating in
the forces of nature, as fire, flood, or in the injus
tice of our fellow-men, are evils — losses without
compensation of any kind either here or hereafter,

Expositions of The Scriptures 237
and that there is either no God, or He is indifferent
to our condition, or else He is unjust.
And Jesus answers this philosophv in the Beati
tudes, answers it in parable and discourse ; and
above all, in His own life glorified in its tragical end
and triumphant resurrection, and multitudes of
men and women since have confirmed His doctrine
— have shown that one can be meek and modest
without weakness, merciful and yet just, can hun
ger and thirst for righteousness as the heart pant-
eth for the water brooks, can become pure in heart
and have the vision of God, and that every child of
man can become a child of God; that (Tod is not a
stern and merciless judge, but our Father in
heaven more willing to give us good gifts than our
earthly parents, and though we may not attain an
intellectual solution of all life's dark riddles, yet
He doeth all things well and is a rewarder of those
who diligently seek Him.
Jesus Himself refuted Satan's philosophy, and
every one who has since come into a personal inner
knowledge of the truth as taught by Jesus knows
that Satan's philosophy is false.
This is the judgment of the Prince of this world.
Even before Jesus came. Job proved it false (John
8:44). To sum it all up — Jesus, in His completed work —
the Gospel — represents to us the true life: (1) the
life that God designed that we should iive, and
whoever rejects this, sins ; (2) He reveals God to

238 Studies Upon Important Themes
us as righteous, and this righteousness is the
standard of character for all men ; (3) and that this
teaching is so self-evidently true, so accords with
our truest and noblest aspirations and is so con
vincing to every soul that puts it to the test, that it
utterly condemns as false the teachings of the
Prince of this world. And the mission of the Holy
Spirit is to carry forward the teaching which
Jesus began — a gracious, invisible influence wak
ing into activity all our dominant spiritual energies,
making the heart receptive to all truth, and fruitful
of all good deeds, like the warm rays of the sun
which cause the planted seed to grow and bud and
blossom into fruit.

THE END.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08844 2430

m

-¦¦A. ¦- -i'W^Bli
'..*¦' . ' ' • !.' Btll'L'!!e!!M!!!(?i

: ./':'lk S*)!