1 John 3 - The Biblical Illustrator

Bible Comments
  • 1 John 3:9 open_in_new

    Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God

    The usurper deposed and the conqueror vanquished

    I. The important doctrine here asserted. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.”

    1. This doctrine is implied in all the precepts of the law of God, whether they relate to evils prohibited or to duties enjoined.

    2. This doctrine is implied in all the injunctions of the New Testament, which are expressly enjoined on those who profess the religion of Christ.

    3. This doctrine is implied in all those Scriptures which speak of holiness as the privilege of the people of God, and as indispensable to all men.

    4. This doctrine is, if possible, still more plain from a consideration of what the Scriptures say concerning those who live in the practice of sin.

    II. The argument by which this doctrine is established. “For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin: because he is born of God.”

    1. The practice of sin is contrary to the nature of the man who is born of God.

    2. The practice of sin is contrary to the impulse of that Divine principle which is deposited in the heart of the man who is born of God.

    From this subject we learn--

    1. What is the nature of the true religion.

    2. What is the unfailing conduct of all those who are truly religions.

    3. What is the lamentable condition of all who live in the practice of sin. (W. Lupton.)

    Sonship exclusive of sin

    I. The change, or the work of grace in the sinner.

    1. “Born of God.” (See John 1:12-13) As water cannot rise above its fountain, so can no change in man be better or greater than its cause. If it come from the flesh it must be like it, earthly and sinful. When it comes from the Spirit, then it must be like Him, spiritual, holy, and heavenly.

    2. “His seed remaineth in him.” It is immaterial whether “his” seed be understood of God or of the believer. It is that seed which God has sown in his heart. It is God’s as the author of it. It is the believer’s as the subject of it. How is this figure calculated to supplement and illustrate the former one. First, the sinner is born of God by means of the truth. He is left no longer ignorant of sin, but is taught to know its vileness and evil consequences. He is no longer ignorant of himself, but has been enlightened to see the depravity of his heart. Second, it is in the same way the life of faith and holiness thus begun is maintained in him. The idea is specially noticed in the text, “His seed remaineth in Him.” It is in its own nature imperishable. The truth ever abides the same. The believer ever sees sin as he saw it at the first, vile and ruinous. He ever sees himself as he did at the beginning, exposed to ruin if he indulges it. He ever sees the Saviour as gracious and glorious as He appeared at the first. His claims do not diminish in his view, nor does he ever find reason to change his conclusions respecting this world and the next, time and eternity.

    II. The effects that are declared to result from it. “He doth not commit sin, and he cannot sin.” As two figures were used to describe the change, so are there two assertions to declare the results. The one is the assertion of a fact, and the other is an argument to explain and confirm it.

    1. The fact--“He doth not commit sin.” Let it be observed this is said of every converted man. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” He does not sin knowingly, wilfully, and habitually. We say of a man versed in literature, he is learned, although he is ignorant of many things. In like manner we speak of men, and say they are strong, although in some respects they may be weak. We judge of them by that which is prominent and paramount in them.

    2. The second expression, explanatory and confirmatory of this fact, is still stronger, “He cannot sin, because tie is born of God.” To live in sin is contrary to the new nature of which he has been made a partaker. The nature cannot and does not sin. Had he no other nature he would never sin. And there are many reasons why he cannot.

    (1) It is contrary to his views. He sees sin to be the greatest of all evils, and holiness to be the highest of all good.

    (2) It is contrary to his tastes; he dislikes sin and he loves holiness.

    (3) It is contrary to his most determined purposes. The language of David is not strange to him (Psalms 17:3). It were unreasonable to suppose such a man could live in sin.

    (4) It is contrary to his habits. He has served God and found His service to be liberty.

    (5) It is contrary to his interests. He knows that “godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to conic.” He is not the fool to “sin against his own soul.” (J. Morgan, D. D.)

    Sins of the regenerate

    Various expositions are given of this.

    1. He ought not to sire Cannot indeed is sometimes taken for ought not (Acts 4:20). But this is not the meaning of cannot here, ought not; for an unrenewed man ought not to sin any more than a regenerate man. But the apostle attributes here something peculiar to the regenerate, addling the reason, “because he is born of God.”

    2. He cannot sin so easily. He may sin easily in respect of the frailty of the flesh, but not so easily in regard of the abiding of the seed in him, which helps him to bewarere of sin. Grace being a Divine habit, hath the nature of a habit, which is to incline the person to acts proper to that habit, and facilitate those acts, as a man that hath the habit of an art or trade can with more ease work in it than any other.

    3. He cannot sin, as he is regenerate. A gracious man, as a gracious man, cannot sin; for grace, being a good habit, is not capable of producing acts contrary to its nature. Sin in a regenerate man proceeds not from his grace, but from his corruption.

    4. He cannot sin as long as he is regenerate, as long as the seed remains in him, as long as he follows the motions of the Spirit “rod grace, which are able to overcome the motions of concupiscence, but he may give up the grace: as an impregnable tower cannot be taken as long as it is defended by those within, but they may fling away their arms and deliver it up.

    Sin may be considered in two ways, viz., as to--

    1. The act of sin. Thus a believer sins.

    2. The habit of sin, or custom in it, when a man runs to sin freely, willingly, and is not displeased with it.

    Thus a believer does not commit sin. Being God’s son, he cannot be sin’s servant; he cannot sin in such a manner and so absolutely as one of the devil’s children, one born of the devil. Doctrine: There is a mighty difference between the sinning of a regenerate and a natural man. A regenerate man doth not, neither can, commit sin in the same manner as an unregenerate man doth. The sense of this “cannot” I shall lay down in several propositions.

    1. It is not meant exclusively of lesser sins, or sins of infirmity.

    2. A regenerate man cannot live in the customary practice of any known sin, either of omission or commission.

    (1) Not in a constant omission of known duties.

    (2) Not in a customary commission of any known sin.

    I shall confirm this by some reasons, because upon this proposition depend all the following.

    1. Regeneration gives not a man a dispensation from the law of God.

    2. It is not for the honour of God to suffer a custom and course of sin in a renewed man.

    3. It is against the nature of the covenant. In the covenant we are to take God for our God, i.e., for our chief good and last end.

    4. It is against the nature of our first repentance and conversion to God. True repentance is “a breaking off iniquity by righteousness” (Daniel 4:27).

    5. It is against the nature of habitual grace, which is the principle and form of our regeneration.

    6. A regenerate man cannot have a fixed resolution to walk in such a way of sin, were the impediments to it removed.

    7. A regenerate man cannot walk in a way doubtful to him, without inquiries whether it be a way of sin or a way of duty, and without admitting of reproofs and admonitions, according to his circumstances.

    8. A regenerate man cannot have a settled, deliberate love to any one act of sin, though he may fall into it.

    9. A regenerate man cannot commit any sin with a full consent and bent of will. (S. Charnock.)

    The sins of the regenerate

    The apostle having exhorted the saints to whom he writes in the former chapter to abide in Christ and to do righteousness (verses 28, 29), follows on this exhortation with several arguments that a true Christian is not only bound to do so, but that he indeed doth so.

    1. From that hope which hath eternal happiness for its object (1 John 3:2-3). Where this hope is truly founded it will inflame us with a desire after holiness.

    2. From the contrariety of sin to the law of God. A Christian who is guided by this law will not transgress it.

    3. From the end of Christ’s coming, which was to take away sin (1 John 3:5).

    4. From the communion they have with Christ; abiding in Him.

    5. From the first author of sin, the devil; he that sins hath a communion with the devil (1 John 3:8), as he that doth righteousness hath a communion with Christ.

    6. From the new nature of a Christian, which hinders him from sin (1 John 3:9). (Bp. Hackett.)

    “Cannot sin”

    He cannot sin any more than a good mother can kill her child. She might be able in a thousand ways to kill the child, but her heart would forbid it and make the impossibility absolute. (J. B. Figgis, M. A.)

    “Cannot sin”

    The ideas of Divine sonship and sin are mutually exclusive. As long as the relationship with God is real, sinful acts are but accidents; they do not touch the essence of the man’s being. The impossibility of sinning in such a case lies in the moral nature of things. (Bp. Westcott.)

    “Cannot”

    Some of you are men in business. I go into your shop or warehouse, and I ask you the price of a certain article. You say it is so much. I offer you one half or two thirds of what you have said is the price. You say, “I cannot take it.” Now, why cannot you take what I offer you? It is not the want of freedom in your will to decide on accepting my proposal; nor is it the want of physical power in your arm to accept my offer. You have both the one and the other, and yet you repeat your former statement, “I cannot take it”; and you speak truly. You cannot take it, because it would be unjust, because it would tend to bring ruin on your business, and to reduce yourself and family to beggary. You cannot take it consistent with your safety and happiness. Just so he that is born of God cannot commit sin consistent with his well-being. It would be rebellion against God, and would bring injury, if not ruin, upon his soul. (J. Seymour.)

    The failings of Christians

    With true insight into the case, quaint Thomas Fuller alleges that “the failings of Christians be rather in the branches and leaves than in the roots of their performances.”

    Sin natural to the regenerate nature

    “It would,” says Thomas Manton, “be monstrous for the eggs of one creature to bring forth a brood of another kind, for a crow or a kite to come from the egg of a hen. It is as unnatural a production for a new creature to sin.” Each creature brings forth after its own kind. Out of a dove’s nest we expect only doves to fly. The heavenly life breeds birds of paradise, such as holy thoughts, desires, and acts; and it cannot bring forth such unclean birds as lust, and envy, and malice. The life of God infused in regeneration is as pure as the Lord by whom it was begotten, and can never be otherwise. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

  • 1 John 3:10 open_in_new

    In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother

    Two classes of men

    I. Men are divided into two classes, the children of God and the children of the devil. This assumption is very contrary to the prevailing views and practices of men. Many make no inquiry to what class they belong. Some who have thought upon it consider it is not possible to obtain satisfaction, and they dismiss it from their minds. They are satisfied to live in entire uncertainty. Or if they do classify men, themselves included, it is a very different summary from that of the apostle. Their reckoning makes many classes. They are as numerous as the phases of human society. Think, then, of this Divine distinction. Some are the children of God. They have been born of Him. This is the one class. But how different is the other? They are “the children of the devil.” Like him they have fallen from their original righteousness. They have been under his influence ever since they came into the world. These are the only two classes known to God. The Scriptures never recognise any other here. Neither shall any but these be found at the last judgment.

    II. This distinction may be manifested. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” This statement may be understood with reference to ourselves or others. Contemplate it in both relations.

    1. If we are the children of God this ought to be manifest to ourselves.

    2. It is, however, its manifestation to others that appears to be specially spoken of in the text. The proofs are such as are cognizable by others. To a large extent the evidence of conversion to ourselves and to others is the same. In our own case, however, there is consciousness, which cannot be had in the case of others. The two states in question are the most contrary to one another that can possibly be conceived. The change from the one to the other is the most marked and decided of which the human mind can be the subject. Might not such a change be expected to be manifest? Its necessary and habitual operation is a constant testimony to its existence. It is like the ointment that betrays itself. The flowing stream is proof of a living fountain. And if the life be holy there must be a cause that lies deeper than any human purpose.

    III. The evidences by which they are made manifest. Two are mentioned--“He that doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” It is observable that these evidences are put in the negative form, and an important lesson is suggested by it. The absence of well-doing is sufficient for condemnation. It is not enough that we “cease to do evil,” we must “learn to do well.”

    1. “He that doeth not righteousness is not of God.” A man who is not exhibiting righteousness in his deportment gives no proof that he is born of God.

    2. With this general deportment a special grace is associated--“Neither he that loveth not his brother.” (J. Morgan, D. D.)

    The distinguishing character of a good and a bad man

    I. The character and mark of difference between a good and bad man. “Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God”; which implies, on the contrary, that whosoever doeth righteousness is of God.

    1. Who they are that in the apostle’s sense may be said not to do righteousness.

    (1) They that live in the general course of a wicked life, in the practice of great and known sins.

    (2) They who live in the habitual practice of any one known sin, or in the neglect of any considerable part of their known duty.

    (3) They who are guilty of the single act of a very notorious crime; as a deliberate act of blasphemy, of murder, perjury, fraud, or oppression, or of any other crime of the like enormity.

    2. Who they are that in the apostle’s sense may be said to do righteousness. In short, they who in the general course of their lives do keep the commandments of God. I choose rather to describe a righteous man by the actual conformity of the general course of his actions to the law of God, than by a sincere desire or resolution of obedience. For a desire may be sincere for the time it lasts, and yet vanish before it comes to any real effect. No man believes hunger to be meat, or thirst to be drink; and yet there is no doubt of the truth and sincerity of these natural desires. No man thinks that a greedy desire to be rich is an estate, or that ambition, or an insatiable desire of honour is really advancement; just so, and no otherwise, a desire to be good is righteousness.

    II. By this mark every man may, with due care and diligence, arrive at the certain knowledge of his spiritual state and condition.

    1. By this character, as I have explained it, he that is a bad man may certainly know himself to be so, if he will but consider his condition and do not wilfully delude himself. For the customary practice of any known sin is utterly inconsistent with sincere resolutions and endeavours against it.

    2. By this character, likewise, they that are sincerely good may generally be well assured of their good condition, and that they are the children of God. And there are but two things necessary to evidence this to them--that the general course of their actions be agreeable to the laws of God; and that they be sincere and upright in those actions.

    III. Whence it comes to pass, that notwithstanding this, so many persons are at so great uncertainty about their spiritual condition.

    1. We will consider the grounds of the false hopes of men really bad concerning their good condition.

    (1) Some rely upon the profession of the Christian faith, and their being baptized into it. But this, so far from being any exemption from a good life, is the most solemn obligation to it.

    (2) Others trust to their external devotion; they frequent the church and serve God constantly, they pray to Him and hear His Word, and receive the blessed sacrament. But this so far from making amends for the impiety of our lives, spoils all the acceptance of our devotions.

    (3) Others, who are sensible they are very bad, depend very much upon their repentance, especially if they set solemn times apart for it. And there is no doubt but that a sincere repentance will put a man into a good condition; but then no repentance is sincere but that which produceth a real reformation in our lives.

    (4) Others satisfy themselves with the exercise of some particular graces and virtues, justice, and liberality, and charity. And is it not a thousand pities that thy life is not all of a piece, and that all the other parts of it are not answerable to these?

    (5) Some who are very careful of their outward conversation, but yet are conscious to themselves of great secret vices, when they can find no comfort from the testimony of their own consciences, are apt to comfort themselves in the good opinion which perhaps others have of them. But if we know ourselves to be bad, it is not the good opinion of others which can either alter or better our condition. Trust nobody, concerning thyself rather than thyself, because nobody can know thee so well as thou mayest know thyself.

    2. The causeless doubts and jealousies of men really good concerning their bad condition.

    (1) Some are afraid that they are reprobated from all eternity, and therefore cannot be the children of God. But no man hath reason to think himself rejected of God, either from eternity or in time, that does not find the marks of reprobation in himself--I mean an evil heart and life.

    (2) Good men are conscious to themselves of many frailties and imperfections; and, therefore, they are afraid of their condition. But God considers the infirmities of our present state, and expects no other obedience from us, in order to our acceptance with Him, but what this state of imperfection is capable of.

    (3) They are afraid their obedience is not sincere, because it proceeds many times from fear, and not always out of pure love to God. For answer to this: it is plain from Scripture that God propounds to men several motives to obedience--some proper to work upon their fear, some upon their hope, others upon their love; from whence it is evident He intended they should all work upon us.

    (4) Another case of doubting in good men is, from a sense of their imperfect performance of the duties of religion and of the abatement of their affections towards God at some times. But our comfort is, that God doth not measure men’s sincerity by the tides of their affections, but by the constant bent of their resolutions and the general tenor of their actions.

    (5) Another cause of these doubts is, that men expect more than ordinary and reasonable assurance of their good condition--some particular revelation from God, an extraordinary impression upon their minds. God may give this when and to whom He pleases, but I do not find He hath anywhere promised it.

    (6) As for the case of melancholy, it is not a reasonable case, and therefore doth not fall under any certain rules and directions.

    3. There are likewise others, who upon good grounds are doubtful of their condition, and have reason to be afraid of it; those, I mean, who have some beginnings of goodness, which yet are very imperfect. The proper direction to be given them in order to their peace is, by all means to encourage them to go on and fortify their resolutions; to be more vigilant and watchful over themselves, to strive against sin, and to resist it with all their might.

    Conclusion:

    1. From hence we learn the great danger of sins of omission as well as commission.

    2. It is evident from what hath been said, that nothing can be vainer than for men to live in any course of sin and yet to pretend to be the children of God and to hope for eternal life.

    3. You see what is the great mark of a man’s good or bad condition: whosoever doeth righteousness is of God, and “whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” (J. Tillotson, D. D.)

    The manifestation of character

    I. The persons opposed are the children of God and the children of the devil, i.e., good and bad men. It is common in the Scripture to call persons, distinguished by any quality or acquisition, the children of those from whom it was originally derived, or by whom it was preeminently possessed.

    1. This division is the most general and universal.

    2. It is also a division the most serious and eventful. It overlooks everything adventitious, and considers only character. It passes by the distinctions of speech, complexion, rank; and regards the soul and eternity.

    3. Let us consider, farther, what results from these relations. According as you are “the children of God, or the children of the devil,” you are crowned with honour or covered with disgrace.

    4. Upon these connections innumerable privileges or evils depend. Are you the children of God? Heaven is your home. And here you shall want “no good thing.” But I leave you to fill up the remaining article, and to think of the children of the wicked one. I leave you to reflect upon the miseries they endure, from their perplexities, their fears, their passions, and their pursuits in life. I leave you to look forward to the horrors which will devour mere in a dying hour.

    II. The possibility of ascertaining in which of these classes you rank. The children of God and the children of the devil are “manifest.” Observe, it is not spoken of as a future, but as a present discovery--they “are” manifest.

    1. They are manifest to God. It is impossible to impose upon Him; He “is not mocked.”

    2. They are manifest to others. The tree is known by its fruit.

    3. They are manifest to themselves. It will readily be acknowledged that it is not possible for a man to be wicked without knowing it.

    (1) Is it not necessary for him to be able to know his character? If promises are made to a religions state, how can he claim these promises unless he can determine that he is in this state?

    (2) What is religion? An unintelligible mystery? a charm? an operation which passes upon us and leaves no trace behind? Is it not the most serious concern in which we were ever engaged? Is it not a general and continued course of action? The business of life, to which we endeavour to render everything else subordinate? Our prevailing aim? And is this incapable of being known?

    III. The marks of distinction between these characters. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” In what? Not in temporal success. This is given or withheld too indiscriminately to allow of our knowing love or hatred. In what? Not in religious profession. Judas and Demas were both visible members of the Church of God. In what? Not in talking--not in controversy--not in a sound creed--not in the pronunciation of the Shibboleths of a particular party. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; he that doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”

    1. The manner in which the subject is expressed. It is held forth negatively--nor is this without design. It reminds us that omissions decide the character, even where there is no positive vice.

    2. The union of these excellences is worthy of our notice. We commonly see them combined in the Scripture. It is said of a good man, “He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”

    3. From these arises a criterion by which we are to judge of the reality and genuineness of religion--not that these are the only marks which we are to employ; but all the rest will be delusive, if unaccompanied with this righteousness and love. (W. Jay.)

    Self-manifestation

    As there is a God, and a devil, a heaven, and a hell, a kingdom of glory, and a kingdom of darkness, so there are several sorts appertaining to both; and at the day of judgment there shall be a final separation made betwixt both. Now the one of these two sorts are in the very text called the children of God; the other, the “children of the devil.” Now to speak of the difference which is betwixt the children of God and the children of the devil. This difference is twofold, either general or particular. The general is the doing or not doing of righteousness; the negative is here only named, but in it as in all negative rules the affirmative is included. By righteousness is understood that holy and righteous course which God requireth of us, whether in general as we be Christians, or in particular according to our places and callings allotted unto us by God. The rule of righteousness is the Scripture; in it the Lord hath showed what is good, that only deserves to be entertained as our Spiritual Counsellor, that alone is able to make a “man wise unto salvation.” The doing of righteousness is twofold.

    1. Legal, and

    2. Evangelical.

    The legal doing is the perfection of all duties, both in manner and form, both for the number and measure of them; which kind of doing was never found in any mere man since the fall of Adam. The Evangelical doing is mingled with much weakness, and is good only in acceptation with God by Jesus Christ. Of this doing the Spirit of God speaketh here, and it consists upon the concurrence of these following particulars.

    1. A caring and studying to prove what is the good will of God, how He will be served, and wherewith He will be pleased.

    2. An inflamed love and affection to that righteousness which is pleasing unto God.

    3. A desire, that if it were possible, the whole course of the life and conversation might be suitable thereunto.

    4. A firmness of resolution, to frame and set the whole and continual endeavour to the performance of it.

    5. A speedy applying of oneself therein.

    6. A careful catching of all opportunities to help forward this good purpose.

    7. A diligent survey of ones own courses.

    8. A bitter bewailing of slips and infirmities, together with a kind of holy indignation at one’s own self, that he should so grossly and ordinarily sin against the Lord.

    9. An increase of care (after a soil received) and of watchfulness, together with a fear of running afresh into the same or like offence. And as these things cannot be in an unregenerate person, so they cannot but be in those whom the Lord hath chosen to be His. (S. Hieron.)

    Connexion of doing righteousness with brotherly love as proving a Divine birth

    1. Consider that old message or commandment, heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. On what is it based? It cannot, since the Fall, be based on our joint participation in the ills to which the Fall has made us heirs. It is redemption, and redemption alone, with the regeneration which is involved in it, that makes mutual brotherly love among men, in its true and deep sense, a practicable duty, an attainable grace. It is only one who, “being born of God, doeth righteousness as knowing God to be righteous,” that is capable of really loving his fellow man as a brother.

