Goodness

Christ’s example is a revelation of Perfect Manhood. It was a manifestation of what human nature was intended to be, and what it can be by the grace of God. “Who did no sin.” This is the negative aspect of His example. “I do always those things which please Him.” This is the positive side. The absence of sin and the presence of righteousness are God’s purpose for us also, and this revelation of our Lord’s perfect life makes a claim on us, and is intended to elicit a response of holy character. “Leaving us an example, that ye should follow in His steps.” Conduct is the expression of character, character the result of goodness, and goodness is the outcome of continual contact with God. “The fruit of the Spirit is goodness,” and nothing can make up for the lack of this all-embracing element. Orthodoxy, privilege, opportunity, are all intended only as means towards goodness, and the example of our Lord is a standing testimony to the demand for and possibility and power of holiness of life and goodness of character.

Humility

The Incarnation is a revelation of Supreme Condescension . “Who, being in the form of God, counted not equality with God a thing to be retained as a prize, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself.”

Humility of mind, heart, and soul is one of the fundamental requirements of true Christianity. Augustine was asked: “What is the first step to heaven?” He answered: “Humility.” “And the second step?” “Humility.” “And the third?” “Humility.” Humility has been well defined by Caroline Fry, in her invaluable little book Christ our Example, as “unconscious self-forgetfulness.” Mark the force and depth in that thought of the unconsciousness of our humility, for conscious humility is none other than the most terrible form of pride. The servant of God who realises most fully what His Master did in becoming incarnate will ever remember that unconscious self-effacement is the one great requisite of all true work for God. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Servant of God

The motto of the Prince of Wales is a short but very expressive one: “I serve.” At first sight it may seem peculiar that “I serve” should be the motto of a prince, but a prince is never more really a prince than when he is giving himself to the service of others. The true prince is a servant.

The figure of the Servant of Jehovah in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. is the unique and magnificent contribution of that evangelical prophet to the revelation of the Messiah. In a series of chapters, from xli.-liii. various aspects of the Servant are brought before us; He is a Divine Messenger, a Prophetic Witness, a Suffering Martyr, a Sacrificial Victim, and a Victorious King. Yet in all these offices He is essentially and predominately the Servant.

The idea of Messiah as Servant finds its beautiful fulfillment in the New Testament in the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God. From the earliest recorded word, “I must be about My Father’s business,” we have illustration after illustration of our Lord as the Servant of God. “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but to do the will of Him that sent Me”; “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

This conception of our Lord as the Servant of Jehovah is necessarily something far more and deeper than a mere picture of Divine love and perfect service. It is intended to have a practical effect on all who profess and call themselves followers of Christ. The “Servant of God” is the Master of men, and His Service which wrought their salvation also bought their lives; and now the Apostolic word says: “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. vi. 19, 20).

Revelation

It is only as God reveals Himself that we can respond to Him or receive grace to serve our fellowmen. The only adequate motive power for true service between man and man is the revelation of God’s grace in Christ. Altruism is only possible and actually powerful in the light of Calvary.

It is only as we answer to God’s revelation that the revelation becomes effectual in our experience, or energetic in our service. The grace of God has been so conditioned that it requires human reception and response before it can become effective. It is sufficient for all the human race; but it only becomes efficient in those who welcome it to heart and life.

Loyalty and Love

Loyalty to Christ brings with it loyalty to man for whom Christ died; and wherever there is a human being needing help, there the true Christian heart will run, with its glad “Here am I.” We need more and more of this readiness to be at the service of our fellows, for it is by our service for our brother that we best prove our loyalty to our Lord.

Loyalty and love are not mere emotions, but mastering energies. They are not simply feelings, but solid facts. They are not summed up in dreamy sentiments, but in definite sacrifices. In the Bible loyalty and love are always expressed in acts and facts, not in mere aspirations and fancies. “God so loved the world that He gave. Christ loved the Church, …and gave. “Who loved me, and gave.” So it must be with us. Love is proved by labour, by service, by expenditure of thought, prayer, effort, yea, of our very selves. This is the true attitude of the believer as he stands witnessing for God to others. The whole of his life is speaking to all around: “Let me serve you in any possible way.” “Here am I.”

