Union and Unction

When a coin has been long in use, and its impression has become effaced, it is not easy to recall what it was like when it came forth new from the mint. We may also say that words in this respect are very much like coins; usage wears them and often entirely changes their meaning. Something like this has happened to the word “Christian,” though the change in the meaning of the word is due to a very different idea of the fact, a different view of what it means to be a Christian. In the early days of Christianity it was difficult to be a Christian, but nowadays people think it quite an easy and simple matter. In those days it meant very much to be a Christian, for it was a real test of life and character, but to some people in the present day it means practically nothing.

Christians love Christ, because He first loved them (1 John iv. 19). This love shows itself in loyalty. They respond to His call and realise they are not their own but His. His person is the Object of our worship; His sacrifice is the basis of our trust; His life is the standard of our example; His truth is the light of our conduct; His glory is the motive of our endeavors; His coming is the hope of our soul. Christ for us is our atonement; Christ in us is our power; Christ under us is our foundation; Christ around us is our protection; Christ before us is our hope.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Power; He gives the believer power with God in prayer and intercession. He also endues with power in relation to man, enabling the believer to show sympathy with man and do service for God. The anointing with the Holy Ghost is thus the essential feature and necessary equipment of the true Christian life.

The combination of these two elements must ever be kept in view – Union and Unction. The Christian is one who is united to Christ and anointed by Him. When we look at the New Testament we can see that in the Apostolic Church the Christian was not only united to Christ by faith, but was also an active, aggressive worker, fully consecrated and endued with power from on high.

The Power of His Resurrection

Saul of Tarsus, the promising pupil of Gamaliel, who seemed the coming man of Judaism, threw away all his prospects for the belief in Christ’s resurrection, turned his friends into foes, and exchanged a life of honourable ease for a life of toil and shame – surely common sense requires us to believe that that for which he so suffered was in his eyes established beyond the possibility of doubt. (Prof. Kennett)

It is a well-known story how that Lord Lyttleton and his friend Gilbert West left the University at the close of one academic year each determining to give attention respectively during the long vacation to the conversion of St. Paul and the resurrection of Christ, in order to prove the baselessness of both. They met again in the autumn and compared experiences. Lord Lyttleton had become convinced of the truth of St. Paul’s conversion, and Gilbert West of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If, therefore, Paul’s twenty-five years of suffering and service for Christ was a reality, his conversion was true, for everything he did began with that sudden change. And if his conversion was true, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, for everything Paul was and did he attributed to the sight of the risen Christ.

By One Spirit

From the earliest words of the Old Testament we are reminded of the presence of “The Spirit of God” (Gen. i. 2), and all through the Old Testament times we find the Holy Spirit at work filling men with power (Exod. xxxi. 3; Judges xiv. 6), and enabling the servants of God to do their Divine service (1 Sam. x. 10; 2 Sam. xxiii. 2). When we come to the New Testament the presence of the Spirit of God becomes still clearer as we read of His work, His influence upon such men as John the Baptist (Luke i. 80), and also upon our Lord Himself (Luke i. 35; John iii. 34). Still further revelation is given to us concerning the Spirit by our Lord. He is called the Comforter (John xiv. 25), the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, and His work includes such personal actions as teaching, reproving, speaking, and witnessing (John xiv. 26; xvi. 8, 13). We are thus led to the conviction that the Holy Ghost is God, for no less than God could do that which is attributed to Him, or occupy the position given to Him in the New Testament. He can be grieved by the sins of men (Eph. iv. 30). It is possible to blaspheme against Him (Matt. xii. 31, 32), and to lie unto Him is to lie unto God (Acts v. 4). Hence, in the Nicene Creed we have that remarkable fulness of statement of what the Holy Spirit is, who He is, and what He does.