    2. No such brotherly love is possible for him who, not doing righteousness, is not of God. His frame of mind must be that of Cain; a frame of mind that but too unequivocally identifies him as one of the devil’s children, and not of God’s. It was not because he was void of natural affection, or because his disposition was one of wanton cruelty and bloodthirstiness; it was not in the heat of sudden passion, or in a quarrel about any earthly good, that Cain slew his brother; but “because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” It is this which chiefly marks the instigation of the devil; and his fatherhood of Cain, and such as Cain. More than anything else on earth; infinitely more than any remains of remnants of good that the Fall has left in human nature and human society--for these he can turn to his own account and make his own use of--does that wicked one detest the faintest trace of the footsteps, the slightest breathing of the spirit of Him “whose goings forth have been from of old”; who has been ever in the world, the Wisdom and the Word of God, the light and the life of men. Let the truth and righteousness of God be brought so near to a man, by the Divine Word and Spirit, as to stir and trouble thoroughly his inward moral sense, while his desire and determination to stand his ground and not give in remains unabated, or rather is inflamed and aggravated; let the process go on; and let all attempts towards an accommodation, between the conscience’s increasing soreness and the heart’s increasing self-righteousness and self-will, be one after another frustrated and foiled; you have then the making of a Cain, a very child of the devil, who, if need be and opportunity serve, will not scruple to cut short the terrible debate and end the intolerable strife by slaying his brother Abel; by “crucifying the Lord of glory”! O my fellow sinner, let us beware! (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

  • 1 John 3:12 open_in_new

    Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother

    The world’s hatred of the godly

    I. A reference to the example of Cain.

    1. His character--“he was of that wicked one.” He inherited his disposition. He was under his influence. He did his will. Had anyone warned Cain of the danger to which he was exposed, there is no doubt he would have treated it as the grossest insult. The fact proves there is no iniquity to which Satan will not prompt, and which he may not one day induce us to perpetrate. We are, therefore, farther warned to resist his encroaches upon our minds. They are deceitful and gradual. We need to be ever watchful against his devices. Let us remember the counsel of the apostle (1 Peter 5:8).

    2. The conduct of Cain--“he slew his brother.” How shall the deed be designated?

    (1) It was unnatural. Nature was outraged by the force of violent temptation.

    (2) It was irremediable. Satan will ever endeavour to plunge us into some iniquity that cannot be recalled.

    (3) It was extreme in its enormity. We cannot give life, and without a Divine permission we should not take it away.

    (4) It was a sin which once committed ensures the bitterness of the offender’s future life. Cain soon found reason to cry, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” No doubt Satan sought to persuade him repentance was vain, and forgiveness impossible.

    3. But how are we to account for it? “Wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” It was envy that first moved him to the unparalleled iniquity. His offering was rejected, while Abel’s was accepted. He was mortified by the distinction, and would be avenged. It is very instructive to mark the progress of his mind under the influence of his envious feelings. The first notice is, “He was wroth.” It is then added, “His countenance fell.” So “he rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” What an instructive history! It is the progress of envy till it ended in fratricide. We need to be watchful over the movements of our own minds. Impressions may be guided or removed if early dealt with, but if they are allowed to strengthen, it is impossible to restrain them. We may be borne away by them as by a resistless torrent.

    II. A reflection founded upon it--“Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” The world, of which Cain was a type, hates the godly, who are represented by Abel.

    1. Surely, then, they who know the history of the world and the Church should not marvel. It begins with Cain and Abel. The same spirit has appeared in all ages, in all places, and under all circumstances. It has been carried on upon the wide theatre of nations, the narrower scene of communities, within the circle of friends, and in the bosom of families.

    2. The causes of the enmity of the world to the Church remain as they were at the beginning, and therefore we should not wonder at it.

    (1) One is the exclusive claim of truth. It asserts its own supremacy. “He that is not with Me,” says Christ, “is against Me.” This is intolerable to the world, and it hates the assertion of it.

    (2) Another cause is the nature of the truth asserted. The gospel offers a way of salvation that gives no credit to man.

    (3) We must add the life which the gospel requires is still more offensive than the ground on which it offers salvation (see 1 Peter 4:4).

    3. Important purposes are served by the hatred of the world, and therefore we need not wonder at it. It belongs to God to make the wrath of man to praise Him. He brings good out of evil, light out of darkness, and joy out of sorrow. It shows what man is. His “mind is enmity against God.” Thus the grace of God is exalted. That alone can change the human heart. At the same time the believer is thus subjected to a wholesome influence. As he is useful and holy so does the world watch him with a malignant eye. He needs to remember the injunction “watch unto prayer.”

    (1) Do not fear the world. With Cain it may persecute the righteous Abel. But the God of Abel lives and has prepared mansions of rest and glory above.

    (2) Do not provoke the world. “Give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.” “With well-doing put him to silence.” (J. Morgan, D. D.)

  • 1 John 3:13 open_in_new

    Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you

    The world’s hatred--God’s love

    The world’s hatred; God’s love; these are what are here contrasted.

    And yet there is one point at least of partial similarity. The affection, in either case, fastens in the first instance upon objects opposed to itself. The world hates the brethren; God loves the world, “the world lying in the wicked one.” And in a sense, too, the ends sought are similar. The world, which hates, would assimilate those it hates to itself, and so be soothed or sated; God, who loves, would assimilate those he loves to Himself, and so have satisfaction in them.

    I. The world’s hatred of the brethren.

    1. It is natural; not marvellous. The Lord prepares His disciples beforehand to expect it, warning them not to look for any other treatment at the world’s hands than He had met with. Notwithstanding all warnings, and all the experience of others who have gone before him, the young Christian, buoyant, enthusiastic, may fancy that what he has to tell must pierce all consciences and melt all hearts. Alas! he comes in contact with what is like a wet blanket thrown in his face, cold looks and rude gestures of impatience, jeers and jibes, if not harsher usage still. Count it not strange that you fall into this trial. Why should you? Is their reception of you very different from what, but yesterday perhaps, yours would have been of one coming to you in the same character and on the same errand? Surely you know that love to the brethren--true Christian, Christlike love--is no plant of natural growth in the soil of corrupt humanity; that, on the contrary, it is the fruit of the great change by means of which a poor sinner “passes from death unto life.”

    2. It is murderous, as regards its objects: “He that loveth not its brother abideth in death: whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” “Loveth not,” “hateth,” “murdereth”! There is a sort of dark climax here! Not loving is intensified into hating, and hating into murdering. The three, however, are really one; as the Lord teaches (Matthew 5:21-24). Be on your guard against this spirit of the world finding harbour again in your breasts. Even you need to be warned against the world’s evil temper of dislike and envy. Consider how insidious it is. Consider also its deadly danger. Consider, finally, how natural it is; so natural that only your “passing from death unto life” can rid you of it, and make you capable of its opposite. Grace may overcome it; grace alone can do so. And even grace can do so only through continual watchfulness and prayer, continual recognition of the life through which you pass from death, and continual exercise of the love which is the characteristic of that life.

    II. Of this love, as of the hatred, two things are said.

    1. It is natural now to the spiritual mind; natural as the fruit and sign of the new life.

    2. It is the very opposite of the murderous hatred of the devil; it is self-sacrificing, like the love of God Himself. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

    The world hating the Church

    These words imply a fact, and contain a warning.

    I. First, then, for the fact that the unbelieving world did hate the Church. It is established, not by sacred testimony only, but by the concurrence of heathen writers.

    II. The apostle not only states the fact that the world did “hate” the Christian, but he proceeds to warn them not to “marvel” at it. There were two reasons that would very naturally induce Christians so to marvel.

    1. The first was derived from considering the Divine origin of their faith. They might be inclined to suppose that a religion coming from such a source, and so confirmed, would at least secure its professors from persecution.

    2. The singular innocence and harmlessness of the lives of its professors might reasonably be expected to disarm malice of its sting. Now, for the first of these grounds, of their “marvel that the world should hate them.” The very pretension of the religion to speak with authority from God, armed the world, Jewish or heathen, against it. With the Jew it was not like a new sect, such as the Herodians, added to the older division into Pharisees and Sadducees. But it was a deposing Moses from his authority, and placing him beneath Him whom they execrated, “the carpenter’s son of Galilee.” Nay, more, it was not deposing Moses only from his place, it was a loss of rank and caste to themselves likewise. For if the Christian religion broke down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and made both one, what became of their own fancied superiority over the rest of mankind? Still more, what became of their own special position as lords over their brethren? Again, for the heathen. The Christian religion was not like adding another form of worship to the ten thousand that were already received in the world, so that it has been said that there were more gods than people at Rome; but it pronounced every one of these forms to be foul, cruel, pernicious, and false. Even some conviction that it must have conic from God, was not sufficient to hinder those to whom it was brought from hating and murdering those who brought it. But again, if the suspicion that the religion came from God were not sufficient to deter the world from persecuting the Christian, neither would the innocency of the Christian’s life be any defence. So far from it, it would be a special ground of attacking them. Wickedness has a consciousness that it is in the wrong, and as it only can support itself by having the multitude on its side, so it regards all goodness as a desertion, an exposure of its weakness. And what is the result? Clearly, that we ought not to be taken by surprise if we find the very best designs, the most palpable efforts of self-denial, not only misconstrued and misrepresented, but its ground of such opposition as the spirit of the age will permit. In more tranquil days, there is reason to apprehend that our faith may grow weak from want of exercise, and degenerate into mere morality and conventional decorum. (G. J. Cornish, M. A.)

    .

  • 1 John 3:14 open_in_new

    We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren

    Passing from death to life by love

    I. What we are to understand by death and life.

    II. What we are to understand by the privilege of having passed from death to life.

    1. This privilege implieth in it a change of covenant heads. The first Adam represented all his natural posterity. The second represented all given to Him by the Father.

    2. This privilege implies a having passed from law death, to law life; or in other words, front a state of condemnation to a state of justification.

    3. This privilege implies a having passed from spiritual death to spiritual life in regeneration; a having been released from the dominion and power of sin, to enjoy the happy reign and influence of grace. This change is not the product of nature, but wholly the work of God.

    4. This privilege implies a coming or being taken into new relations--into a new covenant relation to God through Christ--taken into God’s family.

    III. The fruit and evidence of this privilege, viz., love to the brethren.

    1. Whom we are to understand by brethren.

    (1) By brethren we are to understand generally every man and woman--all mankind. All are generally God’s offspring. All are sprung from one common root, Adam.

    (2) But by brethren here we are specially to understand brethren in Christ, believers, those who belong to and have the image of Christ upon them. They are brethren by birth, by nature, by relation, and by love.

    2. What love to the brethren is. In general it is a supernatural warmth, kindled in the hearts of believers to one another, begetting union of heart and soul, sympathy with, care for, and complacency and delight in and towards one another. Never before nor since was this more emphatically expressed than in the beautiful description in Acts 4:32.

    (1) The rule by which this love of the brethren is to be regulated and directed, is that of God’s Word. If our outward walk and conversation are to be regulated by it, sure no less is the exercise of the graces of the Spirit.

    (2) This love of the brethren is not inconsistent with all that regard we owe to gospel truth and ordinances.

    (3) Nor is this love to the brethren inconsistent with a proper regard to the maintenance of Church government and discipline--the reproofs, admonitions, and rebukes which the Lord in love has instituted, and appointed to be observed in His Church, and which He has promised to bless.

    (4) Neither is this love to the brethren inconsistent with the discharge of all the duties of love they owe to one another--such as telling them of their faults, warning, admonishing, and testifying against their evils, as well as having compassion for, and exercising beneficence towards them.

    3. Now this love of the brethren evidences an interest in the privilege of having passed from death to life. It is an immediate fruit of this privilege, and therefore a certain and infallible evidence of it.

    (1) From its being an evidence of regeneration, in which the image of God is communicated--and love to the brethren is a prominent part of that image.

    (2) From its being an undoubted evidence of justification. This supposeth and implieth access to God, by and through Jesus the Mediator; as well as access to a throne of grace.

    (3) From its being an evidence of their having received the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).

    (4) From its being an evidence of their adoption (Romans 8:15).

    (5) From its being an evidence of their union to Christ, and belonging to His mystical body; the members of which are all united to each other by bonds of the most endearing love and affection.

    IV. The connection between the privilege and the fruit and evidence of it, viz., love to the brethren.

    1. This connection is founded in the purpose and promise of God.

    2. It is founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ.

    3. In the intercession of Christ.

    4. In the order of things.

    V. The believer’s own knowledge of this, “we know.” John did not know this as an apostle, but as a believer; and this may be, and is known by believers.

    1. From experience of what passeth in their own souls.

    2. From its fruits. “A tree is known by its fruits”; and the fruits of this love are such as pity, sympathy, kindness, and compassion, forgiveness, benevolence, beneficence.

    3. From the regard they pay to the authority and testimony of God in His Word--as in the text. This knowledge is not left to rest on the testimony of people’s own experience, but is based on the testimony of God in the Scriptures.

    Improvement:

    1. From this doctrine we may learn that, although love to the brethren has been called one of the lowest marks of grace, yet it is a real and decisive one, and is attended by the highest authority.

    2. We may see that real Christians are united in the firmest bonds of mutual love and affection.

    3. We may see how little of this love appears among professed Christians.

    4. From this doctrine we may learn that sin has unhinged the moral frame--has introduced a breach between heaven and earth.

    5. We may learn that Christ is the uniting bond of peace, reconciliation, love, and fellowship. (Alex. Dick.)

    The world contrary to the Christian

    Air and earth, fire and water, good and evil, light and darkness, are not more contrary the one to the other, than are the people of the world and the true members of the Church. Their views are contrary, the one class looking at the things of eternity merely in the light of time, the other looking at time in the light of eternity. Their tastes are contrary, the one being “of the earth, earthy,” the other spiritually minded. Their pursuits are contrary, the one “walking according to the course of this world,” the other “walking with God.” Their destiny shall be contrary “these shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.”

    I. “We save passed from death unto life.’’ Let it be carefully observed this is a change which is declared to have already taken place. “We have passed.” Whenever a sinner believes he is put in possession of everlasting life, that is, of the germ or beginning of it. The words are expressive, however, not merely of a change that is supposed to be past in point of time, but of one most blessed in its nature. What is so much shunned as death? And what is so prized and preserved as life?

    1. Death is used in the Scriptures to express a state of condemnation, and life one of acceptance. In the one case there is a sentence of death, and in the other of acquittal.

    2. Death is also used in the Scriptures to express a con dition of sinfulness or depravity, and life that of holiness. The sinner is pronounced to be dead; and is he not so? He has all the features of death upon him.

    (1) There is insensibility. He is in sin, and ever committing it, but he does not seem to be conscious of it.

    (2) There is inactivity. He possesses powers which he does not employ. On the other hand, it is the office of grace to make him alive to God, when it does effectually operate upon him this is the result. The sinner is made “alive to God.” You have seen the oak struck by the lightning of heaven. Its juices were dried up, and its branches withered away. You pronounced it dead. But the husbandman came: he lopped off the withered boughs. He manured its roots and watered its branches. The process of decay was arrested. Life was restored. It sent forth its foliage and bore its fruit as before. It was a resurrection. So it is with the sinner under the blight of sin, when he is visited by the grace of the Spirit. His decayed powers are animated with a new life. He puts forth the powers in active energy, which before were paralysed in spiritual death. He is “passed from death unto life.”

    II. The evidence spoken of in the text, “we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” Brotherly love is the proof of conversion here cited by the apostle.

    1. There is the natural affection which binds us to those with whom we are allied according to the flesh. It is true there may be this love when there is no grace. In that case brotherly love is no proof of the great change of which we have spoken.

    2. The evidence arising from the exercise of brotherly love towards the people of God is still more unequivocal. It may be sometimes difficult to distinguish between the natural and gracious affection in the case of those who are closely allied to us. But where we love the godly, simply because they are such, the proof is unequivocal. Its peculiarity is that, apart from other considerations, our love is attracted by their godliness.

    3. Still, love is not to be confined to them. It is to be extended to all men. And as it is so we strengthen the evidence of our gracious state.

    III. The assurance of our salvation, arising out of this evidence. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” We may know it then. This is assumed. The term is the most expressive of certainty that could be used. It is not, we think or hope or desire, but we know. He ought to know it. It is not a privilege merely, but a duty. He ought to know it for the sake of his own holiness. He ought to know it for the honour of Christ. (J. Morgan, D. D.)

    Love to the brethren a ground of assurance

    I. The love of which the apostle speaks is peculiar in its origin. It is a very distinct thing from natural kindness and amiableness of disposition; from what we commonly call good nature. Nature cannot produce it. It is the special effect of the Spirit’s new creating power upon the soul.

    II. It is peculiar, also, in its object. It is not the love of our fellow creatures generally, but the “love of the brethren,” in particular, on which St. John dwells so strongly as the evidence of a state of salvation. Not that the Christian by any means confines his benevolent regards to his fellow believers. But whilst he thus comprehends the whole human race in the circle of his affection, and prays for all, and is ready to benefit all, there is a still closer and more endearing bond of union by which he is attached to his fellow Christians. Their principles, taste, habits, and pursuits are congenial to his own.

    III. Nor is the love of which we are speaking less distinct from that which sometimes assumes its name in its operation, than in its origin and object.

    1. It is regular and consistent in its action. True charity is not an impulse, but a principle; not an act, but a habit; not a momentary or transient ebullition of feeling, but a fixed, steady, consistent motive of conduct, always ready to administer, as far as circumstances may allow, to the relief of ascertained distress, whether of soul or body.

    2. It is self-denying. Its basis, like that of every other Christian grace, is humility. Pride, self-will, self-indulgence, are the bane of Christian society, and rend asunder the body of Christ. So true is it that if we would be Christ’s disciples we must deny ourselves.

    3. It is active in its operation. It is an energetic principle. It is not the profession of kindness, but the reality. It is not by kind speeches and courteous expressions, but by beneficent actions chiefly, that we are to evidence the sincerity of our regard to others. (R. Davies.)

    Brotherly love

    There are many kinds of knowledge, but the most difficult is self-knowledge. It is remarkable that St. John much more frequently uses such expressions as these, “We know that we are of God”; “We know that we are in Him”; “We know that we dwell in Him”; “We know that He abideth in us,” than any other writer in the whole Bible. Let us look first at the thing which is to be known, and then at the sign by which we are to know it. A passing “from death unto life.” For this is God’s metaphor to express real conversion of heart. The idea conveyed in the words is of two states separated as by a gulf; and there is now, what one day there will not be, a transit from one over to the other. The one side is a land of death. There everything that is done is short and uncertain. It is a country of graves, and the joys of pleasure have no resurrection. On the opposite shore everything in it is essential light, because there is a new principle there; that principle is one which works forever and ever. The light grows brighter and brighter every day, whatever curse may pass over the bereaved earth. But this is not the only difference between the opposite states. The former, which we may call the original condition of every man, his native country lies far away, separate from the source of all true light, and in God’s language, is all chaos. There is no reality in it; while the other is brought under the very smile of God’s countenance. He moves and dwells there. Hence, it is peace, it is energy, it is fruit. Let us notice the contrast more clearly. Every man who inhabits the first state, is under actual condemnation of death. Every man who continues there is to die. But over every soul on the other side the word is gone forth, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” Now of the manner in which the passage is effected from one shore to the other, it does not belong to my present subject to speak. Suffice it to say that the passage is a great historical fact. And the inquiry is, how may each of us best ascertain whether or not that transformation has taken place. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” Some persons, however, will say that it is such an easy thing to love Christians. I wish I could believe, but I cannot, that I shall be safe to infer I am one of God’s Christians, because I admire and attach myself to the lovable and really pious character. Who are the “brethren,” and what is it to “love” them? The brethren are those who have the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts, even though there be much clinging to them that is unrefined, and unintellectual, and unpleasing--yea, even though there be much that is really very inconsistent in them. And this very comprehensiveness of a catholic spirit is a mark of a mind that has had to do with the largeness of an Almighty God. If you have “passed from death unto life” the friendships that you choose for yourselves, and the relationships that you form will be all made upon one principle--that you keep within the family of grace. Hence, it follows, that the conversation which you prefer is that which is the most spiritual; for how can you love the brethren, unless you really delight in their themes? So that the world of fashion, and the world of pleasure, and the world of commonplace, has become insipid, and there is only one atmosphere in which you love to breathe, and that is the atmosphere of Jesus Christ. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

    Christian love

    Do you desire to know whether you may confidently, though humbly, cherish the good hope through grace that you are numbered among Christ’s people? Here is the way, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” If that be right, then everything is right. It was the index that registered how everything else was; even as the pulse at the wrist can tell the skilled observer something as to how all the functions of material life are going on. More than this. Sometimes the index that registers a great thing is itself but a little thing. The tremendous pressure on the boiler of the locomotive is indicated by an ascending and descending drop of water in a little glass tube. The state of hundreds of solid miles of atmosphere is revealed to us by the movements of a slight pointer upon the dial of the barometer. But this testing pulse of the soul is not a little thing that indicates a great one; it is a great thing in itself. As love to God sums all our duty to God, so does love to our neighbour sum all our duty to man. Let us think whether St. John did not give this counsel so earnestly and so often because he knew that it was, and is, and always will be, a difficult thing to “love the brethren.” Yes, there are many feelings and tendencies in poor sinful human nature that must be held tightly in check, before Christian people will succeed in loving one another. Many human beings find it much easier to feel a general dislike to those with whom they come into anything like competition, than to feel anything like love towards them. Now let us think what it is that is really required of Christian people in these days, in this very artificial state of society, amid these separations of class from class, by this great gospel command, to “love the brethren,” “love our neighbour as ourselves.” Now, in interpreting such directions, we may take two things with us. One is, that God’s service is always a “reasonable service”; that there is never anything extravagant in what Christianity requires of us. Another is, that when God gives us a law, He always gives us one that is accordant with the nature and constitution of the souls He has given us. In the light of these things, we can see what is the love God requires us to bear to our fellow Christians and fellow creatures. St. John does not tell us that we are all to think exactly alike; nor to persuade ourselves that those things are of no consequence about which we cannot agree. That is not what is meant by gospel love towards all. No; it means, See a man’s faults and failings, and bear with him. Hold your opinions strongly, yet agree to differ, without quarrelling. Be ready to help a poor overburdened creature to bear his burden; and a sympathetic word will go far here. Do not exaggerate the faults of your friends; rather try to see something good in them; and if you try hard, you may perhaps find a good deal. But besides that general kindliness, let us mark the little things in which Christians are found to fail in obedience to the law of love. You know it is very easy, and it sounds smart to dwell, in conversation, upon the faults and follies of the people you know; to exaggerate these, and dwell on them with weary iteration. Now, never have anything to do with that wretched ill set tattle. Do not join in it; do not listen to it. You know when the first Christians died the martyr’s death, rather than offer sacrifice to idols, what was it they were called to do? Why, the whole thing was to take up a pinch of incense with their finger and thumb, and throw it into the fire on the altar of Jupiter or Minerva. But that little act signified that they apostatised from Christ, and so they died rather than do it. And even so, what an awful light is cast on little unkind sayings and doings, when we call to mind St. John’s solemn words, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”! Train yourselves to bring the whole force of your religion to bear upon this matter; the thing is vital. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)

    Love to the brethren a test of piety

    I. The love to which St. John refers.

    1. Love to Christians for the sake of their Christianity; or, love to the Church for the sake of Christ, the Head of the Church.

    2. St. John does not speak of any partial affection we may entertain for individuals, or even classes of men, within the Church of Christ.

    3. Nor is it enough that we love, however cordially, all Christians of our own Church or sect.

    4. The “love” to the brethren, which is so sure a proof of our own safety, is not merely a universal love to the Church of Christ, but to the Church of Christ in its spiritual character.

