Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

"He that is not against us is on our part."—Mark ix. 40.

IT has never been an easy task to settle with any degree of exactitude who among men should be reckoned the Saviour's friends, and who His foes. But perhaps no time has surrounded the problem with such difficulties as those that arise from the circumstances of our own age. On every side we see truth and error intertwined in such a perplexing tangle that we scarce know on which side to rank men and parties. The Church of Christ is divided into so many divergent sections, within which good and evil are so strangely combined, that you can hardly tell if they are for Christ or against. You find men of unexceptionable profession and ample creed, but with a jarring life and scant morality. On the other hand, you see men whose creed is erroneous or imperfect, but whose life and character are instinct with the spirit of Christ. And amid such anomalies you feel it almost impossible to determine, with even an approach to certainty, whom you shall count followers, and whom foes, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

True, we are not called to sit in judgment on the inner state of heart, the hidden attitude of men's spirits, which is cognisable only by "larger, other eyes than ours;" yet we must for practical guidance form a conditional opinion regarding the position and action of our fellow-men; for so alone can we determine our treatment of them; so alone can we decide whether it is our duty to oppose or co-operate with them, to acknowledge them as brethren or deny to them the name of Christ.

Besides, for your own comfort, you must have some standard or test to determine who are Christ's and who are not, for otherwise how shall you be able to adjudicate on your own case? You are confronted, it may be, by large and influential bodies of Christians who declare you to be no member of Christ's Church at all, because you do not follow after them. You feel all the weight that attends such a verdict; you are sensible of the solemn, tragic awfulness of the question; you are humble, diffident, uncertain yourself of many things, and so, perchance, your heart knows little rest or peace. You would give much to ascertain some sure test by which you could settle, once and for ever, whether you are on Christ's side or against Him.

For our guidance in such matters we can do no better thing than to try and understand how the Saviour, when He was on earth, estimated the attitudes of men to Himself. Let us try, then, to determine the principles that guided Him.

He had come with a very definite aim in view, viz., to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth; that is to say, to secure the domination of men's hearts by God's will, so that they should always act in accordance with the Divine decrees. Or, in other words, He had come to perform this work of delivering men from sin, of making them pure, and holy, and Godlike. For this end, He sought to bring them under His immediate influence, to gather and attach them to His Person, to inspire them with faith and love for Himself. All who aided in this, all who contributed to draw men to Him, all who strove to make Christ and His word accepted and esteemed, all who were at one with Him in His aim, manifestly, were counted by Him as friends; while, on the contrary, those who exerted themselves to thwart Him, who endeavoured to alienate men from His Person and doctrine, all such were His enemies, were against Him.

"But," you may be inclined to say, "while it is true there were some men who did devote themselves to active support of Christ, and others who did commit themselves to declared hostility, was there not, between these two opposing classes, a large number who took sides neither for nor against Him, but preserved a sort of neutrality? What, then, does Christ say of these?" The two sayings of our Lord which I have taken for my text have both been applied to solve this problem. At first sight they have the appearance of clashing with one another. "He that is not with Me is against Me" seems to be a declaration that all who were not positive friends were really enemies, and thus to imply that the Master classed this whole body of neutrals as foes; and so some use it. But again, the second saying, "He that is not against us is on our part," has the appearance of asserting that all who are not declared foes are in reality the Saviour's friends, and so, according to this principle, all neutrals should be counted as allies. The appearance of discrepancy only lasts when you look at these sayings singly and apart from their occasions. They speak not of neutrals at all. Taken in conjunction, they are seen to enunciate, in fact, quite a different principle, viz., that in regard to Christ, indifferentism, neutrality, is impossible, and that every man must be either for or against the Saviour. "He that is not a friend is a foe," while "he that is not a foe is a friend;" consequently there is no such thing as a position of neither friendship nor enmity.

Let us, then, run cursorily over the incidents that gave rise to these two sayings, in order that we may see what is the essential character of the two attitudes of being for or against Christ, and so exhibit how neutrality is impossible.

One day a man possessed of a dumb devil was brought to Jesus. By His word of power Jesus cast out the evil spirit, and immediately the man regained the power of speech. The crowd looking on were filled with wonder and admiration. They were pleased at the good deed which had been done. They partook in the dumb man's joy and gratitude, and they regarded the Saviour with increased reverence and esteem. The influence of the miracle was to attach men to Himself, and draw them towards the kingdom of God. But among the spectators there were some who had no pleasure in the act of healing at all. They were not glad to see their fellow-man in new possession of speech and soundness of mind. On the contrary, they wished it had not been done, for they grudged the credit it brought to the Saviour. His popularity was gall to them. It pained them to see men revere or trust Him. They did not wish that men should be drawn to Him. Accordingly, they attempted to turn the people's admiration into distrust by flinging out a dark suggestion that it was by the aid, not of God, but of the evil one, that the Lord had been able to work the cure. The effect designed is manifest. Such a suspicion would have the effect of turning men away from Christ, of preventing them from submitting to His guidance. Their purpose was not to draw men to Him, but rather to alienate from Him any who were attracted. Thus they were in direct antagonism to Christ's purpose and striving. They did not like Himself, nor His teaching, nor His aims, so they set themselves to oppose Him in every way. It was of such men our Lord said, "He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth."

Turning to the second story, we find that Christ's disciples had come upon a man casting out devils in the name of their Master. It is evident this man had not been much in direct communication with Christ, if at all, for apparently he was not known previously to the disciples, and their grievance is that one who did not with them follow Christ should thus employ the Master's name. It cannot but have been, therefore, that this man knew very little of Christ's Person or teaching. His knowledge of Him must have been very much more imperfect than that of the disciples, and he did not deem it his duty to become an immediate follower of the Lord. Nevertheless, he had made the discovery that Christ's name had power to cast out devils, and for this beneficent purpose he was in the habit of using it. The disciples, perhaps jealous that another, not of their number, should possess the same power, and believing that he could not be one of the Lord's privileged servants, forbade him to make any further use of the Saviour's name. On reporting this to the Master He countermanded their decision and gave His grounds for so doing. They were these: Though he did not attach himself to the personal company of Christ, though he might be very ignorant, etc. etc., nevertheless, by performing miracles of healing through Christ's name, he was bringing new honour and reverence to that name; and again, while he was thus in deed spreading Christ's fame and arousing belief in Him, he was not likely to imitate the Pharisees in slandering the Saviour—for in our Lord's words, "There is no man which shall do a miracle in My name that shall be able easily to speak evil of Me." That is to say, "By using My name to perform a miraculous cure, he puts himself out of a position to say anything that would detract from My credit." Such an one was certainly not a scatterer, but a gatherer. And "he that is thus not against us is on our part."