(a) He it is Who unites us to Christ, and thereby makes us members of “the holy catholic Church” (1 Cor. xii. 13)
(b) He it is Who indwells every believer, and enables us to realize the “communion of saints,” i.e., the union and fellowship of all who belong to God.
(c) He it is Who applies to our souls the efficacy of the atoning Sacrifice whereby we are enabled to receive “the forgiveness of sins.”
(d) He it is Who will be the means of our resurrection hereafter, and for this reason we confess our belief in “the resurrection of the body” (Rom. viii. 11).
(e) He it is Who by His indwelling presence now gives us the pledge, foretaste, and guarantee of “life everlasting,” which will be ours in fulness in the world to come.

Come and See

“Thou art permitted to speak for thyself” [Acts 26:1]. This is what the Gospel desires, and for three reasons:

Hearsay evidence is often erroneous. In this very books of Acts we find glaring instances of the danger of hearsay. The Church was regarded as an obscure Jewish sect, with some peculiar ideas of “one Jesus.” There was a smattering, a second-hand smattering of knowledge; and, unfortunately, we find the same only too prevalent to-day. There is sadly too much second-hand religion, religion gathered only from common report, ordinary conversation, and literary tradition. Very frequently the Bible is condemned without having been read, very often St. Paul’s Epistles are criticized without having been studied. It is simply astounding to find error about the Gospel, and even about simple Bible facts, in many whose position and education warrant something vastly different. There is error, because there is no real knowledge; error, because hearsay evidence is so often erroneous. But we may go further and say that

Christian testimony is only partial. Paul here gives his own testimony, and there can be no possible doubt that the well-known change in his life had a great effect on his hearers, and was a fact they could not get over. His conversion and subsequent life counted for something, and it was as though he said, “I experienced this; deny it, and you say I lie.” St. Paul’s character was questioned by any who dared to deny the change. Yet when we have said all that we can for the power of this, it remains true that Christian testimony is only partial and incomplete. While Christians are what they are, there will always be slips and failures and sins, and I pity the man who takes his Christianity from Christians only. There is no doubt that we Christians ought to show much more of the Christ-life than we do, and may God pardon us for so often being stumbling-blocks instead of stepping-stones. Yet, such testimony, however real, can only be partial, and this leads us to say that

Personal experience is always sure. This was the goal of the Apostle; to this he was trying to lead his hearers; for this purpose he gave his own testimony. He desired Agrippa to test Christianity for himself; not only to hear of Paul’s Christ, but to have his own Christ, confident that Agrippa would find Christ what he himself had found Him. The primal necessity is to get our religion direct from Christ, not to ask this man or that man, not to follow this book or that book, but to go direct to the Book of books and find Christ for ourselves. When Nathaniel questioned whether any good thing could come out of Nazareth, Philip did not preach, or argue, or denounce; he simply said, “Come and see.” Read the Word for yourselves: see who He is, and what He asks, comply with His demands, surrender the life, and the result will be similar to that of the Samaritans: “Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

Esau and Jacob

An anecdote from Dr. J. Vernon McGee:

Dr. Griffith Thomas was approached one day by one of his Old Testament students. The young man said, “Dr. Thomas, I am struggling with Malachi 1:2-3: ‘I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.’ How is it that God hated Esau?”

Dr. Thomas answered, “I find that passage rather difficult as well. Only, my struggle is with how God could find it to love Jacob.”

Of One Being With the Father

The perfect blending of grace and truth, although unique, is not absolutely conclusive proof of anything more than exceptional Manhood; but as we continue to read the story of Jesus Christ in the Gospels we are soon brought face to face with a truly unique element. He is seen to be entirely without sin.

Pilate and Herod, who were incarnations of cleverness and cruelty, could find no fault in Him.

One of His earliest followers said of Him that He “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”

The universal history of the highest and noblest saints shows that the nearer they approached the infinite holiness of God the more conscious they became of their own lack of holiness, and yet in the case of Jesus Christ there is not only the absence of sin, but from time to time declarations of His own holiness and meekness.

Christianity as a religion is unique in its claim to deliver from sin, and its claim is based on the sinlessness of Christ.

Either Jesus Christ was God, or else He is not a good man.