    II. How the love in question becomes the pledge of our own salvation.

    1. It is, perhaps, the strongest of all proofs that we love God; and it affords a sort of demonstration that we do so, which, when considered, is conclusive to the weakest mind, or to the most hesitating faith.

    2. It demands a constant sacrifice, and so constantly displays the strength of that Divine principle of faith which unites us to the Lord; for the love in question is not a mere sentiment of respect and admiration, but it is a bond of the closest union.

    3. It exposes us to constant suffering for the sake of Christ; at least this was the case in the apostles’ days, and, in some degree, is so still, or else “is the offence of the Cross ceased?” (J. B. Marsden, M. A.)

    Life proved by love

    I. We know that we were dead.

    1. We were without feeling when law and gospel were addressing us.

    2. Without hunger and thirst after righteousness.

    3. Without power of movement towards God in repentance.

    4. Without the breath of prayer, or pulse of desire.

    5. With signs of corruption; some of them most offensive.

    II. We know that we have undergone a singular change.

    1. The reverse of the natural change from life to death.

    2. No more easy to describe than the death change would be.

    3. This change varies in each case as to its outward phenomena, but it is essentially the same in all.

    4. As a general rule its course is as follows--

    (1) It commences with painful sensations.

    (2) It leads to a sad discovery of our natural weakness.

    (3) It is made manifest by personal faith in Jesus.

    (4) It operates on the man by repentance and purification.

    (5) It is continued by perseverance in sanctification.

    (6) It is completed in joy, infinite, eternal.

    5. The period of this change is an era to be looked back upon in time and through eternity with grateful praise.

    III. We know that we live.

    1. We know that we are not under condemnation.

    2. We know that faith has given us new senses, grasping a new world, enjoying a realm of spiritual things.

    3. We know that we have new hopes, fears, desires, delights, etc.

    4. We know that we have been introduced into new surroundings and a new spiritual society: God, saints, angels, etc.

    5. We know that we have new needs; such as heavenly breath, food, instruction, correction, etc.

    6. We know that this life guarantees eternal bliss.

    IV. We know that we live, because we love. “We love the brethren.”

    1. For Christ’s sake.

    2. For the truth’s sake.

    3. For their own sake.

    4. When the world hates them.

    5. We love their company, their example, their exhortations.

    6. We love them despite the drawbacks of infirmity, inferiority, etc. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

    Christian love

    Dr. Raymond told us the other night about those geysers flowing with boiling water. The ice and snow come down from the mountain tops, and then they pour down through subterranean channels, and in some strange places, but where no man knows, they are heated, and come bubbling to the surface of the earth again. We know they are warmed, but we know not how. And we do not need to wait until we find out how, before we believe that they are warm. And so the hearts that are cold and sensual and proud and selfish, whenever they are brought in contact with the heart of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, are warmed. They come into con tact with Him and become different men. The nation is a different nation, the civilisation is a different civilisation, the type of character is a different type of character. Christian character is not Hindu character. It is not African character. It is distinctively Christian character; a character warm with love, because it has been warmed in the secret places of the Most High. (L. Abbott, D. D.)

    Loving the pictures of God

    If you love an absent person, you will love their picture. What is that the sailor’s wife keeps so closely wrapped in a napkin, laid up in her best drawer among sweet smelling flowers? She takes it out morning and evening, and gazes at it through her tears. It is the picture of her absent husband. She loves it because it is like him. It has many imperfections, but still it is like him. Believers are the pictures of God in this world. The Spirit of Christ dwells in them. They walk as He walked. True, they are full of imperfections; still they are true copies. If you love Him, you will love them; you will make them your bosom friends. (R. M. McCheyne.)

    Christian love an evidence of Christian life

    As it would be impossible for the insect in its chrysalis state to observe the laws which are made for its transformed state--for the worm to know the laws which make the summer fly seek the sunshine and live upon the flower--as it must be “born again” and enter upon a new existence before it can keep the laws of that new existence; so only the new creature can keep this new commandment. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

    He that loveth not his brother abideth in death--

    Brotherly love wanting

    I. “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” The very form of this statement demands attention. It charges as a crime the want of a grace and not merely the perpetration of evil.

    1. The complaint is, “he that loveth not his brother.” He is devoid of the natural affection which close affinity should create. As for counting anyone a brother because he is a child of God, although he has no earthly relationship to him, he neither apprehends the idea, nor is sensible of any obligation upon him, arising out of it.

    2. His condition is supposed to be the most deplorable. “Death” is the term that is used to describe it. It is descriptive at once of his guilt and depravity, and his insensibility to both. Mark the emphasis of the phrase, “abideth in death.” Such a one was and continues to be dead.

    II. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” This statement is stronger than the former. That was negative, while this is positive. That consisted in withholding what was due, this in the infliction of evil. We are reminded in this comparative statement of the progress of sin. It is never stationary. The want of a grace will soon become the germ of a great sin. The man that loveth not his brother will soon learn to hate his brother. In finding out arguments to justify his neglect, he will not fail to dis cover reasons to inflame his hatred. The conclusion of the apostle respecting such a one is irresistible--“Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” The two things are incompatible and cannot dwell together.

    III. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” This is the strongest argument yet advanced. It is drawn from the conduct of God Himself, and from the obligation that rests on us to be followers of Him as dear children. (J. Morgan, D. D.)

  • 1 John 3:15 open_in_new

    Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him

    Sin measured by the disposition, not by the act

    These are harsh words, some will say, and many will deny that they are just.

    “I hate such a one, it is true, but I would not harm him for the world. There is surely a wide interval between the feeling of rancour, or even the bitter lasting quarrel, and the act of Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother.” As for the spirit of the words it is enough to say at present that they proceed from the apostle of love, and that, if true, they ought to be known. Moreover, if you find fault with him, you must find the same fault with Him from whom he learnt his religion (Matthew 5:28). But besides this, our feeling that we are incapable of this or that sin is not to be entirely trusted (2 Kings 8:13-15). So too our great poet portrays to us a man, loyal, upright hitherto, conscious of no secret treachery, into whose mind the infernal powers sent the thought, that he, now Thane of Cawdor, should be king hereafter. The thought ripened into a wish, the wish into a plan: he murdered his king, when asleep and a guest under the protection of the rights of hospitality, and from this dark beginning he waded on through blood, to retain what he had grasped, until he worked out his own ruin. The apostle says not that all hatred will end in murder--far from it--nor that all hatred is equally intense and equally reckless, nor that hatred which bursts out into great crime may not imply a worse state of soul than such as remains within, and does no obvious harm to others. Nor does he intend to confine the murderous quality to positive hatred. Want of love, hardened selfishness, acting on calculation with no rage or wrath in it, may be as deadly, as murderous, as malignity or revenge. The apostle teaches us in these words that evil lies in the heart, and that the evil there, which meets with some temporary or some lasting hindrance, differs not in kind from that which is ripened by opportunity. It may be forever dormant as far as the notice of man is concerned. It may never burst forth into the poisonous flower of wicked action, yet the hatred within and the hatred in the wicked action are one and the same, one quality runs through both. The powder that is explosive and the powder that explodes do not differ. It is just as we measure the power of a flood by its breaking down a dam or transporting heavy masses to a distance. There are restraining influences which secure human society from the explosion of injurious passions, so that such a crime as murder, common enough, if you gather up all the instances of it in a year, will excite wonder and awe in the place where it is committed. We know that fear of consequences, conscience, respect for public opinion, pity, are as permanent and universal as sin itself is, and that they are the dam and banks which keep the stream of unregulated selfishness from sweeping over society. Yet though we call the crime extraordinary, whenever it occurs we trace it back to some principle or habit. The man who committed homicide was subject to great fits of rage which he took no pains to restrain, or his natural heat was increased by strong drink, or he had such a covetous temper that he was tempted by it into robbery and murder. All this is obviously just. But with all this, we have a right to say, that the limit to which a passion, such as hatred or lust, leads, is a fair measure of its general power. We apply to the strength of hatred, or some other evil passion, the same measurement which we apply to the capacities of the mind. A man of genius seems at one time to be inert and without, creative power: at another, he will produce a poem or a picture that the world admires. We measure his genius by his best productions, by what he does in the most favourable circumstances, not by the vacancy of his dreamy or inactive hours, where thought is gathering strength for a new flight. Why not judge of sin, and especially of hatred, after the same fashion? The justness of the apostle’s words is shown by the awful quickness with which resolutions are sometimes taken to commit great crimes. We flee into crime as if the dogs of sinful desire were on us, and we sought the outward act as a relief from the agitation and war within the soul. So strange do some such historical crimes appear, that they look like the sway of destiny. A divine Nemesis, or Ate, urged the man into self-ruin. The tragedy of life was not accomplished by his own free will. And when the deed is done, unthinking men will ascribe it to the force of circumstances, as if circumstances could have any effect, independently of the passion or selfish desire itself. And the criminal himself may think that he was hardly a moral agent in the deed; that his own power of resistance was destroyed by temptation against his will; or, that others, the most respectable men in his society, would do the same. To all of which, we reply, that the consent of his soul was his sin; that his sin was weakness; that if he had wanted strength really, and prayed for it, it would have come down out of heaven, and that whether others would have acted like him or not is a point of no importance. There was in London, a few years since, a German tailor, who was, probably, not more dissolute than hundreds of others in such a vast city, a mild, inoffensive man, whom nobody thought capable of dark deeds of wickedness. He found himself in a car of an underground railroad in company with a wealthy man. They were alone, and yet, as the cars had a number of stopping places in their five or six miles’ course, every few minutes a new passenger might come into their compartment. They were alone, I say, for a passenger had left them, and the door was shut. Now, in the interval of three or four minutes, this man had murdered the wealthy man by his side, had seized his purse and watch, and in the hurry taken his hat by mistake, and had left the train the instant it reached the next station. He fled to America, was seized on his landing, was found to have the dead man’s hat and watch, was handed over to the English authorities, carried back, tried, and sent to his execution. How terrible was this speed of crime! No whirlwind or waterspout, no thunder cloud flying through mid-heaven could represent its swiftness, and yet here there was nothing unaccountable, nothing monstrous. He himself had been no prodigy of sin, nor was he now. The crime was an epitome of his life, a condensed extract of his character. And again, the apostle’s principle is vindicated by the rapid deterioration which we often observe in the lives of particular men. It seems as if they had only covered up their sins before, as if an evil life could not begin, all of a sudden, but the habits of sin must have been suppressed, perhaps, for a long period. But it is not so. They have not grown suddenly worse, but some natural motives, which swayed them before, have given way to other natural motives which were for a time counteracted. Self-indulgence was counteracted by prudence or by conscience, hatred was kept down or shut up in the breast by public opinion. Meanwhile changes of life, more liberty of action, greater means of self-gratification, new forms of society, new sentiments and opinions, make the road of temptation leading to outward sin easier. According to this view of man, there is nothing strange when hatred culminates in murder, there is no new principle injected, there is, in reality, no sudden worsening of the character. It is natural, not monstrous or morbid, that he who indulges hatred in his heart should yield, when he is tempted to manifest it in the life. The deed is the expression of the feeling, as words are of thoughts. I add, again, that if in any given case it were certain that sinful affections would be suppressed and be prevented from going out into sinful deeds, the apostle’s principle would still be true. The spirit of the extreme crime is in the unblamed malice or the unobserved envy. It is neutralised, as the oxygen of air is by nitrogen. The two in mechanical union form an innocuous atmosphere, and yet we know that oxygen alone would be a principle of death. So hate in the heart is a deadly affection though counteracted, and although it may be always counteracted.

    1. I wish to remark, first, that sin deceives us until it comes into manifestation. Men are apt to think that they are good enough, because no indications of a corrupt character are shown in their lives. And then, when the time of trial comes and they yield, they excuse themselves because temptation is so strong and so sudden. In neither case does their moral judgment conform to the true state of things. Principle means that which will stand the test, when native characteristics which were on its side have turned against it. The measure of principle is the strength of resistance to attacks of temptation, and if hatred or lust is a cherished feeling of the heart, there is no possibility of resistance when circumstances turn so as to favour sin.

    2. Sins committed by others may fairly suggest to us what we ourselves can do, and so in a certain sense we may be humbled by them, when we apply them as the measuring line of the deep possibilities of sin within ourselves. It was no cant when John Bradford said, as he saw a man going to Tyburn to be hanged for crime, “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.” He did not magnify his sins, and liability to great sins, in order to magnify the grace of God, but he magnified the grace of God, because he felt and found within himself the same sinful nature which he saw in the unworthiest. He read himself in the history of his fallen and guilty brother.

    3. Finally, we see what an uncompromising principle love is. One may say with truth love hates malevolence, hates all that is opposed to itself in the feelings or the manifestations of the inner life. Love is an element of a strong character which views men as they are in all their sins, which feels no favour towards the principles by which the worldly, the selfish, the proud are governed. And thus as it looks on moral evil in all its deformity, it can feel intense pity towards the blind in sin, the misguided, the fallen, the unworthy, and is ever ready to sacrifice its own interests for their good. (T. D. Woolsey.)

    Who is a murderer

    Nothing reveals the gulf that separates ancient from modern history more clearly than their respective estimates of human life. If, for instance, you read an account of how Rome built up and consolidated her conquests, you will shudder at the terrible track of blood that marked her advance. Nor was this so much to be wondered at. For what was there to surround or invest man as such with reverence? And there was one thing that stood fatally in the way of any lofty conception of humanity possessing the mind of the ancient world. That was the institution of slavery. Nor was there any restraint laid upon the prevailing violence by the fear of a righteous judgment to come. Here modern history has acknowledged a new stream of influence, which has come to us through Christianity, as that again received it from an older source. The opening pages of the Old Testament teach us that man was made in the image of God, and on this ground inculcate respect for human life under the most terrible of all possible penalties: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” The New Testament enforces the same lesson. Man is not only the bearer of the Divine likeness, but the object of the Divine love--a love which has given and spent itself wholly for him. It is impossible the world should receive such teaching as this without being impressed by the awful sanctity of human life. To mutilate the image of God, to cut some poor soul short of its allotted time for penitence, is not only a crime against society, an unspeakable wrong against the victim slain, but a sin against God whose prerogatives have been usurped and His authority defied. But what really is this of which we stand in such natural and wholesome awe? What makes the sin so sinful? Not merely the taking of a life. It is the motive or intention with which the deed is done, the deliberate and savage hate which has leaped beyond the barriers of restraint, and refused to be satisfied except with blood, that invests it with such an atmosphere of horror. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” But is not this to confound feeling with action in a somewhat dangerous and hasty way? If he who hates has already incurred the guilt of murder, may he not argue that the overt act can make him no worse than he has already become? But this is not to be inferred from the words of my text. Christianity does not say that a wicked thought is in all respects equal to a wicked deed. If it did so, it would set itself at variance with the instincts of our own nature, and utterly confuse our moral consciousness. But what it does say is, that the guilt is identical in kind though it differs in degree; that in moral character they are essentially the same, though they differ in the amount or depth of their immorality. We need to look below the surface and test ourselves by what we find there. “The world is still deceived with ornament.” Appearances are still allowed to betray into a false security. When you look at the smiling slopes of Vesuvius, at the hamlets nestling in its hollows, the matchless beauty of the bay with all her loveliness sleeping at its feet, you can scarcely conceive of the wild torrent of destruction that poured from its sides two thousand years ago. But the occasional rumble, the dense columns of ascending smoke, the tremor of the quaking earth, remind you that the mighty monster is awake, and may again let loose the vials of his wrath. So we are misled by the smooth and superficial gilding of our modern civilisation. Education has spread, refinement is more general, a fashionable craze for culture is abroad, order is steadily and sternly maintained--not so much from the love of order, as because the complex and delicate machinery of life could not otherwise be kept at work. Some outbreak of communism, some sudden delirium of lawlessness, some startling and appalling crime, shows the diseases of the world have not been cared, nor the forces of evil destroyed. The germs that breed them, the passions that explode into all sorts of excess, are still in our midst. It is the same also with ourselves. We are strongly tempted to take too much for granted, to conclude there are certain things of which we are quite incapable. We are blinded by the fact that our position protects us from certain temptations, or so weakens their force, they cannot pierce the armour of our respectability. Nay, self-interest may so range us on the side of right, as to put us practically beyond their reach. But if we may escape temptations from which our position secures immunity, we may fall into others to which perhaps it especially exposes us. If it is often difficult for us to do wrong, just because so many fences close us in, and a hundred eyes would be witnesses of our shame, it is always easy to cherish the sinful feeling or desire. We may even compensate for our exclusion from the field of open transgression by giving the reins to a loose and wandering, an unhallowed and impure, imagination. And how many there are who would shrink with terror from the overt act, who rarely suspect they conceal the seeds and roots of it within themselves! Now what does all this show?

    1. That crime is not to be removed by external remedies alone. The house may be swept and garnished, and the evil spirit apparently expelled; but if another and a better occupant do not take his place, and keep him out, he will return, as the parable tells us, and the last state will be worse than the first.

    2. But if something more drastic than external remedies are needful, what is to be done? Will the spread of education and enlightenment so refine the taste, that it will reject the grosser forms of indulgence? Alas! experience proves that some of the most brilliant periods of history have been the most corrupt, and that the seat of the disease lies too deep to be reached by such a cure. The truth is, that all our earthborn experiments carry with them the defect attaching to their source. They are short sighted, or one sided, and where they see most clearly and impartially they only confess their impotence, and give up the problem in despair. But while Christianity has so unerringly detected the spring of all human misery, and exposed it in its undisguised malignity, it has also revealed an effectual cure. It brings with it a salvation which is no mere experiment or assault upon the outworks of our foe, but which goes straight to the root of the matter. It embraces our whole nature--spirit, soul, and body--and advances from this centre to claim and occupy every province of life. And to apply this to ourselves. If you do not feel that you need a Divine power brought to bear upon your heart, have you ever really examined the true moral character of your daily life? Have you considered what the unforgiving and uncharitable temper, the selfish and impure desire, really mean--that they are straws which show how the wind blows, symptoms of a fatal disorder, which is not to be banished by passing moods of penitence, or the postures of worship? Be assured there is only one thing that can save a man, and that is that grace of Christ which, where sin has abounded, has much more abounded, which forgives us when we come to Him, and cleanses us from all unrighteousness, shedding abroad within us that love which is the fulfilling of the law. (C. Moinet, M. A.)

  • 1 John 3:16-18 open_in_new

    Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,

    Lofty ideals perilous unless applied

    Even the world sees that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ has very practical results.

    Even the Christmas which the world keeps is fruitful in two of these results--forgiving and giving. Love, charity (as we rather prefer to say), in its effects upon all our relations to others, is the beautiful subject of this section of our Epistle.

    I. We have here love in its idea. “Hereby know we the love.” It is continuous unselfishness, to be crowned by voluntary death, if death is necessary. The beautiful old Church tradition shows that this language was the language of St. John’s life. Who has forgotten how the apostle in his old age is said to have gone on a journey to find the young man who had fled from Ephesus and joined a band of robbers; and to have appealed to the fugitive in words which are the pathetic echo of these--“if needs be I would die for thee as He for us”?

    II. The idea of charity is then practically illustrated by an incident of its opposite (verse 17). The reason for this descent in thought is wise and sound. High abstract ideas expressed in lofty language are at once necessary and dangerous for creatures like us. They are necessary, because without these grand conceptions our moral language and our moral life would be wanting in dignity, in amplitude, in the inspiration and impulse which are often necessary for duty and always for restoration. But they are dangerous in proportion to their grandeur. Men are apt to mistake the emotion awakened by the very sound of these magnificent expressions of duty for the discharge of the duty itself. Every large speculative ideal then is liable to this danger; and he who contemplates it requires to be brought down from his transcendental region to the test of some commonplace duty. It is helpful compassion to a brother who is known to be in need, manifested by giving to him something of this world’s “good”--of the “living” of this world which he possesses.

    III. We have next the characteristics of love in action. “My sons, let us not love in word nor with the tongue; but in work and truth.” There is love in its energy and reality; in its effort and sincerity--active and honest, without indolence and without pretence.

    IV. This passage supplies an argument against mutilated views, fragmentary versions of the Christian life.

    1. The first of these is emotionalism, which makes the entire Christian life consist in a series or bundle of emotions. This reliance upon feelings is in the last analysis reliance upon self. It is a form of salvation by works, for feelings are inward actions.

    2. The next of these mutilated views of the Christian life is doctrinalism--which makes it consist of a series or bundle of doctrines apprehended and expressed correctly, at least according to certain formulas, generally of a narrow and unauthorised character. According to this view the question to be answered is--has one quite correctly understood, can one verbally formulate certain almost scholastic distinctions in the doctrine of justification?

    3. The third mutilated view of the Christian life is humanitarianism--which makes it a series or bundle of philanthropic actions. There are some who work for hospitals or try to bring more light and sweetness into crowded dwelling houses. Their lives are pure and noble. But the one article of their creed is humanity. Altruism is their highest duty. With others the case is different. Certain forms of this busy helpfulness--especially in the laudable provision of recreations for the poor--are an innocent interlude in fashionable life; sometimes, alas! a kind of work of supererogation, to atone for the want of devotion or of purity--possibly an untheological survival of a belief in justification by works.

    4. Another fragmentary view of the Christian life is observationism, which makes it to consist in a bundle or series of observances. Frequent services and communions, perhaps with exquisite forms and in beautifully decorated churches, have their dangers as well as their blessings. However closely linked these observances may be, there must still in every life be interstices between them. How are these filled up? What spirit within connects together, vivifies, and unifies this series of external acts of devotion? Now, in distinction from all these fragmentary views, St. John’s Epistle is a survey of the completed Christian life, founded upon his gospel. It is a consummate fruit ripened in the long summers of his experience. It is not a treatise upon the Christian affections, nor a system of doctrine, nor an essay upon works of charity, nor a companion to services. Yet this wonderful Epistle presupposes at least much that is most precious of all these elements.

    (1) It is far from being a burst of emotionalism. Yet almost at the outset it speaks of an emotion as being the natural result of rightly received objective truth (1 John 1:4).

    (2) This Epistle is no dogmatic summary. Yet combining its proemium with the other of the fourth Gospel, we have the most perfect statement of the dogma of the Incarnation.

    (3) If the apostle’s Christianity is no mere humanitarian sentiment to encourage the cultivation of miscellaneous acts of good nature, yet it is deeply pervaded by a sense of the integral connection of practical love of man with the love of God.

