“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” We do not call you to a learned and critical study. The life and teachings and redeeming work of the Saviour are put before us with a simplicity that brings them within the reach of a peasant or a child. Attention, earnestness, sincerity, prayer, will do all that is needed. Seek the faith that will make Christ yours. Do you not already, under the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, feel your need of Him? Oh, whilst mercy calls, and the throne of grace is accessible, pray and yield!
Ye that in these courts are found
Listening to the joyful sound,
Lost and helpless as you are,
Sons of sorrow, sin, and care,
Glorify the King of kings!
Take the peace the gospel brings.
Turn to Christ with longing eyes,
View His bleeding sacrifice.
See through Him your sins forgiven,
Pardon, holiness, and heaven.
Glorify the King of kings!
Take the peace the gospel brings.
IV.
SINCERITY OF HEART NECESSARY TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL
“If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” – John vii. 17.
The Jews, marvelling at Christ’s teaching in the temple, exclaim, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” They do not mean to ask whether Christ is competent to teach, for they see that he is so clearly enough; but they thus express their astonishment at the authority and the ability with which He deals with the Scriptures, considering that He has never received the instruction of the Schools.
In His reply, Jesus fully enters into the thought of His questioners. That thought is this: “In order to teach, one must have been taught.” He intimates to them that He meets this requirement. As though He had said: “It is true that I have not been in the schools of your Rabbis, but I have been taught in a better school than theirs. He who has given me my mission, has also given me my message. So that my teaching does not proceed originally from myself. I have only to lay hold of my Father’s thought, and then to reproduce it faithfully to you.”
But how is this to be verified? The answer to this question is found in the text: “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Christ’s teaching, in its highest aim, is a Divine method of sanctification. Whoever, then, earnestly seeks to “do the will of God” – that is, to be holy – will soon recognise the Divine adaptability of the gospel to its end. The meaning of the verse is the same as in chapter v. and verse 46: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me;” and also in chapter iii. and verse 21: “He that doeth truth cometh to the light.” On the one hand, the holy sublimity of the gospel flashes irresistibly on the soul that longs for holiness; on the other hand, the soul, in its inability to attain its ideal, seeks peace and strength at the hands of the Saviour. Faith, therefore, is not the result of a logical operation; it appears to the soul as the best means of realising the satisfaction of its deepest want – holiness. The word “will” points to the loftiness of the aspiration and to the earnestness of the effort.
Our Lord’s words, then, mean this, that if any man be supremely anxious to do the right, he will find in Scripture sufficient proof of its divinity, and, as a consequence, of its adaptability to the soul’s deepest need. Christ was dealing with men who were disposed to cavil about His authority and about the truth which He taught. These men were acquainted with the Mosaic law, which enjoined not only purity of life, but also purity of heart. It was a law therefore which, if honestly studied, must lead to those convictions which would enable them to see the necessity and the wisdom of the gospel which Christ was preaching. And so He lays down the principle that sincerity in regard to the known law of God determines the real position of the mind towards God, and prepares it for deeper and still deeper penetration into all necessary spiritual knowledge. On the contrary, he who is insincere, and does not practise what he knows, but endeavours to evade it by sophistry, blinds himself until even the brightest light can be of no service to him. This was the case with the majority of the Pharisees with whom Christ had to do. This passage is therefore of the highest practical importance, since it teaches that man’s capacity for spiritual knowledge is dependent upon his inclination. If the will be opposed to God, the understanding becomes clouded; if it be inclined towards God, the ability to know increases. That the inclination is the door to the intellect is a fact universally recognised. It is expressed in the proverb: “None are so blind as those who will not see.” In every department of learning, a man, in order to attainment, must make up his mind to it. For good or ill, the will is a quickening power.
It would be interesting and instructive to discuss this question in connection with religious error, both in and out of the professing Christian Church. My present purpose, however, is a more simple and elementary one – namely, to indicate the bearing of the question upon man’s reception of the gospel for his salvation. I say, then, that honesty, sincerity, integrity of heart is the required and indispensable condition for perceiving and feeling the divinity and suitability of the gospel; and that even an ignorant man, if he be but sincere, and devoutly anxious to know the will of God, that he may do it, may discover in the Bible those traces of moral beauty and of Divine truth which a learned but unconscientious man will almost certainly fail to find therein. Sincerity of heart – this is the wisest, most natural, and most comprehensive means of access to the inner spirit of that gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. A few remarks in proof of this.
I. Suppose the gospel to be so manifestly filled with the proofs of its divinity that all hearts, even the most obdurate, could not refrain from yielding to its claims. Suppose it to be self-evidencing, in the same way and to the same extent, as the sun is self-evidencing by its shining, or fire by its known power to burn. In this case, no moral or intellectual disposition would be necessary in order to its reception. It could no more be denied than the light of the sun, or the consuming power of fire. But what, with such a gospel, would be man’s position? Forced to assent to an imperious obligation, he would be, in relation to the gospel and to the salvation provided in it, nothing more than a machine, acting under the impulse of an irresistible necessity. There could, under these circumstances, be neither praise nor blame attached to him. He could no longer be accounted a moral agent – could not be regarded as free, inasmuch as it would not be possible for him to choose error or evil without obvious and startling folly. He could no longer be responsible, because he would have to yield to a necessity. There could be no free thought in his creed, no free love in his heart, and consequently no virtue in his life.
II. Since, then, some disposition is necessary in order to a man’s coming to the gospel, suppose that God had imposed an intellectual qualification – such, for instance, as is required for the learning of art or of science, or for the understanding of any difficult problem in philosophy. Observe what in that case must follow. If, to discover the truth necessary to salvation, a large measure of natural genius or of accumulated knowledge be required, we must consider as excluded from salvation the immense majority of the human race! Men cannot in any large numbers abandon the