THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL
‘The glorious gospel (the gospel of the glory R.V.) of the blessed God.’
There were those in Ephesus who contended that the freedom of the gospel released them from the obligations of the moral law. St. Paul, who was called to Europe, besought Timothy to abide still in Asia Minor, and convince them that the very design of the gospel was charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. So far from the moral law being abolished by the gospel of our salvation, every claim of holiness, on which that law insists, is, the Apostle argues, in truest harmony and accordance with ‘the gospel of the glory of the Blessed God which,’ in deepest gratitude and reverence he adds, ‘was committed to my trust.’
I. ‘The Blessed God.—This remarkable name of the Triune Jehovah, Whose we are, and Whom we serve, ‘the Blessed God,’ demands our thoughtful and prayerful meditation. The word ‘blessed’ does not primarily signify here one who receives praise and blessing, but bears its ordinary meaning of happy, felicitous, blissful. The reception of praise and adoration must, we may humbly conceive, form part of the blessedness of God, and speaking after the manner of men may be said to increase that blessedness. But the term in itself simply signifies happy. This appears from its use elsewhere in the New Testament. It occurs fifty times; but here only, and in the fifteenth verse of the sixth chapter of this Epistle, where we read of the Blessed and only Potentate, is the word used of God. In all the other forty-eight instances it describes the blessed or happy man, as in the nine beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, or in the seven beatitudes of the Book of Revelation. This usage suffices to establish its meaning here. The Blessed God signifies God Who enjoys supreme felicity and infinite delight. We cannot, indeed, grasp or even gaze upon this full-orbed glory of the joy of God. It dazzles us. It is the light that no man can approach unto. But we may reverently ponder it fragment by fragment, we may humbly trace a broken reflection of it in ourselves; and then, for we are made in the image and after the likeness of God, we must confess it has the witness in itself, it is self evidencing; yea, it is a divine necessity.
II. The gospel of the glory of the Blessed God.—The Apostle speaks not only of the gospel of the Blessed God, but of the gospel of the glory of the Blessed God. This is more, far more. Glory is the manifestation of excellence. We may take this as a safe key for interpreting the word ‘glory’ in the Scriptures. The felicity of the Most High God being as we have seen so exceeding great, this excellent joy must needs overthrow. We see it in the firmament of His power; the heavens declare the glory of God. We see it in the earth below: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Nor do we marvel that when He created the heavens and the earth, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Brief, indeed, was that cloudless dawn of the history of man. Sin entered into the world, and death by sin. The land was as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. And now a thick cloud was drawn between the creature and his grieved and offended Creator. But should darkness conquer light? Should hell baffle heaven? Should the wiles of the Devil thwart the designs of God? Nay, we quietly read over to ourselves, weighing every syllable, for the destiny of the creation is wrapped up in them, the words of the beloved disciple who had drunk the deepest into the spirit of his Master. ‘For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.’ And the gospel of the glory of the Blessed God is unveiled before us in its large and luminous outlines.
(a) Once grasp the exceeding preciousness and perfectness of this salvation of God, and you will not wonder that St. Paul elsewhere writes, ‘Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed’ (Galatians 1:8).
(b) Let us remember that the gospel of the glory of the Blessed God is too majestical a thing to be loaded with chains forged on any human anvil. It spurns the littleness of partizanship.
For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man’s mind.
Nay, this gospel has vivified and is vivifying, has fructified and is fructifying, many other churches of Christendom beyond our own. It is the gift of God to man. It is heaven-born, and free as the air we breathe. Their sin, who would narrow it, is only less than theirs who would deprave it.
—Bishop E. H. Bickersteth.
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‘The gospel declares itself to be God’s greatest answer to man’s greatest want. The gospel does not profess to be one answer among many. It claims to be the one answer which God makes to the problem of sin, and the agony of sorrow. The gospel does not speak with hesitating, diffident tone. It does not put itself in an excusatory attitude. It does not ask to be heard on sufferance, and to be judged by some modified law of criticism. It stands clear out in the daylight. It says, in personal language, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
WHY ‘GLORIOUS’?