    (4) No one can suppose that for St. John religion was a mere string of observances. This Epistle, with its calm, unhesitating conviction of the sonship of all to whom it is addressed; with its view of the Christian life as in idea a continuous growth from a birth the secret of whose origin is given in the gospel; with its expressive hints of sources of grace and power and of a continual presence of Christ; with its deep mystical realisation of the double flow from the pierced side upon the Cross, and its thrice-repeated exchange of the sacramental order “water and blood,” for the historical order, “blood and water”; unquestionably has the sacramental sense diffused throughout it. The sacraments are not in obtrusive prominence; yet for those who have eyes to see they lie in deep and tender distances. Such is the view of the Christian life in this letter--a life in which Christ’s truth is blended with Christ’s love; assimilated by thought, exhaling in worship, softening into sympathy with man’s suffering and sorrow. It calls for the believing soul, the devout heart, the helping hand. It is the perfect balance in a saintly soul of feeling, creed, communion, and work. (Bp. Wm. Alexander.)

    The sacrifice of love

    The laws of nature and the laws of grace come from the same Lawgiver, and they have the same fundamental quality. All life depends on this--that some one is willing to lay down his life for another. From the very earliest stages to the very oldest and highest this is the condition not only of progress but of the continuance of life. The tree grows, produces its leaf, its bud, its blossom, its fruit, in order that it may drop seeds upon the wings of the wind, or give them to the birds, that those seeds may be carried to the soil and from them other trees may spring up. And when the tree has given forth this consummation of its life, its year’s work is over, and it goes to sleep that it may get ready to repeat the operation next year. The annual dies in giving its life to another; the perennial does not die, but it gives its life, then ceases for a little while, gathers up its forces, and resumes its life the next year in order to repeat the gift. The babe is not dropped out of the clouds into the life of the waiting family. The mother hazards her own life that she may give a new life to the world; and when she has given it, then she begins to devote her life to it; her thoughts concentrate on it, her life flows out to it. It is for this child that the father does his work; it is for this child that the mother gives her prayers, her night watchings, her energies. Her own life is laid down for another life. The child, we say, grows older, wiser. How does it grow older? how does it grow wiser? how does it grow in wisdom and in stature? In stature, because a hundred lives are busy all over the world gathering fruit for it, and food for it, and ministering to it; and wiser, because a hundred brains are thinking for it and a hundred hearts are gathering equipment of love and pouring into it. The teacher is giving her life to her pupils, laying down her life for them. If she does not care for them, if she simply goes into the schoolroom for her six or eight hours to earn her salary, and then goes away, and no life flows out from her, she is a mere perfunctory thing and no true teacher. We build a fence around a tribe of Indians and shut them up by themselves and say, “Now grow.” A hundred years go by, and they are the same barbarians they were a hundred years before. Then we say, “Let civilisation see what it can do with them”--a selfish civilisation. “We will let in the railroad, we will let in the trader, the whisky dealer, we will let in selfishness.” And barbarism simply grows more barbaric; the growth is degeneracy. Not until you can find an Armstrong or a Pratt who will lay down his life for them, not until you can find men and women who will devote their lives to pouring truth and purity and life into these barbaric minds, is there growth; and the moment you find such life given, true growth begins. Life goes by transmission, and there is no hope for a lower race except as some higher race will transmit its life thereto. This is the significance of, the fundamental principle underlying, all foreign missionary service. Now, the Bible takes this generic law and carries it up a little higher. Follow up the stream to its source and you will find the springs among the hills; and these, you say, fed it. But where did these springs come from? You must look up, and there in the blue above sails the clouds; and the rainfall from these clouds has first fed the springs that fed the rills that fed the streams that made the river. So all life, its progress, its development, come from the One above all, who pours out His life that others may live. This is what love means. Love is life giving. Love is not caress. The mother does not love her child simply because she folds it to her arms and caresses it with her kisses. This is but the expression of love. Love is not joy. The mother does not love her child because a strange joy thrills her heart as she looks into baby’s eyes. This is simply the fruit of love. Love is giving one’s life to another. To lay down one’s life for another is not, then, the same as to die for another. That is very clear. “Hereby we know love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Ought we all to die for the brethren? Not at all. No man thinks that. But we all ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is another matter. To live for another may involve with it dying for another, and certainly does involve willingness to die for another, but the value is in laying down the life, not in dying. Here are two nurses going out into a city that is plague stricken. One catches the plague, dies, is buried in a nameless grave under a nameless headstone in the cemetery. The other lives through the plague and goes back to her home. One has laid down her life for the plague stricken city as truly as the other. To lay down one’s life is not to die; it is only to be willing to die. But no man does lay down his life truly and really for another unless he is willing to die. If a young man goes into the medical profession, and, when pestilence appears in a house, he says, “I cannot go there; I should risk my life and the life of my children,” he has not laid down his life. The value of Christ’s life was not in the crucifixion. It was not by His death that He saved the world. I know how that sentence will be picked out, and perhaps sent abroad, and I misinterpreted; nevertheless, I repeat it--it is not by His death He saves the world, but by laying down His life for the world. Passion week began when He was born. From the beginning to the end His life was laid down for humanity. So to lay down one’s life does not necessarily involve pain and suffering. It may or may not. You may be a lover without pain; you cannot be a saviour without pain. And when the Christ came into the world, bringing the message of infinite and eternal love, it was not the spear thrust that made Him the Saviour--it was the spear thrust that proved Him the Saviour; it was the spear thrust that showed that there was such love in this heart of the Christ that He was willing to die for love’s sake. The Cross is the glory of Christ, because it shows how far love would carry Him in laying down His life for sinful man. Christ’s Cross is witness of the Divine life that is saving the world. Christ lays down His life for us. We are to lay down our lives for one another. This is the simple lesson of this communion Sunday--Life poured out from one full heart into another empty heart; from one joyous heart into an aching heart; from one pure heart into a sinful and shameful heart. (Lyman Abbott, D. D.)

  • 1 John 3:17-21 open_in_new

    But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

    Righteousness essential to the answer of a good conscience in ourselves and before God

    The lesson here is sincerity. Beware of self-deception. It is easy to imagine what you would do to win or help a brother; and you may please yourselves by carrying the imagination to any length you choose. You will lay down your life for one who is, or who may be, a brother! And yet you cannot lay down for him your love of this world’s good; your love of ease and selfish comfort; your fastidious taste; your proud or shy reserve. John brings out into prominence a general principle connecting conscience and faith, with immediate reference to his particular topic of brotherly love. The principle may be briefly stated. There can be no faith where there is not conscience; no more of faith than there is of conscience. In plain terms, I cannot look my God in the face if I cannot look myself in the face. If my heart condemns me, much more must He condemn me who is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things. Reserving the special application of this principle to the grace of brotherly kindness, I ask you for the present to consider it more generally with reference to the Divine love; first, as you have to receive it by faith; and, secondly, as you have to retain it and act it out in your loving walk with God and man.

    I. I am a receiver of this love. And it concerns me much that my faith, by which I receive it, should be strong and steadfast, which, however, it cannot be unless my conscience, in receiving it, is guileless. The plain question then is, Are you dealing truly with God as He deals truly with you? Are you meeting Him, as He meets you, in good faith? Is all real and downright earnest with you? Or are you toying and playing with spiritual frames as if it were all a mere affair of sentimentalism? Is there a sort of half-consciousness in you that you would really apprehend and welcome the mediation of Christ better than you do if it were meant merely to establish a relation between God and you, so far amicable as to secure your being let alone now and let off at last; and that in consideration of certain specified and ascertainable acts of homage, without its being insisted on that God and you should become so completely one? If your heart misgive you and condemn you on such points as these, it is no wonder that you have not peace with Him “who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things.”

    II. Not only as receiving God’s love does it concern me to see to it that my heart condemns me not, but as retaining it and acting it out in my walk and conduct. Otherwise, “how dwelleth the love of God in me?” It is a great matter if the eye be single, if your heart do not condemn you. The consciousness of integrity is, of itself, a well spring of peace and power in the guileless soul. The clear look, the erect gait, the firm step, the ringing voice, of an upright man, are as impressive upon others as they are expressive of himself. But that is not all. The assurance or confidence of which John speaks is not self-assurance or self-confidence. No. It is “assurance before God”; it is “confidence toward God.” Why does the apostle make “our heart condemning us” so fatal to our “assuring our heart before God”? It is because “God is greater than our hearty and knoweth all things.” He assumes that it is with God we have to do, and that we feel this. Our own verdict upon ourselves is comparatively a small affair; we ask the verdict of God. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

    Shutting up compassion

    Pure and undefiled religion is the imitation of God. Whatever else may characterise the men who have passed from death unto life, this is characteristic of them all. Now, assuming this, look at the immense interrogation which he proposed in our present text. A man is presented to us who professes to be a son of the Lord Almighty, but his profession was unsubstantiated.

    I. The man whose religion is vain has this world’s goods; of the things which are necessary for the vigorous maintenance of life he has enough and to spare. Before his wants ever recur there is the supply. God daily loadeth him with His benefits.

    II. He seeth his brother have need. It is not with others as it is with him. By treacherous and sore calamity they are afflicted in mind, or body, or estate; perhaps from ascertainable causes, perhaps from causes not ascertainable, they are destitute of daily food. He sees it plainly.

    III. He shuts up the bowels of his compassion. There may be the clamorous appeal, he is deaf to that; there may be the eloquent appeal of the silent heart. It is just the same, and lest his bowels, peradventure, should yearn, he locks them up and bids them remain unmoved. Why should he interfere? People should be more careful; there should be a great deal more frugality; the institutions of the country should prevent such calamities. Such applications are nothing to him, and now, at all events, he means to be excused.

    IV. How dwelleth the love of God in him? Does he resemble God? I know your answer. That man an imitator of God, who causeth the sun to shine upon the just and the unjust! That man an imitator of Him who “giveth us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness”! That man an imitator of Him who “dealeth not with us after our sins, who rewardeth us not according to our iniquities”! Impossible! How can he be? God is merciful, he is unmerciful; God is communicative, he is parsimonious; God is compassionate, he is unrelenting; God bindeth up the broken in heart and healeth their wounds, he irritates the broken in heart. There is no similarity whatever. You might call light and darkness one. (W. Brock.)

    Charity to the poor

    I. Who are they that are obliged to works of charity? All are obliged to do something towards supplying the wants of others whom God hath blessed with greater abundance than is sufficient for the supply of their own. It is not the value of the gift which God regards, but the honest purpose of the giver.

    II. Who are they towards whom works of charity ought to be exercised? By the “needy” you are not to understand absolutely every needy man, but everyone who being in need is not able by honest means to provide for himself. Those are before all others the objects of charity, who want food and raiment sufficient for the sustenance of their bodies. The reason of this is that life is the foundation of all other blessings in this world. We are bound, according to our abilities, not only to preserve the life of others, but to secure their happiness too. And in this work sickness and pain are principally to be regarded. When life, health, and liberty are secure, the law of charity grows to be more undermined, yet I think we should not say that it entirely ceases. For the having what is barely necessary for the purposes of life is but the first and lowest degree of happiness.

    III. Whence the value of charity arises, or what it is that makes the outward act of giving to become acceptable to God. That which the apostle condemns here is the shutting up our bowels against the cries of the needy. God can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and deliver the prisoner from captivity without drawing anything from our stores. But as He has otherwise ordered things, He hath given us affections suitable to the conditions in which He hath placed us, and made us by nature humane and merciful. When the heart is open, it is impossible that the hands can be shut. There is a pleasure in giving, which a truly compassionate mind is no more able to resist than it can forbear to commiserate.

    IV. The want of a charitable and benevolent disposition is inconsistent with the love of God. (H. Stebbing, D. D.)

    The duty of charitable distribution

    I. The principle on which this great duty is unalterably founded. All the goods of nature, the fruits of the earth, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, were given to man for his sustenance and use. But as the necessities of man impel him, no less than his passions lead him, to a state of civilisation and society, so the necessary effect hath been a limitation of this common right of the enjoyment of the goods of nature by the establishment of particular properties. It must be granted that in most of the kingdoms of the earth the inequalities of property are too great, either for the public peace of the whole, or the private happiness of the individuals, whether rich or poor. To prevent therefore, or to remedy these dreadful evils, the great principle of Christian charity comes in. And on this principle it appears that our care of the necessitous is by no means to be considered as a voluntary act of virtue, which we may perform or remit at pleasure.

    II. The various motives which may urge the rich to the consistent and continued practice of it.

    1. And first, on account of their present satisfaction of mind, and with a view to a rational and true enjoyment of wealth, they ought to attend to the continued practice of this duty. Love, hope, peace, and joy are the constant companions of the compassionate soul.

    2. Again, as the rich ought religiously to attend to the great work of charitable distribution as the necessary means of regulating their own desires, so the welfare of their families and children ought to be a farther motive to their exemplary practice of this duty. The noblest and most valuable inheritance that a father can leave his child is that of an honest and generous mind.

    3. The last motive I shall urge for the performance of this great duty is the security of your future and eternal welfare in a better world than this. A selfish attention to wealth tends strongly to withdraw our affections from God and virtue.

    III. The proper methods and objects of it.

    1. And here it will be necessary, first, to show the invalidity of a plausible pretence, which would destroy the very essence of this duty. It is pretended that the principle of a charitable distribution is superfluous, because, if the rich do but spend or squander the incomes of their estates, the money will distribute itself, and like blood circulating from the heart will fall into all the various channels of the body politic, in that just proportion which their respective situations may demand. The objection is plausible, yet void of truth. For, first, supposing the effects to be such as are here represented with respect to the necessitous, yet they would be bad with regard to the rich themselves. But farther. This kind of distribution by mere expense can never effectually relieve the necessitous. Insolence and oppression are its certain consequences. Again, there fore, this method of distribution can never be effectual, because they who stand most in need can never be succoured by it. For the mere act of expending wealth can never affect any of the lower ranks, but those who labour. But the helpless young, the sick, and aged must languish and die in misery. Nay, what is yet worse, while the helpless innocent are thus left destitute of relief, the associates of wickedness are often fed to the full.

    2. A second excuse for an exemption from this duty must likewise here be obviated, which is the pretended sufficiency of poor laws for the maintenance of the necessitous. But that they can never stand in the place of a true spirit of charity will appear from considering them either in their formation or execution. If they are formed merely on the principles of prudence and policy, void of a charitable zeal, they will always be of a rigid, and often of a cruel complexion. Again, laws for the maintenance of the poor must ever be defective in their execution unless inspirited by true charity, because, on the same principle as already laid down, they must generally be executed in a despotic manner. Also they never can effectually separate the good from the bad, the worthy from the worthless, so as to relieve and reward the one in preference to the other. It now remains that we point out the proper objects of this great Christian duty. First, all they who, through natural infirmity, age, sickness, or accidental disaster, are rendered incapable of self-support by labour. Among this number, more particularly, we are bound to relieve our neighbouring poor. Our neighbour’s real wants are better known to us than theirs who are farther removed from our observation. Again, among this number a selection ought to be made of the most worthy, not to the total exclusion of even the worthless, but as an encouragement to virtue. Beyond these common objects of our charity there is still a higher sphere for beneficence to shine in--on those who, by inevitable misfortunes, have been reduced from wealth to a state of necessity. Beyond these objects of our charitable assistance here enumerated, there yet remains one, which deserves a particular consideration. I mean the children of the necessitous. (John Brown, D. D.)

    On Christian beneficence

    I. The source of Christian beneficence. Many possess a constitutional benevolence of disposition. But nothing short of the love of God can ensure obedience to His will in any department of duty, and no inferior motive can be regarded by Him with acceptance.

    II. The indispensable necessity of beneficence as a branch of Christian character. Beneficence is a positive law of the Divine government, and cannot be dispensed with, save by incurring the guilt of disobedience against the supreme authority of God. Christian beneficence is most comprehensive, extending to the entire nature of man.

    III. The principles by which beneficence ought to be regulated deserve serious consideration. “To consider the case of the poor” is an obligation as imperative as that of relieving it. Indiscriminate alms giving is a serious evil to both giver and receiver. Let the understanding be Divinely enlightened, and the bowels of compassion not be shut against the brother who hath need, and we may safely commit to your own judgment and feelings the extent of your benefactions.

    IV. Its dependence upon the gracious influences of the Spirit of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love. (John Smyth, D. D.)

    My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth--

    Deceptive friendliness

    I. Expressions of courtesy which have no root in the heart.

    II. Blandishments to gain an end.

    III. Manifestations of superficial good nature and friendliness which cannot stand the test of times of adversity.

    IV. Expressions of sympathy without help. (R. Abercrombie, M. A.)

    Charity in deed better than in thought

    When you see a plan in an architect’s office that is very new and very pretty to look at, you say, “Ah! nothing has been done with it,” but when you see a plan that is smudgy, and torn, and almost broken through where it has been folded, you know that the man has done something with it. Now, do not fall in love with the plan, and think it very pretty, but never carry it out. When Dr. Guthrie wanted his ragged schools founded, he called on a certain minister, who said, “Well you know, Mr. Guthrie, there is nothing very new in your scheme; I and Mr. So-and-so have been thinking over a similar plan to yours for the last twenty years.” “Oh! yes,” said Dr. Guthrie, “I dare say; but you have never carried it out.” So some people are always thinking over some very fine plan of their own; but while the grass grows the steed starves. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

  • 1 John 3:19-22 open_in_new

    And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before wire

    The connection between faith and the state of the heart

    I. There is a certain blessing or privilege here spoken of--“then have we confidence toward God.” Confidence, literally fulness of speech, because this is one of the principal ways in which confidence displays itself; the heart is enlarged, the mouth is opened, and thus the whole soul pours forth its feelings without restraint and without disguise. It is a very remarkable part of our nature this, in virtue of which we are impelled to make those whom we love and confide in the depositaries of the most sacred treasures of our breasts. As confidence is enkindled, reserve disappears, like as the winter’s frost that binds up the bosom of the earth is melted before the summer’s sun. And as it is in the intercourse between man and man, so is it in the intercourse between man and God. The degree in which we can reveal to Him all our sins, wants, and sorrows will ever be in proportion to our confidence in Him. It is a most blessed state of mind; if we are believers we must know it in some measure. There is a firm foundation laid for it in the gospel; the atonement realised by faith will produce this in the soul, and nothing else will.

    II. Notice a certain hindrance spoken of as standing in the way of the enjoyment of confidence toward God. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” There is something in the very constitution of our nature which would shake our confidence toward God, if our own heart condemned us.

    III. A certain indispensable qualification for the enjoyment of confidence toward God: “If our heart condemn us not.” This is discouraging at first sight. It seems to place us at a hopeless distance from this blessing. You say, perhaps, you look into your heart, and you see there nothing but sin, darkness, disorder, unbelief; nothing that a holy God can approve of. Indeed! Nothing? No grace evident there, no repentance, no love to the Saviour, no spirituality, no desire after communion with God? A most extraordinary kind of religion yours! And what is the tendency, and I fear actual effect of a one-sided experience like this? It is twofold: First, as affects the people of the world. They say, What difference is there between us and those who call themselves the Lord’s people?

    2. And then as affects Christians themselves. For this exclusion of all inward evidence tends to beget a want of watchfulness, and leads more or less to the losing sight of the moral element in Christianity. It prevents them from cultivating that personal holiness which is indispensable to the fruition of a spiritual being.

    IV. A certain practical test on which the heart’s verdict of itself must be based, favourable or unfavourable, “Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.” “Hereby.” This carries us back to something going before. We cannot trust to mere emotions, however deep. These emotions must be brought to some practical test; and here it is. What are we doing for the brethren? We say, perhaps, we love God. But let us test the genuineness of this emotion. He that loveth God, loveth his brother also. If you lack assurance it is not a simpler faith you need, nor a freer gospel, but a faithful dealing with your conscience as to particular sins of omission and commission. You must do more for God. You must do more for your fellow creatures.

    V. A certain moral or ethical ground on which God answers prayer--“Whatsoever we ask we receive, because we keep His commandments,” etc. I think we are too apt to view faith as the only condition of acceptable prayer. There are two elements in prayer that never must be lost sight of--the evangelical, and the ethical or moral. When we view faith only as the condition of acceptable prayer, we are keeping hold only of the evangelical element. But mark, how to correct this error, this one-sided view of prayer, the passage before us brings under our notice the ethical element, “Because we keep His commandments and do those things that are well pleasing in His sight.” Ah! don’t we need this? We think we can do great things with our simple faith--and so we would were it the faith that worketh by love, purifieth the heart, and overcometh the world. But this bare, naked faith of ours, which looks only to promises and aims only at what we call salvation, is imperfect, and will not answer all ends. (A. L. R. Foote, D. D.)

    Heartsease

    I. “Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth,” There is no gainsaying the logic of this whole passage. The children of God, by a spiritual necessity, “do justly, and love mercy.”

    II. And how much that is not glorious remains in every life! Oh, the iniquity of our holy things! Remove the smooth blue stone that lies in the sun with the glass blades waving round it--so clean and smooth and quiet it looks--remove it and you see creeping things innumerable--things that hate the light, that love dampness and darkness. And so in life. Beneath the surface honesty, how much dishonesty do we find! Beneath the surface truthfulness--the court of justice veracity--how much untruth--what falsity--what shams. What lies we tell ourselves--what false testimonials we give ourselves! Beneath the surface purity of life, what uncleanliness of thought, desire, imagination! Beneath the surface love, what self-love, what meannesses. Beneath our best deeds, what a mixture of motives that will not bear the light--hideous things that love darkness and dirt!

    III. What appeal lies from the verdict of conscience? What answer can there be to these self-accusations? What can we say to our own heart? “Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure”--shall persuade, pacify, silence--“our heart before Him whereinsoever our heart shall condemn us.” “We are of the truth.” The imperfections are manifold. The inconsistencies are glaring, and yet the endeavour to love proves that the holy place is not empty yet. Travellers tell us that the mirage in the desert is so like a lake of water, that not until they actually enter it can the deception be discovered. But if a stream of water never so small were seen entering the lake, or a rill flowing out of it, they would know at once that what lay before them in the distance was real--was fact, and not phantom. Well, if a stream that makes for righteousness is flowing into your life, cleansing and sweetening and fertilising your thoughts, aims, and affections, and if another stream of kindness is flowing out of your lives to others, fertilising and gladdening hearts else fruitless and joyless, then you may be certain that your religion is not a make believe, not a piece of self-deception, but a reality. You are of the truth. God is there.

    IV. “God is greater than our heart.” The heart means the whole inner moral life--the conscience. That is the greatest thing in each of us--that which, without being consulted, magisterially approves and condemns. But “God is greater than our heart.” The heart condemns sin. God condemns sin and forgives the sinner. God is greater! Conscience sees the flaws in our life. God sees them too, and mends them. God is greater! Conscience is the iron pen that writes down without pity all that has been in man’s life. God is love, and blots out the handwriting that was against us. “God is greater than our heart.” This is the true heartsease--the flower whose fragrance soothes the restless soul--faith in the love of God. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me.”

