Paul believed in Christ. On what grounds? Can we believe in Christ? If so, again I ask on what grounds?
1. Christ stands before us in our darkness in a position which is exclusively His own. Of all men, He alone knew whence He came and whither He went. Without hesitation, and with tones of sovereign authority, He points out to us the way to God. He speaks of heaven as one who has come from thence. Everywhere He calls Himself the Sent of the Father, His only-begotten Son, the Lord of souls. His word was with power; sweet with intensest human tenderness, influential with Divine authority. What was it that gave Him this power? Not human reasoning, not eloquence. It was the light of Truth reaching the conscience, and penetrating the heart. We see in Him God as He is, and we also see in Him man as he ought to be. We do not reason about this influence. Apprehending Him, we instinctively accept it. It is thus that millions have said: “To whom can we go but unto Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
2. This influence of Christ has been exerted on every variety of human soul. His followers, in ever-increasing numbers, come from all conditions on earth—rich and poor, learned and ignorant, young and old, hardened sinners and men blushing with their first sins: all find from Him peace and light and hope. Especially is this so with those who suffer and weep; those who have felt the poverty of mere words, and who are now beyond the reach of any illusion. For the first time they have been comforted, and the comfort has satisfied them.
3. Still we want further to know by what authority He wields this influence. We ask, “Does He come from God?” The reply is that He does before our eyes the works of God. Not miracles merely, for though these constitute a powerful testimony, there is yet something more. He has revealed God in His own person, and the proof of His Divine mission has been given in His life. In Him, holiness has been at once realised and exhibited. Eighteen hundred years ago His enemies could find no fault in Him. Since then humanity has progressed, but Christ still leaves the noblest sons of men amazingly far behind Him. A hostile criticism has been indefatigable in its attempt to discover flaws in His character, and yet that character still stands before us as the ideal of the good and the true. His is a holiness before which the conscience of the world is accused and judged. Irresistibly the answer of the heart comes: “He who is so holy must be worthy of all our faith.”
4. Moreover, there is the sense of sin and of the need of pardon and salvation. Here after all, and more than anywhere else, is the secret of confidence in Christ. We seek salvation in works—anywhere out of Him—but we cannot find it. He who is holy and true tells us that He came into the world to save us, that He is our sacrifice and our peace, and that the love and the righteousness of God are manifest in Him and in the redeeming work He has undertaken on our behalf. This exactly meets our case. We say: “This is what we want, but what we have elsewhere sought in vain. At His hands we accept it with implicit trust and with fervent thankfulness.”
Are not these reasons enough? Is not the response of every heart, “Yes, they are.” Can it be less than the utmost folly and guilt for men to resist the voice of a conscience which tells them that it is only in Christ that the soul can find its rest? Is all this concurrent testimony to be set aside?
This assurance of faith, however, can only be the result of intense earnestness. We do not forget the necessity of the agency of the Spirit of God; let us never forget it; but let us also remember how constantly and how fatally that agency can be contravened. Paul held the great truths he preached with so tenacious and so unquestioning a faith, because he had begun by consecrating his heart to them under the intuitive perception that they were the truths which his nature as a man and his condition as a sinner so imperatively needed, and because all his experience of them did but confirm their sufficiency. “If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God,” or whether it be of men. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
For the unbeliever there are grounds enough for faith, both within and without. And if, even with the desire, faith be still found to be beset with difficulties, there is one unfailing prayer which will make it easy—the prayer, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.”