Power

Christianity is Christ, and civilization is not necessarily Christianity. Christianity means the Gospel, and the Gospel means redemption from sin; and it behoves those at home and those abroad to seek to proclaim by lip and life the message of that Gospel as “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

Reasonable Service

When the believer says “Here I am” to God, he places himself at God’s disposal. This whole-hearted response is the natural outcome of the reception of God’s relation to the soul. We can see this truth on every page of the New Testament. God comes to the soul, and then man yields himself to God as belonging to Him. “Ye are not your own, ye are bought.” This is the meaning of St. Paul’s great word translated “yield” in Rom. vi. 13, 19, and [the verb] “present” in ch. xii. 1. In the latter passage the Apostle bases his exhortation on the “mercies of God,” on the revelation of God saying “Here I am” to man; and after urging his readers to “present” their bodies as a sacrifice to God he speaks of this surrender as their “logical service,” the rational, necessary outcome of their acceptance of “the mercies of God.” The Gospel does not come to the soul simply for personal enjoyment; it comes to awaken in it a sense of its true life… “Christ is all” to us from the outset; and we should be “all to Him.” There should be no hiatus, no gap, no interval, between acceptance of Christ as Saviour and the surrender to Him as Lord. His full title is “Jesus Christ our Lord”; and the full extent of its meaning (though of course not its full depth) is intended to be realised from our very first experience of His saving presence and power. And if we have never realised this, and if we have been, at least in measure, enjoying His grace without yielding to Him His full rights, now is the time to bow before Him, and with a definite act of loving trust and surrender to say, “Lord Jesus, here am I.”

Presence

A Chinese catechist once depicted the sinner as fallen into a deep and dangerous pit, and helpless and hopeless. First came Confucius, and, looking down, said: “I am very sorry for you. If you get out of that, take care that you do not fall in again.” Next came Buddha, who, looking down in pity, said: “If only you could get up half way, I could come to meet you half way, and so raise you up.” Last of all Jesus came by, and went down to the very depth of that pit, lifted up the poor, wounded sinner, “set his feet on a rock, and established his goings.”

It is the unique and crowning glory of Christianity that it saves mankind by the presence of God in the world. In no other religion or religious system is the presence of God a reality in human life. In Islam He is exalted far above man and entirely separated from human sins and needs. In Buddhism He is lost in the world of nature and has no personal contact with human hearts. In Islam God is lost to man by reason of His transcendence, and in Buddhism by reason of His supposed immanence. The same results accrue from the Unitarian conception of God, and are also manifest in the various philosophical systems which occupy much of human thought today. God is either regarded as dwelling in solitary abstraction and out of all touch with human life, or else He is absorbed in the created world, and in no sense a power over individual hearts.

Only in Christianity are the two great complementary truths of God’s transcendence and immanence preserved, reconciled and balanced. God is assuredly transcendent in all the glory of His unique splendour and divine majesty, but He is also immanent, divinely and blessedly present, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Christian revelation of the Holy Trinity alone preserves God to us as a personal presence and practical power.

To every sinner comes the message, “The Word is nigh unto thee.” Man has not to strive and climb in order to reach up to God and find Him. God is here, waiting to be gracious, not willing that any should lose or miss Him. And it is the entrance of God into the soul that really constitutes salvation. He does not send a gift; He comes Himself. Salvation is not so much a gift as the presence of the Divine Giver. “Here am I.”

Take Us the Foxes

As we consider the Christian life and try to realise something of its responsibilities and possibilities, it will be well for us to ponder afresh the secret of true living, the way to meet not only the extraordinary, but, what is far more difficult, the ordinary demands of daily life. It is comparatively easy to shine on great occasions and to meet special emergencies. It is not so easy to shine on ordinary duties and to meet the momentary requirements of everyday living. We need, it is true, our great experiences, “to mount up with wings as eagles.” Nor must we be without power for times of exceptional pressure, “to run and not be weary.” But far above all we need grace for the little things in life, “the daily round, the common task,” to “walk, and not faint” (Isa. xl. 31).