    V. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not”--And there are blessed moods when the heart lies hushed and silent before God--when conscience lays its sceptre and crown at the feet of Christ, and all that is within us stands up to bless the Lord, who forgiveth all our iniquities. Now in these blessed hours we “have boldness toward God, and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” We know at such times that we are one with God. We love what He loves. We hate what He hates. His commandments are our law. And we pray to Him freely, confidently, unhesitatingly, speaking to Him as to One of whose sympathy we feel sure. (J. M. Gibbon.)

    Truth

    The word “truth” is the characteristic word in the teaching of the beloved disciple, the Apostle St. John; he always speaks of those who belong to the Lord as those “who are of the truth.” A Christian life is expressed by him as “doing the truth,” or “walking in the truth.” It describes the very essence of the Christian life; it describes that which is the fundamental principle, without which the Christian life is impossible. The power of the Christian life is, of course, the presence of the Lord Himself; the Lord Jesus in the soul is the power by which the Christian lives, but the form which the Christian life takes is more fully expressed by the word “truth” than by any other word that we can use. Let us consider, then, what is the kind of character which is shown in the man who walks in the truth and does the truth.

    1. The characteristic of such a life is in the first place that openness which is described by St. John when he says that such a man “cometh to the light.” He dislikes concealment; he desires that he shall be fully known, he has nothing to hide, he lives frankly among his fellows, concealing nothing whatever in his actions or in his purposes.

    2. The characteristic which goes along with that is the simplicity of purpose which marks the man; because the man who has two purposes, generally speaking, desires to put one in front and keep the other behind. He desires to serve God openly before his fellows, and, perhaps, to have some little consideration for something else in his own soul; but the man who is thoroughly true in his life as he is open, so is he simple; he has but one aim all through, that of pleasing his heavenly Father. He knows nothing else that can be supreme over his life.

    3. A further characteristic of such a character is courage. He is the truly brave man. As he has but one purpose he is never ashamed to confess it, and is he who, at all moments, in spite of all opposition, and in spite of quiet contempt and indifference, is never ashamed of Christ, never ashamed to say that he is a Christian, never ashamed to refuse to join what he knows his Master has condemned. Now this is the character of the man whose life is true. But let us come down to details. What is it that He would have us do and say and think and feel? The characteristic of the man who is really true in his service to the true Lord, is that he is thoroughly trustworthy. Never can it be said of any true child of God that he shall be found wanting in that elementary truth which, even in those who believe not, may yet be found, and give them a standing in the eyes of all. But go a little further. Look not only at his dealings, but also at his speech. And here I wish I could use the emphasis I could desire; because most assuredly the choice by our Lord and by St. John of such a word as “truth,” to be the special description of the Christian life, lays upon Christians a tenfold responsibility in regard to truth of speech, of not allowing the Christian name to be lowered by giving way to all the many temptations which surround everyone to swerve from exact fact, not allowing at any time the tongue to betray the soul by uttering that which is not true, and true all through; never allowing, for instance, the impulse of vanity to make a man say a word which will bring praise to himself which he does not really deserve; never allowing, in the very slightest degree, a word to pass the lips which shall claim for us a higher Christian rank than we deserve, or any grace which we do not possess. It can be done without any word which is in itself false; it can be done in such a way as to give a false impression without exactly contravening the truth; but the Christian will scorn it in his soul for the sake of his Master Christ, whom he knows to be the very Messenger of truth, whose kingdom is the kingdom of truth. The Christian will feel that everything which is false, even if it be but a trifle, even if it be but one of those things which people are so ready to condone, mars the brightness of the Christian aspect. Need I go on to say that, whether the falsehood be prompted by vanity or by fear, it is equally abhorrent to the true Christian spirit. And then look at the thoughts. There, too, the Christian aim will be to seek the truth, and to be true to himself; he will not pretend to believe what he does not believe, and he will not pretend to disbelieve what, in his secret soul, he really does believe. Wait until you have clearer light, but never lower your Lord and Master by thinking to serve Him by any falsehood, either within you or without. Be true to your own self, true to your own convictions, and fear not. The man who is thoroughly true will inevitably find that the longer he lives, turning his soul to the Lord and casting himself on the power of Christ, the more certain does it become that the Lord is, indeed, the King of Truth, that truth belongs to Him, and that in the Lord it will be found; for the power by which men hold fast to the truth, and speak and do and live the truth, is the Lord Jesus. He alone is the source of truth. (Bp. Temple.)

    For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things--

    Conscience condemning or acquitting

    I. There is in everyone a natural conscience, which acquits or condemns him according to the tenor of his life and actions. The very heathens were sensible of this. Juvenal says of a guilty conscience: How, like so many furies, it haunts and torments the wicked man, and proves the executioner of vengeance on him in the horrors of his own breast. And agreeable to this is that observation of St. Paul (Romans 2:14). If it be objected that we see many wicked men go on without check in their sins, and, at the same time, none more gay or more happy, to this it may be answered, in the first place, that we cannot always form a judgment of the inward peace of men’s minds by outward appearances; and that, for aught we know, the man who appears so outwardly happy may yet be far from being at peace within. Or, supposing a wicked man be really free from upbraidings of his conscience, yet it is not difficult to assign reasons which may help us to account for it. As,

    1. It is possible that men may be able so to palliate or excuse their errors to themselves. Or,

    2. It is possible that men may pursue a wicked course so long, and with so much obstinacy, as, in a great measure, to wear out the impression made upon them by their conscience, and to stifle its reflections. Yet some severe affliction or calamity, the approach of sickness or of death, is generally known to awaken in the minds of men those terrors of conscience which before seemed quite suppressed.

    If it be still objected that there have been some, after all, who, after a dissolute course of life, have died without appearing to have felt any great uneasiness of conscience, I answer, supposing there may have been some few examples of this kind, yet they are so very rare that we may justly look upon them as a sort of monsters in the moral world.

    1. From hence we cannot but perceive and admire the goodness of God, who, to restrain men from the ways of sin, has endued them with a natural principle of conscience--such as generally applauds them when they do their duty, and condemns them whensoever they transgress it.

    2. From hence may be drawn a good argument in proof of a future judgment.

    3. Hence we plainly see the folly of endeavouring to shake off the painful reflections of a bad conscience by a free indulgence to pleasure, by drink or company.

    4. From what has been said we cannot but be sensible of the exceeding comfort and advantage of a good conscience.

    II. If, upon a review of our past lives, our own conscience condemn us, we have reason to think that God, who knows a great deal more of us than we do of ourselves, will likewise assuredly condemn us.

    1. The self-condemnation here meant is not that of the true penitent, who, though he has abandoned every sinful course, yet cannot but reflect upon his former sins with horror, and justly condemns himself for them; but that which arises from the conscience of a wicked life still followed.

    2. It may not be amiss to consider the case of another sort of persons, who, though not conscious to themselves of having lived in any unrepented sin, are yet apt to entertain very perplexing doubts of their spiritual state. This is the case of some good Christians, who, through the weakness of their understandings, or the timorousness of their natures, are often subject to melancholy fears. But such as these would do well to consider that these groundless fears are not so properly the judgment of their conscience as the effect of a disordered and a weak imagination.

    3. There is yet another sort of persons whose case it may be well to consider,--viz., that of those who lead such mixed, uncertain lives, that it is a matter of some difficulty to themselves, as well as others, to determine whether they are in a state of grace and salvation or not. These are such as sin and repent, and sin again, and this in a perpetual round, so that it is hard to say whether sin or religion be the most prevailing principle in them. Now such as these can have no just ground to hope well of their condition till they have brought themselves to a more steady course of life.

    III. If, upon a serious and impartial examination of our lives, our own consciences acquit us, then may we hope that God will likewise graciously acquit us, and that we are entitled to his favour and forgiveness. (C. Peters. M. A.)

    Reason the judge of religions actions

    I. The apostle’s reasoning in the text supposes that there is a necessary and essential difference between good and evil, and that men are naturally conscious of this difference, and of the consequent desert of their actions accordingly. And this is true, not with regard to the dictates of natural reason only, but, in those who profess themselves Christians, it is true also with regard to the terms or conditions of the gospel of Christ.

    II. The apostle’s argument proceeds upon this further supposition, that God who is the Judge of all, makes generally the same judgment of men’s actions as their own reason does, only much more perfect in the same kind, as having a knowledge infinitely more perfect and unerring than theirs. For, whatever a man’s own eyes plainly see, he cannot doubt but a person of better eyes must see the same more perfectly. And whatever a man free from passion and wilfulness, upon calm consideration, clearly discerns with his own mind, he is very sure the Infinite and All-knowing Mind cannot but discern still more clearly and distinctly.

    III. How far the truth of this rule is affected by that false application which the wrong judgment of an erroneous conscience is apt to make of it. It is certain men are naturally conscious of the difference of good and evil, and of the consequent desert of their own actions. It is natural for them to apprehend that this judgment of their own consciences is the judgment that God also passes upon them; and Scripture clearly affirms that it is so. Whence then is it that many truly pious persons have been under the strongest melancholy apprehensions that God would condemn them; and on the contrary, many impious men seem to have been fully persuaded that they have been doing God service, even by unrighteous actions? It proceeds from hence; that in some cases, through innocent and pitiable weakness; in other cases, through wicked and corrupt prejudice, men set their own passions of fear or presumption in the judgment seat of reason and conscience. (S. Clarke, D. D.)

    The nature and advantages of a good conscience

    The advantage of having a good conscience is acknowledged both by those who possess and by those destitute of it. The one class knows its value by the solid enjoyment which it confers; the other, very frequently, by the wretchedness with which the want of it is attended.

    I. With regard to the nature of a good conscience, it is properly defined in the text as one which does not condemn us.

    1. There are those whose consciences do not condemn them, who yet cannot be said to have a good conscience.

    (1) Those persons, for instance, who are misinformed as to the line of conduct for them to pursue, and who, in consequence of such misinformation, are led to the commission of even the most fearful enormities, may, very probably, not be condemned by their own consciences; nay, very possibly, may be perfectly acquitted by them, if not highly applauded.

    (2) Again, there is another large class of persons, who, whatever attention they may occasionally pay to some of its duties, yet manifest on the great subject of religion no small measure of indifference. The conscience of these persons does not condemn them; it leaves them to conclude that all who in any measure exceed them in paying to religion that attention which its incomparable importance demands, are justly liable to the charge of enthusiasm, and of being righteous overmuch.

    (3) Once more, the apostle speaks of some persons as being “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19); and as having their conscience seared with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). Wearied at length and exhausted by making ineffectual remonstrances, this faculty loses all its sensibility, and becomes totally obdurate.

    2. There is another position, which at first view may appear equally, though in a different way, inconsistent with the representation of the apostle; namely, that there are those whose consciences do, at times more especially, condemn them, who yet are favourably regarded by the Most High, and who have ground for that confidence towards Him which yet they are not able to exercise. Whatever they read or hear, it all, as they conceive, makes against them; they are ready to regard almost every threatening of the Word of God as pronouncing their condemnation, and to consider themselves as having as little to do with the comfortable promises of the gospel. For this species of religious depression various causes may be assigned. It may possibly be ascribable to physical causes, and originate in bodily distemper. It may, perhaps, he justly attributed to the malice of Satan, who would endeavour to persuade us that God is as much our enemy as he himself is. Or, it may be owing to mistakes respecting the nature of the Christian covenant, and the grounds of our acceptance with God.

    3. Who, then, we at length inquire, are those persons who may conclude that they are in a right state, from the circumstance of their conscience not condemning them? The persons who can form this conclusion are those who have acquired, among other things, a correct knowledge of what is essential to the Christian character. And having obtained this knowledge of the Christian character, they search deeply into their own. His repentance, and faith, and love, and obedience, though not perfect, are yet genuine.

    II. Its advantages.

    1. It is no small advantage that those who possess it are exempt from the disquiet and terror of an evil conscience.

    (1) The condemnation of a man’s own heart.

    (2) The anticipation of a still more tremendous condemnation at the hands of God.

    2. There are positive advantages also of a most important nature which belong to such persons, and which are comprehended under the expression in the text. The person who has a good conscience has confidence towards God--

    (1) In prayer.

    (2) In a season of suffering.

    (3) In the hour of death.

    Let me, in conclusion, recommend each of you to make that application of the subject.

    1. Do you say that your conscience does not condemn you; and that you, therefore, if anyone can, may well entertain a confidence towards God; and that, notwithstanding you have never seriously examined whether your conscience is quiet on good grounds, and your confidence well founded? It is for you to search deeply your own hearts in order to ascertain whether traces are to be found there of that repentance, and faith, and love, and obedience, which form the only evidence of a well-founded confidence.

    2. But does your conscience already condemn you, and that on good grounds? You have, indeed, reason for alarm, under the conviction that God is greater than your heart.

    3. Finally, are you in the number of those who may conclude that they are in a right state, from the circumstance of their conscience not condemning them? Remember that the continuance of your peace is closely connected with the continuance of your watchfulness against sin, and of your activity in well-doing. (T. Natt, B. D.)

    Self-condemnation

    I. Self-condemnation. “For if our heart condemn us.”

    1. Some possibly may stand self-condemned on the ground of indulging in particular sins.

    2. Others may feel inwardly accused on account of their indifference to the interests of their souls.

    3. But there are some whose hearts may condemn them on the ground of the nominal and formal character of their religion.

    4. With many the guilt of unbelief may be the ground of self-accusation.

    5. The hearts of some may charge them with hypocrisy.

    II. Self-condemnation confirmed and augmented by Divine decisions. “God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things.”

    1. God is greater than our hearts in knowledge, and knows therefore the whole extent of our sin.

    2. God is greater than our heart in purity, and sees therefore the utmost evil and malignity of sin.

    3. God is greater than our hearts in justice, and knoweth therefore the whole amount of our desert. (Essex Remembrancer.)

    The lower courts

    The fault of many is that they will not lay spiritual things to heart at all, but treat them in a superficial manner. This is foolish, sinful, deadly. We ought to put our ease upon serious trial in the court of our own conscience. Certain of a better class are satisfied with the verdict of their hearts, and do not remember the higher courts; and therefore either become presumptuous, or are needlessly distressed. We are about to consider the judgments of this lower court. Here we may have--

    I. A correct verdict against ourselves. Let us sum up the process.

    1. The court sits under the King’s arms, to judge by royal authority. The charge against the prisoner is read. Conscience accuses, and quotes the law as applicable to the points alleged.

    2. Memory gives evidence. As to the fact of sin in years past, and of sin more lately committed. Items mentioned. Transgressions of the commandments. Failure in motive, spirit, temper, etc.

    3. Knowledge gives evidence that the present state of mind and heart and will is not according to the Word.

    4. Self love and pride urge good intents and pious acts in stay of proceedings. Hear the defence! But alas! it is not worth hearing. The defence is but one of “the refuges of lies.”

    5. The heart, judging by the law, condemns. Henceforth the man lives as in a condemned cell under fear of death and hell. If even our partial, half enlightened heart condemns, we may well tremble at the thought of appearing before the Lord God. The higher court is more strictly just, better informed, more authoritative, and more able to punish. God knows all. Forgotten sin, sins of ignorance, sins half seen are all before the Lord. What a terrible case is this! Condemned in the lower court, and sure to be condemned in the higher!

    II. An incorrect verdict against ourselves. The case as before. The sentence apparently most clear. But when revised by the higher court it is reversed, for good reasons.

    1. The debt has been discharged by the man’s glorious Surety.

    2. The man is not the same man; though he has sinned he has died to sin, and he now lives as one born from above.

    3. The evidences in his favour, such as the atonement and the new birth, were forgotten, undervalued, or misjudged in the lower court.

    4. The evidence looked for by a sickly conscience was what it could not find, for it did not exist, namely, natural goodness, perfection, unbroken joy, etc. The judge was ignorant, and legally inclined. The verdict was therefore a mistaken one.

    III. A correct verdict of acquittal. Our heart sometimes justly “condemns us not.”

    1. The argument for non-condemnation is good: the following are the chief items of evidence in proof of our being gracious--

    (1) We are sincere in our profession of love to God.

    (2) We are filled with love to the brethren.

    (3) We are resting upon Christ, and on Him alone.

    (4) We are longing after holiness.

    2. The result of this happy verdict of the heart is that we have--

    (1) Confidence towards God that we are really His.

    (2) Confidence as to our reconciliation with God by Jesus Christ.

    (3) Confidence that He will not harm us, but will bless us.

    (4) Confidence in prayer that He will accept and answer.

    (5) Confidence as to future judgment that we shall receive the gracious reward at the last great day.

    IV. An incorrect verdict of acquittal.

    1. A deceived heart may refuse to condemn, but God will judge us all the same.

    2. A false heart may acquit, but this gives no confidence Godward.

    3. A deceitful heart pretends to acquit while in its centre it condemns. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

    Self-condemnation

    I. What the condemnation of a man’s own heart is. It is a judicial act, and hath the accuser, witness, and judge, ready against the malefactor; which, in external judicatures, are the distinct parts of different persons. For the knowledge of the law being lodged in the heart, and the consciousness of its own transgression lying uppermost there also, nothing hinders the sentence from proceeding immediately, insomuch that the bare knowledge of evil committed is in the heart or conscience self-condemnation.

    II. Do all wilful and presumptuous sinners feel and suffer this condemnation of their own hearts? Why should a man’s own heart condemn him? Cannot self-love bribe off the evidence? May not the favour and partiality, which faction seldom fails of in its defence, blind the eyes or corrupt the judgment of a man’s own conscience in his favour? No! the heart judges for the God of truth, and cannot but declare the truth. That there are some examples to the contrary, let these two things be considered--

    1. That we cannot know what wicked men feel in their own breasts; the most cheerful countenance, to appearance, may have a very aching heart. But, if for a time he shall also cheat himself into a false peace, it must be by such opiates as lay asleep the thinking powers of the soul.

    2. Nevertheless, God by His Holy Spirit takes His own time to awaken the wicked, and to bring their sins before the bar of their conscience (Psa 11:18-23). It is possible to live in sin without anxiety, but repentance will bring this self-condemnation home to our hearts before ever we can sue to God for His mercy. The longer we are without it the greater will be its torture at last. For it is not peace, but stupidity of mind; not happiness, but the delusions of Satan, that keep the conscience quiet in the ways of perdition.

    III. God will judge us according to the sentence of our own hearts (Jeremiah 17:10). If God is just in His laws, He will be just in executing their sentence, and not acquit the sinner that accuses and condemns Himself, as guilty and impenitent. And it will be the greatest aggravation of our misery, that having brought it on ourselves, we condemn ourselves to it. He that will not see his day of grace shall find his punishment in the utter despair of it.

    1. Resolve to act in uprightness and integrity of heart in all we do; let us carefully consult the dictate of our own conscience, as ever we hope to avoid its merciless rebukes in the last day.

    2. Let no pretence or subterfuge tempt us to sins which our conscience, informed by the law of God, must needs condemn.

    3. Of all our actions our religious worship has the greatest sincerity of heart; and of all parts of our worship the Holy Sacrament calls for the utmost integrity. (W. Whitfield.)

    And knoweth all things--

    All things known to God

    This may seem a principle, and therefore not to be doubted, and consequently needless to be proved.

    I. Prove the proposition.

    1. First from Scripture (John 21:17; Hebrews 4:13).

    2. From reason; and here our first argument shall be drawn from His works of creation and providence. It is impossible that He that made all things should not also know all things. Who is it that cannot readily acknowledge and read his own hand? Next, His providence sufficiently declares His omniscience; if He manages, rules, and governs all things, yea sin itself, it clearly follows that He has full cognisance of those things, since all these acts presuppose knowledge.

    II. The excellency of God’s knowledge above the knowledge either of men or angels.

    1. Concerning its properties.

    (1) The first property holding forth the excellency of this knowledge is the exceeding evidence, and consequently the certainty of it; for though a thing may be certain, and yet not evident, yet whatsover is evident, that also is certain. Evidence brings a property eminent from the essence and being of knowledge; it follows that that which includes the nature of knowledge in an infinite manner, must be also attended by a most infinitely clear evidence. He that causes that innate evidence in every object, by which it moves and strikes the faculty, shall not He see? He that gives light to the eye, by which that evidence is discerned, shall not He discern?

    (2) Another property of this knowledge, showing the excellence of it, is this, that it is a knowledge independent upon the existence of the object or thing known. God beholds all things in Himself; and that both eminently, as He sees His own perfection, which eminently includes all the perfection that is scattered among the creatures, as the light of all the stars is contained eminently in the sun; and He beholds them also formally, distinctly, and according to the model of their own proper beings, without looking upon the existence of the things themselves, and that two ways--

    (a) By reflecting upon His power, and what He can do, He has a perfect knowledge of all possibilities, and of things that may be produced.

    (b) By reflecting upon His power and His will, He knows whatsoever shall be actually produced.

    2. The excellency of God’s knowledge appears in respect of His objects; which are all things knowable. But they may be reduced to three things especially, which God alone perfectly knows, and are not to be known by men or angels.

    (1) The nature of God Himself. Nothing but an infinite knowledge can comprehend an infinite being.

    (2) The second sort of things only known to God are things future.

    (3) The thoughts of men: it belongs to the sovereignty of God’s omniscience alone to judge and know these (Psalms 139:2).

    III. I proceed to make some application; and to see what uses may be deduced from the consideration of God’s omniscience: it may serve as an argument to press several duties upon us.

    1. It must be a strong motive to bring us to a free confession of all our sins to God. We can commit and tell our secrets to a friend that does not know them; how much more should we do it to Him that knows them already.

    2. The consideration of God’s omniscience may enforce us to an humble submission to all God’s commands and directions, and that both in respect of belief and of practice.

    3. And lastly, since it is an express command of our Saviour Himself, that we should “be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect”; why should we not, according to our weak model, endeavour to copy out this Divine perfection upon our soul, as well as any of the rest? And why, as well as we are commanded to be like Him in His goodness, bounty, and mercy, we should not endeavour to resemble Him in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, according to our weak capacity? (R. South, D. D.)

    Hearts of sinners known to God

    Sinners know something about their own hearts, otherwise they would never feel self condemned; but they do not know so much about them as they might know; for they endeavour to misinform, or silence conscience, which would, if properly consulted and allowed to speak, condemn them for every evil imagination of their hearts. No sinners, however, whether moral or immoral, whether secure or awakened, know so much about their own hearts as God does, who is greater than their hearts, and knows all things. For--

    1. God has a more extensive view of the exercises of their hearts than they ever have. “The Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all imaginations of the thoughts.” He knows all that passes in their hearts and drops from their lips every moment, and remembers all. This is what all sinners are extremely prone to forget, for which God justly blames them. Though they cannot remember all their sins, yet they ought to remember that God remembers them all.

    2. God sees all the moral exercises of their hearts at one intuitive and comprehensive view; which is a far more perfect knowledge of them than they ever have.

    3. God knows the moral quality of all the exercises which compose the hearts of sinners, as well as their connection with each other, and with the external actions which flow from them.