Why was it that St. Paul, who did more than any other man that ever lived to make known this gospel in the world—why did he call it a glorious gospel? There were many reasons.
I. Because of its antiquity.—He looked down through the long vista of the ages past, and he saw how this gospel of the Blessed God was in the mind of God from everlasting.
II. Because it was unchanging.—Everything else about us changes. Feelings are transitory, even creeds are sometimes tampered with, doctrines are altered, the standard of morality shifts according to the requirements of the age, but the life of Jesus is the same, unchangeable.
III. Because of the triumphs it had already won in the world, in the Church, in the hearts of men, Jew, and Gentile, and Christian. Look at the little band of men as they go forth upon what appears a forlorn hope. Their banner is the Cross, their battle-cry is the glorious gospel. But wherever they go hard hearts are softened, and consciences are pricked, and idols totter and fall, and even imperial Rome is forced to acknowledge the power of the glorious gospel.
IV. Because he knew by his own experience that the gospel of the Blessed God tells men just what they need to know. It is in this respect that the religion of Christ stands head and shoulders above any other religion that the world has ever seen.
Bishop C. J. Ridgeway.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
GOD-LIKENESS
‘The glorious gospel of the blessed God,’ or, as the words might be more happily translated, ‘the glorious gospel of the happy God.’ It is in that word ‘happy’ that I find my message.
But the thought will come: It is all very well for you to talk about a happy God, it is all very well for God to be happy. God is above the water-floods, but I am down here in the waves. Ah, but is that all? God could not bear to see man unhappy down under the clouds here, and so in the Incarnation the happy God comes down and is made Man, and comes to make man happy, comes down to mend what man has marred. That is the glorious gospel of the happy God.
I will be daringly simple, and will give three short rules—
I. Be happy.—It is God-like to be happy. It is as much a duty (and a far more difficult one) to be happy as it is to be honest; be happy as to your past, do not let the past take the heart out of you. Then your future; open the back numbers of life and read the happy pages that are in that. Brood on the bright bits of the past. If you cannot be happy, flooded with the sunshine that comes from innocence, then be happy with the brightness that comes from the life of penitence. Be happy in the present; that is the great difference between Christianity and all other religions. It promises man a present happiness. Any religion, every religion, can promise a future happiness, but union with the happy God promises a man happiness here, now, to-day.
II. Look happy.—Expressions convey impressions. Jesus called a little child unto Him. Would that little child have gone if Jesus had looked unhappy? You know nothing about children if you think that it would. Look happy. Why is the religious person caricatured as always looking unhappy? why must we go about looking as though our religion was always making us feel unwell. Look what you are, in union with the happy God.
III. Try to make others happy.—Negatively, do not spoil the happiness of another person’s life. A man has no right to spoil the happiness of a woman’s life; a woman has no right to spoil the happiness of a man’s life. A big boy has no right to spoil the happiness of a little boy’s life. Positively, put your shoulder under another’s cross, give it a lift. Begin at home. Contribute your quota of happiness to home life, to the life of the country, to the life of the empire, and so to the life of the world.
Rev. Canon Holmes.
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‘A nation looks at life very much as a nation looks at God. Ask history if it is not true. Think of Germany, for instance, in the sixteenth century. Look at France in the eighteenth century. Look at England, the empire, as it is to-day. Is the Englishman’s conception of God the Pauline conception? What is the Englishman’s God? Is that a happy God? Is it not a God that is studiously kept outside the life that all are craving for, that all are longing for—happiness? Is the gospel of England to-day the glorious gospel of the happy God? I do not believe it is; and therefore, because men’s conception of God is not God as a happy God, the Englishman’s conception of the religious life in England is not a conception that makes men happy.’