Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary / Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk

by John Kline

In the forty-fifth Psalm David says: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter of righteousness. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness." A scepter is a kind of staff borne by kings as an emblem of their authority. It is a comfort to know that the scepter of Jehovah, as King of the universe, is a scepter of righteousness. We could never know that God is righteous, and that he loves righteousness, except by being told in his Word of Truth. This world does not give unequivocal testimony to the righteousness of God. The wicked bear rule, and the nations tremble. Evil often overcomes good, and wrong triumphs over right. Disease or accident lays the good man low in death; while the wicked near by is left to exult in the strength of his arm. I say it is comforting to know, in the midst of these apparent contradictory evidences of the just government of the world, that God is nevertheless righteous: and although iniquity largely bears rule and carries the day, God still hates wickedness. God does not acquiesce in the injustice and wrong that is being perpetrated in the world. He merely permits it; and he permits it for the reason that he can not arrest and put an end to it without destroying man's freedom. Man is free as to his will and understanding—free to believe what is false and to do what is wrong. But he is just as free to believe what is true and to will what is good. This freedom is what makes him capable of being reformed and saved.

It is self-evident that righteousness, which is right doing from right willing, is the basis of all true order and happiness in earth and heaven. "God is love," and he therefore loves righteousness because it is good, and hates wickedness because it is evil. But man has fallen from his primeval state of righteousness, and therefore he is not in a condition of mind and heart fit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, nor capable of enjoying the divine presence in the society of the pure and good. Righteousness and holiness are related to each other very much as the fruit is related to the tree that bears it. Holiness corresponds with the sap, fiber, life and whatever else makes the tree good; and righteousness corresponds with the fruit the good tree bears; and "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

But probably no subject in the line of human thought has given rise to so many different opinions as the subject of how righteousness is to be attained. The Jewish leaders and representatives in our Lord's day upon earth were very exact in their outward lives. They kept clean the outside of the cup and of the platter. Their external conduct was ordered to a rigid conformity to divine law. They endeavored to establish a righteousness of their own; and to all human appearance they succeeded; for the Lord himself said to them: "Ye make clean the outside"—as vessels may appear clean externally. He also compared them to beautiful monuments of marble sculptured after the highest style of art and polished to shining perfection, set up over the dead. But of this very class of men he said: "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." This proves that the righteousness which they had was not the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven.

Self-respect, or self-love, inclines almost every one, except the very abandoned, to make a show of righteousness; that is, they want others to think they are living right lives. No man who holds himself up to respectability is willing to be called a thief, or a liar, or an adulterer, or any other thing that is vile. He may be any or all of these, yet he is not willing that it should be known, or even suspected. Even he desires to make a fair show in the flesh.

Others, again, who make no profession of religion, but who yet believe in a supreme God and a future state of existence, desire to be righteous before God and man. They are not like the scribes and Pharisees, who attached virtue and merit to their rigid observance of the ceremonial law of ordinances in their religion. These that I now speak of are simply good moral men, who are honest in their dealings and careful of the conduct of their lives generally. These do not really desire to make any display of their righteousness. They wish rather to be esteemed for their real worth; and not for any fancied or spurious excellencies. They desire to live above the just reproaches of men, and the condemnation of God. They persuade themselves to think that their righteousness is all that God can require.