    4. God knows how vile and guilty sinners are, for all the evil exercises of their hearts which they inwardly cherish, and outwardly express. He views the least sin as unspeakably more vile and guilty than sinners do the greatest.

    5. God knows all the evils which the corrupt hearts of sinners would prompt them to do, if He did not continually restrain them. He views their hearts, therefore, as infinitely more sinful than they view them.

    6. God knows the extreme obstinacy of their hearts, which they are unwilling to know, and of which they are generally very ignorant. God knows how often and how much they have refused to obey His commands, His gracious invitations, and His awful threatenings. God knows how often and how much they have resisted the strivings of His Spirit.

    Improvement.

    1. In the view of this subject we may see why sinners generally live so little concerned about their guilty and dangerous state by nature. They either bribe conscience by their good deeds, or sear it by their bad ones; and in either case, they flatter themselves that their hearts are pretty good, if not so good as they ought to be. But if they only saw their hearts as God sees them, they would be instantly alarmed, and all their peace and flattering hopes would forsake them.

    2. This subject shows us why awakened sinners are often in so much anxiety and distress about the salvation of their souls. It is because they begin to see their hearts in the same light in which God sees them.

    3. This subject shows why sinners are so ready to believe that God will not make them, nor any others of mankind, forever miserable. They think that no sinners deserve eternal punishment. The reason is that they have never seen their own hearts as God has seen them.

    4. It appears from what has been said, that it is of great importance to preach the doctrine of total depravity plainly and fully.

    5. It appears from what has been said, that no sinners have a right to think they are Christians, They all have the witness within themselves that they are graceless. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

    Conscience and God as judges

    I. Thoughts which our natural minds take from it.

    1. We know, in the sense of being impressed with, but a few of our own sins--only such as are somewhat aside from our ordinary habit, or diverse from our current taste. But God, the impartial and omniscient, sees them all numerically; every grain in the growing heap.

    2. We see at best but detached portions of our lives; we easily forget the past; hence, our moral equanimity differs from day to day. But God sees us altogether in our general character, the drift and meaning of our lives.

    3. We do not know the sin that lies within our own purposes. No wicked man lives out the full of the wickedness that is in him; he is hedged in by a thousand fears. But God looks on the heart.

    4. We see our sin in the narrow scope of its immediate effect. God sees it in all the hideousness of sin’s general work in the world, the diseases, poverty, crime, death, which deeds of the same kind as those that to us seem venial have accomplished.

    5. We know almost nothing of the meaning of sin as seen in its consequences within the soul: blinding spiritual sight; corroding the finer sensibilities; paralysing the will: engendering eternal impotency and misery. God knows all this.

    6. We have no high standard of judging our sins; conscience is generally depraved to near the level of the sinful habit. God sees our sin in contact with His infinite purity, our sins in the light of His countenance.

    7. God sees all sin in the light of His purpose one day to rid the universe of it; the refiner sits at the fire, and our sin is there awaiting the process.

    II. Thoughts which Bible faith puts into the text for our consolation.

    1. It is especially said to be for our assurance.

    2. God knows what He, the Judge, is--“God is love.”

    3. God knows the meaning of His own infinite fatherhood.

    4. God knows what He has already done for us. We do not begin to realise the meaning of the gift of the only begotten Son.

    5. God knows what He has already done with our sins--blotted them out.

    6. God knows what the Holy Spirit’s mission to a sinful soul is; we but dimly conceive it, as the sanctifying process is manifest to our experience.

    7. God knows how the light of heaven will put away all darkness from the soul that He has permitted to enter there, and looks upon us as candidates for that perfection which He has decreed and prepared for us. (J. M. Ludlow.)

    Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God--

    A good life the surest title to a good conscience

    I. The nature of a sure or clear conscience ought to be first stated lest we should mistake shadow for substance, presumption and vain confidence for truth and soberness. The apostle points out the general nature of a good conscience by this mark, that our hearts condemn us not, and that we know that we are of the truth; know it by some certain rule, namely, that we keep God’s commandments. And if our conduct be found, upon a just examination, to square with that rule, then our consciences are clear, and we may look up with a becoming confidence to God. This is a matter of great weight, and yet there is nowhere more room for self-flattery and self-deceit. A man will often call it acting according to his conscience, when he acts according to his present persuasion, without ever examining how he came by that persuasion; whether through wrong education, custom, or example; or whether from some secret lust, pride, or prejudice, rather than from the rule of God’s written Word, or from a principle of right reason. This cannot be justly called keeping a good conscience: for we ought not to take up false persuasions at all adventures, and then to make those persuasions our rule of life, instead of that rule which God hath given us to walk by. It is deceiving ourselves to imagine that we have a good conscience when we have used no reasonable care in examining whether it be a right conscience or not. There is another common method of self-deceit, when a person who well enough understands the rule he is to go by, yet forgets to apply it to his own particular case, and so speaks peace to himself all the while that he transgresses it. No doubt but a considerate man may know when he behaves as he ought to do, and may reap the comfort of it. And though we are none of us without sin yet a good life is easily distinguished from the life of the ungodly, and a state of grace from a state of sin. And so there is room enough left for the joy of a good conscience, where men live as becometh the gospel of Christ, perfecting holiness, to such a degree as man can be perfect, in the fear of God.

    II. I now proceed to discourse of the comforts of it. If our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him. What greater comfort can there be than conscious virtue drawing after it the favour of God in whom all happiness centres, and upon whom all things entirely depend? If God be with us who can be against us? What friends can we want, while in Him we have all that are truly valuable? Or what blessings can we desire, but what He is both willing and able to shower down upon us, only leaving it to Him to judge what is safest and most convenient for us? There is no pleasure in life comparable to that which arises in a good man’s breast from the sense of his keeping up a friendly intercourse with God. (D. Waterland, D. D.)

    An account of the nature and measures of conscience

    As nothing can be of more moment, so few things, doubtless, are of more difficulty, than for men to be rationally satisfied about the estate of their souls, with reference to God and the great concerns of eternity. First of all then: he who would pass such a judgment upon his condition as shall be ratified in heaven, will find himself wofully deceived, if he judges of his spiritual estate by any of these measures.

    1. The general esteem of the world concerning him. He who owes his piety to fame and hearsay, and the evidences of his salvation to popular voice and opinion, builds his house not only upon the sand, but, which is worse, upon the wind; and writes the deeds, by which he holds his estate, upon the face of a river. The favourable opinion and good word of men, to some persons especially, comes oftentimes at a very easy rate; and by a few demure looks.

    2. The judgment of any casuist or learned divine, concerning the estate of a man’s soul, is not sufficient to give him confidence towards God. And the reason is because no learning whatsoever can give a man the knowledge of another’s heart.

    3. The absolution pronounced by a priest is not a certain, infallible ground, to give the person so absolved confidence towards God, because if absolution, as such, could of itself secure a man, as to the estate of his soul, then it would follow that every person so absolved should, by virtue thereof, be ipso facto put into such a condition of safety; which is not imaginable. In a word, if a man be penitent, his repentance stamps his absolution effectual. If not, let the priest repeat the same absolution to him ten thousand times; yet for all his being absolved in this world, God will condemn him in the other.

    4. No advantages from external church membership, or profession of the true religion, can of themselves give a man confidence towards God: and yet perhaps there is hardly any one thing in the world which men, in all ages, have generally more cheated themselves with. Thus I have shown four several uncertain rules, which men are prone to judge of their spiritual estate by. But now have we any more certain to substitute and recommend in the room of them? Why, yes; if we believe the apostle, a man’s own heart or conscience is that which, above all other things, is able to give him “confidence towards God.” And the reason is, because the heart knows that by itself, which nothing in the world besides can give it any knowledge of; and without the knowledge of which it can have no foundation to build any true confidence upon.

    I. How the heart or conscience ought to be informed, in order to its founding in us a rational confidence towards God. It is not necessary for a man to be assured of the rightness of his conscience, by such an infallible certainty of persuasion, as amounts to the clearness of a demonstration; but it is sufficient if he knows it upon grounds of such a convincing probability, as shall exclude all rational grounds of doubting of it. There is an innate light in every man, discovering to him the first lines of duty in the common notions of good and evil; which by cultivation may be advanced to higher discoveries. He therefore who exerts all the faculties of his soul, and plies all means and opportunities in the search of truth, which God has vouchsafed him, may rest upon the judgment of his conscience so informed, as a warrantable guide of those actions which he must account to God for.

    II. How, and by what means, we may get our heart or conscience thus informed, and afterwards preserve and keep it so.

    1. Let a man carefully attend to the voice of his reason, and all the dictates of natural morality; so by no means to do anything contrary to them. For though reason is not to be relied upon, as a guide universally sufficient to direct us what to do; yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed, where it tells us what we are not to do. No man ever yet offended his own conscience, but first or last it was revenged upon him for it. So that it will concern a man to treat this great principle awfully and warily, by still observing what it commands, but especially what it forbids: and if he would have it always a faithful and sincere monitor to him, let him be sure never to turn a deaf ear to it; for not to hear it is the way to silence it. Let him strictly observe the first stirrings and intimations, the first hints and whispers of good and evil that pass in his heart; and this will keep conscience so quick and vigilant, and ready to give a man true alarms upon the least approach of his spiritual enemy, that he shall be hardly capable of a great surprise.

    2. Let a man be very tender, and regardful of every pious motion and suggestion made by the Spirit of God in his heart.

    3. Because the light of natural conscience is in many things defective and dim, and the internal voice of God’s Spirit not always distinguishable, above all, let a man attend to the mind of God uttered in His revealed Word. We shall find it a rule, both to instruct us what to do, and to assure us in what we have done. For though natural conscience ought to be listened to, yet it is revelation alone that is to be relied upon: as we may observe in the works of art, a judicious artist will indeed use his eye, but he will trust only to his rule. There is not any one action whatsoever which a man ought to do or to forbear, but the Scripture will give him a clear precept or prohibition for it.

    4. The fourth and last way that I shall mention for the getting of the conscience rightly informed, and afterwards keeping it so, is frequently and impartially to account with it. It is with a man and his conscience as with one man and another, amongst whom we used to say that “even reckoning makes lasting friends,” and the way to make reckonings even, I am sure, is to make them often. I shall close with this twofold caution.

    (1) Let no man think that every doubting or misgiving about the safety of his spiritual estate overthrows the confidence hitherto spoken of. The sincerity of our faith or confidence will not secure us against all vicissitudes of wavering or distrust; indeed, no more than a strong athletic constitution of body will secure a man always against heats, and colds, and such like indispositions.

    (2) Let no man from what has been said reckon a bare silence of conscience, in not accusing or disturbing him, a sufficient argument for confidence towards God. For such a silence is so far from being always so, that it is usually worse than the fiercest and loudest accusations; since it may, and for the most part does, proceed from a kind of numbness or stupidity of conscience; and an absolute dominion obtained by sin over the soul; so that it shall not so much as dare to complain or make a stir. (R. South, D. D.)

    A further account of the nature and measure of conscience

    I. Whence it is that the testimony of conscience, thus informed, comes to be so authentic, and so much to be relied upon.

    1. The high office which it holds immediately from God Himself, in the soul of man. It commands and dictates everything in God’s name; and stamps every word with an almighty authority. So that it is, as it were, a kind of copy or transcript of the Divine sentence, and an interpreter of the sense of heaven. Nay, and this vicegerent of God has one prerogative above all God’s other earthly vicegerents; to wit, that it can never be deposed. For a king never condemns any whom his judges have absolved, nor absolves whom his judges have condemned, whatsoever the people and republicans may.

    2. Proceed we now to the second ground, from which conscience derives the credit of its testimony in judging of our spiritual estate; and that consists in those properties and qualities which so peculiarly fit it for the discharge of its forementioned office, in all things relating to the soul.

    (1) The extraordinary quickness and sagacity of its sight in spying out everything which any way concern the estate of the soul. As the voice of it was as loud as thunder; so the sight of it is as piercing and quick as lightning.

    (2) The tenderness of its sense. For as by the quickness of its sight, it directs us what to do or not to do; so by this tenderness of its sense it excuses or accuses us, as we have done or not done according to those directions. And it is altogether as nice, delicate and tender in feeling, as it can be perspicacious and quick in seeing.

    (3) Its great and rigorous impartiality. For as its wonderful apprehensiveness made that it could not easily be deceived, so this makes that it will by no means deceive. A judge, you know, may be skilful in understanding a cause, and yet partial in giving sentence. But it is much otherwise with conscience; no artifice can induce it to accuse the innocent or to absolve the guilty. No, we may as well bribe the light and the day to represent white things black, or black white.

    II. Some particular cases or instances in which this confidence towards God, suggested by a rightly informed conscience, does most eminently show and exert itself.

    1. In our addresses to God by prayer. When a man shall presume to come and place himself in the presence of the great Searcher of hearts, and to ask something of Him, while his conscience is all the while smiting him on the face, and telling him what a rebel and traitor he is to the majesty which he supplicates; surely such a one should think with himself, that the God whom he prays to is greater than his conscience, and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his heart with a much clearer and more severe inspection. And if so, will he not likewise resent the provocation more deeply, and revenge it upon him more terribly, if repentance does not divert the blow? But on the other side, when a man’s breast is clear, and the same heart which indites, does also encourage his prayer, when his innocence pushes on the attempt and vouches the success; such a one goes boldly to the throne of grace, and his boldness is not greater than his welcome. God recognises the voice of His own Spirit interceding with him; and his prayers are not only followed but even prevented with an answer.

    2. A second instance in which this confidence towards God does so remarkably show itself is at the time of some notable trial or sharp affliction. When a man’s friends shall desert him and all dependencies fail him, certainly it will then be of some moment to have a friend in the court of conscience, which shall, as it were, buoy up his sinking spirits and speak greater things for him than all these together can declaim against him.

    3. At the time of death: which surely gives the grand opportunity of trying both the strength and worth of every principle. At this disconsolate time, when the busy tempter shall be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him, and the pains of a dying body to hinder and discompose him, and the settlement of worldly affairs to disturb and confound him; and in a word all things conspire to make his sick bed grievous and uneasy: nothing can then stand up against all these ruins and speak life in the midst of death, but a clear conscience. And the testimony of that shall make the comforts of heaven descend upon his weary head, like a refreshing dew or shower upon a parched ground. It shall give him some lively earnests and secret anticipations of his approaching joy. (R. South, D. D.)

    What is the verdict

    I. Carefully observe that this text is spoken to the people of God. It speaks to those who are called “beloved.” These are the people who are specially loved of God and of His people. As soon as we become children we are freed from the condemning power of the law; we are not under the principle and motive of the law of works, but yet we are not with out law unto Christ. We are dealt with not as mere subjects are ruled by a king, but as children are governed by a father. Thus they walk on blindfold to the brink of the precipice. God grant the bandage may be taken off before they have taken the final and fatal step.

    1. Genuine Christians very much frequent this court of conscience. They long to have their condition put to a thorough test, lest they be deceived. Make sure work for eternity. Be certain by the witness of the Holy Ghost within you, that you are indeed the children of God. The spirit of the true man answers to this: he is always willing to set in order the court of conscience and make solemn trial of his heart and life.

    2. In this court the question to be decided is a very weighty one. Am I sincere in the truth? Is my religion true, and am I true in my profession of it? Does love rule in my nature? Do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I also keep His commandments? Do I seek to be holy as Jesus is holy? Or am I living in known sin, and tolerating that in myself which does not and cannot please God?

    3. This court is guided by a mass of evidence. That evidence has not to be sought for, it is there already. Memory rises up and says, “I remember all thou hast done since thy profession of conversion--thy shortcomings and breaches of covenant.” The will confesses to offences which never ripened into acts for want of opportunity. The passions own to outbreaks which were concealed from human observation. The imagination is made to bear testimony, and what a sinful power that imagination is, and how difficult it is to govern it: its tale is sad to hear. Our tempers confess to evil anger, our lusts to evil longings, our hearts to evil covetousness, pride, and rebellion. Hopeful witness there is also of sin conquered, habits broken, and desires repressed; all this is honestly taken in evidence and duly weighed.

    4. While the trial is going on, the deliberation causes great suspense. As long as I have to ask my heart, “Heart, dost thou condemn me, or dost thou acquit me?” I stand trembling. You may have seen a picture entitled, “Waiting for the Verdict.” The artist has put into the countenances of the waiters every form of unrest, for the suspense is terrible. Blessed be God, we are not called upon to wait long for the verdict of conscience. We ought never to let the question remain in suspense at all; we should settle it, and settle it in the light of God, and then walk in the light as God is in the light.

    II. The acquittal issued from this court: “If our heart condemn us not.”

    1. Observe that a man may get an acquittal from the court of conscience; for the question laid before the heart can be settled. It can be ascertained whether I sincerely believe in Jesus Christ; it can be ascertained whether I sincerely love God and love His people; it can be ascertained whether my heart is obedient to the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    2. These questions, however, must be debated with great discernment. Abundance, aye, superabundance, of temptation is no proof against the sincerity of our faith in our God; on the contrary, it may sometimes happen that the more we are tempted the more true is it that there is something in us to tempt, some good thing which Satan seeks to destroy.

    3. Again, the verdict of the heart must be given with discrimination, or otherwise we may judge according to outward circumstances and so judge amiss. The fact that my child is little and feeble is no proof that he is not my son. The boy may be like his father and yet be only a tiny babe.

    4. And the verdict has to be given, mark you, upon gospel principles. The question before the court of conscience is not, Have I perfectly kept the law? The question is, Am I a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Am I resting in him for salvation, and do I prove the truth of that faith by loving God, and loving the brethren, and by doing those things which are pleasing to God, and avoiding those things which are displeasing to Him?

    5. This question in the court of the heart must never be settled by our feelings. Sinners can rejoice as well as saints, and saints can mourn as well as sinners; the point is not what we feel, but what we believe and do.

    6. The question of our state ought to be settled speedily. We know “the law’s delays,” but we must not allow any delay in this court. No, we must press for summary justice.

    III. The consequence of this acquittal. Here is the man who has had his acquittal in the court of conscience. Your conscience has said, “He is a sincere man; he is a believing man; he is quickened with the life of God; he is an obedient and God-fearing man”; and now you have confidence toward God; or at least you have a right to such confidence. What does that confidence or boldness mean?

    1. There is the confidence of truthfulness. When you kneel down to pray you know that you are praying, and not mocking God; when you sing you are making melody in your heart; when you preach you are preaching that which your soul believes.

    2. The next kind of confidence towards God as to one’s acceptance with Him. The Word saith, “He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” Conscience says, “Yes, thou hast faith”; and the heart concludes, “There is therefore now no condemnation.” When you know this, your life is gilded with the sunlight of the coming glory, and your heart rejoiceth exceedingly.

    3. This produces, and perhaps it is that which the apostle most intended, a boldness of converse. The man who knows that he is truthful and that Cod has accepted him, then speaks freely with God.

    4. This leads to great confidence in prayer. Look at the context. “We have confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask we receive,” etc. If you want power in prayer you must have purity in life.

    5. Our text means also that such a man shall have confidence towards God, in all service for God. Look at the man of God who has confidence towards God as to the perils encountered in faithfully following his Lord. Take Daniel, for instance. His confidence toward God is that he is safe in the path of duty.

    6. Moreover, we have this confidence towards God in the way of service, so that we are sure of receiving all necessary help. An officer, if he finds himself in straits, impresses anybody that passes by, saying, “In the King’s name, help me.” Even so, if you do your Lord’s bidding, and if conscience condemns you not, you may impress into the service of the great King every angel in heaven, and every force of nature, as need requires.

    7. It means rest, perfect rest. Look at your Lord when the tempest was on. Loud roaring, the billows come near to overwhelming the ship; but He is asleep. It was the best thing to do. You and I may do the same: we need not be frightened nor worried nor troubled; but just trust in the Lord and do good, so shall we dwell in the land, and verily we shall be fed.

    8. This confidence often mounts up into joy till the Christian man overflows with delight in God; he cannot contain his happiness. He goes to his toil rejoicing to serve God in his calling, and he comes home at night to repose himself in the care of his God and Father. All is well and he knows it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

    An approving heart--confidence in prayer

    I. Show that if our heart does not condemn us, we have and cannot but have confidence toward God that He accept us. If our heart really does not condemn us, it is because we are conscious of being conformed to all the light we have, and of doing the whole will of God as far as we know it. While in this state it is impossible that, with right views of God’s character, we should conceive of Him as condemning us. He is a Father, and He cannot but smile on His obedient and trusting children. We cannot conceive of Him as being otherwise than pleased; for, if He were displeased with a state of sincere and full obedience, He would act contrary to His own character; He would cease to be benevolent, holy, and just. Again, let it be noted that in this state with an approving conscience, we should have no self-righteousness. A man in this state would at this very moment ascribe all his obedience to the grace of God. The apostle Paul when in this state of conscious uprightness most heartily ascribes all to grace. “I laboured,” says he, “more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God that is in me.” But observe that while the apostle was in that state, it was impossible that he should conceive of God as displeased with his state. Again, when a man prays disinterestedly, and with a heart in full and deep sympathy with God, he may and should have confidence that God hears him. Indeed no one, having right views of God’s character, can come to Him in prayer in a disinterested state of mind, and feel otherwise than that God accepts such a state of mind. Again, when we are conscious of sympathising with God Himself, we may know that God will answer our prayers. The soul, being in sympathy with God, feels as God feels; so that for God to deny its prayers is to deny His own feelings, and refuse to do the very thing He Himself desires. Since God cannot do this, He cannot fail of hearing the prayer that is in sympathy with His own heart. In the state we are now considering the Christian is conscious of praying in the Spirit, and therefore must know that his prayer is accepted before God. I say he is conscious of this fact. And this deep praying of the heart goes on while the Christian is still pursuing the common vocations of life. The team he is driving or the book he professes to study is by no means so vividly a matter of conscious recognition to him as is his communion of soul with his God. In this state the soul is fully conscious of being perfectly submissive to God. “Not my will, O Lord, but Thine be done.” Hence he knows that God will grant the blessing he asks.

    II. We are next to consider this position, namely, that if our heart does not condemn us, we may have confidence that we shall receive the things we ask.

    1. This must be so, because it is His Spirit working in us that excites these prayers.

    2. It is a remarkable fact that all real prayer seems to be summed up in the Lord’s Prayer, and especially in those two most comprehensive petitions: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Now let it be observed that God desires this result infinitely more than we do.

    3. Yet let it be noted here that God may not answer every prayer according to its letter; but He surely will according to its spirit.

    III. Why will God certainly answer such a prayer, and how can we know that He will?

    1. The text affirms that “whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” The fundamental reason always of God’s bestowing blessings is His goodness--His love. All good flows down from the great fountain of infinite goodness. Our obedience is only the condition of God’s bestowing it--never the fundamental reason or ground of its bestowment. Obedience takes away the obstacle; then the mighty gushings of Divine love break forth. Obedience removes the obstacles; never merits or draws down the blessing.