We find ourselves face to face with the problem of how to account for the Person, life, and character of Jesus of Nazareth. [T]he ordinary factors of life cannot possibly account for Him. Everything in Him is at once perfectly natural and yet manifestly supernatural. He is unique in the history of mankind.

He must be considered. He demands the attention of all true men. The supreme question today, as ever, is “What think ye of Christ?”

Full of Grace and Truth

Grace by itself might easily lead to weakness and mere sentimentality. Truth by itself might easily be expressed in rigour, sternness, severity. But when grace is strengthened by truth, and truth is mellowed by grace, we have the perfect character and true life of man. It is the union of these opposites in Jesus Christ in perfect balance and consistency that demands our attention. Other men are fragmentary, one-sided, biased. He is complete, balanced, perfect. Ordinary men often manifest unequally one or other of these two elements; Jesus Christ manifested them both in harmony and exquisite proportion. There is no weakness, no exaggeration or strain, no strong and weak points, as is the case with the rest of mankind. Still more, there are certain elements and traits of character which are not found elsewhere, such as absolute humility, entire unselfishness, whole-hearted willingness to forgive, and the most beautiful and perfect holiness. Nor must we overlook the wonderful blending of contrasts which are seen in Jesus Christ; the combination of keeness and integrity, of caution and courage, of tenderness and severity, of sociability and aloofness. Or we may think of the elements of sorrow without moroseness, of joy without lightness, of spirituality without asceticism, of conscientiousness without morbidness, of freedom without license, of earnestness without fanaticism.

[H]ow it is that no better man has since appeared, after nineteen centuries? Why should not evolution lead to a still higher type? Yet Jesus Christ continues to tower high above humanity. The acutest examination only confirms the truth of John Stuart Mill’s well-known statement that Christ is “a unique Figure, not more unlike all His predecessors than all His followers.”

The Energy of Grace

Grace is a general word including all those gifts for the spiritual life which have been provided for us through the redeeming work of Christ, and which are bestowed on the soul by the Holy Spirit of God. The word “Grace” is associated with two things: (a) God’s attitude of favour towards His people; His graciousness to us in Christ. (b) God’s action in freely bestowing all needful power and blessing. In regard to the former, “grace” means God’s bounty or blessing, emphasising the freeness of His gift. In regard to the latter, a good modern equivalent for a number (but not all) of the New Testament passages where this word "grace" is found is “energy,” and several of such passages read in this light will show what “His special grace” means for daily living.

“The ‘energy’ of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. xvi. 20; Gal. vi. 18; Phil. iv. 23).

“By the ‘energy’ of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. xv. 10).

To speak of grace is another way of saying that we receive the Lord Jesus Christ in all the glory of His presence and power as the indwelling energy for holiness and obedience. The Holy Spirit applies with power to our inner being the life of our Lord Jesus, and in this is “grace to help in time of need” (Heb. iv. 16). From the earliest moment of the Christian life our need of grace is to be emphasized, and notwithstanding all our growth in grace, and our deepening experience of the love of God in Christ, our need of grace never grows less, but in some respects is an ever-increasing requirement. God’s Divine power has provided “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (1 Pet. i. 3), and no heart need be discouraged or cast down with the thought of life’s difficulties and perplexities in view of the marvellous and bountiful provision of grace to meet every contingency.

Beating the Bounds

[T]he policy of Elizabeth I and Archbishop Whitgift was neither wise nor true, as the words of so weighty an authority as the late Bishop Creighton amply testify. Speaking of the late Elizabethan Church, the Bishop says –

”It tended to lose the appearance of a free and self-governing body, and seemed to be an instrument of the policy of the State. Its pleadings and its arguments lost half their weight because they were backed by coercive authority. The dangerous formula ‘Obey the law’ was introduced into the settlement of questions which concerned the relations of the individual conscience and God.”

