And so, from the first, Christ had to contend not only against the whole of the established powers of Palestine, but against the highest aspirations of the best of his countrymen. These very Messianic hopes, in fact, proved the greatest stumbling-block in his path. Those who entertained them most vividly had the greatest difficulty in accepting the carpenter’s son as the promised Deliverer. A few days only before the end he had sorrowfully to warn the most intimate and loving of his companions and disciples, “Ye know not what spirit ye are of.”
CXL.
The Jews were always thinking of their exclusive religious privileges, of the sacredness of the Temple and of the law, and of the questionable and dangerous position of those who were outside the covenant. Now this habit of mind, undoubtedly religious as it was, is not held up to our admiration in the New Testament, but the contrary. It is denounced as being the opposite of a true spirituality. It is shown to us as associated with intolerance, bigotry, hardness, cruelty, as most offensive to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and fruitful of mischief in the world. St. Paul had to undergo the reproach of being disloyal to the religion of his fathers, because he contended against this ecclesiastical spirit. But the reproach was as unjust as it was painful to him. He loved the holy city and the temple and the ordinances of the law and his kindred according to the flesh; but he knew that the proper aim of a devout man was not to hedge round an organization, but to glorify and bear witness to the Divine Spirit.
CXLI.
Not St. Paul only, but all the Apostles and Evangelists, were continually contemplating the heavenly glory of a brotherhood of men in full harmony with each other because all joined to Christ, of men walking in humility and meekness and love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is nothing in such an ideal less suited to us to-day than to the Christians of the first age. For ourselves, and for our neighbors and fellow-men, this hope should be in our hearts, this Divine ideal before our eyes. Let us believe that it is the Divine purpose, and that we are called to the fulfilment of it.
CXLII.
Is it not an express principle in the teaching of our Lord himself and of his Apostles, that means and instruments and agencies are not to be worshipped in themselves but to be estimated with reference to the end they are to promote? Think, for example, what is implied in that pregnant sentence, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Means and instruments are not dishonored by this principle. If the end they serve is high and precious, they also will deserve to be valued. If the spiritual freedom of man is important, then the ordinance of a Day of Rest, which ministers to it, may well be sacred. But it is often appointed in the Providence of God that an apparent dishonor should be cast on means, that the minds of men may be forced away from resting upon them. And means may be varied, according to circumstances, whilst the same permanent end is to be sought.