    2. If God were to give blessings upon any other condition, it would deceive multitudes, either respecting ourselves or Himself. If He were to answer our prayers, we being in a wrong state of mind, it would deceive others very probably; for if they did not know us well, they would presume that we were in a right state, and might be led to consider those things in us right which are in fact wrong. Or, if they knew that we were wrong, and yet knew that God answered our prayers, what must they think of God? They could not avoid the conclusion that He patronises wrong doing.

    3. God is well pleased when we remove the obstacles out of the way of His benevolence, He is infinitely good, and lives to do good. Now, if it is His delight and His life to do good, how greatly must He rejoice when we remove all obstacles out of the way! Suppose the bottom of the vast Pacific should heave and pour its ocean tides over all the continents of the earth. This might illustrate the vast overflowings of the love of God; how grace and love are mounting up far and infinitely above all the mountains of your sins. How it would force its way and pour out its gushing floods wherever the least channel might be opened! And you would not need to fear that your little wants would drain it dry!

    Remarks:

    1. Many persons, being told that God answers prayer for Christ’s sake, overlook the condition of obedience. They have so loose an idea of prayer, and of our relations to God in it, and of His relations to us and to His moral government, that they think they may be disobedient and yet prevail through Christ. How little do they understand the whole subject! “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.” “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.” “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” When men come before God with their idols set up in their hearts, and the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face, the Lord says, “Should I be inquired of at all by them (Ezekiel 14:3-5)?”

    2. Persons never need hesitate, because of their past sins, to approach God with the fullest confidence.

    3. Many continue the forms of prayer when they are living in sin, and do not try to reform, and even have no sincere desire to reform. All such persons should know that they grievously provoke the Lord to answer their prayers with fearful judgments.

    4. It is only those that live and walk with God whose prayers are of any avail to them selves, to the Church, or to the world.

    5. Sinner, if you will come back to the Lord, you may not only prevail for yourself, but for your associates and friends. Christian hearer, is it not a dreadful thing for you to be in a state in which you cannot prevail with God? Let us look around; how is it with you? Can you prevail with God? (C. G. Finney.)

    Self-acquittal, and the confidence it produces

    I. Self-acquittal. “If our heart condemn us not.” The case supposed is what may be supposed of any Christian, which is--

    1. That his heart does not condemn him on the ground of allowing and cherishing sin.

    2. A Christian’s heart does not condemn him on the ground of total insensibility to spiritual things.

    3. Acquit you of a self-righteous spirit. Is it a sin, then, to be selfrighteous? Undoubtedly. Must it not be sinful to justify ourselves in the face of a righteous law which condemns us at every point?

    4. The destitution of Christian graces is another point on which the judgment of a Christian will acquit him.

    5. Insincerity is also one of those things of which our hearts should be prepared to acquit us.

    II. The confidence which results from this self acquittal.

    1. We have a persuasion of our being justified before God because the terms of our justification have been complied with.

    2. We are conscious of possessing what God approves. “We assure our hearts before Him,” because “we love indeed and in truth.”

    3. A persuasion of acceptableness in devotion is another part of his confidence toward God.

    4. An expectation of gracious superintendence forms also a part of this confidence.

    5. An assurance of preparation for judgment and eternity crowns the confidence of those whose hearts condemn them not. (Essex Remembrancer.)

  • 1 John 3:22-24 open_in_new

    And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments

    The conditions of power in prayer

    I. The essentials of power is prayer. We must make a few distinctions at the outset. I take it there is a great difference between the prayer of a soul that is seeking mercy and the prayer of a man who is saved. I would say to every person present, whatever his character, if you sincerely seek mercy of God through Jesus Christ you shall have it. Qualifications for the sinner’s first prayer I know of none except sincerity; but we must speak in a different way to those of you who are saved. You have now become the people of God, and while you shall be heard just as the sinner would be heard, and shall daily find the needful grace which every seeker receives in answer to prayer, yet you are under a special discipline peculiar to the regenerated family. There is something for a believer to enjoy over and above bare salvation; there are mercies, and blessings, and comforts, which render his present life useful, happy, and honourable, and these he shall not have irrespective of character. To give a common illustration: If a hungry person were at your door, and asked for bread, you would give it him, whatever might be his character; you will also give your child food, whatever may be his behaviour; you will never proceed in any course of discipline against him, so as to deny him his needful food, or a garment to shield him from the cold; but there are many other things which your child may desire, which you will give him if he be obedient, but which you will not give if he be rebellious to you. I take it that this illustrates how far the paternal government of God will push this matter, and where it will not go. Understand also, that the text refers not so much to God’s hearing a prayer of His servants now and then, for that He will do, even when His servants are out of course with Him; but the power in prayer here intended is continuous and absolute power with God; so that, to quote the words of the text, “whatsoever we ask of Him we receive.” For this prayer there are certain prerequisites.

    1. The first is child-like obedience: “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments.”

    2. Next to this is another essential to victorious prayer, viz., child-like reverence. We receive what we ask, “because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Suppose any of us should be self-willed, and say, “I shall not do what pleases God, I shall do what pleases myself.” Then observe what would be the nature of our prayers? Our prayers might then be summed up in the request, “Let me have my own way.” And can we expect God to consent to that?

    3. In the third place, the text suggests the necessity of child-like trust: “And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.” Let us come back to our family similitudes again. Suppose a child in the house does not believe his father’s word; suppose, indeed, that he tells his brothers and sisters that his faith in his father is very weak. He mentions that wretched fact, but is not at all shocked that he should say such a thing, but he rather feels that he ought to be pitied, as if it were an infirmity which he could not avoid. I think a father so basely distrusted would not be in a very great hurry to grant such a son’s requests; indeed, it is very probable that the petitions of the mistrustful son would be such as could not be complied with, even if his father were willing to do so, since they would amount to a gratification of his own unbelief and a dishonour to his parent. Expect not, therefore, to be heard when your prayer is suggested by an unbelieving heart: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”

    4. The next essential to continued success in prayer is child-like love: “That we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment.” We should abound in love to God, love to Christ, love to the Church, love to sinners, and love to men everywhere. You must get rid of selfishness before God can trust you with the keys of heaven; but when self is dead, then He will enable you to unlock His treasuries, and, as a prince, shall you have power with God and prevail.

    5. Next to this, we must have child-like ways as well. “He that keepeth His commandments, dwelleth in Him, and He in him.” It is one of a child’s ways to love its home. Suppose one of you had a boy, who said, “Father, I do not like my home, I do not care for you; and I will not endure the restraints of family rule; I am going to live with strangers. But mark, father, I shall come to you every week, and I shall require many things of you; and I shall expect that you will give me whatever I ask from you.” Why, if you are at all fit to be at the head of the house, you will say, “My son, how can you speak to me in such a manner? If you are so self-willed as to leave my house, can you expect that I will do your bidding? If you utterly disregard me, can you expect me to support you in your cruel unkindness and wicked insubordination. No, my son; if you will not remain with me and own me as a father, I cannot promise you anything.” And so it is with God.

    6. One thing more: it appears from the text that we must have a child-like spirit, for “hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” What is this but the Spirit of adoption--the Spirit which rules in all the children of God? The Holy Spirit if He rules in us, will subordinate our nature to His own sway, and then the prayers which spring out of our renewed hearts will be in keeping with the will of God, and such prayers will naturally be heard.

    II. The prevalence of these essential things. If they be in us and abound, our prayers cannot be barren or unprofitable.

    1. First, if we have faith in God, there is no question about God’s hearing our prayer. If we can plead in faith the name and blood of Jesus, we must obtain answers of peace. But a thousand cavils are suggested. Suppose these prayers concern the laws of nature, then the scientific men are against us, What of that? The Lord has ways of answering our prayers irrespective of the working of miracles or suspending laws. Perhaps there are other forces and laws which He has arranged to bring into action just at times when prayer also acts, laws just as fixed and forces just as natural as those which our learned theorisers have been able to discover. The wisest men know not all the laws which govern the universe, nay, nor a tithe of them. If there be but faith in God, God must either cease to be, or cease to be true, or else He must hear prayer. The verse before the text says, “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him.” He who has a clear conscience comes to God with confidence, and that confidence of faith ensures to him the answer of his prayer.

    2. But next, love must succeed too, since we have already seen that the man who loves in the Christian sense is in accord with God. God always hears the prayers of a loving man, because those prayers are the shadows of His own decrees.

    3. Again, the man of obedience is the man whom God will hear, because his obedient heart leads him to pray humbly and with submission, for he feels it to be his highest desire that the Lord’s will should be done.

    4. Again, the man who lives in fellowship with God will assuredly speed in prayer, because if he dwells in God and God dwells in him, he will desire what God desires.

    5. And here, again let us say, our text speaks of the Christian man as being filled with God’s Spirit: “We know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” Who knows the mind of a man but the spirit of a man? So, who knows the things of God but the Spirit of God? And if the Spirit of God dwells in us, then He tells us what God’s mind is; He makes intercession in the saints according to the will of God.

    Practical improvement:

    1. The first is, we want to pray for a great blessing as a church. Very well. Have we the essentials for success? Are we believing in the name of Jesus Christ? Are we full of love to God and one another?

    2. Next, are we doing that which is pleasing in God’s sight?

    3. The next question is, do we dwell in God?

    4. Lastly, does the Spirit of God actuate us, or is it another spirit? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

    Righteousness essential to our pleasing God and to His hearing us

    I. “We keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” So John writes; and so also Jesus speaks (John 8:29). The language is the very same; the sense and spirit in which it is used must be the very same also. Jesus uttered the words for our sakes; and as expressing a human feeling which we may understand, and with which He would have us to sympathise. That human feeling in the bosom of Jesus must have been very simple and intensely filial; realising intensely His filial relation to the Father and His filial oneness with the Father. There is, if I may venture so to speak, a child-like simplicity, a sort of artless straightforwardness, in His saying so confidingly, so lovingly, so naturally, “I do always those things that please Him.” He has the Cross in view. Men, displeased with Him, are to “lift Him up,” and leave Him to die in His agony alone. Not so the Father. He leaves me not alone; He is with me; “for I do always those things that please Him.” Somewhat similar are the circumstances in which John would have us to say; “we do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Oh! to be converted, and become as little children! First, to be made willing as little children, that all this misunderstanding should be ended, and this breach thoroughly healed at once, and once for all, as the Father would have it to be, in the Son. And then, as little children, to know something of a little child’s touching and artless simplicity, as we look with loving eye into the loving eye of the Father, and lovingly lisp out the touching words: “We keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”

    II. “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him.” In this saying also we have the countenance of Jesus (John 11:41-42). “Thou hearest me always!” It is a blessed assurance. And the blessedness of it really lies, not so much in the good he gets from the Father’s hearing him, as in the Father’s hearing him itself; not so much in what he receives, as in his receiving it from the Father. For this is the charm, the joy, the consolation, of that access to the Father and that influence with the Father which you now have in common with the Son. It is not that you may enrich and gratify yourselves with what you win by asking from Him. But it is literally that whatever you ask you receive of Him, as His gift; the proof that He is ever with you and heareth you always. Ah! how then shall I ask anything at all? If such is my position, in and with Christ, how shall I have the heart or the hardihood to ask anything at all of the Father, except only that He may deal with me according to His good pleasure? If I am really on such a footing with the Father that “He heareth me always,” and “whatsoever I ask I receive of Him”; if I have such influence with Him; if, as His dear child, pleasing Him, and doing what pleases Him, I can so prevail with Him that He can refuse me nothing; what can I say? What can I do? I can but cast myself into His arms and cry, Thou knowest better than I, oh my Father! Father, Thy will be done. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

    Answers to prayer

    We must make a wide distinction between a cause and a condition. The cause of anything is the actual reason why it is--the source from which it flows. The condition is something which comes in afterwards--super added--to limit and to guide the actings of the first cause. Just, for example, as the rain is not caused by the particular state of the atmosphere, but it depends upon it; and there must be a certain rarity in the air, without which the rain would not fall. This is its condition. In like manner, “keeping the commandments” is not the cause of our prayers being answered, but it is the condition. Your prayers will not be answered unless yon “keep the commandments.” If we ask, “what is the reason why any prayer prevails with God?” the explanation lies very deep. You will find it among the grandnesses of the Holy Trinity. It is because God is a Father, and therefore of Himself loves to listen to His children’s petitions, and to give them everything they ask. It is because every believer praying, prays in Christ--he presents Christ--he is in Christ. Hence the almost omnipotence of prayer. It is because whatever true prayer goes up to the throne of God, it is the Holy Ghost who prays it. Thus the whole Trinity meets to make the prayer of the weakest Christian, and this is the cause why prayer gets answered. Who has not asked of God a great many things? Who does not believe that many, at least, of the things which he asks are the legitimate, nay, the covenanted subjects of prayer? Who has not the evidence of his own heart that for many of these things, at all events, he has prayed, and is praying very earnestly. And yet, who has not to feel “My prayers are not answered; I do not obtain what I ask”? And who has not wondered why it is thus with his prayers? Now what is the reason? Certainly the cause cannot be in God; it must be in you. But where in you? I answer deliberately--in your life, in your heart. In some way or other, you are not “keeping” some “commandment,” you are not “doing those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Let us now pause upon the thought that the life rules the prayer--that according as you are holy, so wilt you receive answers to your prayers--that the condition of prayer is obedience, and without obedience prayer loses its prerogative. If a man is leading a religious life--not grieving his conscience--a man of pure thoughts and holy pleasures--that man grows into such a state of mind that he will only wish such things as God has promised to give him, he will not desire many temporal things; but his tastes will be spiritual, therefore his prayers are always keeping within the bounds of the promises. He will not ask nor long for anything which is not after the will of God to give. The Spirit which is in him will take care of that for him.

    1. And here is the first grand secret of the success of a good man’s prayer, which arises out of a conformity of his mind to the mind of God, and that conformity of his mind to the mind of God arises out of his daily habits of life.

    2. Secondly, blessings may be ready to come down, and they may pour, but unless your heart be in a right state to receive them, they will pour in vain. The heart is hard, and they cannot come in; or it is so crowded that there is no room; or it is so weak that there is no holding. Now any state of wilful sin puts the heart in that state. Hence, prayer cannot be answered--for even should the answer come, it will not find entrance.

    3. Thirdly, remember this; that when God says that a man must “keep His commandments” if he will have his prayers answered, part of the commandments is faith in Jesus Christ; and therefore the passage runs thus in very emphatic order--“Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.”

    4. And then fourthly, it is quite evident that what God gives to those who are leading a godly and devoted life, He gives to the promotion of His own glory; because, either directly or indirectly, they will use the gift for the extension of His kingdom, and this gives a plain reason why their prayer should be granted. For shall God give to a man whose life has two faces--one face in practice, and another face in prayer? Shall He give to a sheer hypocrite?

    5. And once more, why should not our heavenly Father do what all fathers do, love to give His good things to the child who tries to please Him most, and who delights in His society? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

    And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another--

    On the importance of faith in Christ and love to Christians

    I. The gospel, wherever it comes, requires a firm trust in the merits and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    1. It is necessary to obtain pardon of sin.

    2. It is necessary to produce purity of heart.

    3. It is necessary to promote vital union with God, the fountain of life and felicity.

    II. The gospel requires brotherly love, as a primary and most important duty.

    1. Let us consider the nature and extent of that brotherly love which the gospel inculcates and demands. It is esteem, complacence, compassion, benevolence.

    (1) Love is evinced by sincerely sympathising with our Christian brethren in their sufferings.

    (2) Love is evinced by cheerfully communicating of our substance to relieve the wants of our Christian brethren.

    2. The grounds and obligations of brotherly love.

    (1) Faith in Christ, and love to Christians are represented as closely and inseparably connected.

    (2) There is an express and very particular command of Christ, enjoining brotherly love upon His followers.

    (3) The basis of our obligation is the cause of God.

    There are two cases to which this subject may be applied.

    1. Let it serve as a test or touchstone of our personal piety.

    2. Let this subject rouse us to more seriousness, activity, and zeal. (Essex Remembrancer.)

    The warrant of faith

    The true believer has learned to look away from the killing ordinances of the old law. He turns with loathing from all trust in his own obedience and lays hold with joy upon the hope set before him in the one commandment contained in my text.

    I. The matter of believing, or what is it that a man is to believe in order to eternal life? That faith which saves the soul is believing on a person, depending upon Jesus for eternal life. We must believe Him to be God’s Son--so the text puts it--“His Son.” We must grasp with strong confidence the great fact that He is God: for nothing short of a Divine Saviour can ever deliver us from the infinite wrath of God. Furthermore, we must accept this Son of God as “Jesus,” the Saviour. We must believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became man out of infinite love to man, that He might save His people from their sins. We must look upon Jesus as “Christ,” the anointed of the Father, sent into this world on salvation’s errand, not that sinners might save themselves, but that He, being mighty to save, might bring many sons Unto glory. Moreover, we should rejoice that as Jesus Christ, by His dying, put away forever the sin of His people, so by His living He gave unto those who trust in Him a perfect righteousness, in which, despite their own sins, they are “accepted in the Beloved.” We are also taught that if we heartily trust our soul with Christ, our sins, through His blood, are forgiven, and His righteousness is imputed to us. The mere knowledge of these facts will not, however, save us, unless we really trust our souls in the Redeemer’s hands.

    II. The warrant of believing. This is the commandment, that ye “believe on His Son Jesus Christ.”

    1. First, negatively.

    (1) That any other way of preaching the gospel warrant is absurd. Are we to go running up and down the world proclaiming life to the living, casting bread to those who are fed already, and holding up Christ on the pole of the gospel to those who are already healed?

    (2) To tell the sinner that he is to believe on Christ because of some warrant in himself, is legal. If I lean on Christ because I feel this and that, then I am leaning on my feelings and not on Christ alone, and this is legal indeed.

    (3) Again, any other way of preaching than that of bidding the sinner believe because God commands him to believe, is a boasting way of faith. When we tell a sinner that filthy as he is, without any preparation or qualification, he is to take Jesus Christ to be his all in all, finding in Him all that he can ever need, we leave no room for self-glorification, all must be of grace. Law and boasting are twin brothers, but free grace and gratitude always go together.

    (4) Any other warrant for believing on Jesus than that which is presented in the gospel is changeable. Since everything within changes more frequently than ever does an English sky, if my warrant to believe in Christ be based within, it must change every hour; consequently I am lost and saved alternately. Can these things be so?

    (5) Again, any other warrant is utterly incomprehensible. Multitudes preach an impossible salvation. Personally, I do not remember to have been told from the pulpit to believe in Jesus as a sinner. I heard much of feelings which I thought I could never get, and frames after which I longed; but I found no peace until a true, free grace message came to me, “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

    (6) Yet again, I believe that the preaching of alarms of conscience and repentance as qualifications for Christ is unacceptable to the awakened sinner. Oh, I am ashamed of myself when I think of the way in which I have sometimes talked to awakened sinners. I am persuaded that the only true remedy for a broken heart is Jesus Christ’s most precious blood.

    (7) Any other warrant for the sinner’s faith than the gospel itself, is false and dangerous. It is as false as God is true, that anything in a sinner can be his warrant for believing in Jesus. There cannot be a true and real hatred of sin where there is not faith in Jesus. All the sinner knows and feels before faith is only an addition to his other sins, and how can sin which deserves wrath be a warrant for an act which is the work of the Holy Spirit. How dangerous is the sentiment I am opposing. Take care of resting in your own experience. All that is of nature’s spinning must be unravelled, and everything that getteth into Christ’s place, however dear to thee, and however precious in itself, must he broken in pieces. Sinners, Jesus wants nothing of you, nothing whatsoever, nothing done, nothing felt; He gives both work and feeling. Ragged, penniless, just as ye are, lost, forsaken, desolate, with no good feelings and no good hopes, still Jesus comes to you, and in these words of pity He addresses you, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”

    2. But now, positively, and as the negative part has been positive enough, we will be brief here. “This is the commandment.” Do you want any warrant for doing a thing better than God’s command to do it? The command to believe in Christ must be the sinner’s warrant, if you consider the nature of our commission. How runs it? “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” It ought to run, according to the other plan, “preach the gospel to every regenerate person, to every convinced sinner, to every sensible soul.” But it is not so; it is to “every creature.” Then how is it put?--“He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” Where is there a word about the prerequisites for believing.

    (1) I shall only add, that the blessings which flow from preaching Christ to sinners as sinners, are of such a character as prove it to be right. Do you not see that this levels us all? We have the same warrant for believing, and no one can exalt himself above his fellow.

    (2) Then how it inspires men with hope and confidence; it forbids despair. No man can despair if this be true; or if he do, it is a wicked, unreasonable despair, because if he has been never so bad, yet God commands him to believe.

    (3) Again, how it makes a man live close to Christ! If I am to come to Christ as a sinner every day, and I must do so, for the Word saith, “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him”; if every day I am to come to Christ as a sinner, why then, how paltry all my doings look! what utter contempt it east upon all my fine virtues, my preachings, my prayings, and all that comes of my flesh I and though it leads me to seek after purity and holiness, yet it teaches me to live on Christ and not on them, and so it keeps me at the fountain head. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

    God’s one commandment

    Every thoughtful reader of the Word of God must have been struck with the very great importance that the sacred writers attach to names. In the opening chapter of the Sacred Volume we read of God giving” their names to the works of His hands: “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” The very first thing that Adam, the first man, does, is by God’s direction to give names to all God’s creatures. Then, when God entered into covenant with Abram, He changed his name from Abram to Abraham. When God wrestled with Jacob, He changed his name from Jacob to Israel. But we must pass on to the New Testament. It also begins with God giving a name. On its very title page we have God sending an angel to give a name to One not yet born--that Second Adam--that Beginning of the New Creation of God, whom He sent into the world. In the very first chapter of the New Testament we have two names assigned to the Saviour. First, the angels say, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Then the name of “Emmanuel,” given to Him in the spirit by Isaiah, the prophet, is also claimed as His by the Evangelist. These two names, given to the Second Adam in the first chapter of the book of the New Covenant, answer to the two names by which God made Himself known to the children of Israel. Emmanuel signifies what the Saviour is in Himself--God with us; God in our nature. Jesus rather signifies what He is to His people--their “Saviour from sin.” It means literally, “The Lord is salvation,” or “The Lord Our salvation.”

