With God in the World: A Series of Papers

by Charles Henry Brent

Chapter V

The Testing of Friendship

Of course, friendship with God must be tried. Not only can true friendship stand any strain to which it may be put, but it even needs to be thus tested in order to be solidly set. It is like the knot that becomes more fixed and firm at each new pull of the cord. The faith and affection which will cling to a friend when all the forces of disunion seem combined to bring about a separation, are so tempered by the experience involved as to defy every conceivable enemy, and to discover new depths of love and service in the fellowship that has been thus put to the test. To enter upon just why this should be, is not to the purpose. It is a fact and law of the life of fellowship between man and man, and man and God. The force that threatens to break up the connection between God and man, but by means of which that union may be consummated, is temptation.

§ 1. Temptation is always an opportunity.—There are two kinds of testing—that which proves a thing to discover whether it is what it professes to be, and that which aims to bring out latent possibilities in the thing tested. With the former there goes a sort of lurking suspicion that all may not be right, as when a bit of metal is tried by acid, or a big gun is proved by an excessive charge. When a test of this kind is over the thing that is tried is just what it was before, neither more nor less. No new quality is in the gift of the test. With the latter, on the other hand, the result is different, as when the silver "from the earth is tried, and purified seven times in the fire." The quartz goes into the furnace and a stream of unalloyed metal flows out; or to seek still another illustration,—the process by which steel is tempered. Here new qualities are given by means of the testing; to the silver, purity, and to the steel, hardness and elasticity. To this second form of testing belongs the element of trust rather than that of suspicion. The material is so good, that the workman has no doubt about its coming through the fire purer and more valuable than ever.

It is this kind of testing which the friends of God must undergo, the kind of testing which affords friends the very opportunity they need to become better friends. It is not too much to say that man being what he is, there is no conceivable means excepting temptation, which would give to him just those elements which are necessary for his progress toward God. Jesus was "in all points tempted like as we are," primarily that His manhood might reach its full measure, and this entailed such sympathy with the race as ensues upon a common experience. Atonement means a unity with God which has been achieved, not by a divine fiat, but by a choice of the human will that has repelled the last attack of God's greatest enemy.

It is always so that in scanning the harsh features of a refining process, the happy result of the process is blurred and forgotten. Temptation is surely an assault to be withstood, but at the same time it is an opportunity to be seized. Viewed in this light life becomes inspiring, not in spite but because of its struggles, and we are able to greet the unseen with a cheer, counting it unmixed joy when we fall into the many temptations which, varied in form, dog our steps from the cradle to the grave. The soldier who is called to the front is stimulated, not depressed; the officer who is bidden by his general to a post of great responsibility, and so of hardship and peril, is thrilled with the joy of his task. An opportunity has been given him to prove himself worthy of great trust, which can be done only at the cost of great trouble.

This is a true picture of temptation. And the result of it all is a nature invigorated and refined, a character made capable of close friendship with God, to say nothing of the unmeasured joy that is the attendant of nobility of soul and stalwart Christian manhood.

§ 2. The majesty of conflict with temptation.—One is often depressed by the seemingly inglorious character of our temptations. They are so mean, petty and commonplace. If they had in them something to rouse in the heart that love of romance, that is a saving element in human nature, one could fight better. Now temptation has this very element. But spiritual eyes are needed to discern the glory of the commonplace, the romance of the inglorious. God has been trying with divine patience to convince men of this from the very beginning. The story of the first temptation of the first human beings, in its poetic dress points to the romance of life's struggle. Jacob's wrestling bout with the mysterious being by the river's brink, is a view of the underside of any struggle against temptation, as God sees it, when the tempted one fights to win.

Above all in the narrative of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, is the majesty of conflict with evil made plain. It is a record which exceeds in dramatic splendour the story of "Faust," or the realism of "Pilgrim's Progress." And in it we arrive at the paradoxical truth that the temptations of Jesus were just as commonplace as ours, and that ours are just as glorious as His,—His, of course, having a completeness which none others could have, for the most complete temptation is the temptation of the most complete.