It is only common fairness to say that a great deal of the Nonconformity and Dissent of the past two hundred and fifty years has been no fault of their own, and was for the most part excusable and unavoidable. Our truer attitude would be to follow the advice of Bishop Stubbs when he says –

”The initial question is, How and why are they Nonconformists, how and why are they competing communities? The answer, Simply because they, as communities, hold some points so important as to outweigh the advantages of communion with the Church.”

We shall do well to inform ourselves on the points which Nonconformists consider essential to their position, for there is no better way of arriving at a true conclusion than by endeavoring to understand the opinions of those who differ from us.

We must also bear in mind that a ministry may be historically irregular without being spiritually invalid... when we remember how much of Nonconformity is due to past failures of our Church, we shall be wronging the deepest principles of Christianity if we refuse to admit the spiritual validity, efficacy and blessing of their ministrations. We owe to Nonconformity some of our choicest saints and profoundest theologians, and no one who realizes what the Spirit of Christ is can doubt for an instant the spiritual power and blessing to be found in the Nonconformist Churches:

…the insistence on definite personal relation to God, as urged by the Baptists, the fervour of the Methodists, and the love of the Word of God and earnest expectation of the Lord’s Coming, which characterize the Plymouth Brethren.

The whole truth is not with one side alone. No one can doubt the present divisions of Christendom are a stumbling-block to non-Christians, and no one who reads the New Testament teaching on unity can help deploring the tendency to continual division and separation among certain sections of the Protestant world. Sectarianism has been well defined as individualism run mad, and it would be well for Nonconformity if it could realize more than it does of the corporate side of Christianity and the Christian life.

He Shall Come Again

The coming of our Lord is set before us in the New Testament as the hope of the Church. There are over three hundred references in one form or another to this great event. Not death, but the Lord’s coming should fill the horizon of the Christian’s outlook on the future. This was the attitude of the early Christians, and this should be our attitude if we would be true followers of our Master… no one can think of the Coming of the Lord without finding in it an incentive to holiness, an inspiration to service, and a spiritual joy and satisfaction in the consciousness of reunion with the Master. The Creed simply states, in most simple terms, the Coming of our Lord to judgment, but Scripture goes very much more into detail, and distinguishes between the Lord coming to judge and reward His own people and His subsequent judgment of all men. Perhaps the truth is best stated when we say that the Lord will first come for His people (1 Thess. iv. 14-17), and then at some time afterwards He will come with His people (Jude 14), when they will be associated with Him in the judgment of the world (1 Cor. vi. 2).

Amid all the difficulties of modern life, the differences among Christian people, and the pressing problems awaiting solution, the one expectation of the Church is the Coming of the Lord. While we strain with every nerve to evangelize the world in this generation, our hope must ever be fixed on “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus ii. 13).

The Lord our Righteousness

“Can believers fall away from grace and be lost forever?” We may perhaps say that the question ought not to be considered from such an abstract and speculative standpoint. We ought not to ask, “Can they”? but “Will they”? Will those that have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and have experienced the sweetness, strength, and satisfaction of His presence, leave Him? Surely not. If the matter were considered solely from the standpoint of abstract possibility; if sin be conceived of as going on unchecked and unhindered, there could not be a doubt that a Christian could fall away and be lost; but we are not to consider this matter in any such speculative and impossible way, but instead to remember the provision God makes, and the means He uses to prevent lapses from Himself. We may assuredly say if we will, “I have a logical conviction that in myself I can fall away, but I also have a moral conviction that, by God’s grace, I shall not fall away.” The Christian is never to be considered in himself, and by himself, but as he is in Christ by God’s grace, and with all the safeguards and privileges of Divine power surrounding and supporting him.

Faith in man answers to grace in God. Faith is the correlative of Promise. Faith renounces self and receives the Saviour. There is, therefore, no merit in faith; it is only the instrument, not the ground, of Justification… or, as we may put it, we are not justified by faith, but by Christ through faith. Faith is nothing apart from its Object, and it is only of use as it leads us directly to Him Who has wrought a perfect Righteousness, and as it enables us to appropriate Him as “The Lord our Righteousness.”