The Bible and Life

by Edwin Holt Hughes

We are allowed to believe, then, that the pity of God passes over into sympathy. We are visited in our sorrows not by a God whose mood toward us is abstract, but whose own infinite heart knows grief. “The human life of God” is a phrase that has been used to describe the incarnation. That phrase enters into our problem here. If Jesus shows us what God is like, then the Christ who wept over Jerusalem brings us one revelation of the divine life. The pitying God becomes the sympathizing God.

The biblical lesson of comfort does not halt even here. It is given a closer and more personal quality. A pitier and sympathizer may be very distant, and his aid may reach us over the abysses. If the Bible gives us the vision of a pitying father, it gives us also the vision of the God who comforteth even as a mother comforteth. In the various kinds of trouble men become aware of reserve forces in their nature. They endure what they thought they could not endure. In crisis times the muscles secure extra strength, the mind secures extra alertness, and the spirit secures extra power either to do or to bear. These reserves must be of God’s giving, whether they lie ready in the nature always, or are special gifts sent direct to help us in the troublous hours. There is, however, a still more personal interpretation that the Bible offers for these experiences. They are the special visits of God to the afflicted. If the creed of the divine sympathy gets its meaning from “the human life of God” as seen in the incarnation of Christ, this part of the creed gets its meaning from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is true that the Greek word which is translated “Comforter” might be given other meanings such as Adviser or Helper. But this does not change the point for the present discussion. An Adviser in sorrow is a Comforter, and a Helper in sorrow is a Comforter. It is significant that the consciousness of the church followed the translators eagerly and adopted the word Comforter as if it met some need of life and as if it answered to some deep experience of life. We may not go into a labored discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity. We may affirm that a humanity that sorrows is glad for a doctrine of the Godhead that magnifies the office of consolation. The comforting quality in Barnabas led the early disciples to change his name from Joses to Barnabas because he was a “son of consolation.” They rejoiced in their human comforter. The church has ever found satisfaction in the revelation of a divine Comforter. In this revelation it sees the pitying God and the sympathizing God become the Comforting God.

Related to this is the scriptural idea that God conquers our sorrow not by removing it but by making us equal to its burden. The clearest concrete illustration of this is seen in Paul’s words about his “thorn in the flesh.” His thrice-repeated prayer was that the thorn might be removed; his answer was that, while the difficulty would not be taken away, he would be given grace sufficient for his trial. Paul’s experience has impressed men as being typical of the inner kind of divine aid. The sorrow may be of many kinds; but the powers of resistance are strengthened by the grace of God and the sorrows are borne in a brave and patient spirit. Although the idea be trite, it claims a place in the discussion, as indeed it was worthy of a place in the ritual of comfort. We are not dealing with any mere law of reaction. It was not the thorn that was making Paul strong; it was God who was making Paul strong to endure the thorn. He himself describes the transaction as if it had involved a direct gift of the divine grace, as it had involved a direct message from the divine heart.

Yet great as are all these types of biblical consolation, we all feel that we have not reached the conclusion of the matter. Comparison is not enough. Brevity does not explain why sorrow should be just brief. Pity does not tell us why we should need to be pitied. Direct spiritual reserves do not fully justify the hard experience that calls for them. Direct and personal comfort does not solve the problem since no one would seek trouble in order to have the visits of a comforting friend. The gaining of inner strength comes nearer to a positive warrant for the sorrows of life; yet it does not quite reach the satisfying conception. All these things are parts of the program, but they are not its conclusion. The tale of life’s sorrow is not all told by their recital. The full story we cannot understand now; still we may be able to glimpse its meaning. In the epic of Job there are traces of the revelation. The patriarch gathers a harvest out of his troubles. They never reach the uttermost extreme. They do not last forever. They bring him pity, however crude; sympathy, however bungling; comforters, however mistaken; reserve forces, however tardy; inner strength, however won. But his sorrows do more than this; they are represented in the last chapter as having been made the servant of Job. The richer and stronger man returns to the richer and stronger life. The testings have been turned into gains.