    I. What is meant by believing in the name of Jesus Christ? It must mean more than believing that some years ago a person came into this world who had such a name given to him. It is believing that Jesus Christ is to us what His name means. Now let us take the best known name of our Saviour--“Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord.” We know Him as the only Son of God--as Jesus--as Christ. Take the first of these--the Son of God. See how our Lord insists upon our believing in this, as His name, in His discourse with Nicodemus (John 3:18). Now a man who believes this respecting the Person who was then speaking to Nicodemus, and who was afterwards crucified and raised again, believes in the greatest possible instance of God’s love. It is quite clear, also, that any interpretation which attaches to the term “Son of God” a lower meaning than that of “only-begotten Son,” really destroys all the testimony which such a text as “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” bears to the exceeding love of God. Now let us proceed to the human name by which we know the Son of God--Jesus Christ. The name “Jesus” signifies “the Lord our salvation.” He has saved us from the guilt of sin by His sacrifice on the Cross. Again, He saves us from the power of sin by His indwelling Spirit making us partakers of His nature, so that His risen life is in us our spiritual life. And so with that title of Messiah, or Christ, or Anointed One, to which is joined His name of Jesus. It is implied in the very fact of His being called Christ that He has been anointed by the Holy Ghost to be the Prophet, Priest, and King of His people. Believing in the name of God’s Son, Jesus, then, is believing that God’s Son is that very Lord, our Saviour, which His name implies. This is God’s commandment. No, no; it is only part of God’s commandment: for the one commandment of God, which God inspired the beloved disciple to give to His people, is made up of two things. “This is His commandment, that we believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He”--i.e. as Christ Himself--“gave us commandment.” Anyone who knows anything of the history of the Church, or about religious society, knows well that a man may have, or at least may express, not only belief in the name, but the sincerest trust in the finished work of Christ, and yet be bitter to those who differ from him, uncharitable to those who oppose him, and churlish to those who are at all in his way. St. Paul writes his Epistle to the Ephesians to men who realised the gospel far better than any Christians now do; and instead of “leaving the gospel to itself,” and simply insisting on believing in Christ crucified, the apostle actually bids those who are supposed to believe the gospel not to lie, nor to steal, nor to use bad language, nor to grieve the Holy Spirit, but to walk in love, and put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking. Similarly with St. Peter. If there is any place in which he declares the precious truths of the gospel in terms full of consolation and good hope, it is in the first chapter of his Epistle; but, so far from thinking that all this would do its own work, he tells them at the beginning of the very next chapter to lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings. But what is “loving one another”? Why, according to St. Paul, the apostle of justification, it is keeping the last six commandments (Romans 13:8). And in the next chapter he reckons working ill to our neighbour’s soul, as well as to his body, as a breach of love. But what, according to St. John, is “loving one another”? This is His commandment, that ye believe in all the power and grace that is contained in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and seek out, visit, relieve, and comfort your sick and needy fellow Christians. This is His commandment, that ye believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God, and be kindly affectioned one to another, in honour preferring one another. This is His commandment, that ye believe in the name of Him who saves His people from their sins, and put away from you all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, and all malice. This is His commandment, that ye believe in the name of Him who was anointed by God to be a Prince and a Saviour, and covet earnestly that best gift of a charity that suffereth long, is kind, etc. (M. F. Sadler, M. A.)

    Faith a work

    I. The word “believe,” which enters this Epistle for the first time at this point, is one of the royal words of the New Testament. It contains three ideas.

    1. First there is knowledge. That which you believe must first announce itself as a fact to your intellect. It must enter the crystal chamber of consciousness.

    2. Then follows assent. That is the answer of your mind to the claims made upon it by the fact.

    3. Then comes the last and most important of all, viz., trust. You say to yourself, “This is truth--this will bear,” and you put your whole weight upon it.

    II. But what is to be dons with it? To what shall a man attach himself by means of this threefold cord? The object around which we are bid throw our faith is no series of propositions--not any Church--not even the Bible as a whole, but the full name of Jesus Christ. The full title of Christ, as given here, gathers up into itself every ray of spiritual truth diffused through the whole Bible. “His Son Jesus Christ.” Say that seriously, simply, honestly, without qualification or reserve, and you have repeated the full Christian creed. That name is the gospel.

    III. This is God’s commandment. Note that well. Faith is set before us as a duty, as a work. Now, if God commands us to believe, then surely belief is something that is possible to us all. We cannot imagine God commanding the impossible. Then, too, unbelief is a sin. It is positive disobedience. And further, St. John says that belief in Christ is not simply a commandment, but that it is the commandment. Faith working by love is the spiritual unity of all commandments, and unbelief is therefore the root of all sins.

    IV. Now, how far have we the power to believe in Christ? To what extent is faith subject to our will? It is worth while finding this out, for the measure of our power to believe will be the measure of our sin and of our punishment if we disbelieve.

    1. If we look into the Bible we shall find two sets of texts. One set ascribes the whole work of redemption to God--faith, repentance, love, holiness, are all declared to be gifts of God. Another whole class of texts describes repentance, faith, purification, and love as acts which each man ought to, and therefore can perform himself.

    2. Again, in the teaching of the Church we have two opposite camps of opinion on this matter. Augustine held very strong views on this point. He taught that when Adam fell he lost his freedom of will; the will sank into a state of infirmity, in which it had no power of choice at all between good and evil--only the power of always choosing the wrong; and through his sin all his successors fell into the same state of bondage. In fact, as one said, he taught that in the fall of man one whole piece of human nature had fallen out! But out of this mass of mutilated humanity God has elected a number to be saved. These must be saved. God’s grace overpowers them, and they are saved by a fiat of the Almighty Will. As to the others, they must be lost--they are reprobate. Pelagius held very strong views on the subject of our text. “All men,” he said, “are as free to choose as Adam was. The will is not impaired, and can of itself, at any moment, free itself from sin.” Man stands at the parting of the ways, and he has full power to choose either. Man--man’s own power, is the note that is heard sounding all through his teaching. Grace scarcely appears at all. Thus, while the one almost did away with the free will of man, the other almost did away with the grace of God. And these two men divided the Christian world into opposing factions. The majority followed Augustine, though many too followed Pelagius. And so from age to age the pendulum of opinion swung from extreme to extreme.

    3. Neither of these views is right. The first libels both God and man. It represents God as partial and arbitrary. It reduces man to a poor puppet of destiny. It robs religion of morality and deprives heaven of holiness. It takes away the guilt of sin, and lifts the blame of hell from the souls of men and lays it at the feet of God. Equally distant from the New Testament truth is the other view. It renders the best half of Scripture meaningless, and the whole mediatorial work of Christ needless. It peoples the earth with an imaginary race of moral giants, each of whom is sufficient in himself, and fills heaven with a multitude of self-saved souls.

    4. But while the many thus swung from one extreme to another, there have always been in the Church of Christ a party of common sense men, able, like Melancthon, to combine the two sets of texts, and to see that they are not contradictions--only the two opposite poles of one great truth. Salvation, they teach, is a work of God’s grace, in which each man is required and enabled to take an active part. Mankind is a fallen race, but not an abandoned race. Man cannot save himself, yet God’s preparing grace has kept alive in each man enough of moral life to respond to the offer of Christ, a something living in each man to which the Christ can make His appeal. So men are utterly unable to save themselves. But they are not literally lifeless like a stone or stick. Faith is preeminently a matter of will. The text does not say, “Believe this doctrine or that,” but “Trust yourselves in Christ’s hands--trust Christ as your Saviour.” (J. M. Gibbon.)

  • 1 John 3:24 open_in_new

    And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him.

    And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us

    Our abiding in God by obedience

    1. In the keeping of God’s commandments there is this great reward, that he that doeth so “dwelleth in God, and God in him.” If this mutual indwelling is not to be mere absorption, which some dreamers in John’s day held it to be; if it is not to be the swallowing up of our conscious individual personality in the infinite mind or intelligence of God; if it is to conserve the distinct relationship of God to man, the Creator to the creature, the Ruler to the subject, the Father to the child; it must be realised and must develop itself, or act itself out, through the means of authority or law on the one side, and obedience or the keeping of the commandments on the other. It is, in fact, the very consummation and crown of man’s old, original relation to God--as that relation is not only restored, but perfected and gloriously fulfilled, in the new economy of grace.

    2. The manner of God’s abiding in us, or at least the way in which we may know that He abides in us, is specified:--“Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” We are to distinguish here between our dwelling in God and His dwelling in us. Our dwelling in God is to be known by our “keeping His commandments”; God’s dwelling in us, by “the Spirit which He giveth us.” And yet, the two means of knowledge are not far apart. They are not only strictly consistent with one another; they really come together in one point. For the Spirit is here said to be given to us--not in order to our knowing that God abideth in us, in the sense of His opening our spiritual eye and quickening our spiritual apprehension--but rather as the medium of our knowing it, the evidence or proof by which we know it. And how are we to recognise the Spirit as given to us? How otherwise than by recognising the fruit of the gift? The Spirit given to us is, as to His movement or operation, unseen and unfelt. But the fruit of the Spirit is palpable and patent. “It is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” For “against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

    3. From all this it follows that the counsel or warning, “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God” (1 John 4:1), is as needful for us as it was for those to whom John wrote. We may think that it is the Spirit of God whom we are receiving into our hearts and cherishing there, when it may really be another spirit altogether--one of the many spirits inspiring the “many false prophets that are gone out into the world.” Therefore we must “try the spirits.” (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

    Of the manner and importance of the Spirit’s indwelling

    I. What the giving of the spirit imports and signifies. The Spirit of God is said to come upon men in a transient way, for their present assistance in some particular service, though in themselves they be unsanctified persons. Thus the Spirit of God came upon Balaam (Numbers 24:2), enabling him to prophesy of things to come. But whatever gifts He gives to others, He is said to be given, to dwell, and to abide only in believers (1 Corinthians 3:6). An expression denoting both His special propriety in them, and gracious familiarity with them. There is a great difference betwixt the assisting and the indwelling of the Spirit; the one is transient, the other permanent.

    II. How this giving of the Spirit evidently proves and strongly concludes that soul’s interest in Christ unto whom He is given.

    1. The Spirit of God in believers is the very bond by which they are united unto Christ. If, therefore, we find in ourselves the bond of union, we may warrantably conclude that we have union with Jesus Christ.

    2. The Scripture everywhere makes this giving, or indwelling of the Spirit, the great mark and trial of our interest in Christ; concluding from the presence of it in us, positively, as in the text; and from the absence of it, negatively, as in Romans 8:1-39.

    3. That which is a certain mark of our freedom from the covenant of works, and our title to the privileges of the covenant or grace, must needs also infer our union with Christ and special interest in Him; but the giving or indwelling of the sanctifying Spirit in us is a certain mark of our freedom from the first covenant, under which all Christless persons still stand, and our title to the special privileges of the second covenant, in which none but the members are interested; and, consequently, it fully proves our union with the Lord Jesus.

    4. If the eternal decree of God’s electing love be executed, and the virtues and benefits of the death of Christ applied by the Spirit unto every soul in whom He dwelleth, as a spirit of santification, then such a giving of the Spirit unto us must needs be a certain mark and proof of our special interest in Christ; but the decree of God’s electing love is executed, and the benefits of the blood of Christ are applied to every soul in whom He dwelleth, as a spirit sanctification. This is plain from 1 Peter 1:2.

    5. The giving of the Spirit to us, or His residing in us, as a sanctifying Spirit, is everywhere in Scripture made the pledge and earnest of eternal salvation, and consequently must abundantly confirm and prove the soul’s interest in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14). Uses: I shall lay down some general rules for the due information of our minds in this point, upon which so much depends.

    (1) Though the Spirit of God be given to us, and worketh in us, yet He worketh not as a natural and necessary, but as a free and arbitrary agent: He neither assists nor sanctifies, as the fire burneth, as much as He can assist and sanctify, but as much as He pleaseth; “dividing to every man severally as He will” (1 Corinthians 12:11).

    (2) There is a great difference in the manner of the Spirit’s working before and after the work of regeneration. Whilst we are unregenerate He works upon us as upon dead creatures that work not at all with Him; and what motion there is in our souls is a counter motion to the Spirit; but after regeneration it is not so, He then works upon a complying and willing mind; we work, and He assists (Romans 8:26).

    (3) Though the Spirit of God be given to believers, and worketh in them yet believers themselves may do or omit such things as may obstruct the working and obscure the very being of the Spirit of God in them.

    (4) Those things which discover the indwelling of the Spirit in believers are not so much the matter of their duties, or substance of their actions, as the more secret springs, holy aims, and spiritual manner of their doing or performing of them.

    (5) All the motions and operations of the spirit are always harmonious, and suitable to the written Word. (Isaiah 8:20).

    (6) Although the works of the Spirit, in all sanctified persons, do substantially agree, both with the written Word and with one another, yet as to the manner of infusion and operation there are found many circumstantial differences.

    (7) There is a great difference found betwixt the sanctifying and the comforting influences of the Spirit upon believers, in respect of constancy and permanency.

    Evidence 1. In whomsoever the Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of sanctification, to that man or women He hath been, more or less, a Spirit of conviction and humiliation.

    Evidence 2. As the Spirit of God hath been a convincing, so He is a quickening Spirit, to all those to whom He is given (Romans 8:2).

    Evidence 3. These to whom God giveth His Spirit have a tender sympathy with all the interests and concernments of Christ.

    Evidence 4. Wherever the Spirit of God dwelleth, He doth in some degree mortify and subdue the evils and corruptions of the soul in which He resides.

    Evidence 5. Wherever the Spirit of God dwelleth in the way of sanctification, in all such He is the Spirit of prayer and supplication (Romans 8:26).

    Evidence 6. Wherever the Spirit of grace inhabits, there is an heavenly, spiritual frame of mind accompanying and evidencing the indwelling of the Spirit (Romans 8:5-6).

    Evidence 7. Those to whom the Spirit of grace is given are led by the Spirit, Sanctified souls give themselves up to the government and conduct of the Spirit; they obey His voice, beg His direction, follow His motions, deny the solicitations of the flesh and blood, in obedience to Him (Galatians 1:16). And they that do so, they are the sons of God. (John Flavel.)

    The indwelling of God

    I. The privilege. It is the indwelling of God in the soul--His “abiding in us.” The sentiment is not peculiar to John, but the frequency of it is. Let us look at this “abiding.” There was a time when the persons here referred to were without God in the world; when another being had possession of them--“the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” But God hath delivered them from the power of darkness, and translated them into the kingdom of His dear Son. God has entered, and taken possession of the heart. Perhaps, too, after the parent had pleaded to no purpose; perhaps after the minister had long laboured for nought; perhaps after he had been wooed and awed, blest and chastised, in vain. Then, God says, “I will work, and who shall let it?” His abiding in us supposes not only entrance, but continuance. But how does He abide in them? If I should answer this question negatively, I should say, not personally, as it was in the Redeemer Himself. “In Him,” says the apostle, “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” “He that hath seen Me,” said He, “hath seen the Father.” Nor does He abide in them essentially. Thus indeed He is in them, as to the perfection of His nature, as to His Omnipresence, as to the presence by which He fills heaven and earth; but when His presence is spoken of by the way of providence or privilege, it intends some peculiar regard. “The Lord is nigh unto all those who are of a broken heart; and sayeth such as be of a contrite spirit.” But if I am required to answer this question positively, I should say, first, objectively. He dwells in His people by a real union; a gracious union; by a spiritual operative influence in all the powers of their souls. Thus He dwells in them as water in a well, our Saviour’s own image. “The water that I shall give him shall be in him, a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” He dwells in them as the sap in the tree, sustaining its life and producing fertility. He dwells in them as the soul dwells in the body, enlivening every limb and pervading every part. Can you explain this? Why the doctrine of union is one of the hardest Chapter s in all natural philosophy? First, explain to me how the soul is in the body; the spirit, without parts, combining with matter and coalescing with substance; explain first, how God is in the highest heavens, and is also about our path, and about our bed, and spying out all our ways, words, and thoughts.

    II. How it is to be ascertained. The apostle says, “We know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us.” Now, what was the Spirit God had given to them? Not the Spirit of miraculous agency. No, but the Spirit which we call the common influences of the Spirit of God. We call it “common,” not because all men have it, but because all Christians have it; and all Christians will experience it to the very end of time. But as the thing exemplified should always be plainer than the thing proved, let us inquire what manner of spirit that is which evinces the privilege of union with God? “We know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” I am aware the Spirit is said to anoint us; He is said to seal us to the day of redemption; and to bear witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God. But this is not done by the sounds in the air, and by sudden impulses in the mind, but by His residing in us. Our having this Spirit is the anointing; our having this Spirit is the sealing; and our having it is the witness. This Spirit is known by five attributes.

    1. It is the Spirit of conviction; and the process is generally this:--He first convinces of the guilt of sin; then of its pollution; and then awakens in us a sense of its abhorrence; causing us to repent before God as in dust and ashes.

    2. It is the Spirit of faith. The work of the Spirit puts the man into the position of looking to Christ, and of coming to Christ, and of dealing with Christ, concerning all the affairs of the soul and eternity. “When He is come,” says the Saviour, “He shall glorify me.”

    3. It is the Spirit of grace. It is expressly called the Spirit of grace and of supplication, which was to be poured upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

    4. It is a Spirit of sanctification. Hence, He is so often called “the Holy Spirit,” and in one place, “the Spirit of holiness,”

    5. It is the Spirit of affection. We read therefore of “the Spirit of love.” “He that loveth Him that begat,” says John, “loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.” And, says the Saviour, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

    III. The usefulness of this subject.

    1. The subject is useful to induce us to adore the condescension of God. David was struck with this; he was astonished that God should “try” man and “visit” him. Solomon was still more struck with His dwelling with man, “Will God in very deed dwell with man upon earth?” But John goes further than this, and speaks of God as not only visiting man, as not only dwelling with man, but of His abiding in him! “Who is a God like unto Thee?”

    2. This subject is useful, also, as it reproves those who think there is nothing in religion connected with certainty. There are marks enough, if you are in the way everlasting, to show that you are not in a mistaken direction, but in a right road.

    3. This subject is useful also, as it censures those who seek to determine their religious state by any other standard than that which is Divine. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”

    4. Then this subject is useful to comfort those who are partakers of the Holy Ghost. They should rejoice in the Lord always.

    5. Lastly, let us turn the medal, and then we shall see the subject is useful to alarm those who, as the apostle terms it, are sensual, not having the Spirit of God in you. Have you the Spirit?--the spirit of prayer, and the spirit of love, and the spirit of meekness? Rather, have you not a proud spirit? an ungrateful spirit? a careless spirit? a revengeful spirit? or a covetous spirit? “This spirit cometh not from Him that calleth you.” And if you have nothing better to actuate you than this, you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. (W. Jay.)

    The abiding witness

    Some persons crave for Christian assurance under a mistaken apprehension of its nature. They seem to regard it as something over and above the ordinary processes of grace. The assurance of faith is simply an exalted and confirmed faith, and rests therefore on the promises which are the common foundation of all faith. There are persons, on the other hand, who shrink from the name of assurance, and repudiate the thing as if it were arrogant and presumptuous. If our salvation were our own work, or if it were half our own work and half God’s work; if our own wisdom, strength, or righteousness had anything whatever to do with the meritorious grounds of our acceptance, the scruple would be a just one. But the work is altogether God’s work. Hence to doubt the full completion of the work is to doubt God, not ourselves.

    I. The dignity, not only of the state of the saint, but also of the evidence by which he is assured of it. This state consists in the abiding presence of God; and this not only above us and around us, but in us. He who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent--the Creator who called this world into being--the Preserver, who maintains it in being--the King who rules and governs us--the Judge before whose tremendous throne we shall hereafter stand to give an account of the things we have done in the body--that God who is Indivisible, but is everywhere at once, the whole Deity with power and wisdom, majesty and truth, with every attribute and glory complete--He, He Himself, dwells within the saints. He dwells--not flashing a ray of His glory now and then, breaking the natural darkness of the soul for a moment, and then leaving it again darker than before, but abiding there, dwelling--like the sun in the heavens, with His beams hidden, it may be, sometimes with earthly clouds and mists, but like the sun behind the clouds filling the soul, as in ancient times He filled the material temple, with the glory of His presence. Yet let us take care not to mistake this matter. The cleansing blood of Christ must be sprinkled upon us, and in that fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness must we be washed from the guilt of sin; the quickening power of the Holy Ghost must have descended upon us, dispelled the darkness, broken down the strength and taken away the love of sin, before this state can be ours. But even when this is done, the motions of sin still remain. Sanctification is so imperfect here below, our strongest faith so feeble, our brightest hope so dim, our most fervent love so cold and selfish, our waywardnesses and inconsistencies so many, that it is wonderful that God should dwell within such hearts. Yet, child of God, it is the sober, literal fact.

    II. With this dignity we must combine the definite clearness of the test, which proves our possession of it, for we might otherwise find great difficulty. “Hereby we know”--by what? The word “hereby” is not to be thrown forward as a mere synonym for the words “by the Spirit whom He hath given us”; but it is to be thrown back to the words, “He that keepeth His commandments.” Hereby--namely, by keeping His commandments--we know. We have great cause to bless God for thus resting our hopes on our obedience, which every honest mind can see and recognise. The lesson draws close and indissoluble the connection between faith and holiness, the heart and the life, the religion and the character and conduct. It makes Christianity to be a real practical working power. Step by step, link by link, assurance of faith and hope is inseparably united to practical holiness of life. Yet there are one or two cautions to be borne in mind. The obedience which is the proof of the Spirit’s presence is not a holiness finished or perfect; otherwise it would belong to none of us on this side heaven; it would be a hope of the future, not a blessing of the present. It is not a finished holiness, but only a holiness begun. The will is like a river which here and there beneath an overhanging bank may seem to stand still, and here and there in some narrow bay may seem to retrograde, but which in its main current still sets slowly, but surely, towards the ocean. It is, further, a holiness not complete, but progressive. Every day brings its struggle, but brings likewise its victory. Further yet, this Christian obedience is not partial. Christian obedience accepts and follows the whole law.

    III. The infinite blessedness both of the state and of the evidence. If Christian obedience were an outward and compulsory thing, bringing by mere force the unwilling heart into subjection to the letter of a law, it would be painful. But it is not this. It is a willing, loving, generous thing. It is a law working from within the soul itself, not a compulsion from the outside. It is not like a stream of water thrown from without upon us, but like a living fountain springing up within us--“a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” And why is it this, but because it is the Spirit’s work, and because God abideth in us? Is there not always joy in life? Is there not joy in nature’s life, as, bursting the chains of death-like winter, happy creation breaks into beauty, and flowers and fruits and trees and birds sing together? Is there not joy in human life when, fresh and sweet as a spring flower, the buoyant child laughs, and sings, and plays? Is there not joy in the sense of life, and only so far pain in it as the mortality of a fallen nature interrupts it with the seeds of decay, and clouds it with the shadows of death? And is there not joy in the life of the soul, since it is the very life of God fresh from the indwelling Deity, as if He became a part of ourselves and filled us with His glory? (Canon Garbett.).