But the most numerous of all the classes that seek after righteousness is composed of those who trust in the righteousness of faith. Righteousness or justification by faith was the password of the Reformation. Martin Luther, misapplying Paul's utterance that "a man is justified or made righteous by faith without the deeds of the law," set a large part of Europe going with the impression that salvation, in the highest sense, is attainable on the easy terms of merely assenting to the statement that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Many passages can be adduced from the epistolary writings in plausible support of this theory of salvation. Although it is incomprehensible how the righteousness of Christ can be applied to each individual sinner on the bare ground of his merely giving assent to the doctrine of the atonement through the merit of Christ's death upon the cross, still it is the leading dogma of what is popularly called orthodoxy. But I must confess before all present this day that I have "not so learned Christ," nor Paul either. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." At the close of his sermon on the Mount, in which is given all necessary instruction and encouragement for living a righteous life from holy love in the heart, the Lord Jesus says: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock." And he said to Peter: "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The rock is the great truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. This truth involves every good affection and thought and work of man. It takes in and requires obedience to every divine command, and compliance with every divine precept. When any one complies with these conditions of salvation through the faith that sees and knows that God's Word is true because it is understood and must be so, he is righteous in the sight of the Lord, and necessarily in a state of salvation. He is then to "let his light shine before men, that others seeing his good works may glorify our Father in heaven."

For want of time I must pass over the subject of temperance, to say something about "a judgment to come." And right here there are all sorts of ideas and conjectures. But of all the subjects in the universe, that involving the judgment is the most momentous to man; because it is there that his eternal destiny will be disclosed to him, as to whether he shall be an angel of heaven or a demon in hell. And we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. It is not to be wondered at that Felix trembled under the weight of this great truth. God's Word will be the basis of judgment. Says our Lord: "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day." As "man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," so does every word of his truth point to that great day for which all other days were made. All the parables and miracles of our Lord, full of instruction as to heart and life, point, like so many guideposts, to this great central truth of man's experience and existence.

But, friends, let us imbibe no erroneous views and impressions regarding the judgment to come. Let us not regard it as being an occasion for the display of God's wrath; but let us rather look upon it as the sublimest manifestation of his love. Draw a comparison here. Good human laws are not a terror to the good. A jury is impaneled. A criminal is arraigned before it. Testimony is received and evidence drawn from it respecting the innocence or guilt of the accused. The balance of testimony is altogether in his favor. He is acquitted. That trial is a joy to that criminal, because it sets him right as to character before the world. But suppose he is found guilty. Is it a joy then? It is not. It is a grief. Why? Because his sin has found him out. His real character is laid bare. But in their consignment of him to the punishment prescribed by law, do the jury and the judge act from wrath? They do not, but from a love of good will to all. The law that condemns may have the appearance of wrath to the condemned; but never to the innocent.

Judgment and reward will be according to works, and never according to professions of faith, except where the professions are genuine, and lead to good works from the love of doing good. I have met with some who have manifested dread in contemplating the majesty of that great day, the day of "a judgment to come." I feel warranted in making the assertion that no one whose purpose in life is to do the will of our Father in heaven has any just ground whatever to dread the coming of that day. Justice never condemns the innocent. Just and wise laws are never a terror to the good, and such are all the laws of God. In the book of Revelation we read of those "who had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, saying: Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." These all exulted in the prospect of a judgment to come, because they had gotten the victory over the adversary of their souls and were ready for trial before the King of saints whose ways are all just and true. I once read of a criminal who was deeply distressed at the near approach of his trial. A friend endeavored to soothe his agitated feelings by telling him that justice would be done him, and that he consequently had no cause for fear. But the criminal was honest enough to confess to his friend that justice was the very thing he was afraid of. I have no doubt that this very same fear was what made Felix tremble before Paul.

The Son of man, on the judgment seat, will be the very same in every particular that he is now on the mercy seat. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forevermore." "The heavens shall depart as a scroll; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up; but thou art the same." By viewing him now as he is on the mercy seat we may see what he will be on the judgment seat. The trembling waters of Galilee became a pavement under his feet, and his disciples were thrown into consternation by this miraculous approach of the Lord. But he instantly dispelled their fears by the assurance: "It is I; be not afraid." Peter, James and John on the holy mount feared as they entered the cloud and saw his glory; but he most tenderly said to them: "Fear not." John, on the isle of Patmos, beholding the glory of his unveiled face, "fell at his feet as dead." But he laid his right hand upon him and said: "Fear not. I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold! I am alive forevermore."