This deeper lesson of comfort is often given to us in the Bible by means of a very positive verb. Our afflictions “work” for us. All things “work” together for us. As men are sent to the fields, and as the forces of nature are sent along the wires, so sorrows are sent to become our servants. This service is not inevitable; it is conditioned on the attitude of the sorrowing life; but it is a very real service when the conditions are met. Our afflictions work for us—when we get the spiritual vision so that we can receive the things that are eternal. All things work together for good for us—when we fulfill the innermost requirement of loving God. The condition in both cases is located within the spiritual life. This condition being met, the promise of the Bible is that sorrow is made our efficient servant. Paul in his famous verse of consolation states the case with marked confidence. The afflictions work for us until they produce “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Language could scarcely be stronger. Nor were the words used by one who lolled in the high places of ease and delight and shouted down his abstract comforts to the strugglers in the vale. The assurance to the sorrowing comes from their comrade. His experiences ranged all the way from the petty hardships of a wandering life on to the Appian Way and the block of death. It was the sure faith of the apostle that all his sorrows had been made to work for him. He was not their victim; he was their master and their beneficiary.

The persons who have seen much of the world’s better living will not deny this conception. Le Gallienne in his booklet, If I Were God, admits that suffering does often work toward the making of character and becomes a real servant. His skepticism does not lie at this point. His inquiry is whether a just and good God could not have found some easier way, some servant for which we would not have to render such a painful cost. This, of course, is that old method of debate that flees for refuge to some imaginary world and conceives of people who do not exist. Our task is with the people now on earth, and with them we must deal in our efforts at consolation. Some of them we have seen driven to bitterness of spirit by their sorrow. They themselves made sorrow an evil servant which filled the garden of life with noxious weeds, shut the windows of hope in the home of life, put the poison of despair into the water of life, and spread the clouds of gloom over all the sky of life. Others we have seen mellowed and sweetened by the servantship of sorrow. All our visits to them showed clearly that sorrow was doing gracious service. The “weight of glory” was more and more apparent. The “good” produced by the “all things” gave increasing evidence that the “servant” was doing his work. When any close observer of life writes down his lists of saints he will always find that he has been compelled to canonize many who, like their Master, have been made “perfect through suffering.”

The quotation of these words about Christ reminds us that the world turns to him as to the last resort for the sorrowing. Here, as in all other studies, we find the climax in him. As he entered into all forms of work, so did he enter into all forms of sorrow. Is it homelessness? Is it privation? Is it misunderstanding? Is it anxiety for others? Is it anticipated suffering? Is it evil accusation? Is it ridicule? Is it shame? Is it mockery? Is it torture? Is it utter disgrace? Is it abandonment? Is it denial? Is it betrayal? Is it death? All these he knew. If the wisest and holiest suffer most, he knew all these sorrows at their deepest. None could really join with him in chanting the real De Profundis. He trod the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with him. The world that left him alone in his sorrow does not wish him to leave it alone in its sorrow. It seeks him then. It hears him as he promises, not immunity from suffering, but the experience of overcoming in suffering: “Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.” He put a deeply personal quality into his assurance, “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” “I am with you always, even unto the end of the æons.” So runs the promise. It is no wonder that the troubled flee to him. The Man of Sorrows draws the men of sorrows. His benediction of peace is not formal. With the authority and with the reserves of comfort at his command, he still says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

To the usual messages of consolation he now adds the eternal reason, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Well did Carlyle say that if Jesus were only man, he had no right to utter these words. But Jesus said much more. He would prepare the place. He would come again. He would receive them into his company. If some doubter shall ask about the way, his reply shall be the same as of old, “I am the way.” Through him alone we come to the Father. Full trust in him removes all bitter tears: and the remainder of tears he does not rebuke. He inspires the visions wherein we see those who have come up out of great tribulation hungering no more, nor thirsting any more, nor smitten by the sun or any heat; but fed by the Lamb and led by him amid fountains of living waters, while God wipes away all tears from their eyes.

This doctrine of heaven as a consolation for sorrow is not born of selfishness, as is often charged. The rankest of infidels said, “In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.” Not “listening selfishness,” but “listening love”! The love that we bear to our own and to all mankind seeks this vision and finds it waiting in the divine plan. Is it selfish to desire that for ourselves which will injure none others? Is it selfish to long for that which will meet the longings of the whole world? Verily some critics discover strange dictionaries when they define words in reference to the holy faith. But all the while the afflicted seek the face of Christ. Troubles look unto him and are lightened. The poor man cries and the Lord still delivers him out of his troubles. Our Bibles and our Hymnals personalize the haven for us. He is the Rock of Ages. His bosom is the Refuge. To him we go when shadows darkly gather. A present help is he. The last low whispers of our dead are burdened with his name. The suffering world states its comfort in terms of Christ himself.

For the final sorrow of death he offers the full consolation. The tragedy of separation remains. Our indictment against death is that of Tennyson: