To this St. Paul answers: “God, who was manifest in the flesh, was preached to the Gentiles.”
God does care that men should know about God; for He loves them. He yearns after them as a father after his children, and He knows that to know God, to know the truth about God, is the beginning of all wisdom, the root of all safety and honour and happiness. He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth. And, therefore, when the Son of God died for our sins, He did not stop at that great deed of love; but He ordained Apostles, and put upon them especially and above all men, His Holy Spirit, that they might go and preach to all nations the good news that God had become flesh, and dwelt among men, and borne their sorrows and infirmities, and to baptize them into the very name of God itself, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; that so, instead of fancying now that God did not care for them, they might be sure that God so longed to teach them, that He called every child, even from its cradle, to come into His kingdom, and be taught the whole mystery of godliness.
The next puzzle I mentioned was: “But this right life, this mystery of godliness, is it not something very strange and difficult, and past the understanding of simple men who are not extraordinarily clever and learned scholars or deep philosophers?” To that St. Paul answers: No. It is not past any man. It is not too deep or too difficult for the simplest, the most unlearned countryman. For, says St. Paul in the text, we Apostles have had proof of that; we have tried it; we Apostles preached the mystery of godliness, and it was believed on in the world. People of the world, plain working men and women going about their worldly business, who had no time to be great readers, or great thinkers, or to shut themselves up in monasteries to meditate on heavenly things, but had to live and work in the commonplace, busy, workday world—they believed our message. We Apostles told them that the Son of God had showed Himself in the likeness of man, and called on every man to repent, and to be such a man as He was. And worldly people believed us, and tried, and found that without giving up their worldly work, or deserting the station in which God had put them, they could live godlike lives, and become the sons of God without rebuke. They saw that scholarship was not wanted, leisure was not wanted, but only the humble heart which hungers and thirsts after righteousness. About their daily work, by their cottage firesides, among their poor neighbours, the Spirit of Almighty God gave them strength to live as Jesus their pattern lived; He filled them with all holy, pure, noble, brave, loving thoughts and feelings, fit for angels and archangels. He enabled them to rise out of their sins, to trample their temptations under foot, to leave their old low brutish sinful way of life behind them, and become new men, and persevere in every word, and thought, and action, in virtues such as the greatest heathen sages could not copy; ay, even to shed their life-blood freely and boldly in martyrdom, for the sake of God and the truth of God. They, these plain simple people, living in the world, could still live the life of God, and die like heroes for the sake of God.
And this again brings us to the last puzzle of which I spoke: “But what became of those holy and godlike people when they died? What reward did they receive for all they had done, and given up, and suffered? What will become of us after we die? What will the next world be like? What is heaven like? Shall I be able to enjoy it? Shall I be a man there, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?”
To this St. Paul answers: That Christ, the Son of God, after He was manifested in the flesh, was received up into glory. He does not tell us what heaven is like; for though he had been caught up into the third heaven, yet what he saw there, he says, was unspeakable. He neither ought to tell, or could tell, what he saw. Neither does St. Paul tell us what the next life will be like; for as far as we can find, God had not told him. All he says is: The man Christ Jesus, who walked this earth like other men, was received up into glory; and He did not leave His man’s mind, His man’s heart, even His man’s body, behind Him. He carried up into heaven with Him His whole manhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to the print of the nails in His hands and in His most holy feet, and the wound of the spear in His most holy side. And that is enough for us. Because the man Christ Jesus is in heaven, we as men may ascend to heaven. Where He is we shall be. And what He is, in as far as He is man, we shall be. What we shall be we know not; but this we know, that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And He is a man still; for it is written: “There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” And He will be a man at the day of judgment; for it is written that: “God hath ordained a day in which He will judge the world by a man whom He hath chosen.” And He will be a man for ever; for it is written: “This man abideth for ever.” And He Himself said to His disciples: “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, till I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.” And again He declared, even when he was on earth, that He was the Son of Man who is in heaven. And in heaven nothing can grow less. But if Christ were not man for ever as well as God, He would become less; for He is now God and man also at once; but if He laid down His manhood, and so became not man any more, but God only, He would become less, which is not to be believed of Him of whom it is written: That Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For, as the Athanasian creed teaches us, He is not God alone, nor man alone, but God and man is one Christ; and therefore, when St. John declares that Christ shall reign for ever and ever, he declares that He shall reign not only as God, but as man also. Therefore whatever we do not know about the next life, we know this, that we shall be men there; not sinful, weak, and mortal, as we are here, but holy, strong, immortal, after the likeness of our Lord, the firstborn from the dead, who has ascended up on high and raised our human nature to the heaven of heavens, and is gone to prepare a place for us, into which we too shall enter in that day when He shall change these mortal and fallen bodies which we now wear, the bodies of our humiliation, the bodies by wearing which we are now a little lower than the angels; them the Lord will change, that they may be made like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He subdueth all things unto Himself, that we may see Him face to face, and dwell with Him in the glory of God the Father for ever.
Oh my friends, who is sufficient for these things? What shall we say of man? Is he not indeed fearfully and wonderfully made? Here we are, weak creatures, more liable to disease and death than the dumb beasts round us; full of poverty, and adversity, and longings which are never satisfied; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts full of false conceit, full of spite and folly, struggles, murmurings, quarrellings; our consciences full of the remembrance of sins without number. The greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was not a more miserable and pitiable animal upon the earth than man. He knew no better. He could not know better. How could he, when God had not yet been manifest in the flesh? How could he dream that the Lord God would condescend to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show man His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth—how could he dream that? And more than all, how could he dream that God, instead of throwing away our human nature when He rose again, as if it was too great a degradation for Him to be a man one moment more, should condescend to take up His human nature, His man’s body, soul, and spirit, with Him into everlasting glory, that He might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls of those who trust in Him, so as to make them fit for us at the last day, to share in His everlasting life? The old heathen poet knew as well as you or I that there was an everlasting life beyond the grave; that men’s souls were immortal, and could not die: but the thought of it was all dark, and dreary, and uncertain to him and to all mankind, till the Son of God brought life and immortality to light, when He was manifest in the flesh.
Wonderful mystery of godliness! Wonderful love of God to man! Wonderful condescension of God to man! Still more wonderful patience of God to man!
Oh you who live still in sin, when the Son of God died and rose again to make you righteous; you who defile your bodies with sins worse than the brutes, when the Son of God offers to raise those bodies of yours to be equal with the angels; how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation; if you despise this unspeakable love; if you trample under foot, like swine, the everlasting glory and happiness which God offers you freely, without fee or price, for the sake of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died to buy them for you?
XLIV.
THE WORK OF GOD’S SPIRIT.
If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me: of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more: of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.—John xvi. 7–11.